Words to Live By Since 1993 A SPIFF Publication Vol. 3, No. 25 How about the Nashville Beer-Guzzling Devils? Strike Two The second chapter of what is becoming an increasingly ugly saga was written Saturday as the Tennessee Republican Executive Committee, Subcommittee on Rules, voted to accept the plan to change the Republican primary to a winner-take-all affair. You may recall, a few weeks ago, we reported that the legislature had approved a bill to make Lamar Alexander look good and stifle dissent among those who do not support his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination. Back then we told you that the plan would call for the approval of the Executive Committee. In the first step, the rules subcommittee approved a watered-down (but still dumb) version of the plan, caving in to the same pressure as Republicans in the General Assembly. This is not pretty, folks. As of Friday, the initiative was going to lose by an 8-7 vote. Then the thing that we thought we voted against last year took over. Political pressure came pouring down on the members of the committee. First, the leadership tried to expand the committee by adding a 16th member to insure a tie. Then came the phone calls from officials that twisted the arms of committee members to get the initiative through. As you can probably tell, we don't like this a bit. It is appalling that the members of this party, who run around in public preaching "big tent" and talk about removing the "members only" sign from the door, stoop to such pathetic levels to keep Tennesseans who don't support Lamar Alexander from representing Tennessee at the Republican National Convention next year. It is sad, but we at Spiff will make you, our loyal readers, two promises in this nasty affair: 1. There will be Tennesseans who don't support Lamar Alexander at the convention in 1996. 2. We are going to do our dead level best to defeat this attempt at political censorship. In August, the third--but definitely not final--act of this sad little story will be played out in a vote of the full Executive Committee. We won't print the list of members and their phone numbers here in WTLB, but if you fax us here at the Spiff Executive Tower, on the banks of the mighty Cumberland River, we will be happy to provide you with the name and phone number of your Executive Committee member, so you can tell him just how you feel about this foolishness. The real question in "Why?" Why take all the success we enjoyed last year and use it to tear the party apart? Are one man's (perhaps two men's) ambitions so important that we have to crush the views of everyone who disagrees? Not here, and not while we have a fax machine. In the watered-down version of the plan, no candidate will get all the delegates unless he crosses the 50% threshold. The Alexander camp apparently thinks he will. Nope. We intend to make sure that everyone knows that we are not welcome if we don't blindly follow Lamar. A daunting task? Sure, but they ticked us off. We honestly did begin this process with no favored candidate and with no least-favored candidate. (Well, maybe Arlen Specter, but who cares?) We still don't have a favorite candidate. The truth is, we are still looking at the men who want the Republican nomination. But we cannot support people who would behave in this way. If they are this insecure about dissent in their own state party, how can we expect them to serve our nation well if Lamar Alexander gets elected? It is unfortunate that this mess came so soon after November 8. Today, we should be celebrating the successes of the new Congress. It is a shame that we cannot let the candidates debate the issues and let the votes fall where they may, but if this is how our Republican leadership plays the game, we have bats too. Another Planned, Wanted Victory Well, another little battle is over. Henry Foster will not be the Surgeon General of the United States, and as we expected, we can hear the whining from the libs whose main purpose in life is to protect a woman's obligation to choose abortion. They whined because the Senate refused to confirm such a "good man." Folks, the Senate was not voting on Mr. Congeniality here. The vote was about the nation's next spokesmodel for health. When the Surgeon General talks about medicine, it should be like the country's family doctor giving you advice. They whined about the numbers. Bill called it a "small minority" who kept the confirmation from happening. Let's see. According to our inside sources, 57 Senators voted in favor. That leaves 43 who voted against. Let's figure the percentages, shall we? If our memories are correct, and they are, the first time President Clinton and Bill talked about 43%, they called it a mandate. They whined because the majority didn't win. It was called a blow to democracy. It was just like when the Democrats complained that the majority lost the fight on the balanced budget amendment, right? They whined because Dr. Foster was defeated by a "procedural trick." Yes, that's right. The right-wing extremist Republicans dug deep into the rules of the Senate and discovered, for the first time in history, a procedural trick called a filibuster. Can you say filibuster? Senator Robert "We Must Not Stop until All of West Virginia Has Been Paved" Byrd can. If the Democrats knew that there weren't enough votes to confirm Henry Foster, they would have used the same procedural trick to hold off the vote until they could twist some more arms. And, of course, they whined that the anti-choice pawns of the religious right were fighting Dr. Foster because of his view on abortion. Diane Feinstein whined that the only reason anyone was voting against Henry Foster is because of "the number of abortions he has committ-- performed." Well, folks, what about Senator Nancy Kassebaum's right to choose to vote against Henry Foster? Not that this is anything new to you, but it's just a reminder. When the libs talk about a woman's right to choose, they aren't talking about her right to choose to defend herself with a handgun. They aren't talking about her right to choose to invest her retirement money wisely, rather than in Social Security. They aren't talking about her right to choose which employees she wants to hire and fire. There are many reasons to rejoice that the nomination was, well, aborted. Many opposed him because of his views on abortion. Senator Kassebaum opposed Dr. Foster because he lied. Senator Trent Lott opposed him because of the brochures that were used to try to convince us that his programs stressed abstinence, although the brochures were printed after Dr. Foster was nominated. Possibly the best reason for opposition, though, came from the "I Have a Future" program itself, as quoted by Senator Phil Gramm: "And, finally, let me read one little quote which tells the whole story, from the 'I Have A Future, Family Life Module Staff Manual' from September 1994, which was sent by the White House to the committee as a summation of the work of Dr. Foster on this program. Let me read one quote. "'Values are neither good nor bad. They are the way you feel.'" Quote of the weak: "President Clinton, as you all know, takes a back seat to no one on the need to reduce the deficit." Christopher Dodd Quote of the strong: "Arm the Bosnians. Everybody has a right to self-defense." Lady Margaret Thatcher Words to Live By is published every week at about this time by Spiff. You can send a fax to us here in the Spiff Executive Tower, on the banks of the mighty Cumberland River, at 615-847-2259.