Opinion: Conservatives Vs the Establishment

Twice in the last seven days, with only seven more days till a very important state election, our local paper has decided to run columns by one John David Dyche. I had never heard of Mr. Dyche prior to seeing his column one week ago excoriating Matt Bevin, for what Dyche considers inadequate specifics in Bevin’s “Blueprint for Kentucky” (an unfair criticism in my estimation).  Dyche later admits that “some” of Bevin’s ideas are “good ones”. But that doesn’t stop him from spending about 1200 words in these and other columns criticizing Bevin. 



The unconscionable, never ending onslaught of negative ads (which have been proven patently false by politifact and many other fact checkers) run against Bevin, first by Mitch McConnell, and now by Jack Conway (same ads, same false accusations…strange bedfellows these Kentucky politicians) are unfair, but not unexpected in the bare knuckles world of political opposition. To be sure, one should expect attacks from the left upon a conservative like Bevin, who seeks to break the left’s stranglehold on the Kentucky Governor’s mansion. However, what frustrates me in the extreme are attacks from a self-proclaimed conservative like Dyche. 



In a commonwealth that has been run by Democratic Governors for seventy-six of the last eighty-eight years, and which has a 22% debt to GDP ratio, over 96,000 citizens out of work, ranks 47th in overall health,  and 48th in child poverty, all Dyche can think of to write two weeks before the election are gallons of words criticizing the one conservative in the governor’s race? He reserves his most scathing words for the only candidate (Bevin) who has at least proposed potential solutions to some of these problems, rather than “continuing on Governor Beshear’s path” and “monitoring” the situation as Conway suggests.



In his most recent piece, Dyche decries the so called “right wing ideologues” (one too many episodes of The O’Reilly Factor John David?) who are usurping “his” GOP.  He calls an honorable statesmen like the Princeton and Harvard graduate Ted Cruz, a “demagogue” who “puts self- interest first and the nation second”. This would be the same Ted Cruz who clerked under one of the great modern day Chief Justices of the Supreme Court (Rehnquist) and who has argued nine cases before the U.S. Supreme Court fighting for the conservative principles that built this country. This is a man whom Dyche presumes to dismiss with a pejorative? 



A few lines later, Dyche draws an equivalency between one of the most brilliant brain surgeons of the twentieth century and Donald Trump. The one thing Dyche and I agree on is Trump. The man is a caricature and not to be taken seriously as a candidate, which makes the comparison to Carson even more egregious. It is precisely because of the pseudo-intellectualism of Republicans like Dyche that Trump even exists as a candidate in the first place, much less as the GOP frontrunner. Despite what some in the establishment seem to think, the American people are not stupid. They sense this republic slipping away, and it is crystal clear to many that the Grand Old Party has done darned little with its control of Congress to stop the slide. 



One need look no further than today’s budget deal, celebrated by Dyche’s heroes, Bohner and McConnell. This deal is a total surrender to Harry Reid and Barack Obama. It annihilates the 2011 budget caps and increases the national debt by 1.5 trillion dollars. So as a citizen of a nation 18 TRILLION dollars in debt, am I supposed to stand up and applaud because this bill uses smoke and mirrors to “reform Social Security” as McConnell stated today? Should I be excited? Am I a “right wing ideologue” because I think this is an inherently bad idea? Even Paul Ryan, whom Mr. Dyche gushes over, said about today’s deal negotiated by Bohener and Obama, “This is no way to do the people’s business.”  Men like Matt Bevin, Ted Cruz, and Ben Carson are not the problem with the Republican Party. They are the beginnings of a solution. 



Dyche has written twice now about Jenean Hampton, Bevin’s running mate, and her supposed “ingratitude” toward Mitch McConnell. On his Twitter feed, he pulled a single line from an otherwise glowing column about Hampton’s hard work and Ben Carson- like life story and used it to headline his tweet. The line was about Hampton not commenting on whether she would like to see the Majority Leader retire. Dyche characterizes this as ingratitude on Hampton’s part. However, Dyche never mentions the millions that the McConnell campaign spent on slanderous attack ads that ran for weeks prior to McConnell’s endorsement, which slander the Conway campaign is now using with great glee. 



Still, Dyche has not finished with his name calling. This one a most odd criticism from a supposed conservative aimed at fellow conservatives. He calls men like Cruz and Bevin “Jacobins.” That’s ridiculous on its face. Jacobinism was magnificently criticized by the father of conservatism, Edmund Burke,  again by the father of American Conservatism, John Adams, and by every right thinking conservative since.  One would think Dyche would know better. 



He concludes by saying that because of the up and coming conservative wing of the party that “his” GOP weeps. Well, Mr. Dyche, with the full funding of Obamacare, Obama amnesty, this horrendous budget deal and an no appreciable resistance by “his” establishment GOP lead congress to anything Obama and Reid’s hearts’ desire… my nation weeps.  With the aforementioned debt, joblessness, and needlessly low rankings… my state weeps. It is my hope and prayer that on Election Day next Tuesday, and with the election of a solid conservative Governor and Lieutenant Governor, the weeping will begin to subside.  



Chris Skates is a Paducah resident, columnist and novelist who won the best historical fiction award from the Christian Writers Association for his first novel entitled The Rain. His second novel Going Green was compared by one critic to Grisham and Clancy. Chris has worked and traveled in an Al Quieda dominated region and was greatly enlightened during a private meeting with the son of the founder of Hamas Mossab Hassan Yousef. Chris is available to speak and can be reached at chris@chrisskates.com.