Right after the 2004 election, it seemed as if Thomas Frank had been completely vindicated. In his book “What’s the Matter With Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America,” Mr. Frank argued that America’s right wing had developed a permanent winning strategy based on the use of “values” issues to mobilize white working-class voters against a largely mythical cultural elite, while actually pursuing policies designed to benefit a small economic elite.
It was and is a brilliant analysis. But the political strategy Mr. Frank described may have less staying power than he feared. In fact, the right-wing coalition that has spent 40 years climbing to its current position of political dominance may be cracking up.
At its core, the political axis that currently controls Congress and the White House is an alliance between the preachers and the plutocrats — between the religious right, which hates gays, abortion and the theory of evolution, and the economic right, which hates Social Security, Medicare and taxes on rich people. Surrounding this core is a large periphery of politicians and lobbyists who joined the movement not out of conviction, but to share in the spoils.
Together, these groups formed a seemingly invincible political coalition, in which the religious right supplied the passion and the economic right supplied the money.
The coalition has, however, always been more vulnerable than it seemed, because it was an alliance based not on shared goals, but on each group’s belief that it could use the other to get what it wants. Bring that belief into question, and the whole thing falls apart.
Future historians may date the beginning of the right-wing crackup to the days immediately following the 2004 election, when President Bush tried to convert a victory won by portraying John Kerry as weak on defense into a mandate for Social Security privatization. The attempted bait-and-switch failed in the face of overwhelming public opposition. If anything, the Bush plan was even less popular in deep-red states like Montana than in states that voted for Mr. Kerry.
And the religious and cultural right, which boasted of having supplied the Bush campaign with its “shock troops” and expected a right-wing cultural agenda in return — starting with a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage — was dismayed when the administration put its energy into attacking the welfare state instead. James Dobson, the founder and chairman of Focus on the Family, accused Republicans of “just ignoring those that put them in office.”
It will be interesting, by the way, to see how Dr. Dobson, who declared of Bill Clinton that “no man has ever done more to debase the presidency,” responds to the Foley scandal. Does the failure of Republican leaders to do anything about a sexual predator in their midst outrage him as much as a Democratic president’s consensual affair?
In any case, just as the religious right was feeling betrayed by Mr. Bush’s focus on the goals of the economic right, the economic right suddenly seemed to become aware of the nature of its political allies. “Where in the hell did this Terri Schiavo thing come from?” asked Dick Armey, the former House majority leader, in an interview with Ryan Sager, the author of “The Elephant in the Room: Evangelicals, Libertarians and the Battle to Control the Republican Party.” The answer, he said, was “blatant pandering to James Dobson.” He went on, “Dobson and his gang of thugs are real nasty bullies.”
Some Republicans are switching parties. James Webb, who may pull off a macaca-fueled upset against Senator George Allen of Virginia, was secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan. Charles Barkley, a former N.B.A. star who used to be mentioned as a possible future Republican candidate, recently declared, “I was a Republican until they lost their minds.”
So the right-wing coalition is showing signs of coming apart. It seems that we’re not in Kansas anymore. In fact, Kansas itself doesn’t seem to be in Kansas anymore. Kathleen Sebelius, the state’s Democratic governor, has achieved a sky-high favorability rating by focusing on good governance rather than culture wars, and her party believes it will win big this year.
And nine former Kansas Republicans, including Mark Parkinson, the former state G.O.P. chairman, are now running for state office as Democrats. Why did Mr. Parkinson change parties? Because he “got tired of the theological debate over whether Charles Darwin was right.”
Trans Texas Corridor route would remove thousands of farm acres from production
Sep 21, 2006 8:50 AM By Ron Smith Farm Press Editorial Staff
( this all goes to SPAIN) Pat Hensen spent a good part of his 35-year career with the Soil Conservation Service (now Natural Resource Conservation Service) helping Texas Blacklands farmers improve their land.
And he’s invested considerable time, effort and money the last 20 years doing the same on his own or leased acreage.
And it may all end up under yards of concrete and asphalt if the Trans Texas Corridor passes muster and follows the latest proposed route.
“My farm would be in the middle of it,” Hensen says from his Bell County living room where he and wife Loretta participate in a grassroots campaign to stop what they believe is no more than a land grab and an unconscionable destruction of some of the best farm land in the Southwest.
“Regardless of where it goes, it will take out about 150 acres per mile through the heart of the Blacklands,” Hensen says.
Ultimately, the corridor would link with the NAFTA highway and stretch from Canada into the heart of Mexico and take a chunk of farmland out of the Midwest. When completed, the Trans Texas Corridor would include more than 4,000 miles of intersecting highways across the state.
“They plan to take the best land we have to build a road and once it’s paved it’s gone forever,” Hensen says. “The corridor will take acreage equal to one county out of Texas.”
He says a lot of Texans are not aware of the corridor and certainly not cognizant of the lost acreage and disruption it will create.
The road, which supporters tout as a multi-use corridor with a passenger highway, a roadway for trucking, a rail line and utility lines, takes a 1200-foot swath out of the rural areas it crosses. The roadway may claim another 200-foot right-of-way.
“It does not have to be that wide,” Hensen says.
He’s convinced that the road cuts through farmland instead of following Interstate 35 because of business and environmentalist interest.
“We’re giving up all this good farm land to protect some kind of sparrow,” he says. “No one seems interested in protecting farmers.”
The corridor is supposed to be a toll road but opponents question if tolls will pay the freight and point out that the contractor has already lobbied the Texas legislature for funds. Construction could begin within the next few years with a completion target of 2017. “They could break ground next year (near Laredo),” Loretta says.
“It would include six train tracks,” Hensen says. “I didn’t know that taxpayers were responsible for paying for rail and utility lines.” That chore usually goes to private enterprise, he says.
“We’re developing a grassroots opposition,” Loretta says. A Web site, www.corridorwatch.org, offers updates on opposition efforts.
“It’s been so secretive it’s scary,” Hensen says. He’s also concerned about the waterlines that will run alongside the roadway and railroad tracks. He fears large cities will pull water out of rural areas into municipalities, leaving farmers without adequate water for crop irrigation or livestock production.
They say plans have moved quickly to get the corridor on a fast track. “First we heard was in 2002,” Hensen says. “The people of Texas should be concerned about the loss of 100,000 acres of prime Blackland farm acreage. It’s wrong to take that much farmland out of production without adequate compensation. They could take less valuable acreage.”
The Hensens say the corridor still needs federal approval.
The Texas Farm Bureau opposes the corridor. Bureau President Kenneth Dierschke and members of the organization’s state board of directors have voiced their opposition at public forums. Their concern includes a fear that the proposed corridor will eventually swallow up many thousands of acres of Texas’ best farmland.
Dierschke says the corridor jeopardizes the region’s continued farming heritage. The Texas Farm Bureau also expresses concern over access to and from the different communities in the area and foreign country dealings in the crafting of the superhighway contracts.
A company from Spain, Cintra, has been awarded a contract to build the corridor.
“The Texas Farm Bureau is on record as being opposed to the Trans Texas Corridor,” Dierschke says. “Our voting delegates at our annual meetings have expressed their continued opposition to its construction.”
The Texas chapter of the National Farmers’ Union also opposes the corridor.
“We passed a resolution at our convention opposing it,” says Texas NFU President Wes Sims.
He has seen “a lot of anger” from Texas landowners who believe the corridor is a big land grab. He says the farm group has several concerns with the corridor.
The method of acquiring land tops the list. “They’re using eminent domain to take property,” he says, “with no consideration of the effects on the livelihood of property owners. It’s mostly agricultural acreage, away from cities, but farms will not be the only businesses affected.
“What happens to those small towns along the corridor route?” Sims says access along the corridor will be limited to major highways, leaving a lot of rural communities and the businesses they count on for their economic bases without access from the highways that funneled business into them for decades.
He said the corridor’s limited access also will affect farmers’ ability to get to stores, services, churches and schools. In some cases, the roadway will prevent reasonable access from one side of a farm to another. Potential to disrupt water availability also concerns land owners.
Sims says a lot of Texans are angry at the way the corridor came about. Texas voters approved an amendment to the state constitution allowing the legislature to alleviate traffic congestion along Interstate 35.
“But there were no details about how they would do it,” Sims says. “I voted against it and encouraged my members to do the same. Voters thought they were voting to improve traffic problems on I-35.
“I think the majority of Texas landowners opposed this corridor. It was done in a deceitful, tricky way.”
Sims says Texans still have options. “It’s not too late to stop it,” he says. “The legislature can do it.”
He says the citizens of Texas need to exert enough pressure on the legislature to force them to rescind the action.
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