OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2015
Republicans, guns and abortion
Founded in 1873
STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher
LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager
We exemplify goals
of Cultural Trust
N
ewcomers to Astoria commonly express amazement at
the level of voluntarism and giving that rolls out every
year. In this season, which includes United Way giving as well
as end-of-year charitable giving, Clatsop County’s goodwill is
especially apparent.
Our county is a poster child
for Oregon’s commitment to
arts and culture, which is re-
warded by the Oregon Cultural
Trust. Last Thursday night at
the Liberty Theater, the Clatsop
County Cultural Coalition gave
checks for almost $11,000 to a
group of disparate causes. Some
recipients were familiar to lo-
cal audiences — Little Ballet
Theater, North Coast Chorale
and Partners for the PAC, for
instance. Others are less well
known — Clatsop Care Memory
Community and the Maritime
Archaeological Society.
Taken as a group, these ben-
e¿ciaries exemplify the cultural
richness of life in this corner of
Oregon.
Our local Cultural Coalition
gets its money from the Oregon
Cultural Trust, which gains its
revenues from a tax credit, as
well as sales of custom license
plates. Created by the Oregon
Legislature in 2001, the Cultural
Trust is unique. No other state
provides a single funding mech-
anism that allows taxpayers to
bene¿t while giving to an ar-
ray of arts, culture and historic
preservation organizations in all
parts of Oregon.
In its 14th year, the Oregon
Cultural Trust raised a record
$4.4 million in ¿scal year 201
and will give $2. million in ¿s-
cal year 2016. The Trust’s prin-
cipal is more than $26 million.
Now is the time to think
about making gift to the Oregon
Cultural Trust. If you have giv-
en to a nonpro¿t organization
in the arts and culture catego-
ry, you may give an identical
amount to the Trust. And you
get a tax credit equal to your
amount of giving.
For most of us, it is one of the
best deals in Oregon tax law.
Support the Trust. It’s a gift
you will be proud of.
By GAIL COLLINS
New York Times News Service
T
he presidential race has de-
generated to the point where I
am going to attempt to cheer you
up by talking about abortion and
guns.
And state legislatures.
We do not,
as a nation, de-
vote a whole lot
of attention to
what happens
in state capi-
tols, although I
personally en-
joy those ¿ghts
about selecting
an of¿cial rock
Gail
or state muf¿n.
Collins
In recent years,
one of the most
popular activities in many legislatures
has been ¿nding new ways to expand
the right to bear arms in places like
schools (Utah) or bars (Tennessee) or
airports (Georgia). The other is tromp-
ing on reproductive rights. I am telling
you all this as a lead-in to a fascinating
bill that was recently proposed in the
Missouri House of Representatives. It
would treat Missourians seeking to buy
¿rearms the same way it treats Missou-
rians seeking to end a pregnancy.
“For instance, there would be a 72-
hour waiting period,” said the sponsor,
Rep. Stacey Newman.
Missouri has piled so many unnec-
essary requirements on abortion pro-
viders that it’s down to one clinic in
St. Louis. Newman didn’t attempt to
limit the state to one gun store — her
bill just requires that residents buy their
guns at a licensed dealer located at least
120 miles from their homes. After cool-
ing their heels in a local motel for three
days, the prospective buyers would
have to listen to a lecture about the
medical risks associated with ¿rearms
and view pictures of people with fatal
gun wounds.
Most Missouri lawmakers regard
themselves as pro-life. Therefore, New-
man feels, they ought to want to do
something about the fact that St. Louis
and Kansas City both rank in the Top 10
American cities for ¿rearm deaths.
By DAVID BROOKS
New York Times News Service
I
here are two types of
Machiavellians in politics,
Sel¿sh Machiavellians and Kind
Machiavellians.
maritime commerce and ¿sh-
eries, provides some of its own
housing. Even so, the tightness
of the rental market is bound to
be a consideration for the service
as it contemplates expansion
plans.
Answers to this problem are
largely up to the interplay of our
capitalist system, in the form
of private investments in new
multi-family housing construc-
tion, as well as working to im-
prove business conditions so em-
ployers can afford to pay higher
wages.
From a public-policy stand-
point, leaders of municipalities
and counties must keep housing
as a top action item. We need to
be looking at tax incentives, Àex-
ibility in terms of land-use rules
and the full inventory of other
tools to encourage and facilitate
affordable housing. Area nonprof-
its such as Craft3 also can play a
valuable role in helping ¿nd solu-
tions and by matchmaking be-
tween investors and developers.
The population west of
the Cascades in Oregon and
Washington will be swelling for
many years into the future. The
equivalent of entire cities-worth
of new residents will be squeez-
ing into this fortunate and fragile
area. Managing this growth will
require ¿nding places for every-
one to live, without despoiling
farms, forests, wildlife habitat
and open spaces.
Deliberate,
well-planned
housing solutions will take years
to bring to fruition. We to get our
act together and lay plans now
for keeping roofs over Paci¿c
Northwest heads for generations
to come.
What this
campaign
needs is a
72-hour
waiting period
for everything.
“It was one way to get people’s at-
tention,” she said.
Nobody thinks her bill is going to
pass — or even get a hearing in the
Republican-dominated
Legislature.
Newman says the odds are far more
favorable for proposed legislation that
would allow people to carry concealed
weapons on college campuses and re-
quire that women who want abortions
get permission from the man who im-
pregnated them.
We live in hard times, people. But
when you think of Missouri, give a fond
mental shout-out to Stacey Newman.
And remember her lesson — when it
comes to civil liberties, there’s currently
far more concern in this country over the
right to buy weapons than there is over a
woman’s right to control her own body.
All the major Republican candidates
for president are pretty much on the
same page when it comes to ¿rearms.
So much so that you probably can’t
guess which one of them said: “I used
to think they needed to be registered,
The Ted Cruz establishment
Get it together to T
create housing payoff
n the latest bad news for rent-
ers — and quite good news
for landlords — the U.S. Census
Bureau last week said that
Oregon’s 2014 rental vacancy
rate was 3.6 percent in 2014, the
lowest in the whole nation.
Nor can apartment hunters
hope for much more luck by
looking across the Columbia
River — the vacancy rate in
Washington state was 4.2 per-
cent — the ¿fth lowest in the
U.S., including Washington D.C.
and Puerto Rico.
This issue is one abundant-
ly familiar to renters in towns
around the Columbia estu-
ary and the adjacent seashore.
Though perhaps not so scarce
or anywhere near as pricey as
in Portland and Seattle, lack of
apartments and affordable rent-
al houses is becoming a limiting
factor for our economy.
When it comes to recruiting
and retaining employees, their
ability to locate affordable hous-
ing is a prime factor. Particularly
for important local industries in-
cluding hospitality and seafood,
prevailing wages run headlong
into a rental market that can easi-
ly consume half of monthly take-
home pay, The rule of thumb is
that landlords require annual in-
come of 40 times monthly rent. A
bargain-basement, one-bedroom
apartment in our area might
therefore require an income of
$30,000. The one rental house in
a recent local classi¿ed advertis-
ing section would necessitate at
least $0,000 in annual income.
The U.S. Coast Guard, one of
our biggest economic contrib-
utors and one that plays a huge
role in ensuring the viability of
Missouri state Rep. Stacey Newman
but if you register them they just come
and ¿nd you and take your guns.”
OK, it was Ben Carson.
All the major candidates are also
opposed to giving women any rights
whatsoever when it comes to termi-
nating a pregnancy. But lately, there’s
been disagreement on the far edge
of the issue: whether bans should in-
clude an exception for rape and incest
victims. It came up at a recent gather-
ing of a group of donors and activists
called the Republican Jewish Coalition.
(This was the same event where Donald
Trump told his Jewish audience: “I’m
a negotiator, like you folks ... Is there
anyone in this room who doesn’t nego-
tiate deals?”)
Sen. Ted Cruz, the up-and-coming
darling of social conservatives, was
asked about his abortion positions, and
he rambled on about the evils of contra-
ceptives without ever acknowledging
that he does oppose giving any leeway
in the cases of rape or incest. Cruz is
also, of course, an avid protector of all
things gun-related, and recently theo-
rized that the man arrested in the mass
shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic
was a “transgender leftist activist.” Ah
Ted Cruz, Ted Cruz.
“If the nominee of the Republican
Party will not allow an exception for
rape and incest, they will not win,”
predicted Sen. Lindsey Graham, who
followed Cruz to the podium. The
presumption is that voters will de-
mand some show of mercy, but there
are plenty of women who are not vic-
tims of rape whose stories are equally
heart-rending. Girls who become preg-
nant before they’re old enough to know
what they’re doing. Poor women with
several children and two jobs whose
birth control method fails. Women
who desperately want a baby but dis-
cover the fetus they’re carrying is too
deformed to survive after birth. Most
Americans don’t want to prioritize —
they’d leave the whole matter to the
women and their doctors.
But the current debate on the Re-
publican side has slid so far to the right
that the moderates are people who do
not want to force rape victims to carry
the fetus to full term. Or allow con-
cealed weapons in kindergarten.
Maybe what this campaign needs
is a 72-hour waiting period for every-
thing.
The Sel¿sh ones are the ones we
usually think of — the nakedly ambi-
tious people who are always strategiz-
ing, sometimes ruthlessly, for their own
personal advantage.
The
Kind
Machiavellians
realize that it’s
smart to get
along with peo-
ple, so they pick
their friendships
strategically,
feigning
af-
fection toward
those who might
David
be useful.
Brooks
In Washing-
ton and maybe
in life, there are many more Kind Ma-
chiavellians than Sel¿sh ones. But Ted
Cruz has always stood out for being na-
kedly ambitious for himself.
He was always drawn to establish-
ment institutions: Princeton, Harvard
Law. His personal drive to gain elite
posts was noted, even by the standards
of such places. He learned tennis to
get a clerkship with Justice William
Rehnquist. According to The Boston
Globe, a female law student who was
giving him a ride was shocked when he
quickly asked her about her IQ and SAT
scores.
He joined the Republican establish-
ment while young, working for George
W. Bush, although he was marginalized
when administration jobs were handed
out, reportedly because his ambition
was off-putting. Yet Cruz is intelligent,
and knows that sometimes you have to
switch tactics in order to climb. Over
the past few years, Cruz has become a
team player. In fact, he’s become a cen-
tral member of the conservative estab-
lishment.
A little history lesson is in or-
der. During the 1970s conservatives
self-consciously built establishment
institutions to counter the liberal es-
tablishment. But with the election of
Ronald Reagan, the conservative es-
tablishment split into two. There was
the regular conservative establishment,
¿lled with mainstream conservatives
who wanted to use the inside levers of
power that Republicans now controlled.
But there was also a conservative
counter-establishment. This was pop-
ulated with people like Paul Weyrich,
Republican
presidential
candidate
Sen. Ted
Cruz, R-Texas
meets with
supporters
after speak-
ing at the
Heritage
Foundation in
Washington,
Thursday.
Pablo Martinez
Monsivais
AP Photo
Richard Viguerie, Brent Bozell and members of the Council for National
others who were temperamentally in- Policy, an important Counter Establish-
capable of governance. Many of these ment gathering. He’s been endorsed by
Old Right people broke with Reagan the old guard, Viguerie and Bozell.
The Counter Establishment is now
because he wasn’t ideologically pure
nearly as ¿nancially Àush and institu-
on this or that policy matter.
Today the conservative community tionally entrenched as the mainstream
still has at least two establishments, or establishment. Cruz has been able to
three if you want to throw in the young tap into it to raise gobs of money. In the
Reform Conservatives. The main- third quarter, Cruz raised $12.2 million,
stream establishment tends to side with about twice what rival Marco Rubio
party leaders like Paul Ryan and who- raised over the same period. His super
ever the presidential nominee is. The PACs raised $31 million in the few
Old Right Counter Conservative Es- weeks of his campaign, largely from
tablishment has grown in recent years. hedge fund manager Robert Mercer.
For example, the Heritage Foundation, He’s had fundraisers hosted by Joseph
which used to be more or
Konzelmann, a manag-
less conservative estab-
ing director at Goldman
Ted
lishment, has gone more
Sachs.
Counter Establishment.
He’s won over the
Cruz has Counter
The difference is the
Establishment
establishment wants to
and even some of the
always
use the levers of power to
regular
establishment
practically pass reforms. stood out by being tactical in his
The Counter Establish-
positions, shifting
for being policy
ment believes that Wash-
his views most notori-
ington is pervasively
on trade promotion
nakedly ously
corrupt and is implacably
authority and foreign
hostile to the GOP lead- ambitious policy generally. He
ership.
savages Republicans ha-
for
Since he came to
bitually but initially re-
Washington, Ted Cruz
to criticize Donald
himself. fused
has meticulously aligned
Trump. As Eliana John-
himself with the rising
son of National Review
and rich conservative Counter Estab- put it, the paradox of Cruz is that “The
lishment. He’s called his party leader a man who boasts of his ideological puri-
liar on the Senate Àoor. In another re- ty is perhaps the most obviously tactical
cent Àoor speech he accused every Re- candidate.”
publican but him and Mike Lee of sell-
Cruz is riding the shift in the conser-
ing out their principles for money. His vative activist establishment, the way
efforts to shut down the government did groups like the Club for Growth now
enormous harm to the Republican Party provide a power base for someone who
and to the country, but they cemented wants to run against the GOP leadership.
his relationship with the members of
A friend once joked that the journal-
the Counter Establishment. Crucially, ist has the ultimate power: The power to
those battles enabled him to amass the choose who he wants to be co-opted by.
email lists that are a large part of his do- Ted Cruz is surging as the ¿gurehead
nor base.
of the rich and interlocked Counter Es-
His campaign is uniting the Counter tablishment. And he gets to do it while
Establishment. According to some ex- pretending that he is anti-establishment.
cellent reporting in the National Jour- That’s a nice trick. Even a Machiavel-
nal, he was rapturously received by lian one.