When Amateurs Run

One of the prevailing myths that Republicans have built up around Ronald Reagan was that he was some kind of citizen-politician that just appeared from the mists to save freedom in 1980. The post-1994 "Reagan Restoration Project" has been particularly effective in this regard, but it doesn't change the fact that that myth, like so many others, is a lie.

Reagan was involved in politics for years. He was president of the highly political Screen Actors Guild during the McCarthy era. He was one of the leading campaigners for the Goldwater-Miller ticket in 1964. He was a two-term governor of California. He wrote political commentary for several years in the 1970s. He ran for the Republican nomination three times (1968, '76 and '80) before becoming president.

Foremost among those who have bought into the Reagan Restoration Project are the Tea Party movement. Not being particularly schooled in history, they believe that if they can come out of nowhere to be elected to high office, so can they. Of course, that overlooks the fact that Reagan wasn't a simpleton and many of the Tea Party candidates are.

Take the case of Joe Miller, for example. He took time off from his regular employment on the Brawny paper towel packaging to run for Alaska's U.S Senate seat. He impressively defeated the heavily favored incumbent, Lisa Murkowski, in the Republican primary and is now learning that general elections are very different from primaries.

Winning a primary isn't all that difficult, particularly in an anti-incumbent year. Increasingly, primaries are dominated by the crazy and/or stupid, and primary voters aren't famous for caring all that much what the general electorate thinks. The current primary system is, in my opinion, going to be the main breeding ground for a successful third party or independent campaign for that very reason, but that's another story for another day.

Joe Miller's problem, which we're seeing in races throughout America, is that when crazy and stupid people are nominated, they tend to say crazy and stupid things.

Alaska GOP Senate nominee Joe Miller thinks the United States should use the former Soviet-controlled East Germany as an example in border security.

“East Germany was very, very able to reduce the flow,” Miller said at a town hall event Sunday, as recorded by an Anchorage-based blogger.

“Now, obviously, other things there were involved,” Miller added. “We have the capacity, as a great nation, obviously, to secure our border. If East Germany could, we could.”

Miller did not note that the purpose of the Berlin Wall and East German security was to keep large numbers of people from emigrating to the West.

Firstly, the only thing funnier than Alaskans talking about fiscal austerity is Alaskans talking about border security. Are they really concerned about Canadian Eskimos coming in and taking jobs from American Eskimos? Has that been a major problem that I've been blissfully unaware of?

Second, East Germany? Is Miller actually serious? Who in the name of God actually says something like that?

One thing that the Tea movement may have missed when they skipped history class is that bringing down the Berlin Wall was one of the central symbolic goals of the Cold War and something that Republicans brag about to this day, although the policies that accomplished it actually originated with Harry Truman.

As Mr. Miller has noted, the wall was erected to keep East Germans in, rather than West Germans out. That's sort of key. As a matter of fact, 136 people were confirmed to have been killed by the East German border guards trying to escape in the Wall's 28 year history. No one knows how many were wounded and imprisoned. The "Death Strip" that laid between the actual Wall and the fence that sat 100 meters behind it were fortified by barbed wire, sniper towers and landmines.

Yet Joe is running on a platform of all the neat things that the United States can learn from the former East Germany. No wonder he's tied with Murkowski, who's not even on the friggin' ballot.

This, friends, is why serious political movements avoid nominating amateurs.