A freshman Republican senator went on a Twitter rant Sunday about the state of the Speaker’s race in the lower chamber, offering his own solution for a candidate off Capitol Hill.
“Have been thinking on House Speaker race. Boehner quitting has prompted some remarkably boring/lazy analysis on where we’re at as a nation,” began Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.). “New to politics & in deference to tradition I’ve spent first 9mos in Senate keeping head down, interviewing older members/listening/learning.”
Sasse served in the George W. Bush administration at the Department of Health and Human Services; before being elected to the Senate he was president of Midland University, a Lutheran school in Fremont, Neb.
“Amazing how much conventional wisdom gets wrong. Throughout our campaign, all we heard from DC press (but not Nebr voters) was The Dynamic: Media: everything is Tea Party vs Establishment; Leadership vs Outsiders. Voters: Yawn. No; real question is vision–who has it; who doesn’t,” he kept tweeting.
“Press obsesses over bickering / student council races / who slighted whom. Voters barely care. They care where their country is headed. Media framing of Speaker’s race is reductionistic choice: small-ball Establishment vs wild-eyed Visigoths who want to burn govt to ground. It’s a 24hr newscycle of this junk that never ends. The American people look at DC & think, ‘We want to fire every single one of you people.'”
Sasse that dynamic “misses the larger point” — “it aint A vs B. We need Option C: the Vision thing. The ‘Go Big or Go Home’ thing.”
“Which brings us back to this moment: Founding Fathers put House closest to the people so it would reflect the nation’s (not Beltway’s) will. HouseSpeaker should be Congress’ chief STORYTELLER -cast the big vision of American exceptionalism; remind nation who we are/what we’re about,” he wrote.
“The next Speaker must be someone who fights FOR people, not merely against bad or inefficient Washington programs. The next Speaker must be a happy warrior. We have to sell a vision and win an argument before squabbling about particular policies. The next Speaker must celebrate earned success & empowering our friends / neighbors to live full lives of opportunity. The next Speaker must cut through the media’s 4th-grade portrayal of Rs vs Ds. The choice here is NOT #GOP numbers vs Dems’ compassion. The next Speaker must go places Republicans don’t usually go. Need more venturing beyond country clubs and chambers of commerce,” Sasse continued.
“The Speaker’s chief job is not policy bickering but lifting high / passing on a Constitutional sense of the American idea. Next speaker needs to have the ideas of Jack Kemp, work ethic of Mike Rowe, resolve of Margaret Thatcher, & wit of Larry the Cable Guy.”
And who is that perfect candidate?
“Therefore… I’m endorsing Arthur Brooks for Speaker of the House,” Sasse announced, adding that he bought the domain name DraftArthurBrooks.com to build “momentum” for the president of the American Enterprise Institute.
Brooks, an avowed independent, has been at the think tank since 2009. His most recent book is The Conservative Heart: How to Build a Fairer, Happier, and More Prosperous America.
“Who’s the best communicator in our movement? He/she might not be in Congress today. So what? Why wld we not pick that person –for ‘SPEAKER’?” Sasse tweeted. “I’m not saying @arthurbrooks is definitely the best communicator in America; I’m just saying: If you know of a better one…Tell me. I’ll wait.”
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