Home
About Len
Len's Law Firm
Institute for Cultural Influence
Support School Choice
Order "Choose Life" License Plates
Contact Us
August 28, 2010
The Sunday Viewpoints section of the Arizona Republic is carrying a point-counterpoint on illegal immigration, including an article I wrote.
A longer version of the Republic piece can be found at this link.
An even longer and more detailed critique of the "Principles of Just Immigration Reform" White Paper prepared by the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention is available here.
August 28, 2010
While in high school our daughter Leigh Munsil had an opportunity to do relief work in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.
She came back and wrote about it, and the response to her writing confirmed her desire to be a journalist. She realized that stories of real people needed to be told, accurately and compassionately, and that she wanted to write those stories.
Today The Dallas Morning News publishes on its front-page a series of stories following up on its Pulitzer Prize winning Katrina photos -- and the team that put the stories together was led by Leigh Munsil:
The newspaper's editor wrote the introduction:
As part of our Hurricane Katrina five-year anniversary coverage at The Dallas Morning News, we revisited several of the people we had photographed after the storm hit in 2005.Staff photographers Tom Fox and Irwin Thompson did the photography and video for the package Faces of Katrina, which included several photos from our 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography.
DMN staff writer Leigh Munsil wrote the following introduction for the photo package, which will be published in the Saturday edition of The Dallas Morning News, on the eve of the date the Hurricane hit five years ago. Many thanks to Leigh and her team, along with DMN senior research librarian Angelica Cortez, for helping us track down the people in these photographs.
August 24, 2010
Seems like lots of folks remember getting our Christmas cards and are asking for an update on our family. The photo is from Laura’s high school graduation in May. Here is the latest:
• Tracy joined the ASU faculty as a full-time lecturer, teaching four courses in “Current Issues in National Politics” and “American Political Thought” to undergraduates in ASU’s School of Politics and Global Studies. She is midway through her doctoral dissertation.
• Will is beginning his second year of law school after a summer with the Alliance Defense Fund’s Blackstone Fellowship, where he had the chance to work with a pro-life group in Texas. He is also the head high school football coach at Scottsdale Preparatory Academy, and a columnist for ASU’s State Press.
• Leigh graduated from ASU in May and is now a full-time reporter for the Dallas Morning News, where she has had three front-page stories.
• Anne is a junior at Southwestern College majoring in Biblical Studies, where she is involved as a student leader and captain on the NAIA basketball team.
• Michael is a sophomore at Southwestern College majoring in Education, and is the junior high football coach at Scottsdale Prep.
• Laura graduated from BASIS Scottsdale as valedictorian and leaves next week for Wesleyan University, a top liberal arts college in Connecticut, where she will double major in English Literature and Film Studies.
• Ellen is a high school junior, and competes in volleyball, basketball and track. She works as a gymnastics coach, and this summer was selected for the Governor’s Youth Commission for Arizona.
• Kaye is a high school sophomore, and traveled to Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles and San Diego this summer to compete for her club basketball team.
• Matt is a freshman in high school, and plays football, basketball and baseball. Matt was the winning pitcher and hit a long home run to give us the lead when our 13-14 year-old All-Star team (I was a coach) won its district tournament by defeating the defending Little League World Series champions.
There is much more to report about all of our family, but that’s a brief overview with a heavy sports emphasis. Suffice it to say I am truly a blessed man. I hope all of you are well and thanks for asking.
August 22, 2010
Generally speaking, endorsements are overrated. Including mine.
We live in the information age. The amount of information about candidates readily available to every voter is enormous. (Go to azvoterguide.com for a non-partisan survey of important issues.)
If possible, voters should take the time to meet candidates, listen to them, gauge their integrity, determine their position on issues and then make their own decisions about who to support.
Four years ago I won a statewide Republican primary for Governor, and since then I’ve been asked for endorsements by many candidates. At the same time, a bunch of voters have been asking me who I support for various offices. I have made a few public endorsements that I wanted to let you know about.
If you don’t care, feel free to stop reading and have a nice day. If you’ve already voted, that’s great. But I am not a fan of early voting, in part because so many things can happen in the last month of the campaign that might cause you to change your mind.
If you do care but don’t like my choices, that’s fine. I forgive you.
But one cautionary note -- particularly during the primary season, it is possible (even likely) that committed conservatives will disagree about the best person for a job.
That’s OK. What we shouldn’t do is begin questioning each other’s motives, character, commitment to “the cause”, or parentage. That’s destructive and unhelpful because we need to come back together to defeat more liberal opponents in the general.
Make the case for your candidate, and then trust the integrity of other conservatives who may have reached a different conclusion.
This cycle I have been particularly distressed by the tone of several Republican primaries. Many races have deteriorated well beyond fair comparisons of voting records and credentials. It seems like many millions of dollars more have been spent destroying reputations than providing vision and leadership. That’s a shame, and hurtful to our ability to make conservative gains in November.
All of the endorsements I will list are for candidates who specifically asked me for support, and who I have publicly endorsed.
GOVERNOR -- JAN BREWER
When we flew around Arizona the night before the 2006 election with Sen. Kyl and other statewide candidates, then Secretary of State Brewer told me she expected that to be her last campaign.
Instead, Gov. Napolitano’s resignation took Gov. Brewer to the 9th floor. After a bit of a rocky start, she has absolutely earned the right to serve her own four-year term.
I disagreed with her push for a sales tax increase and believe that contributed to her early and largely unnecessary conflicts with conservative legislators. But now the voters have spoken and that issue has been resolved.
Overall, Gov. Brewer has been a spectacular conservative success. She has eliminated much wasteful spending, though more cuts are needed. She has signed pro-life, pro-gun, pro-marriage, pro-school choice and pro-religious freedom bills, among other things.
And she secured her nomination by not only signing SB 1070, but vigorously defending the sovereign right of the people of our state to protect themselves against the threats posed by illegal immigration and the federal government’s failure to secure our border.
I therefore enthusiastically support Gov. Brewer's election to a new, four-year term.
U.S. SENATE – J.D. HAYWORTH
This race has been disappointing on so many levels.
I have never been a McCain hater. I was thankful for his endorsement in 2006 and wish he had defeated Barack Obama in 2008. I admire not only his heroism during war, but also his many decades of public service.
But he has never been a consistent conservative. In fact, he seemed at times to relish poking conservatives in the eye. And in a year when the nation is clamoring for conservative change, I concluded that we are not likely to get it by sending back someone who has been in Washington for three decades.
I made the decision early to support a more conservative alternative. J.D. Hayworth made some mistakes in Congress, but still had a 98 percent lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union, compared to 82 percent for McCain.
But Hayworth has weaknesses, and Sen. McCain spent nearly $20 million magnifying those weaknesses into major character flaws. That has not allowed Hayworth to run a campaign based on the issues, where he is more aligned with most Republicans. J.D. deserves credit for having the courage to get into the race knowing what would happen to his reputation, and for holding Sen. McCain's feet to the fire on conservative issues.
It appears Sen. McCain conceded the point of a conservative alternative campaign – that his accommodation and even sponsorship of big-government programs favored by liberal politicians and the media made his record indefensible in a Republican primary. Thus his campaign has been about two things:
1) “JD Hayworth is worse.”
2) “I’m not really an independent-minded maverick. Actually, I’m more conservative than J.D. Hayworth, and there is no conservative position I won’t take to prove it.”
This approach is pretty cynical for a campaign with the tagline: “character matters.” While it appears to be working, it has not been Sen. McCain’s finest hour, as the national media is beginning to notice. If Sen. McCain does prevail, here's hoping we will see more opposition to Obamacare and illegal immigration, and no more votes for bailouts and other big government programs.
SECRETARY OF STATE – KEN BENNETT
Sec. Bennett is a solid conservative who is unopposed in the Republican primary. But he needs strong conservative support in the general election against a potentially tough Democratic opponent. As we learned again in 2008, it is important to keep the next-in-line to the Governor’s job in conservative hands.
SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION – JOHN HUPPENTHAL
John Huppenthal is a long-time leader on educational reform that empowers parents, and is a solid, consistent conservative.
ARIZONA CORPORATION COMMISSION –
BRENDA BURNS AND GARY PIERCE
I have known Brenda Burns and Gary Pierce for decades, and throughout their very impressive political careers I have watched them consistently operate with high standards of integrity, ethics and commitment to conservative principle.
MARICOPA COUNTY ATTORNEY – BILL MONTGOMERY
I was honored to develop a close friendship with Bill Montgomery when I was running for Governor and he was running for Attorney General. No matter who has endorsed him, he will be his own man in office. And there is no question that he is a solid conservative, committed to a tough approach to illegal immigration and sensitive to the rights of crime victims. I believe Bill has the ability to rise above the disputes that have embroiled Maricopa County and focus on keeping us safe and putting lawbreakers in jail. That's what we should want from a county attorney.
August 21, 2010
I’ve been a student of political campaigns for more than 30 years, and every election cycle it seems more voters are turned off by the relentlessly negative tone of political advertising.
The truth is this – negative campaigning will never go away. (Indeed, it has been around in every election since shortly after the founding of the American Republic. George Washington won his first election without anybody really attacking him, but since then it’s been pretty much a free-for-all.)
Frankly, not all of what is lumped into the category of “negative” campaigning is actually problematic. But it is hard for the average voter to differentiate between ads that focus on genuine policy disagreements, versus those that dishonestly seek to distort, exaggerate or unfairly impugn someone’s character.
Sadly, the overwhelmingly negative tone of most campaigns breeds cynicism about all candidates and discourages voter turnout.
Negative campaigning will always be with us in part because it is effective.
A few years back I got to talk to Steve Largent, NFL Hall of Famer, former Oklahoma Congressman and one-time Republican nominee for Governor of Oklahoma. Largent had a great reputation for integrity and political courage, great name ID, and took a huge lead in the polls into the general election campaign for Governor.
But Largent made a commitment to run a positive campaign, focusing only on what he would do for Oklahoma. His opponent battered him with a series of attack ads. Largent didn’t respond, staying completely positive, and went from a huge lead to a narrow loss in the 2002 election – an otherwise good year for Republicans. Subsequently, he was faulting for running a “weak” campaign.
Quite simply, voters want to know why they should choose you. Part of the answer is about why you would be good, and part of it is about why your opponent would not be.
The important thing for voters to understand is that not every “negative” attack is equal.
Candidates are obligated to differentiate their experience, record and views on issues from opponents. But I believe they should do so without exaggeration, distortion, or resort to focusing on extraneous personal issues that have nothing to do with the office.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with a hard-hitting, factual mailer or TV ad that truthfully compares your views and your record with your opponent’s, or that simply points out deficiencies or inconsistencies in your opponent’s campaign.
At the same time, there is no excuse for a trumped-up, phony, dishonest mailer or advertisement that distorts your opponent’s record, falsely demeans his or her character, or otherwise misleads the voter about your opponent.
Given that negative campaigning will always be with us, it does no good to rail against it and punish yourself by refusing to allow your voice to be heard at the ballot box. Voters need to do the hard work of investigating claims and counter-claims.
Sometimes, the candidate of character will become obvious when you evaluate the way he or she campaigns, and the validity of the candidate's critique of his or her opponent.
August 12, 2010
Newt Gingrich is a fascinating political figure. His 1982 book "Window of Opportunity" -- written when he was an obscure Congressman -- was hugely influential to me as a college student in the Age of Reagan. His "Contract with America" and rise from back bencher to the first Republican Speaker of the House in two generations was brilliant.
But upon gaining power, he seemed to lose sight of the conservative principles that got him there, and ultimately was weakened by ethics charges and then dethroned by a conservative revolt.
Out of power, he returned to what he does best -- being one of the most articulate, innovative and enthusiastic spokesmen for conservative ideas. But there has always been a disconnect between his private life and his public pronouncements, brought into sharp contrast by recent statements from his ex-wife, as she described a conversation in which he admitted to an affair and asked her for a divorce:
He'd just returned from Erie, Pennsylvania, where he'd given a speech full of high sentiments about compassion and family values.The next night, they sat talking out on their back patio in Georgia. She said, "How do you give that speech and do what you're doing?"
"It doesn't matter what I do," he answered. "People need to hear what I have to say. There's no one else who can say what I can say. It doesn't matter what I live."
As someone who usually likes what Newt says, he is very wrong about this -- it does matter how you live. In fact, it matters more. We don't demand perfection in our leaders, but we do demand authenticity and transparency.
