And as I pass him on to you let me express my thanks to Ms. Molly Ball of The Atlantic for a long but fascinating essay on the man which almost amounts to a mini biography. Also, before I begin, let me admit that until yesterday I had never heard of Mr. Erickson either! To steer you in let me explain that he is a 'communicator', using that word in its widest sense to cover blogger, radio and TV commentator and 'back office' operator for (or sometimes against!) the Republican party in America . . . no, don't switch off, really, he is a very interesting man.
'Over here' in our titchy little Island we fail to understand the power and influence of radio which across continental America is huge. Erickson is now up there with the likes of Rush Limbaugh, than which amongst Right-wing pundits there is no-one louder. However, as Ms. Ball's article makes clear, Erickson has built up enormous influence within the Republican party itself, not least through his support - qualified! - of the Tea Party movement. I stress the word 'qualified' because he is actually at odds with his own local Tea Party because they have been taken over by libertarians, not a philosophical path down which Mr. Erickson would wish to travel.
It's fair to say that in earlier and younger days Erickson was, shall we say, fierce in the American way they have:
There was the time, in 2009, when he called retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter a “goat fucking child molester.” During the Occupy protests, he said his heart was gladdened by “watching a hippie protester get Tased.” He nicknamed Wendy Davis, the Texas state senator, “Abortion Barbie.” And in a blog post considering whether President Obama was “shagging hookers,” he called Michelle Obama a “marxist harpy” who “would go Lorena Bobbit [sic] on him should he even think about it.” (The press, Erickson wrote, wouldn’t care: Obama “could be a serial killing transvestite and the media would turn a blind eye.”)
Yeeeeees, quite, but that's how they do things 'over there' and I'm not sure it's any worse than the whispered, anonymous malevolence that passes for political gossip 'over here'. But lest you believe that Mr. Erickson is just another media 'honker', think again. Just like the rest of us, Erickson is maturing but doing so in an interesting way. His background is small town, deep South and that informs his world view. Not in the stereo-typically way beloved of East and West coast 'liberals' - he has no visible signs of anti-black prejudice, indeed, during a spell as a local legislator he worked well both with and for the black community. In fact, as Ms. Ball found out, he is a very difficult man to pigeonhole:
Erickson sounded almost gleeful as he told me about the [local] Tea Party hating him. He seems to delight in confounding expectations, and in almost every way, he refuses to be pigeonholed: he is a southerner who defines himself by his small-town sensibility, but he spent most of his childhood in Dubai. He speaks for the conservative grass roots, but he pals around with cable-news regulars and Beltway elites. He’s a strict no-compromises ideologue, but during his one foray into elected office, he was a model of bipartisan cooperation.
His influence inside GOP affairs is very large. Several candidates flailing in their election races have surged to a win because of his media support. Perhaps not the least of his virtues is the undoubted fact that the High Panjandrums of the Republican party (known as RINOs - Republican In Name Only) absolutely detest him.
As Erickson sees it, the conservative movement and the Republican Party are two different things, and the former is more important. For 50 years, the conservative movement has alternately abetted and tormented the Republican Party. It has provided an intellectual framework and activist passion to the GOP, but—from the John Birch Society of the 1960s to the Tea Party of today—it has trained its fire just as often within the party as without, fueling primary battles and a spirit of with-us-or-against-us absolutism. Sometimes it has even won, as with the nomination of Barry Goldwater, which did not go so well, and that of Ronald Reagan (although some conservatives began complaining about Reagan almost immediately after he was elected). Party mandarins have long regarded those on the far right as useful idiots who helped win elections but could not be allowed near the levers of power.
The interesting thing about Erickson's political stance is that he is subtle enough to understand that inter-party feuding ends when a Republican candidate has been chosen. At that point he is intelligent enough to throw his weight behind almost any candidate on the grounds that even a flawed Republican is better than a Democrat.
Erickson worries that in 2016, party elites will again try to anoint a Romneyesque milquetoast whose lack of ideological fervor kills the base’s enthusiasm. “I never cease to be amazed at the stupidity of the people running the party,” he told me. But he said he could see himself supporting any of the potential contenders—even Jeb Bush or Chris Christie, whom most conservatives view with skepticism. Many of the possible nominees, he noted, got elected to their current positions with RedState’s help: Rick Perry, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Bobby Jindal, Rand Paul. “I don’t have a favorite. I like them all, for various reasons,” he said. “Wow. That’s the first time I’ve ever been able to say that.” I asked him whether it spoke to the success of his movement that there was no one in the field he would consider unacceptable—provided, of course, that Romney does not run again. “I kind of think it does,” he said.
An excellent, interesting and informative article and I urge you all to read it. In the maantime, I have bookmarked Mr. Erickson's blog site: http://www.redstate.com/
