One of the things I noticed when I lived in Chicago was the reverence certain organizations had. Jack Sandner used to drop that he was going to the “Chicago Economic Club” dinner. Other guys I knew were members of the City Club or other civic institutions.
David Burge is a great follow on X. I had beers with him at a bar the night Obama won his first term. We both knew what was coming. This is a tweet from a number of years ago, and it works over and over again.
1. Identify a respected institution.
2. kill it.
3. gut it.
4. wear its carcass as a skin suit, while demanding respect.
#lefties
I saw this happen in Chicago. The Chicago Economic Club is no longer a serious economic club. None of the old civic clubs are serious. They are run for the benefit of the left, not debate or knowledge.
I bring this up because my new state of Nevada has fewer clubs, but still has them. Probably the most venerable business one is Keystone Corporation. They have “corporation” in their name. Hence, they are pro-business and generally lean very Republican.
When I moved to Nevada, I was told I had to join Keystone. It was respected and all that. I did join before I entered my campaign. I will not be renewing my membership.
They used to be very relevant and lead. Now, not so much. In the Hollywood Handout debate that raged in the last legislative session, Keystone weighed in, but it took quite some time. It was as if they had their finger in the air. I can imagine the internal debate was tough, because they are certainly supporters of Governor Joe Lombardo, as am I.
But if you are a leader, sometimes you make tough calls. That comes with the territory of leadership. Jumping on the bandwagon early would have given a signal to the governor, but more importantly to legislators. They would have had clearance to vote against it.
It certainly wasn’t a pro-business bill! It was a transfer of wealth from taxpayers to businesses who wanted to buy tax credits. I was against it right away. Thankfully, both of the Republicans running in my district, George Harris and Drew Teitelbaum, will vote against it because, like a bad penny, it’s back. Funny thing, my primary opponent will point to a tweet that he was against it, but it was very late in the game. He’s a finger-in-the-wind guy that can be bought.
We notice leadership failures all the time. It’s fair to say leadership in the Democratic Party has failed. They caved to the socialists. It is rare to see a leader in the Democratic Party openly call them out and disagree. I think Senator Fetterman is the only one.
Republicans break ranks more often than Democrats. Sometimes it’s grandstanding, but often it is true leadership. One of the things Brad Gerstner said about getting the Trump Accounts going was the lack of leadership by the “leaders”. Pulled this from a Pirate Wires article.
Normally, when gigabills like the One Big Beautiful Bill (we like to call it OB3 around here) have been “cooked,” that’s the death knell for getting anything done.
But Gerstner had already done the hard work. Invest America had written 26 pages of technical changes to the tax code and made sure it could fit into the reconciliation package. They’d built relationships with the “four corners” of reconciliation: Speaker Johnson, House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith, Senate Finance Chair Crapo, and Senate Majority Leader Thune.
Even then, it seemed impossible.
Before the White House meeting, Gerstner recalls, “I went and saw Speaker Johnson and Chairman Smith on Capitol Hill and said, ‘Guys, we got to get [Trump Accounts] in [the reconciliation bill].’”
Their response?
“‘We can’t. We love the idea, but we can’t,’” per Brad.
“It was one of those crucible moments as a founder,” Brad remembers. “You just have to get this deal done.”
There was only one way forward: the man in the Oval Office.
“We had 72 hours to get to the president,” Brad told me. “And we knew that he would have to demand its inclusion” in the reconciliation bill.
Michael Dell made the call. “The president said, ‘Come to see me on Monday.’” And then, Brad explains, “I had the idea that we should make a video that really explained to the president what it was. So while sitting at my son’s lacrosse game, I wrote a transcript for a video, 60 seconds.”
Convincing POTUS was more straightforward than anyone expected.
“It took him less than five minutes to say, ‘This is the whole reason for my presidency.’”
Trump called the Speaker and told him to add Trump Accounts to the bill.
Gerstner had, basically, gone founder mode in Washington. And that’s why every newborn American is going to get $1,000.
You wonder why stuff doesn’t get done in Congress. Re-read the above. The leaders don’t lead.
I say all this because leadership sometimes has to make hard choices. Sometimes making NO choice is the right choice.
Civic organizations that do not speak out against far-left policies lose their credibility, and then follow in the path of Iowahawk’s tweet.
Nevada’s Keystone Corporation is in danger of starting to walk down that path. Keystone makes candidate endorsements. Sometimes they do it in the primary. Sometimes in the general. They don’t have to endorse.
They endorsed my primary opponent, Drew Johnson, in the race for State Treasurer against Democrat Tya Mathis Coleman. When you look at their records and Keystone’s mission, neither measures up. Here is their credo: “Keystone Corporation is Nevada's premier political advocacy organization dedicated to advancing a pro-business, free-enterprise agenda in Carson City and beyond.”
Leadership would have been- we aren’t endorsing anyone. Ironically, the Las Vegas Chamber generally endorses in the primary but didn’t in our primary. They decided not to choose.
Warren Buffett famously said you don’t need to swing at every pitch. You don’t need to endorse every candidate either. I have a friend who is a big force in the Republican Party. Sometimes he sits races out that people think he should be involved in. When he doesn’t like the candidates, he sits out.
Neither candidate has ever been in business. Neither candidate even has a business background or business degree. Neither candidate is pro-free enterprise. They both favor big government solutions to problems because they are both policy people.
It is decisions like this where you feel like you have to be in the game that changes the momentum of the organization. In Chicago and other cities, civic organizations wound up being taken over by the socialists. Keystone is corporate. Corporate is different than entrepreneurship, and corporate, depending on the corporation, sometimes embraces free enterprise. Often they don’t.
For example, I agree with the casinos that the CFTC shouldn’t allow prediction markets in sports. In free market competition, the casinos would compete, not sue and complain to a regulator.
I had a tweetstorm here. Feel free to weigh in. Agree with me or not, weigh in.
When you compromise your principles, you start down a path. It’s not a good one. See Iowahawk and take his advice.
Don't even get me going on what an Apparatchik Thune is... He is absolutely transparently disgusting not going into Recess or passing the Save Act when 80% of both parties agreeing with it.
As a platoon sergeant in the Army I never had to issue orders as my guys knew I would never ask them to do something I wouldn't do first.
And there are those who squawk for the cameras claiming to be leading but wouldn’t know how or when to actually lead ever: my senator Tillis.