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PRINCETON, NJ -- The Republican Party's image has gone from bad to worse over the past month, as only 34% of Americans in a Nov. 13-16 Gallup Poll say they have a favorable view of the party, down from 40% in mid-October. The 61% now holding an unfavorable view of the GOP is the highest Gallup has recorded for that party since the measure was established in 1992.
Given the results of the election, it's obvious that Congress and the White House won't be receptive to many conservative ideas. So we'll be playing a great deal more defense. And there will be plenty of defense to play as liberals try to redistribute wealth, abolish the right of workers to cast secret ballots on union elections, nationalize health care, bankrupt energy companies that use coal - the list just goes on and on.
Sorry guys, but if you don't think greater access to affordable health care, raising the bar on environmental standards, and making measures to protect the lower and middle classes from the CEO's who are begging for a bailout so they can continue their gang-bang, would be good for the economy, THEN YOU DON"T GET CLAIM TO BE ECONOMIC EXPERTS ANYMORE.
Notice it's not me seeing this, but Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post:
As Republicans sort out the reasons for their defeat, they likely will overlook or dismiss the gorilla in the pulpit.
Three little letters, great big problem: G-O-D.
I'm bathing in holy water as I type.
To be more specific, the evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP is what ails the erstwhile conservative party and will continue to afflict and marginalize its constituents if reckoning doesn't soon cometh.
Simply put: Armband religion is killing the Republican Party. And, the truth-as long as we're setting ourselves free-is that if one were to eavesdrop on private conversations among the party intelligentsia, one would hear precisely that.
That's not all Ms. Parker has to say:
Suffice it to say, the Republican Party is largely comprised of white, married Christians. Anyone watching the two conventions last summer can't have missed the stark differences: One party was brimming with energy, youth and diversity; the other felt like an annual Depends sales meeting.
With the exception of Miss Alaska, of course.
Ms. Parker will be having a lot of email on this column, for sure.
(Maybe they just need the American version of talking to foreigners. Talk louder and slower. - promoted by johne)
The Denver Post this morning has a pretty good article exploring the Con-servative's needs prior to the 2010 election. They're leaderless and rudderless, as evidenced by the poorly run 2008 election campaigns. While we enjoy our continued success and expansion here in Colorado, we should keep close watch on ideas and trends within the opposition's camp.
I recommend reading the entire article, but will provide some tidbits that I found interesting below. I want to keep our creative juices flowing. Anything we do today to blunt a 2010 Con resurgence is time well spent.
You probably (or hopefully) don't know this about me but I am just a corn-fed girl from rural Nebraska; my familial roots are in the bible belt. As of late, from these roots grows a conflict. All of my family members are hard-core Evangelical/Republicans and I try desperately, for our mutual advantage, to find a common ground upon which we can communally build a better foundation for America.
From the 9 years I spent in the church, perched on my father's knee while he played the organ for the choir, I learned that every person is exactly same-- we all want to be free! We just have partisan differences of opinion on how to get there. Perhaps Sarah Palin can dispel those differences?
In the interest of baring a different side of my multi-faceted buttresses, I want to share a brilliant article from a promising young girl, I suspect to be not much different from myself. She makes some awesome points that honestly give me hope. Palin could be the beacon that guides us through the impending GOP reformation (pardon the pun) and into a brand new feminism.
By charging rape victims, Palin is challenging the infantilzation of the female victim as helpless and vulnerable. Palin refuses to enable women as they retreat into the state of victimization to which society confines them. By treating a woman as a responsible individual capable of making rational decisions and financial transaction, Palin empowers potentially disempowered female victims with a sense of ownership and agency. This policy also offers a radical economic revisioning, an antithesis of the the male-as-bread-winner model.
I can see how that could be construed as controversial but I do see merit in the total liberalization of social services because If everyone just understood that they were on their own, they would be much more responsible about where they walk, whom they go into dark alleys with and what they wear in those alleys.
The article goes on to make other great points about the lack of feminist perspective in the way the media have portrayed her:
these supposed "extravagances" can be reread as expressions of 4th wave feminism in which women actively exploit their own beauty and sexuality. Instead of feeling forced or reduced to sexual beings, women can instead empower themselves by transforming tools (beauty and sexuality) of oppression and dismissal into tools of empowerment and advantage.
Hey, if ya got it, flaunt it, right? If you are qualified enough to be president, then its irrelevant if you pile on the makeup like a trollop, you cant judge a book by its cover.
As an aside, the National Debt has increased $880 billion since the beginning of September - that isn't a typo - almost $1 trillion in less than two months as the Treasury raises cash for the TARP and for the Fed's liquidity initiatives.
The National Debt is now $10.53 trillion. Remember when the debt passed $10 trillion? That was on September 30th ... less than one month ago.
Remember, when Bush took over, the national Debt was around $5.7 Trillion.
You know it's the silly season when the Republican infighting starts even before election day. So says ex candidate for US Senate, ex-congressman Scott McInnis:
"I would have beat Udall, that wasn't the issue," McInnis said. "Frankly I have more difficulties with the right wing of my party then I do with taking on a Democrat. Udall was not the biggest threat I faced in the election. My biggest threat was getting through the primary. Both parties have a pretty radical element to them."
True, McLobbyist is less extreme than Schaffer, that's not hard to do. More interesting is he's saying these things before all the votes are in.
Click on table for larger version of image in new window
Just to summarize in words, under Republican Presidents:
1. The size of government increases at a faster pace.
2. The national debt increases at a faster pace
3. Gross Domestic Product increases at a slower pace.
Colorado, as anyone following the election campaign knows, is a major presidential battleground state. Both John McCain and Barack Obama have visited the state multiple times, including in recent/coming days. Though a new poll shows Obama taking a commanding 12-point lead, everyone expects both the presidential and U.S. Senate race here to be very close. That's why the Secretary of State Mike Coffman's (R) moves should worry everyone in Colorado and elsewhere. We've got our own Katherine Harris here - and a careful look at the news suggests he's moving to game this election in a state that could be the Florida of 2008.
I say "careful look" because Coffman's behavior - while outrageous and potentially election-throwing - has received coverage mostly in the back pages of local newspapers (and similarly little attention from the national media). But if you bother to dig down, you will see what I'm talking about - and it's scary.
The October 22nd edition of Generations Radio* featured John Lofton, the "recovering Republican" now-evangelical pastor who from '70 to '73 worked under GHWB and Bob Dole as the self proclaimed "chief republican party propagandist." The show is hosted by Kevin Swanson, a pastor who, in the context of home-schooling and total indoctrination of Christian children said, "Radical times call for radical measures." From yesterday's show John Lofton was on the air to tell Christian voters why voting for McCain is a sin.
Host Kevin Swanson: What about Sarah Palin, does she salvage the ticket?
John Lofton: Sarah Palin is not allowed to be on the ticket. If you know your bible, you know that women are not to be in positions of authority, and teaching over men, they are to be keepers of the home and the fact that Palin, who claims to be a Christian by the way... the fact that she accepted this offer, shows that she's unqualified to hold it. And the fact that John McCain offered her the job shows that he has no biblical understanding of the role of women. It, it is just disgusting to me, to see her coming down that plane ramp, clutching that little down syndrome baby... that she just drags this baby all over the country, well I think its more than disgusting, I think it's a sin.
Swanson has questions about the legitimacy of the argument that Christians** cannot vote McCain. Throughout the show he reminds us that there is no perfect candidate but Lofton goes on about the lesser of two evils argument.
Lofton: There's only one problem with that...[voting for the lesser of two evils]: It 's not a biblical argument, it's a relativistic argument. Not voting is not a sin, Kevin! Its not a sin to not vote.
They say McCain is evil, therefore its fair to say that a vote for evil is not a vote for God.
But where does this dedication to their dogma get them in the dirty game of politics? How did they get this far without having been tainted before? I wrote a diary about how this strange brand of Christianity has no place in politics-- not that there isn't a party that won't take their insanity in, just that their faulty reasoning prevents them from advocating for a major party candidate, particularly when they ponder such things as:
"Who knows, McCain could be persecuting Christians by June."
--Kevin Swanson
*This is the same radio show that featured Kristi Burton agreeing that the "left" wont anytime soon admit to worshiping genocidal fascists.
**Swanson's definition of Christian is not a definition the majority of Christians ascribe to. Not all Christians are this odd.
Welcome to the People's Republic of Alaska, where every resident this year will get a $3,200 payout, thanks in no small measure to the efforts of Sarah Palin, the state's Republican governor. That's $22,400 for a family of seven, like Palin's. Since 1982, the Alaska Permanent Fund, which invests oil revenues from state lands, has paid out a dividend on invested oil loot to everyone who has been in the state for a year. But Palin upped the ante by joining with Democrats and some recalcitrant Republican state legislators to share in oil company windfall profits, further fattening state tax revenue and permitting an additional payout in tax funds to residents.
Add a new problem to the Wadham pile. During his watch their party lost their registration edge when it comes to the people who actually turn out to vote.
From the Washington Post, according to an investigation by chair of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Henry Waxman:
When Karl Rove's office requested special help for beleaguered Republican congressional candidates in the months before the 2006 elections, the head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy jumped to the task. Director John Walters was called a "superstar" by a Rove aide after carrying half-million-dollar grants to news conferences with two congressmen and a senator.
Walters's visits to Utah, Missouri and Nevada were among at least 303 out-of-town trips by senior Bush appointees meant to lend prestige or bring federal grants to 99 politically endangered Republicans that year, in a White House campaign that House Democratic investigators yesterday called unprecedented in scope and scale.
Federal law prohibits the use of public funds or resources for partisan activities -- and specifically barred Walters's office from any involvement in a federal election campaign -- but the agencies involved said most of the trips were paid for by taxpayer funds, according to the draft report released by the Democratic majority of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
On some occasions, White House officials urged agencies to use taxpayer funds to pay for travel to political events. On September 5, 2006, Jon Seaton, an official in the Office of Political Affairs, sent an e-mail to the White House Liaison at the Department of Veterans Affairs regarding events Secretary Nicholson attended in Washington State on July 6, 2006, with Doug Roulstone, a Republican candidate for the House of Representatives. In his e-mail, Mr. Seaton asked whether there was any "official component" to the travel, explaining: "Needless to say, trying to save the campaign as much $$ as possible."65 According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, the July 6, 2006, events were considered official.66
What does this have to do with Musgrave? Appendix B of the report lists four events related to Musgrave's 2006 campaign attended by agency officials. In April USDA Secretary Johanns attended an Earth Day event with Musgrave in Denver. In May Transportation Secretary Mineta and VA Secretary Nicholson attended events with Musgrave. Finally, in August, Transportation Highway Administrator Rick Capka. These were all events recommended by the White House's Political Affairs office yet travel for these officials was paid for with our tax dollars.
The Boulder County Republicans have been writing checks to individuals, companies, even churches without listing a purpose on their forms.
They are even giving money to other committees, effectively allowing donors to launder their contributions. What prevents people from maxing out and then contributing to the Boulder County Republicans to transfer money to the campaign they have maxed out with? If this isn't illegal (I suspect it is) then it's definitely unethical.
This is just a brutal compilation of cable news bits. Well known Fox bobbleheads and other conservative talking heads throw John McCain and his presidential campaign under the bus:
Securing the votes in Congress to pass real immigration solutions into law isn’t going to be easy. The next President – no matter who wins – will need to lead his own party first to get it done.
Funny quip on AC360, from the mayor of the Alaskan island of Little Diomede, in the Bering Strait:
No American mayor resides in a city closer to Russia then Andrew Milligrock, and he says being two miles from Russia doesn't give him any foreign policy expertise.
We've all been told that Osama bin Laden is hiding out in a cave in Pakistan. We know Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid hid out in Utah.
We know Sarah Palin is hiding from the press corps and granting few limited interviews by hiding the fact she knows absolutely nothing about the simplest of political questions that my Grandson could answer.
Katie Couric? C'mon...fluff journalism has a pronoun.
Where in the hell was George Bush and Dick Cheney during the Republican convention? Were they hiding from the Press Corps and American people in an unprecedented no-show during their national convention?
Why has McCain cancelled interviews with Larry King and David Letterman, suspended his campaign and cancelled the Presidential debate?
For the love of God and all that is holy, I'd just once--JUST ONCE--like to see a Conservative own up to the failure that is everything Republican.
It's bad enough we have 2 ongoing wars, doubled both the national debt and the size of government under Republican rule. Add to that the upcoming $1 Trillion bail out of Wall St...
How much Fail can one party have?
Just admit it, Republicans. Your ideas don't work.
Own the failure that is all your ideas implemented over the past 8 years.
As a commenter on some blog somewhere said: Lehman Brothers survived the Civil War, World War I, The Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. It took Republicans in power to kill 'em.
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