The republican party, and the slightly wider conservative movement, either has to purge racism or resign itself to being a minority that isn’t taken seriously.
Republicans News
You make hokey, silly ads like this one. Look, a couple folks from the South may chuckle at it, but to the rest of America it just makes the GOP out to be the Southern goobers so many of us think. Next time fellas, a little less Gomer Pyle, a little more Sheriff Andy.
They wanted this one 70-something heartbeat away from the Oval Office. Scary.
Two McCain camapign sources tell me Schmidt was a leading proponent of keeping Palin muzzled and preventing her from talking to even conservative media — a claim that seems to undercut Schmidt’s claims of confidence in her.
I blame gay marriage.
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford says he’s been having an affair with a woman from Argentina and will resign as head of the Republican Governors’ Association.
The married father of four emotionally apologized to his wife, staff and others at a news conference after returning Wednesday from a trip to Argentina that followed a dayslong absence. His staff had said the Republican was hiking on the Appalachian Trail.
Sanford says he met the woman about eight years ago and it became romantic about a year ago. He says his wife and family have known about it for the past five months.
The son of the couple at the center of the sex scandal that has engulfed Sen. John Ensign was being paid by National Republican Senatorial Committee in 2008 at the same time his mother was having an affair with the Nevada Republican.
Both Doug and Cynthia Hampton were already working in senior positions for Ensign when their son Brandon Hampton was hired to do ‘research policy consulting’ for the NRSC in March 2008.
A few months ago he attacked Larry Craig for his sexual escapades. The hypocrisy strikes again.
Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) has acknowledged an extramarital affair with a campaign staffer in a statement released by his office. ‘I deeply regret and am very sorry for my actions,’ said Ensign. He is expected to announce the affair at a press conference at 6:30 pm tonight. The affair, which was with a woman who worked for both Ensign’s re-election campaign and his Battle Born leadership political action committee, began in December 2007 and ended in August 2008.
FLASHBACK: Ensign on defending marriage from gays.
Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said he would support a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
…
After evaluating the idea of President Bush’s recommendation of such an amendment Tuesday, Ensign said he believes it is necessary “to protect the institution of marriage in America.”
“In order to defend the institution of marriage, uphold the rights of individual states and maintain the will of the people, I believe we are compelled to amend our country’s Constitution,” Ensign said.
Who will defend the sanctity of marriage from John Ensign?
2008 Election Map, Proportional To Electoral Votes (via)
Keep it up guys.
McCain won the South in November, but Obama swept the rest of the country by an even bigger margin. The same pattern holds now for House and Senate seats. Republicans may continue to win governorships in Democratic-leaning states, but in congressional and presidential elections the geographic divides are sizable.
Brownstein reeled off a list of statistics that all arrived at the same place: The South now accounts for a greater share of Republican strength than at virtually any time since the party’s founding. That base is too narrow, as even Republicans know.
Demographically, the forces at work have chipped away at what was once a GOP-leaning majority in the country. The most important is minorities’ rising share of the vote. Whites accounted for 76 percent of the overall electorate last November, down from 85 percent in 1988.
In the last election, there were more than 2 million additional African American voters, about 2 million more Hispanic voters and about a million more Asian American voters. All are groups in which Obama increased the Democratic share of the vote over 2004. Frey estimated that minority voters in nine states made the difference in Obama’s victory margin.
Considering the conservative-wide freakout over Obama’s election and the racially tinged attacks on Judge Sotomayor, the Republicans haven’t learned a thing from the last 10 years. There is always the possibility of Democratic complacency on these issues, and we saw some of that in 2004 when Kerry neglected the black vote until the very end, but somehow I think the current leader of the Democratic party will not make a similar lapse. Call it a hunch based on what he sees in front of the mirror every day.
The Republican party could again become a majority party, but the path for them would have to include being more inclusive to single women, blacks, hispanics, and gays. The issue of course is that strategy is equally likely to turn off large parts of their elderly white male base, as well as the xenophobic white males who are the elected officials on the Republican side.
This, by now, is standard operating procedure for the right in America. Which is the minstrel act of folks like Sonja Schmidt will always be just that.
Some people wear a hat frontwards, others cocked to the left, he explained. Some wear it backwards, he added, echoing a past statement, “because that’s how they roll.” But “the strength of the party is in this: … the fact that you’re willing to put the damn thing on… The problem we’ve had as a party is: too many of our friends, neighbors, colleagues are taking the hat off, because we’ve decided we don’t like the way they wear it… The GOP is not about how you wear the hat, but the fact that you want to wear the hat.”
Literally everything about Steele is the sort of crap they claimed Dean would do, but never did. (via)
I have finally found something to agree with Republicans on!
In thinking about the Republican Party’s troubles, consider this: One-third of Republicans now say they have an unfavorable opinion of their party.
There’s no such dyspepsia among Democrats. Just 4% have an unfavorable view of their party.
Sarah Palin is back home on Fox News, sending a thrill up Sean Hannity’s leg by endorsing the view that we’re on the road to the socialism.
Look, I’m not one of those people who pretends as if the Republican party or conservatism on a whole was ever sane, rational, or respectable — but it says oodles about the right when a moron like Sarah Palin isn’t laughed off of tv and the political stage.
And to preempt the conservative caterwaulers, yes, this post shows how scared we are of Sarah Palin. Just like we were scared last year before President Obama and Joe Biden kicked her rear from coast to coast.
Sooooo sad.
On the first point: Most speakers exhorted the students to recruit more black and Hispanic members, to get outside the stuffy-white-guy stereotype that follows the party like a shadow. This became especially awkward at Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s keynote speech, where seven white guys—including the College Republican of the Year, white guy Leigh Wolf—sat on the dais to his right. Last year’s national leadership had three women; this year’s has none. According to those present, in his speech, RNC Chairman Michael Steele singled out the one black woman in the room for special recognition.
The architect of Democratic control of the House, Senate, and White House has chimed in with his latest observation: the economy is a somewhat important issue. The funny thing is how, on Fox News, Karl Rove is treated as if he knows things you and I don’t. But then, so is Dick Morris.
Your members of congress say the biggest threat facing America is… the liberal media. Not terrorism, health care, poverty, or even climate change. Nope… liberal media.
Jesus.
This is a pretty succinct description of the nuttery that passes for normal on the right nowadays.
The thing that is really driving conservatives crazy, I think, is that their identity politics just isn’t working like it used to. Their whole approach has been based on the belief that Americans vote as if they live in Mayberry, and fear and hate anyone who looks a bit different; now that the country just isn’t like that, they’ve gone mad.
It has to be noted that the most trusted man in Mayberry, Sheriff Andy Taylor, is on the Democratic side. Also, Sheriff Andy is against warrantless wiretapping and for the rule of law.
Jeb Bush and Mike Huckabee endorse Marc Rubio in Florida over Charlie Crist. The thing is, of course, that Crist is a popular governor and has made the cardinal sin of supporting President Obama’s stimulus plan – even though Crist endorsed McCain.
Remind me again why Republicans lose the woman vote? Oh, right, they want to control their wombs and come up with crap like this. Mystery solved.
Look at this. No, seriously. Look at it. It’s a remix of the Daisy ad, trying so hard to be hip and edgy.
It’s poo.
Actually, that’s an insult to poo. Michael Steele is spending all this money from RNC donors on his friends and family and that’s the thing they come up with? Are you kidding me? As a friend asked of me when we saw this ad – “You’re doing this, aren’t you?”
It’s like I am. The RNC is now being run as if a liberal blogger were in charge, destroying it from the inside.
Then again, it’s all strategic.
JESUS.
The southern regional party in America debates. (via)
I should point out the equivalent of this would have been, in May of 2001, if the Democratic party convened and decided whether we would call the Republican party the Poophead Party or the Crappy Pants Party.
By comparison, here’s a story from May of 2001:
There are a lot of unhappy Democrats out there, including some toiling away on Capitol Hill. Despite all the chirpy pronouncements about taking some of the air out of President Bush’s proposed $1.6 trillion tax cut, and the party’s cries of “Eureka!” as it charged the Republican Administration with being more sympathetic to domestic oil and gas producers than to Alaskan caribou, Democrats are having a seriously hard time as the out-of-power party. Life was more fun before Bush and his West Texas sensibilities moved in.
The Democrats made a lot of mistakes when they were out of power (which is why it seems crazy to me that one of those mistakes, Terry McAuliffe seems likely to win the VA governor’s primary) but the bulk of those mistakes were in the world of policy and they were concessions to Bush’s agenda.
Republicans have made it pretty clear here that their agenda consists of stamping their feet like a spoiled baby.
Okay.
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