How ’bout that squeaker in Ohio? Mittens will probably win, IMO, but he looks weak.
Category Archives: Republican Party
Meanwhile, the Republicans Are Still Looking for a Candidate
We’ve been having so much fun I’ve been forgetting about the presidential primaries. So today is Super Tuesday. Nate Silver has Mittens winning Massachusetts and Virginia for sure and probably Ohio also, with Frothy a close second. Newt will pick up Georgia, and Frothy likely will take Oklahoma, Tennessee and Wisconsin. Mittens should end up with at least half of the delegates he needs to clinch the nomination.
Meanwhile, a few Republicans are beginning to suspect that the GOP brand is perhaps being compromised by extremism (ya think?) and have suggested that a good bottoming out, Ã la Barry Goldwater in 1964, might not be a bad thing. But they don’t think it will happen this year, because if Mittens is the nominee and loses, the whackjobs will see it as proof that they should have found a certifiable screaming lunatic real conservative to run.
Via Annie Laurie, Doghouse Riley:
THE 2012 Republican Presidential primaries will be remembered, if at all, for having taught us any number of things we already knew.
Rush Limbaugh is a human cloud of flatulence. Rick Santorum is a 10th century religious lunatic. Newt Gingrich is to serious politics what Newt Gingrich is to academic history.
Nobody likes Mitt Romney.
Of course the preeminent truth is that the whole goddam party is insane, and that the Press, having ignored the over-abundance of evidence of this for a generation, now finds itself incapable of dealing with this. Aside from the customary writing of scripts designed to encompass all such facts as aren’t truly inconvenient. Those, as always, get ignored.
The thing is, everyone on the planet whose head is screwed on all the way can see plainly that the GOP has driven itself into a ditch in the clown car. The only ones who can’t see it are most Republicans, and that’s because they are demented. So I don’t see them learning any lessons, no matter watch.
Michigan Primary Nail-Biter
Nate Silver says the Michigan primary is too close to call, and conventional wisdom says Mittens must win Michigan or lose his argument that he is the most electable candidate.
There is a lot of talk about Democrats doing “mischief” and voting for Santorum in the Republican primary. Somewhere this morning I read that this was not being endorsed by either the Obama Administration or the Michigan Democratic Party. However, Steve M says the Santorum campaign has a robocall going to Democrats asking them to vote for Santorum.
Meanwhile, CBS reports that President Obama’s approval rating with women has taken a big leap recently. Do tell.
Tough Talk
Frothy complains that Mittens is a wimp about taxes.
Our economy and American families are struggling, and the country needs bold reforms and major restructuring, not tinkering at the margins. …my opponent in the Republican primaries, Mitt Romney, had a last-minute conversion. Attempting to distract from his record of tax and fee increases as governor of Massachusetts, poor job creation, and aggressive pursuit of earmarks, he now says he wants to follow my lead and lower individual as well as corporate marginal tax rates.
It’s a good start. But it doesn’t go nearly far enough. He says his proposed tax cuts would be revenue neutral and, borrowing the language of Occupy Wall Street, promises the top 1% will pay for the cuts. No pro-growth tax policy there, just more Obama-style class warfare.
Mittens is tinkering at the margins? Ezra Klein says,
Mitt Romney is promising that taxes will go down, defense spending will go up, and old-people programs won’t change for this generation of retirees. So three of his four options for deficit reduction — taxes, old-people programs, and defense — are now either contributing to the deficit or are off-limits for the next decade.
Romney is also promising that he will pay for his tax cuts, pay for his defense spending, and reduce total federal spending by more than $6 trillion over the next 10 years. But the only big pot of money left to him is poor-people programs. So, by simple process of elimination, poor-people programs will have to be cut dramatically. There’s no other way to make those numbers work.
In fact, Mittens recently proposed a 20% across-the-board cut in income tax rates. This is much more drastic than what he has been proposing, but he has to keep moving Right to stay in the race.
Not to be outdone, Frothy is proposing a ten-point Economic Freedom Agenda, which he says will balance the budget in four years. Yes, and I’m Jean Dujardin. And the dog.
Here are his ten points, briefly:
- Drill, baby, drill; frack, baby, frack; and pipeline, baby, pipeline.
- Deregulate.
- Cut taxes.
- Cut taxes.
- Lay off public employees.
- Repeal “Obamacare” and replace it with the better plan Republicans keep promising but can’t seem to find anywhere.
- Pass a balanced budget amendment.
- Make lots of free trade agreements.
- Cut the hell out of “entitlement” programs.
- “Revive housing” by finally killing off Fannie and Freddie.
Seriously. I left out some details, but the whole plan is such a fantasy the details are kind of irrelevant. Obviously if the country goes this way in no time we’ll be in such a hole that Greece will look good.
Why the GOP (and Romney especially) Should Be Worried
Nice little chart, from Benjy Sarlin at TPM (click to enlarge):
Click to Enlarge
Nearly 90 percent of donations to Romney are from large donors. This is a problem for him in two ways. One, it shows that he doesn’t have a broad base of “regular guy” voters. Two, if Romney donors have already given their maximum donation, he can’t go to that well again during the general election.
Here’s another chart you might have seen on Rachel Maddow’s show (click to enlarge):
Click to Enlarge
This is to demonstrate that Romney’s popularity took a dive after he got Donald Trump’s endorsement. But whether the Donald caused the dive or not, Romney doesn’t seem to be wearing well on voters.
Those Sneaky Elitists
“We’re seeing this new government activism, paternalistic, arrogant, political philosophy that puts new government-granted rights in the way of our constitutional rights.”
See, the Constitution is not a document of government. It was handed down from God to Moses on Mount Sinai. Unfortunately Moses lost it in a craps game, but centuries later an angel appeared to James Madison and told him he could find it buried under Plymouth Rock.
Here’s the broader context:
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Sunday blasted the Obama administration’s moves to mandate religious affiliated groups to provide contraception coverage as “paternalistic” and “arrogant.”
“What we’re getting from the White House on this conscience issue, it’s not an issue about contraception, it’s an issue that reveals a political philosophy the president is showing that basically treats our constitutional rights as if they were revocable privileges from our government, not inalienable rights from our creator.” said Ryan on NBC’s Meet the Press.
You want to talk “paternalistic,” Mr. Ryan?
But in the Wacky World of Wingnuts, providing women with full coverage for contraception is paternalism and trampling on our gawd-given rights, whereas religious dogmas that demand women be barefoot and pregnant are not.
Meanwhile, Rick Santorum wants to protect us from elitism by denying coverage for prenatal screening tests.
He lambasted the president’s health care law requiring insurance policies to include free prenatal testing, “because free prenatal testing ends up in more abortions and therefore less care that has to be done because we cull the ranks of the disabled in our society.”
“That, too, is part of Obamacare, another hidden message as to what President Obama thinks of those who are less able than the elites who want to govern our country,” Santorum said.
In other words, Frothy wants to be sure prenatal testing is not covered, because some women who discover their babies will be born with major disabilities might choose to abort instead, and he knows better than they do that God doesn’t like that, so he wants to step in and protect women from the elites who think women should be allowed to decide some things for themselves.
The Tao of Politics
Or, why the GOP presidential candidates are such losers — Paul Krugman writes,
How did American conservatism end up so detached from, indeed at odds with, facts and rationality? …
… My short answer is that the long-running con game of economic conservatives and the wealthy supporters they serve finally went bad. For decades the G.O.P. has won elections by appealing to social and racial divisions, only to turn after each victory to deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy — a process that reached its epitome when George W. Bush won re-election by posing as America’s defender against gay married terrorists, then announced that he had a mandate to privatize Social Security.
Over time, however, this strategy created a base that really believed in all the hokum — and now the party elite has lost control.
You’ll recognize that “appealing to social and racial divisions, only to turn after each victory to deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy” was the subject of Thomas Frank’s book What’s the Matter With Kansas? And of course cultural/racial warfare was cranked up back when red-baiting was losing its punch. This has been going on for decades. So why are the chickens coming home to roost now?
The complete answer probably is the stuff Ph.D. dissertations are made of. Possibly the single biggest reason is the Faux News factor, or the degree to which the Right has managed to manipulate mass media into delivering its message while freezing out progressive perspectives. A big chunk of the electorate is being “informed” exclusively by Heritage Foundation talking points.
But in the past, the message was still being mostly controlled by the elite, so the masses would all be herded in the same direction. Thanks to Citizens United, however, anybody with a few million bucks to throw around can manipulate public opinion, too!
In 2000, there was no Sheldon Adelson underwriting videos about George W. Bush’s business career, for example. The GOP was able to package and market Bush as a successful business man and governor. Were Dubya running today, I doubt he could get away with that. It’s like a hundred Karl Roves have bloomed.
So, yeah, the GOP field is a pathetic mess. But were other recent presidential candidates any better? Here’s the complete list of candidates for 2000, according to Wikipedia:
George W. Bush, Governor of Texas
John McCain, Senator from Arizona
Alan Keyes, former U.S. ECOSOC Ambassador from Maryland
Steve Forbes, businessman from New Jersey
Gary Bauer, former Undersecretary of Education from Kentucky
Orrin Hatch, Senator from Utah
Elizabeth Dole, former Secretary of Labor from North Carolina
Pat Buchanan, publisher and author from Virginia
Dan Quayle, former Vice President from Indiana
Lamar Alexander, former Governor of Tennessee
Robert C. Smith, Senator from New Hampshire
John Kasich, Representative from Ohio
Herman Cain, CEO of Godfather’s Pizza from Nebraska
There’s a couple of ’em who were possibly not crazy, but that’s about all I can say for them. And Bush was as big a joke as the rest of them, but the GOP elites had tight enough control of the message to package Bush as a respectable candidate.
When Citizens United first came down, there was a lot of sturm und drang about how the GOP would use the new rules to beat up on Obama and Democratic candidates in general. I’m not sure people gave enough thought to how these rules would affect primary races, or to the fact that the first party to really be affected by them would be the GOP, since they actually have to choose a candidate for 2012.
Maybe when this election is over, Republicans will rethink their opposition to election reform.
Mitch McConnell: WTF?
Do Republicans think this will be a winning issue for them?
Not satisfied with President Obama’s new religious accommodation, Republicans will move forward with legislation by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) that permits any employer to deny birth control coverage in their health insurance plans, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said Sunday.
“If we end up having to try to overcome the President’s opposition by legislation, of course I’d be happy to support it, and intend to support it,†McConnell said. “We’ll be voting on that in the Senate and you can anticipate that that would happen as soon as possible.†…
…The push indicates either that Republicans believe there’s still an opportunity to score political points against Obama, or that they’ve simply calculated they cannot back down now. Regardless, the success of the strategy now rests on the gamble that Republicans will be able to continue framing the issue as one over religious liberty and not contraception, despite the new accommodation Obama carved out.
I know we’re talking about crazy people, but I can’t see how even Mitch McConnell thinks this is going to help the GOP.
Does Hoekstra’s Ad Even Make Sense?
Beyond the aura of racism/xenophobia, does Pete Hoekstra’s ad even make sense? Former Michigan congressman Hoekstra is running for Senate against incumbent Debbie Stabenow, and the ad tries to argue that Sen. Stabenow’s votes on spending bills are sending jobs to China. (Rather than what’s really sending jobs to China — good ol’ “free market” capitalism.)
Newt Blows Off the NYC Vote
The great gas-passing orifice erupts:
Speaking in Las Vegas ahead of the Nevada caucus, a contest he is sure to lose, Gingrich attacked “elites†in Manhattan who live in high rises and “ride the subway.â€
Oh, I so hope Newt stays in the race until the very bitter end. Who else would say anything this stupid? Well, OK, Rick Santorum. And Mittens. But let’s go on …
It must be beyond perplexing to a native New Yorker that anyone would conflate elitism with subway riding. The truly elite don’t take the subways; they have chauffeurs. The exception is Mayor Bloomberg, who famously takes the subway to work to show that he’s a man of the people. However, according to Gothamist, Hizzoner is picked up at his Upper East Side townhome and rides 22 blocks in a chaffeur-driven Chevy Suburban to the 59th Street and Lexington station, and he catches the subway (I assume the downtown express train to Borough Hall) from there.
I think the real slam here is to paint all of New York City as somehow outside America (I guess 9/11 really is forgotten). It’s a mysterious, intimidating place where people use alien words like “bodega.” And except for the truly elite, the New York City subways may be one of the few places in America where people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds and nearly all economic circumstances mingle together as equals. Is that what’s really bothering you, Newt?