33 posts tagged “republican party”
From the news the past few weeks, 2009 looks a lot like 2008. That will suck if it continues.
· Polls = “lies, damned lies and statistics.” One added benefit to Barack Obama’s election would be the cessation of the endless polling the news networks did during the campaign cycle. Wow, was I wrong about that. The polls have shifted from which candidate people support for the 2008 campaign to which GOP candidate is most favored (it’s Sarah Palin right now) to beat Obama and/or how much confidence the public – including the same Republicans who are already lining up to support Palin – has in Obama. WTF? Can’t the guy take office before the snarkiness starts? Apparently not.
· Petty, partisan politics are over. Uh, not in the US. Just as Minnesota says Al Franken won, Norm Coleman and his pals in the Senate vow to fight on. Granted, with an election so close, it’s hard to blame them. It’s how they got the White House in 2000. The other split seems to be in how the GOP machine will respond to President Obama. So far they have released obnoxious and racist videos. When called on the blatant racism of “Barak the magic negro” their response was “it was a joke.” Yeah, so were your response to Katrina, our participation in the ICC or adherence to the Geneva Conventions the economy and your general ability to govern. See, none of us are laughing at those either.
· No, really – everything I do it totally legal. One might think that if one governor is in the newspaper every day over a ‘pay for play’ scandal that if you maybe did the same thing, you might not want to subject yourself to anything that requires Senate confirmation. Poor, silly Bill Richardson. Of course, the adage that ‘those in glass houses should not throw stones’ never did mean much to politicians. Nice.
· Just because I am about to be impeached does mean I lose my rights to govern. Speaking of Governor Blogojevich, he hasn’t actually been indicted on anything. I understand that the ‘appearance of impropriety is worse than the impropriety itself.’ I do but legally he has the right to appoint anyone, who meets the requirements to be a Senator, to the Senate. He could make things easier on Harry Reid, but why should he? He should because anyone he appoints will be tainted and that may make it harder to them to keep the seat in 2010 when they have to run again. A veto proof Senate would be, well, I can’t say how strongly I feel about it because then I would have to list this post as ‘offensive’ but it would be awesome.
· Winter is cold and there is still plenty of war to go around. After 10 days in Florida and too many hours of CNN/the Weather Channel, I can tell you that in the winter most of the US is cold and people still try to kill each other all over the world. Israel is pounding Gaza (and I do blame Hamas for this), conflicts continue in the DR Congo & Darfur and pirates are taking ships off the horn of Africa. Good times.
I know I sound glib here and promise that is not my goal. It’s hard for me not to not be cynical about the state of the world. The US made great progress by electing Barack Obama but we have a long way to go in terms of the rest of the planet, our role in it and what we do within our borders. Democracy does not equal stability and peace. The US is not the only country on earth and political corruption runs rampant. We get the government that we settle for.
Newt Gingrich to the rescue! Newt Gingrich to the rescue! Newt Gingrich to the rescue!
Go, Newt Gingrich! Go, Newt Gingrich! (Sung to the song Jim Dandy to the rescue)
Being a liberal Democrat, few things put a smile on my face like watching the GOP so stupid things that show people their true colors. Their recent attempts to link President-elect Obama to Governor Rod Blagojevich really smack of both of their normal smear tactics mixed in with a fair amount of whining. You can watch their new video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2M1zMaZPmI. The announcement on their page is here: http://www.gop.com/News/NewsRead.aspx?Guid=be000046-39ad-4992-8e7e-05bdcbb80189. I would have thought that Obama’s landslide victory last month coupled with the fact that even most Republicans polled want to see him succeed – not because they like him so much but because the country needs it so badly – would make them reconsider this path. It has been the path you are on and maybe they are just following the old adage that when things get tough, just keep doing what you’re doing. A policy that clearly helped them this past election.
The one GOP name that keeps popping up again and again is Newt Gingrich. He knows a thing or two about revenge. He might agree with the saying that holding a grudge is like taking poison and hoping you enemy gets sick. He is very familiar with that one because after he swore he would get Bill Clinton out of office, the first casualties of the impeachment fight were Newt Gingrich the then-Speaker of the House and his designated replacement Bob Livingston. Both resigned when their own infidelities were brought to light. Additionally, the House Judiciary Committee Chairman, at the time, Henry Hyde – also an R, had to admit he had also had affairs but they were ‘youthful indiscretions’ (he was 52 years old, which means I have loads of time to make the same claim should I do something stupid but I digress). The last force behind the ridiculousness was Tom Delay, who probably inhaled too many chemicals as an exterminator, also had to resign a while later for other ethical failings. In fact, the one person who remains pretty much intact after all of that is President Bill Clinton. He’s a total rock star. Love him.
Now that all this happened and Newt is back in favor – he did orchestrate the Contract on America. Oopsie, I meant with. That PR ploy – and 40 years of Democratic arrogance – got him the House of Representatives in 1994. Not only did they win but they managed to oust the then-Speaker of the House Tom Foley (D-WA), which was the first time a Speaker lost since 1860 (side note: in a poll of Foley’s Congressional district I think about 60 to 70 percent of the voters assumed anyone they elected would be Speaker, yeah, our education is system is the best in the world). So it’s natural to look to him, he is a very smart guy.
This week he proved himself to be even more valuable when he announced he was unhappy with the way the GOP is behaving, and you know that will always get news. According to the Post :
Gingrich boils it down to a single sentence: "Republicans should be eager to work with [Obama] when he is right, and, when he is wrong, offer a better solution, instead of just opposing him." http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/12/more_republicans_revolt_on_oba.html?nav=rss_blog
Gingrich has also called the video a ‘destructive distraction.’ He is absolutely correct but I hope the RNC sticks to its guns. What’s been good for them has not been good for the country.
Someone sent me this and then I told two friends and they told two friends and so on and so on...
Don’t believe me? Good. Never take one person’s word for statements like that. Go here: http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10/15/gop-site-california-removes-waterboard-obama-graphic/ and take a peek at what will be starting to pop up under voters’ doors and on their voicemails.
Seriously? I know not all networks covered the campaign using the split screen to show the reactions but CNN (clearly they are the ‘best political team on television’ because all their commentators had laptops) did. I am no mind reader but I swear I could tell what John McCain was thinking, and it went something like (clear the kids out of the room, profanity is about to be served) That little fucker. I spent five years in a POW camp to have to run against this guy? He shouldn’t even be allowed to be here. I have proved I love my country. What has he done that makes him so great? Oh, he went to Harvard. Oh he can move his arms. Oh, his ideas inspire people. Oh, he’s going to make people believe again. What a crock. I hate him. Back in my day we worked for a living and when we walked 10 miles up hill – each way – barefoot in the snow, we liked it!!!
As I predicted, I did not win the lottery, nor was I struck by lightning and no, John McCain refused to take the high road that I thought would lead him and his campaign back to some sort of honor. He looked so peeved to be anywhere near Barack Obama that taking the high road was clearly never an option. That is too bad. John McCain has done a lot of things that make him deserve our respect but he just looks old and mean. Bob Dole had the same problem in 1996. Then a bigger problem was that President Clinton was really popular and it seemed the GOP ran Dole because it was ‘his turn’ not because he could win. We all got to know the Senator Dole that I saw around the Hart Senate office building back when I worked there. He had a sense of humor. I didn’t agree with him on anything but that’s never what you expect in this business. He was not the stiff, bitter, pissy old man his campaign let us think he was. And as someone who worked for President Clinton’s reelection, I thought it was unfair to him. The problem here is that the McCain campaign isn’t making McCain look bitter, he is. And I don’t think it’s a simple cosmetic thing, I think it is how he is. Ronald Reagan was a bad president, in my opinion. Just because he is dead does not mean I have to like him but he understood that to win people over to the idea he was able to govern was not to look bitter and pissy but to use humor. He did it well.
Then again, if members of my own party were leaving me like rats leaving the Titanic I might be bitter about it, too. Check this out: http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2008/10/et_tu_gop_the_conservative_bet.html
First I read about Christopher Buckley endorsing Barack Obama and then basically resigning from the National Review, which is only, the conservative magazine his father started. That cannot feel good to McCain. Then you have the ever growing list of conservatives and Republicans who don’t think McCain can win and many have said not only is Sarah Palin a disaster but she should ‘put country first and remove herself from the ticket.’ And to think he really wanted Lieberman. I am not sure he even knows that much about Sarah, did anyone else catch that he said ‘Sarah certainly knows about autism.’ Why? Because her child has Down ’s syndrome? Yes, all these developmental problems are the same.
Oh, and while I am feeling frisky, what’s up with the ‘Joe the plumber?’ If he was not a plant at that rally I will eat a hat. His story fit just a little too neatly into the sweet spot of Obama’s economic plan. As for ‘spreading the wealth around’ you know who knows a little something about that. You sure do. Her name would be Sarah Palin where they do have lower taxes and one of the state’s main income supplier is the federal government. I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that the $1200 she sent everyone in the state came from those of us living in the lower 48. To the rest of the world that’s called ‘income redistribution’ and if a Democrat did it, they would be called a communist. As it stands, Alaska’s system looks more socialist than France (read “Letter from Alaska by Philip Gourevitch, www.newyorker.com, when a liberal mag like that calls you socialist, you probably are.
Back to ‘Joe’ – who was probably watching the baseball game if he was watching TV. I have come to hate the anecdotes candidates use. Usually because they are made up crap that I think wastes everyone’s time. This may not have been that but could John McCain have been more condescending to Obama and well, anyone whose head has not been up their butt for the last eight years? No, Mr. McCain you aren’t President George W. Bush (I so wished Obama had said, How long have you been waiting to use that line?). You are worse than Dubya. Sure he lied when it came to nation building and uniting the country but on most things his intentions have been clear from the get go. I don’t like him. History will judge him as one of the worst presidents ever but McCain is worse. He’s worse because he had a long record of not being a wishy washy, say-anything guy and he opted to run as someone else. That’s too bad, too bad for him anyway.
And kudos should go to Barack Obama. No politician wants to tell the public that they bear some responsibility in anything. It’s not OUR fault. We haven’t been asked to do anything really. The only people who have given anything up for the ‘war on terrorism’ – and those that have lost something have lost a lot – are the military fighting it and their families. The rest of us were told to shop. Right. Every time you spend a dollar, God kills a member of al Qaeda. Obama said that some of the current economic crisis was caused by people who live beyond their means. It was the first time in a long time that I have heard that and I hope he has more of it coming. Thank you Senator Obama.
So the debates are over and we are left to nothing more than crappy stump speeches and even worse political advertising. I don’t know who these ‘undecideds’ are, I just hope they decide to vote for Barack Obama.
John McCain is looking for a serious Hail Mary here. Last month he was in a similar spot. His campaign was at 4th and long and he threw one, we now just call her Governor Palin, or Sarah to her closest friends (aka all of Alaska or 670,053 people in 2006). That play got him a first down but he‘s back at 4th and long and with only a few weeks left and one debate to go he needs to do something. Something amazing. When has that happened before? Being football season, I’ll go with a story from the 49ers.
In 1982 the San Francisco 49ers played the Dallas Cowboys in the National Football Conference championships. The Cowboys had kept the Niners out of the playoffs three times before and things were not looking good. Then with only 51 seconds left in the game and with the Cowboys leading by six Joe Montana, a late third round draft pick (no touch, average arm) and seventh string QB pick at Notre Dame (almost took a basketball scholarship to play elsewhere), did the unthinkable. He threw what’s now known only as ‘the catch’ to Dwight Clarke. Montana had three Cowboys when he veered to the right and threw the ball high. He said later he did not know Clark would be open just hoped his receiver would get to the ball. Clark thought it was too high for him to catch but catch it he did. In the end zone. For the touchdown. The Niners win and the crowd goes wild! (They went on to win the Superbowl that year, too.) Joe Montana, the guy who almost didn’t play football at all turned out to be the greatest quarterback ever. (Don’t agree? Don’t bother arguing with me on it. Nothing will change my mind. Nothing. Ever.)
The problem Mr. McCain faces is he is no Joe Montana. That doesn’t mean McCain doesn’t have options. He had options last month when he picked Sarah Palin. He would have picked Joe Lieberman if his party didn’t threaten to basically implode. He could have picked anyone who added substance to his ticket. He should have gone with his gut, which has served him very well in the past. Could have. Should have. Would have. Didn’t. Rather than pick someone he really liked and respected, Mr. Lieberman I am looking at you, he went with the political choice. Was it because she was a woman and would appeal to bitter (and brain dead) Hillary supporters? Was it because she was the quick shift to the right – like ‘the catch?’ Was it because she is a pit bull with lipstick? Who cares? He did it to please the base and energize his campaign. The good news is it did both of course he got that much needed first down by doing the very thing he promised not to do months ago and swore during the convention he was not doing: He put his campaign before his country.
But enough with the negativity. John McCain has a real change to set the ‘reset’ button on his campaign. He can do this without putting out a new economic plan or changing his stump speech, though I know he has not done the latter. He can do it tonight at the debate. I propose he start the debate with the tone he claimed he wanted to be the hallmark of the campaign. Now because I think this is a good idea, I will win the lottery while being hit by lightening before this happens but this would make a great opening statement (or closing statement, I think he should start with it but that’s just me).
“First of all, thank you to the great people at Hofstra for hosting this important event. Before we begin I would like to say something to the country. Thank you to the audience here and at home, thank you for watching and giving us your time. During the next hour and a half you will hear Senator Obama and I tell you why we think each of us would make the better president. I should tell you that before we get to that I want you to know how much I respect the man who shares the stage with me tonight. Senator Obama is a decent, patriotic American. I have been proud to serve in the United States Senate with him and it is an honor to have him as my opponent. A lot of things have been said about both of us over the course of this campaign and there is nothing I can do to stop that but I can tell you that you when you vote next month, I hope you vote for me because you think I am the best qualified candidate and have both the experience and best plans to lead our country. This election is about a difference in opinion. This campaign is about ideas and judgment, let’s keep it that way.”
My heart tells me he should also say something about how many new voters Obama has brought into the system and how that is a good thing – the upside for McCain is that it will make more right wingers go out and vote but it may be a bit much. I know I get carried away with the rhetoric. It’s kind of like a drug. In any case that’s how he should open the debate.
For the record, Barack Obama is no Joe Montana either. He’s more a Steve Young to Bill Clinton’s Montana. Without the Mormon lineage and affiliation or concussions.
It’s October and just like what happens every four years at this time, one side of the pageant we like to call a presidential election is going negative. We, the public and press, will act all surprised and maybe even a little outraged at some of the things one campaign, or its supporters, says and the conversation will remain there. We won’t talk about the real issues – neither side in this year’s event actually acknowledged that in January they will have to make some very tough decisions regarding what promises they may be able to keep right away and which ones will have to be scrapped all together because we just won’t have the money. While the negativity does not surprise me at all, for some reason the mock horror expressed at it does. Not by the campaigns themselves – Barack Obama’s supporters should be upset by what Sarah Palin has been repeating at every speech. Moreover, we all should be worried when people attending rallies think it is fine to yell out things like “Kill him!” when referencing a candidate for president. John McCain was right when he told one woman that she need not fear Obama but if anyone didn’t think the campaign would go there, well I don’t know under what rock those people have been living. Back when it was assumed that McCain’s Democratic opponent would be Senator Clinton, he did not correct the supporter at an event who said she hoped he would ‘beat the bitch.’ And that was during the primary season when the gloves were on. And remember, the rumors about Senator Barack Hussein Obama have been swirling around for years – he’s a Muslim (and if he was, why is that bad again?), he took his oath of office on the Koran, his wife hates America… They play right into the GOP’s culture war campaign handbook, just look back to how Dubya won Ohio in 2004 (gay marriage) or for that matter the biggest reason Jesse Helms was in the Senate as long as he was. Personally, these accusations seem simultaneously so ridiculous – you cannot, for instance, blast the minister of his Christian church AND call him a Muslim and offensive to be true but people believe them.
The bright side is that all of the press about the blatant racism of some of McCain’s supporters may piss more people on the other side off enough to make sure they vote. It’s very easy to become complacent when your candidate is ahead in the polls and the economy is tanking (whichever party has the White House when this happens usually suffers come election day). This reminds me of part of a song from the musical Into the Woods:
Just remember:
Someone is on your side
OUR side
Someone else is not
While we're seeing our side
Maybe we forgot: they are not alone.
No one is alone.
While this marathon of a campaign is almost over, a few weeks in politics is a lifetime and every time you hear something so outrageous that you cannot believe anyone would believe it remember: someone probably does.
Ok, I admit it; I watched the debate on Thursday. Being very biased and feeling I should have posted my real thoughts earlier (debates are never about ACTUAL performance but the actual vs. predicted, and on that score Biden never had a chance. We all know he is literate. Palin’s interview with Katie Couric made us kind of unsure. Makes one wonder, was that on purpose?) I finally am writing about the campaign.
John McCain campaign has finally found its feet. They are in lying and it has suited them well. Last week Mr. McCain ‘suspended’ his campaign. At least he made that announcement official. He never stopped running ads, raising money and any event he cancelled (and I will bet anything it was either zero or some that no one was going to attend) was like one event and it took almost a day for him to get from NYC to DC. Note to McCain staffers: it’s an hour flight, it takes four hours on the train. And once he got to DC he did little or nothing to help, why? He doesn’t sit on the appropriate committees. Worse he praised the plan until douchebag in chief John Boehner, sorry after working on the Hill with him and his staff there IS NO BETTER WORD to describe him, changed his mind about the plan. The irony here is the plan he opposed was virtually identical to the one he opposed but at least John McCain allowed the GOP to be heard. He did that by remaining, by all accounts, completely silent during all relevant meetings. If he can change policy via telepathy, he should be president. Seriously, how much would that rule? Our president will kick you president’s ass with his thoughts.
But back in reality, his campaign has used the term “I suspended my campaign because I care more about the people that me.” The scary thing, and I did predict this, is it is resonating with some people. If you think he did anything to help anyone other than John McCain, vote for him.
But I digress, how did Gov. Palin do? Again, it’s all about expectations. She bombed so badly when talking to that hard hitting journalist, Katie Couric (I actually like Couric a lot but she’s not a pit bull) that all Palin really has to do was not look brain dead and she succeeded. It did seem like she was reading from an encyclopedia – how many times did she say Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. OMG! She not only knows who the president of Iran is but she can pronounce his name! I know I did not see that coming. She also excelled at not answering questions she didn’t want to answer. It was almost as if she was taunting Gwenn Ifill, try to get me to answer a question, try. Do you feel lucky? Well, do you punk? So she learned the art all politicians learn – the art of answering the question you want not the one you were asked.
Bottom line: Palin did what everyone with a brain knew she would, she won. She stopped the bleeding. To use a McCain statement (his was about the bailout) “This is a tourniquet, not a cure.” Ironic, no?
John McCain claims to suspend his campaign to rush back to Washington to fix the nation’s economic mess. Not that when he said he was going to rush back he meant right away. According to some reports, including the Daily Show, which I LOVE but generally is not my source for breaking news (remember, as brilliant as Jon Stewart is, he is a comedian), McCain took care of some other financial business in NYC – namely fundraising for his campaign that he had suspended.
Finally 22 hours later, McCain arrived in Washington. And just in the nick of time because Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner (R-OH, I will get to him later) had just announced a bipartisan plan for the economy. Bear in mind that while neither Barack Obama or McCain sits on any of the relevant committees in the Senate, their support of this plan was needed. They needed to be here to be briefed on it because one of them will inherit this mess. As other people have pointed out, McCain’s support was actually more important to this deal. This is because Republicans spend most of their time railing against the evils of government (unless they want it to watch what you do in the bedroom, who you talk to on the phone or what books you read, then it’s either all about God or security.) Having McCain’s backing would have provided political cover for GOPers and would have made this a truly bipartisan bill, which it should be. The bad news is that while his presence could have been helpful, it wasn’t. As Senator Harry Reid pointed out, we needed leadership not a presidential campaign photo-op, and that’s all we got.
And this is where our dear friend, Mr. Boehner steps in.
“Ordinarily a Republican president’s problems are with Democrats, especially if they control the House and Senate. In this case, Bush seemed almost over that hurdle. To be sure, Democrats demanded a number of changes in his $700 billion bailout plan, but administration insiders signaled they probably were acceptable. They included greater oversight, more protections for taxpayers, efforts to head off home foreclosures and piecemeal allocations of the federal money to buy toxic mortgage securities.
What caught some by surprise, either at the White House meeting or shortly before it, was the sudden momentum behind a dramatically different plan drafted by House conservatives with Minority Leader John Boehner’s blessing.” http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26884523/
As the House Minority Leader, most of the GOP Members do not do much without his blessing. Saying this happened with his blessing is like saying the Declaration of Independence was written with Thomas Jefferson’s ‘blessing.’ Even Treasury Secretary Paulson begged Nancy Pelosi to not let this fail – do any of us not know that presidential appointees ‘serve at the pleasure of the president?’ Even he acknowledged that it is the Republicans are holding this up. Earlier this week, everyone’s favorite economic thinker, George W. Bush told the nation that we need to act immediately to save our economy. What I cannot understand is that if he gets it, why can’t the rest of HIS party? And should John McCain show up at the debate tonight, Jim Lehrer should ask.
Of course if he blows it off, I don’t think will be any question that he should not lead anything much less our country.
On Wednesday morning Barack Obama called John McCain to talk about the possibility of them making a joint statement about the nation’s current economic crisis. I don’t know what happened with that but the news of the day had little to do with this because the press was too busy covering McCain’s big announcement. He said he would suspend his campaign (events and ads) and was pushing to postpone the first debate, this Friday night, so the two Senators could return to Washington and get to work. If anyone thinks this is anything more than it is – a shameful political tactic – just isn’t paying attention.
As obvious as this move it, it also borders on being brilliant. John McCain’s post convention bounce is gone. The luster may finally be falling off Sarah Palin. Moreover, when McCain holds events without Palin, not as many people show up. This never looks good for candidates. Barack Obama raised 66 million dollars last month. Most media accounts see last week as being one of the first good ones for the Obama campaign in weeks, if not months. Something had to be done and it had to be big. By talking about suspending the campaign to come back to WDC and help fix the crisis, McCain almost looks like he is returning to his more admirable roots. It looks like he is putting the country before his own political ambitions. That is the McCain plan, which may work the sad part is it is all just crap. It is in McCain’s personal best interests to take a break from the campaign.
Neither candidate is on any of the committees who are dealing with the proposed bailout and there is little reason to believe their presence at meetings they have never attended before would add anything positive. Senator Harry Reid said we need leadership on this issue ‘not a campaign photo-op.’ While photo-ops have their place in both our government and politics, this is not the time or place for such things. During the Clinton administration, both President Clinton and Vice President Gore toured an area devastated by a flood. Clinton visited with people impacted by the crisis and ‘felt their pain.’ Gore met with FEMA officials to make sure aid got to the people who needed it. One could argue that Gore helped more but it was Clinton who got the credit. I bring this up because I do not think these are always useless.
On the flip side, Obama and McCain will meet with Dubya at the White House to work out a compromise on the administration’s proposal for a bailout because the next president will have to deal with this on day one. That is a fine idea and what they should be doing. This, however, does not mean they should not continue the campaign or debate each other. If anything, this crisis makes their meeting and answering questions on how they would govern more important. Regardless of whether or not a bill is passed by Friday (it won’t happen until Monday) we need to see these two men face each other and the country and answer real questions about policy. And as Obama said, presidential candidates (and presidents) should be able to do more than one thing at a time. Maybe we’ve forgotten that with Dubya occupying the White House for the past eight years but if Obama shows up tomorrow and McCain does not, he will prove again that not only does he not care more about his political future than the country’s but he is not the man we want to run our country.
