Little Party on the Prairie? A Progressives Wish List.
We all know the Santayana adage “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” If true, then the Republican party – or the rump party that remains after the elections of 2006 and 2008 – is in real trouble now that the internal “blame game” is underway. Their take on these elections has solidified the divisions we saw on immigration. It’s no exaggeration to say the GOP is now the G . . . O . . .P; the party was “split” over issues like immigration, that split is approaching chasm sized. And it’s the history they’ve learned that divides them. Some appear ready to heed Santayana’s advice, others, perhaps the majority, seem hell bent on marching to George Bernard Shaw’s decidedly more pessimistic, “We learn from history that we learn nothing from history.” So now we hear the voices suggesting the party reevaluate its relevance to
More Jindal! http://www.americaforpurchase.com/republicans/bobby-jindals-stimulus-lies/
Nate Silver Nails It. Conservatives “have not just forgotten how to persuade; they have forgotten about the necessity of persuasion.”
Keep On Saying That Conservatism Hasn’t Really Been Tried. Implying the election was merely a rejection of Bush himself . . . etc. Se C&L, The Great Repudiation http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/great-repudiation
Continue Manufacturing Mountains from Molehills. Like the war on Christmas (O’Reillly & Dobbs) Re Dobbs
Keep Ignoring Cause-Effect: Jeb Bush on NewsMax t.v. (11-30-08): “For example, [Jeb] noted that Barack Obama’s significant fundraising advantage over John McCain played a key role in Democratic success this year.” And WHY was that, Jeb . . . . .? http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/jeb_bush_interview/2008/11/30/156557.html
See polling data at : http://www.pollster.com/blogs/demographic_groups_and_votes_2.php MJM: Yet, despite the Dem wins in 06 and 08 the raw data above shows less of an immediate death knell for the GOP. After all, they did garner 48% in 08 in the popular vote. The constituencies that supported Obama did, however, include groups that will grow larger in years ahead, like Latinos, First time voters who rallied strongly to Obama, if they stay “true” to their initial party preferences, will remain Dem. voters for a long time
Please, Keep Sayint, Writing and Thinking the U.S. is a “Center-Right” Country We Just Need to Be More Like . . . Democrats? Crist: ‘We just need to be inclusive, we need to reach out, and do a better job leading by approaching issues with a common-sense view,” Crist told the (Fort Lauderdale) Sun Sentinel in an interview Wednesday.’” More: “Still, Crist has a clear vision for a new GOP national strategy, one that pushes divisive social causes to the side and embraces diversity. The party needs to do a better job reaching out to black and Hispanic voters, Crist said. He noted the Republican rhetoric on illegal immigration was ‘less than friendly, shall we say’ — an assessment that hardly will endear Crist to the party’s right wing.” ————–
Politico: “Thumped convincingly in consecutive election cycles, the Republican Party now finds itself in its worse straits since the rise of the conservative coalition — a minority party without the White House, fewer seats in the House and Senate, only 21 governors and full control of just 14 state legislatures,” Politico’s Martin writes. “Most ominously for Republicans, the GOP is increasingly becoming less grand than old — and outdated. As reflected in Tuesday’s results and exit polls, it’s a party that is overwhelmingly white, rural and aged in a country that is rapidly becoming racially mixed, suburban and dominated by a post-baby boomer generation with no memory of Vietnam or the familiar culture wars of the past.
“Beyond demography, the party is now, thanks to the outgoing president and some members of Congress, perceived by many voters as either incompetent, corrupt, or just not standing for much. Even on fiscal issues — for decades central to the GOP’s appeal — Republicans now lag.”
YOU HAVE TO LOVE THIS: ““With the selection of Rahm Emanuel [as White House chief of staff], I think Sen. Obama is sending a strong signal of partisanship,” said Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour. Emanuel has been offered the job, according to Democratic sources, but has yet to accept it. “He’s a hardball player if there ever was one. That doesn’t say much to me about this ‘post-partisan’ presidency.” ———————
YES, PLEASE, DO MORE OF THAT: “We shouldn’t be talking about lower taxes because supply-side economics is better for Americans but because it puts more money in people’s pockets,” said Cantor. “Where we have to focus is on reconnecting with people across this country where they live.”
YES, PLEASE, DO MORE OF THAT: “We need real solutions,” adds Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, 37. “It’s not enough to be just against single-payer health care, for example. We’ve got to discuss how we promote private coverage, to apply our principles to the issues that affect people’s lives.” Yeah Jeb, You Need to be More Like Democrats: Jeb Bush: “I would suggest that conservatives need to do the math of the new demographics of the United States,” said Jeb Bush. “We can’t be anti-Hispanic, anti-young person, anti-many things and be surprised when we don’t win elections.”
Yes, Keep on Lovin’ You Some Palin! As far as the Govs’ COnf. was concerned, the door that God has shown Palin appears to be an “Exit,” but let’s hope her popularity continues to distract the GOP fo a while longer. You Think,Pawlenty? Pawlenty, the son of a truck driver who worked his way through college, is also passionate about the need to put a new face on the party. “Demographically, culturally, technologically and economically, the country is changing,” he noted, while the GOP is “stuck in a 30-year-old feel in tone and image.” “We need a more forward-leaning, newer, younger, more diverse party. That does not mean that our values and principles get thrown overboard.” Yes, it does. DUH, Pawlenty: “But you can’t be a majority governing party getting almost no support from African-Americans, modest support from Hispanics, with a major gap with women, and decreasing support from modest-income Americans.”
Do Not Learn to Do the Math! Latinos as swing voters . . .On immigration: “I keep waiting for Republicans to learn to do the math. They can’t point to a single congressional candidate in this cycle, and almost none in the last three cycles, who has won using this issue,” said Cecilia Munoz, senior vice president of the National Council of La Raza. BUT: Most of the new Hispanic voters were immigrants or the children of immigrants, who are just entering the political process and have not established party loyalties. Latinos also tend to be social conservatives
Yes, Keep On Catering to Them: Re: The Christian Right, see http://www.opednews.com/articles/GOP-future-differs-between-by-P-A-Triot-081112-607.html
Atta Boy, Senator DeMint, Let’s Hear More of That: (The “we weren’t wingnutty enough” meme) Fri., 11-14-08, in Florida,
DeMint offered a long list of complaints about McCain’s record in the Senate and on the campaign trail.
“McCain, who is proponent of campaign finance reform that weakened party organizations and basically put George Soros in the driver’s seat,” DeMint said. “His proposal for amnesty for illegals. His support of global warming, cap-and-trade programs that will put another burden on our economy. And of course, his embrace of the bailout right before the election was probably the nail in our coffin this last election. And he has been an opponent of drilling in ANWR, at a time when energy is so important. It really didn’t fit the label, but he was our package.”
More Joe the Plumbers!! Yes, more like Joe. People who decry the welfare state, yet 
are later discovered to have benefited from welfare [cite story here]
More and Better Lunatics! Like this guy ——————————————–>
More Haley Barbour’s!! The Guvs’ Conf. snubbed Sarah, but in their choices of leadership they put the stamp of the south on the party. Let’s have more of that — making the GOP a wingnutty southern racist party, that’ll help them a lot nationally. More Haley Barbour’s!!
More Rush Limbaugh’s, Bill O’Reilly’s, Michelle Malkin’s, Shawn Hannity’s, Glenn Beck’s, Michael Reagan’s, Michael Savage’s, and, Hey, Where’s Ann Coulter! [Write about Reagan’s outrageous sayings lately]
Keep up the Spectacular Lying. Like this Rush Limbaugh bloviation on November 6,
Keep on Putting Bigger and Better Wingnuts in Congressional Leadership Positions. As Mike Madden wrote in “The GOP’s problem? It’s not right-wing enough“
The conservatives who dominate what’s left of the GOP caucus — mostly from the South or the West — think the real reason Republicans have been losing the last few years is because the party wasn’t conservative enough. “There’s a strong consensus that Republicans need to start acting like the people whom we say we are,” one senior Republican aide who is not involved in leadership said. “We’ve too often given people the ability to discern that maybe we’re not the people who we claim to be … If you go to the voting booth with the choice of a Democrat and someone who’s acting like a Democrat but claiming to be a Republican, you’d go with the Democrat.”
The idea now is for Republicans to hew even closer to conservative ideology on issues like taxes, government spending, immigration and others. While the newly dominant RSC echoes social conservatives on things like abortion, gay rights and public prayer, it’s mostly motivated by a desire to — as Republican activist Grover Norquist famously put it — get the government down to a size where you could “drown it in the bathtub.” Conservatives who agreed with that notion have been frustrated watching the party that came to power 14 years ago in a right-wing revolution descend into scandals involving golf trips, massive pork-barrel spending and an often blind obedience to the Bush administration’s whims.
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