Joker or Whiteface?

It was inescapable from the very start of Barack Obama’s campaign waaaaay back in January 2007 that race and racism would play a big part in whatever came to pass. And of course it did and it has and it still is and it always will. Now the New York Times — or to be fair one of her columnists — has finally said what is pretty apparent: An awful lot of the screaming incoherent rage ostensibly directed at Obama’s actions is actually just plain racism.

Maureen Dowd put it this way on Sunday:

I’ve been loath to admit that the shrieking lunacy of the summer — the frantic efforts to paint our first black president as the Other, a foreigner, socialist, fascist, Marxist, racist, Commie, Nazi; a cad who would snuff old people; a snake who would indoctrinate kids — had much to do with race.

Nothing new here if you’re a regular follower of even the slightly-left-of-center blogosphere but for the Doyenne of the Paper of Record it’s a mighty leap.

It’s not a leap Obama nor his inner circle want to make, though, lest the President get drawn into the elemental American battle. It’s been raging for 300 hundred years — from the Founders through the Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, Brown v. Board, OJ Simpson, to the first African-American president. America has never worked through it’s race-tainted birth and probably never will unless and until we’re all so intermixed that to be American means to be “Made of Many Parts.”

Obama has done his best to act as if we are post-racial but he, and everyone else, knows better. As a black man, though, he can’t actually engage in this battle directly without becoming exactly what his conservative critics so desire — another Jesse Jackson. Turning Obama into a black guy who happens to be President (as opposed to what he is: the President who happens to be a black guy) would be a major accomplishment for the Beck-Limbaugh Axis of Anger. And so they will continue to work very hard on that goal knowing they have fertile soil in which to till their seeds of rage.

In the meantime let’s face the facts: When a bunch of angry, white, post-65-year-old people scream and yell all summer about the government taking over health care, it cannot really be about the government taking over health care. Why? Because the screamers all have government health care. It’s called Medicare and every American over 65 gets it (not that Maria Bartiromo would know this). So when these folks rage with such force that they risk stroke and heart attack they do so knowing full well that should such a health calamity befall them, you and I  will pick up the tab for their hospitalization and care. Must be nice.

And when fringe groups organize Tea Parties to protest taxes and bailouts that then reappear months later as personal hate-fests aimed at one man, it is clearly not about taxes and bailouts which got relatively scant attention at Saturday’s big 9/12 rally in Washington. The rally, which was respectfully covered by the Washington Post and The Hill has become yet another paper tiger for conservatives like Matt Welch (of the conservative opinion mag Reason) writing in today’s New York Post:

How do you marginalize a significant protest against a politician or policy you support? Lowball the numbers, then dismiss participants as deranged and possibly dangerous kooks. In the case of Saturday’s massive 9/12 protest in Washington, done and done.

“Small protest,” popular lefty blogger Josh Marshall reported from his armchair, as an overflow crowd (at least 100,000, by my rough, unscientific estimate) filled the 1.5 miles between the south White House and the US Capitol, spilling out all over the National Mall and even down the street to Union Station.

Welch goes on to quote the head of a DC-based think tank and, of course, Dowd. When he frames the argument that way (using a liberal blogger, a think-tanker, and a liberal op-ed columnist as the only evidence of media bias) he’s able to make a convincing case that the protest had nothing to do with race and everything to do with the mainstream media keeping the facts from the American people. Well done sir!

Of course we can thank Representative Addison Graves Wilson Sr. (oh, sorry, that’s Joe to his constituents) of “You Lie!” fame for at least some of this belated recognition of racism as the root. The Republican Congressman from the great state of South Carolina was a folk hero at the march on Saturday for allegedly speaking truth to power. There were more than a few “Joe for President” signs. But as Dowd put it better than I can:

The congressman, we learned, belonged to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, led a 2000 campaign to keep the Confederate flag waving above South Carolina’s state Capitol and denounced as a “smear” the true claim of a black woman that she was the daughter of Strom Thurmond, the ’48 segregationist candidate for president.

Joe Wilson is a racist. And so are many of the people that have attended rallies and town halls who are incapable of explaining what it is they are opposed to other than “him”. “Socialism” doesn’t count — especially for Medicare recipients and anyone who lives in the West where life exists in most places only because the Federal government built dams to provide cheap water and cheap power. Glenn Beck and Rush Limbauch are racists of convenience: Spouting thinly-veiled racism earns them huge paychecks (Limbaugh = $38 million/year minimum, Beck = $18 million/year).

Case in point: Beck’s recent regurgitation of a video showing young black men in military camo pants and blue t-shirts doing some sort of drill. Watch it all here. Beck first spent a couple of weeks wondering what these young men were up to back in October (during the last month of the campaign natch) and never quite was able to discover (despite plenty of very quick posts to the web explaining what the video was) that it was a high-school drill team practice. If only they’d been dressed in leotards he would have understood! In fact Beck learned very quickly what the video was and he certainly knows now but he still uses it to conjure up the specter of a secret army of black men ready to help the black president get his way — and give us all health care….

And then there’s that Obama as The Joker poster. Is it an affirmative action success story that a black man is playing the Joker? Or is it a not-very-subtle racist reminder of the not-so-distant past? We report, you decide.

Everyone knows there’s deep-seated racism in America and it’s not just among white people. Latinos, Asians, Blacks, Caribbean-Americans, Indians. There’s racism in every group and in every one of us. Sometimes there’s a lot,  sometimes very little. And that’s what Obama tried to be open about in his groundbreaking speech on race during the campaign. His grandma was a little bit racist and so is he. His point was that racism is alive and well and will never go away unless we acknowledge it, talk about it, and keep it uncovered.

Unfortunately some people have taken that to mean wearing racism on one’s sleeve is a good thing.

Sarah Palin

There’s nothing more staggeringly inane than this from Sarah Palin’s July Fourth Facebook message:

Though it’s honorable for countless others to leave their positions for a higher calling and without finishing a term, of course we know by now, for some reason a different standard applies for the decisions I make.

Wow. Palin’s got a chip on her shoulder the size of Alaska. Almost everyone is out to get her, not the least of which is the big bad “main stream” media (as opposed to the “mainstream” media?). Best of all is her completely ahistoric sense of what would be the patriotic, truly bold thing to do. This was the highlight of her rambling news conference from July 3rd:

As I thought about this announcement, that I wouldn’t run for re-election and what that means for Alaska, I thought about, well, how much fun some governors have as lame ducks. They maybe travel around their state, travel to other states, maybe take their overseas international trade missions. So many politicians do that. And then I thought, that’s what wrong. Many just accept that lame duck status and they hit the road, they draw a paycheck, they kind of milk it, and I’m not going to put Alaskans through that. I promised efficiencies and effectiveness. That’s not how I’m wired. I’m not wired to operate under the same old politics as usual. I promised that four years ago and I meant it. That’s not what is best for Alaska at this time. I’m determined to take the right path for Alaska, even though it is unconventional and it’s not so comfortable.

Really? Resigning is so unconventional? Then why are you complaining about how the “main stream” media gives everybody else a free pass when they do it? And what’s all this about lame ducks milking their status for free trips? Politicians don’t need to be lame ducks to spend the taxpayers’ money in frivolous ways.

If Palin really wanted to be unconventional — if she really wanted to shatter the politics as usual — she would stay on for the rest of her term and, unbeholden to the politics of campaigning, take brave stances for the things she believed in. Indeed a Republican President was one of the first to recognize that being a lame duck could hold great promise.

In 1959, Time editors wrote in an editorial:

As the nation’s first President barred by the U.S. Constitution (22nd Amendment) from seeking a third term, Dwight Eisenhower once feared that his lack of a political future might hurt his political present. It seemed all too likely that political opportunists of both parties would declare open season on an Eisenhower deprived of a chance to take his program and his popularity to the polls again. But by last week the President had just about decided that his unique lame-duck position was one of strength, not of weakness.The reason seemed both simple and sensible: foreclosed from a political future, he can hardly be accused of political motivation in advancing his program. “I’m not talking about politics,” he said recently. “I’m talking about the good of the country, and I’ll fight it out on those terms.”

Ike saw the opportunity and seized it. Then again he was finishing up his political career while Sarah Palin is clearly just getting warmed up. And that’s what is so totally disingenuous about Palin’s claims. The only plausible reason she is resigning is that she wants to be in the best position to run for President three years from now.

The advantages are plain: No more being forced to hang around Alaska, far from the Republican Party faithful in places like Iowa and New Hampshire; No more drip drip drip of ethics investigations in Alaska; No more time spent on parochial state politics instead of writing a now de rigeur pre-Presidential-campaign book; No more living on a government salary.

But there’s a big disadvantage someone as smitten with oneself as Palin is cannot see. The more non-ideological conservative Americans see of her the more she risks being the next Barry Goldwater. Palin is a darling of hard-core religious conservatives and their mouthpieces like William Kristol and Rush Limbaugh. She will undoubtedly spend the next 2 years playing to that crowd. As Barack Obama showed, however, it’s the independents that matter and they disliked Palin so much when McCain added her to the ticket that the race was effectively over for the GOP within a week of her selection.

Sarah Palin appears to be like so many other politicians — the more you know, the less you like. Leaving Alaska prematurely could end up as her too-smart-by-half move.

Will Republicans Take the Bait?

Barack Obama may be, above all else, a savvier politician than even Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton. Why? With his nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court Obama has set a defining trap for Republicans: If they take the bait they will dig themselves deeper into the pit of electoral despair that will take a generation to climb out of.

There are two fundamental things to remember about America and voting: Women vote in bigger percentages than men (plus there are more of them to begin with) and Hispanics are well on their way to becoming the dominant “minority” in the U.S.

In last year’s Presidential election women made up 53% of the vote although they represent just shy of 51% of the population (and 51.6% of the voting age population). Women have traditionally voted more Democratic than men and have favored the Dem Presidential candidate in every election since 1988. That’s twenty years and the trend is not good for the GOP. Obama won the biggest share of women since Reagan crushed Walter Mondale in 1984.

In choosing Sotomayor, Obama is acknowledging both the historic gender imbalance on the Supreme Court (110 members, 108 men) and the smart political play of appointing a woman. Remember who appointed the first woman to the Supreme Court — Reagan, who as we just noted, was the last Republican Presidential candidate to get a huge share of the women’s vote.

If Republicans attack Sotomayor for being “intellectually shallow” or a “bully” they will likely trigger the kind of reaction among women that will hardly help their cause. How often do women hear they aren’t as smart as the guys? How often to we hear about the shrill woman who has to get her way? These are dangerous waters for a party that is already decidedly male in the ranks of both its electeds and voters. Even if these arguments don’t get a full workout, count of the Democratic political team to make sure the media believes Republicans are making these kinds of challenges the center of their opposition to Sotomayor.

The other bait in the trap is even more alluring and dangerous for the GOP. In 1988 Hispanics made up just 3% of those voting for President. By 2000 the number had jumped to 7%. Last year it was 9%. Still not a huge number and not yet the second-largest racial voting group after whites (blacks were 13% in 2008) but growing fast. What’s much more critical about the Hispanic vote is where it is growing. In states like California, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, and Texas the Hispanic population is growing so rapidly that it is impossible not to count those states trending Democratic over the next decades if the GOP doesn’t figure out how to win over more Hispanics.

This is not a new issue for Republicans. When then-California Governor Pete Wilson blamed the state’s problems on immigrants (later clarifying he meant illegal immigrants but the damage was done) the party was banished to a generational oblivion in the Golden State. Republicans managed to win the Governor’s office back in this decade but only with a “Bloomberg Republican” named Arnold Schwarzenegger. The rest of the state’s party has been pretty moribund since the Wilson fiasco.

George W. Bush recognized this and campaigned hard in 2000 for the Hispanic vote, pushing his party to see the demographic reality. Bush then stuck his neck out on immigration reform in his second term and got it promptly chopped off by his own party.

Of course that hasn’t stopped some conservatives from denying the obvious but the specter of Republicans hammering Sotomayor on immigration or racial decisions must bring big smiles to the Obama White House. Fox News was off to a fast start highlighting a Sotomayor ruling in the case of white firefighters in New Haven suing for reverse-discrimination just minutes after the President’s Sotomayor news conference ended.

Perhaps the biggest problem for Republicans is that they have so few (any?) credible, prominent women or Latinas to make their case against Sotomayor no matter what ammo they decide to use on her. There are only three female Republican Senators and two voted for Sotomayor when she was elevated to the Appellate Court by Bill Clinton in 1998. Both are also among the last remaining moderates in the shrinking GOP caucus. Don’t expect (Ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee) Jeff Sessions to convince Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins to be the spokeswoman for the “Republicans Against Sotomayor” campaign. As for big-name Republican Latinas, forget it.

Indeed the biggest voice against Sotomayor so far is (surprise surprise!) Rush Limbaugh who said on the radio after the announcement that he hoped she “fails.” That sounds familiar doesn’t it? If Rush is the Republican spokesman on this those White House smiles will get even bigger.

So the trap is baited and set. Will Republicans bite? Obama certainly hopes so.

Is the GOP Dead? (Threedonia.com)

Conservatives like small. Small government. Small states. Small taxes. And apparently a small political party to call their own. How else to explain the rapid desire to purge the fast-shrinking Republican Party of anyone who dares to suggest small is NOT better for a political party?

The latest example comes from Bobby Eberle who runs the website GOPUSA and it concerns George W. Bush’s first Secretary of State, Republican Colin Powell.

In a recent speech, Powell took swipes at Rush Limbaugh, Gov. Sarah Palin, and made his usual claims that the Republican Party has moved too far to the right. Give Powell credit, when he sees an opportunity to be opportunistic, he seizes it. The problem is that he is completely off track and would be much better suited joining Arlen Specter and the Democrats.

Eberle joins Rush Limbaugh and plenty of others from the conservative opinion whirlpool in calling for the ouster of any Republican who advocates tinkering with the party’s message to make it even the tiniest bit more moderate. Limbaugh famously said Arlen Specter should take “McCain and his daughter” with him when he left the GOP and the bright red blogosphere has been filled with angry calls for other Republican moderates like Maine’s Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins to leave the party too. (Here’s one really amazing thread.)

The argument goes like this: Since we’re already in deep doo-doo (having lost the White House, 15 Senate seats, and 51 House seats in four years) we might as well go all in. Purge all the moderate and liberal elements and refocus on a hard-core conservative message — low taxes, little government, religious social values on gays and abortion, no gun restrictions, big military. Get back, as Rush loves to preach, to Reagan. Limbaugh is first among many in arguing that Reagan was the last true conservative in the White House and he got there because he was a true conservative. Those now advocating turning away from Reagan, he says, don’t want to win.

When they look at the past and see landslide Presidential victories and don’t want to do it again that’s not a refutation of Reagan that’s not saying, “screw Reagan” that’s saying, “We don’t want those issues, we don’t want to win with those issues.”

Which is precisely the opposite of the truth. Reagan won in spite of his conservative politics because he did what any effective candidate does: He reframed his views to fit voters’ desires. He was, remember, the Great Communicator. And even if you don’t buy that the notion there’s this little gem of a fact conservatives like Rush are ignoring — it’s not 1980. America has changed. Here’s more of Rush:

I’ve been hearing we can’t win without the black vote — been hearing that all my life…. We can’t win without the women’s vote. and we’ve won without majorities of both. Now there’s a new one — we can’t win without the Hispanic vote.

Republicans have done best with white male voters for decades. It has been the real base of the party. In 1980 88% of those voting were white and 52% were men. In 2008 74% of the electorate was white and 47% was male. And those pesky Hispanics? Just two percent in 1980, 9% last year. But still Rush is not convinced that conservatives need to change. He insists issues like abortion are moving in the right direction.

The demographics have changed? Abortion is moving more and more in the pro-life favor in every public poll that’s taken.

Alas this is also simply not true. In poll after poll the abortion issue has changed very little since Roe v. Wade made it legal. For instance when Gallup asked about abortion in 1975, the results were not much different from when the pollsters asked the same questions in 1980 (when Reagan was elected), 1990 (when Bush was President), 2000 (when Clinton was ending his term), and 2008.

Always Legal           Sometimes Legal         Never Legal

1975                     21                                 54                             22
1980                     25                                 53                             18
1990                     31                                 53                             12
2000                     28                                 51                             19
2008                     28                                 54                             17

Source: Gallup Poll

The fact is Rush and the other conservatives-in-denial refuse to acknowledge what is demonstrably true from what they wish reality was. For the GOP, November’s election was a traumatic event — like a death in the family. There are 5 stages of recovery from such an event and some conservatives have a way to go before they run the list.

The 5 Stages of Grief
1. Denial
2. Guilt
3. Anger
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

On this scale Rush seems to be at about stage 3 (being temperamentally incapable of working through stage 2) while the Republican group out on its listening tour (Romney, McCain, Jeb Bush, etc) actually appear to be at stage 5. When more Republicans accept the reality that the electorate is not what it was in 1980 and that social values issues never have resonance in tough economic times they will be on the path towards reconstruction. That’s why Democrats have been so eager to keep Rush talking. He’s doing their work for them.

Still, sooner or later enough conservatives will get tired of losing. Democrats would be foolish to get complacent.

A New England Congregational Church

Partisan political change tends to move glacially. The South was ruled by Democrats pretty much forever until Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act and Richard Nixon discovered the “Southern Strategy.” Even then it took another 20 years for Republicans to make the South their center.

Likewise New England was rock-ribbed Republican from the Civil War until cracks began to show in the sixties. Only in the last decade has New Hampshire lost much of its GOP sheen and Maine still has two Republican Senators.

The turning point was the same — civil rights — but the signals that change was complete have come at different times and in different ways. From 1980 to 2009 seventeen Congressmen switched from the Democratic to the Republican Party. In those same 29 years just 2 Republicans went the other way. Most of the Democratic defectors were in the South — the Republican switchers were from Pennsylvania and New York. 

In the South 1996 marked the end for Democrats when a popular Southern President (Clinton) lost all the states of the Deep South other than his home (Arkansas) and Louisiana (which until Katrina, was a reliably “interesting” Presidential election state). The South became winnable almost exclusively only by candidates with conservative social — read religious — values. Statewide candidates who believed in abortion rights need not apply.

The end for Republicans in New England may be now as Maine’s Governor signed into law same-sex marriage Wednesday. That means all the states of New England save Rhode Island either allow same-sex marriage or have a bill on the governor’s desk (New Hampshire) to make it the law. In November New England lost it’s last Republican House member (Connecticut’s Chris Shays) and with Arlen Specter’s defection to the Dems notable conservative voices (Rush) called on two of the three Republican Senators from New England to join him (Maine’s Snowe and Collins). Seems like the GOP would prefer to be done with the birthplace of the nation.

It seems kind of funny that traditional New Englanders would be the ones to make same-sex marriage happen in a big way but it also makes a lot of sense. New England states have a long history of independence and a strong libertarian streak. That’s why they used to be Republicans because those used to be Republican values. New Hampshire’s license plates famously read “Live Free or Die”. So while there’s a lot of conservative tradition in those handsome towns with their pretty white-spired Congregational Churches, that tradition is the small ‘c’ conservatism that our country’s founders believed in and brought with them from England.

The irony is that same-sex marriage is nearing a tipping point just as those most opposed to it reach their nadir. Surely same-sex marriage will not be made legal in many states any time soon but in choosing the issue as one to run on (see: Iowa, see: Rudy Giuliani) conservatives are battling a demographic and regional tide. Polls in most New England states have shown a majority of residents support same-sex marriage (when not offered a third choice of civil unions) and national polls (even of self-identified evangelical Christians) show younger voters far more supportive of same-sex marriage than their elders.

Plain and simple — this is a bad issue for Republicans. And just as Barack Obama made a concerted effort to win votes in the South and try to begin reversing the Republican domination there (he won North Carolina and Virginia), Republicans need to figure out how to bring naturally conservative (small ‘c’) New England voters back into the fold. This may be bottom for the GOP in the region but banking on social issues like same-sex marriage to turn things around here could keep them sinking.

For now New England, once solidly red, is not only deep blue, but sort of pink too. Who’d a thunk it?

Pennsylvania

Is there an echo in Pennsylvania? You better you bet.

Republicans and especially hard-core conservatives are foaming at the mouth over the defection of Pennsylvania Republican Senator Arlen Specter, decrying him as another Benedict Arnold. One of the most fevered cries is that Specter put politics ahead of principle. Whether you believe that or not (if the principle Specter is upholding is to win then I guess he’s being principled…) it has brought the battle for the soul of the GOP to the forefront. And the front page of the New York Times.

The question, which to be fair has been central to the Republican conversation at least since Rudy Giuliani first started talking about running for President, is whether Republicans need to become more purely conservative or need to do a Reagan and open up the tent. For the Republicans in charge of the effort to reclaim some of the 15 Senate seats lost in the last two years, the answer is clear:

Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said he would seek to recruit candidates who he thought could win in Democratic or swing states, even if it meant supporting candidates who might disagree with his own conservative views.

Mr. Cornyn said he was taking a page from Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, the last head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, who led his party to big gains by embracing candidates who, for example, opposed abortion rights or gun control.

“If you think about it, Schumer has been very good at this; I complimented him this morning in the gym,” Mr. Cornyn said, adding, “Some conservatives would rather lose than be seen as compromising on what they regard as inviolable principles.”

That is, of course, not how everyone sees it. Here was Rush Limbaugh’s take on Wednesday:

The Republican Party is moving left and that is why it is in trouble, and there is certainly a greater diversity of viewpoint in the Republican Party. For crying out loud, I guarantee you the Democrat (sic) Party would never, ever nominate their equivalent of John McCain. 

I guarantee you The Democrat (sic) Party would never, ever nominate somebody who rips, and has made his name by ripping and criticizing, his own party and his own presidents. That would never happen. Democrats throw those people out of the party or they bury them. We nominated a guy whose claim to fame is criticizing his own president and criticizing his own party, and they say we’re monolithic. The monolith is the Democrat (sic) Party. 

But as usual, Rush either has amnesia, is lying, or is simply entertaining his gullible audience. But he’s missing something crazy obvious. Rush is just like Kos (in one respect anyway). Really! Let me explain.

Democrats were once a pretty ideologically pure party while Republicans (under Nixon and the Reagan) made less of ideology and more of winning.

That changed a bit when Bill Clinton was elected but soon the party was in what seemed to be a downward spiral of alleged liberal thinking and hidebound candidates. After the drubbing in 2004, things changed. Howard Dean took over at the DNC pushing the 50-state strategy and embracing the netroots. And New York Senator Chuck Schumer (the hardest-working man in politics) took over the reigns at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Schumer lined up candidates he thought could win even if that meant pissing off the liberal version of the conservative blogosphere — the netroots.

In Ohio Schumer forced a progressive Iraq war vet out of the Senate race in 2006 to clear the way for a veteran Ohio politician named Sherrod Brown. That’s Senator Brown to you.

In North Carolina Schumer encouraged a progressive gay candidate to step aside (and was slammed by a blog named “down with Tyranny” — ring any bells, conservatives?) so that a woman named Kay Hagen could run against Libby Dole. That’s Senator Hagen to you.

And in Pennsylvania Schumer encouraged Bob Casey Jr. to run despite being anti-abortion rights. Liberals — especially women’s groups were enraged — but Casey won the primary against pro-choice candidates and wiped Republican Senator Rick Santorum from office.

Republicans should linger in Pennsylvania a bit longer because the echo there is even stronger: Casey’s pro-life father was refused a spot at the Democratic National Convention in 1992 when he wanted to speak about abortion. The tent wasn’t big enough for that. At the convention in Denver last year, his son got a prime speaking spot where he spoke about his disagreement with Obama (and much of the party) on abortion.

And the change didn’t only come from Schumer. The netroots actually fought for a few candidates that did not follow the pure Democratic line. Gun-toting Montana Senator Jon Tester was not the choice of the establishment but won his primary in 2006 thanks to support from liberal activists. 

So when “pure” conservatives say Specter’s defection is welcome because it cleanses the party, they ought to consider what the Democrats learned in Pennsylvania about ideology. There’s a reason there are only 40 Republican Senators right now and it’s not because they’re all too liberal.

Who Me?

It’s a recurring theme of Get Real but only because Republicans keep doing things that prove the point. The Pity Party seems absolutely bent on self-destruction by following all the old rules for the old game that they can’t stop playing.

Take John Boehner, leader of the House Republican minority. Sunday George Stephanopoulos had him on to talk about the Republican alternatives to Barack Obama’s proposals including on global warming:

…the idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical. Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in the world, you know, when they do what they do, you’ve got more carbon dioxide.

There he goes again. Boehner, like so many other Republicans wishing Ronald Reagan could be brought back to life (and the White House), still thinks like this is an era when politicians can get away with saying trees cause air pollution. And ketchup is a vegetable.

Actually Boehner’s scientific analysis of cow farts wasn’t the funniest part of his interview. After trying, to no avail, to get Boehner to say anything about a Republican energy plan, Stephanopoulos threw out one last question to wrap up the segment:

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you are committed to coming up with a plan?

BOEHNER: I think you’ll see a plan from us. Just like you’ve seen a plan from us on the stimulus bill and a better plan on the budget.

And we know how much voters liked those plans.

The GOP is living in some kind of wonderland where conservatives believe the same ideas that lost them the last two elections will somehow work now. They voted unanimously against Obama’s budget and stimulus bills (actually 3 GOP Senators voted for the stimulus but have been vilified by their rank-and-file for doing so). They lined up behind Rush Limbaugh’s old-timey ranting like soldiers on review. And those tea parties.

Fox News showed it’s true colors with it’s slavish coverage of the tea parties it helped sponsor last week. But almost everyone else treated it like a joke. Or worse — like a big gathering of your crazy uncle and his friends. These coast-to-coast gatherings were in many cases the wing-nut conservatives’ version of a wing-nut liberal conference on impeaching then-President Bush. Wackos to the left of me, wackos to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle…. 

The problem for Republicans is many of the people who showed don’t represent a majority and seem far more likely to vote for Ron Paul than a mainstream GOP candidate.  Tying the Republican brand to a fringe anti-tax message is probably not the way Madison Avenue would have gone about it but what the heck? Nothing else it working.

Actually that message seems to finally be seeping through the cracks in the Republicans coalition. As Get Real has repeatedly pointed out, Republicans are losing everyone but their aging, male, white, Southern base and hence, any chance at winning elections. The majority of voters now do not remember socialism. Do not have the visceral reaction to the term ‘facism’ (which has been stripped of all meaning lately). Do not buy into the tax-cuts-at-all-costs ideal. Are not impressed with the tried-and-true Republican talking points they have heard their entire lives.

Meagan McCain, John’s daughter, is getting the most play in this, mainly from liberal bloggers who love her in the same way conservatives loved Zell Miller and Joe Lieberman — as apparent apostates. Saturday she spoke at the Log Cabin Republican National Convention (insert joke here about oxymorons) and laid it on pretty thick after mentioning that she had gone after Ann Coulter in column and paid the price:

People in our country have much more important issues to deal with on a daily basis. But the experience did reinforce what I learned on the campaign trail in some major ways.

I’ll summarize them in three points:

1. Most of our nation wants our nation to succeed.
2. Most people are ready to move on to the future, not live in the past.
3. Most of the old school Republicans are scared shitless of that future.

McCain went on:

I feel too many Republicans want to cling to past successes. There are those who think we can win the White House and Congress back by being “more” conservative. Worse, there are those who think we can win by changing nothing at all about what our party has become. They just want to wait for the other side to be perceived as worse than us. I think we’re seeing a war brewing in the Republican party, but it is not between us and Democrats. It is not between us and liberals. It is between the future and the past. I believe most people are ready to move on to that future.

Her most damning line followed shortly thereafter:

Simply embracing technology isn’t going to fix our problem either. Republicans using Twitter and Facebook isn’t going to miraculously make people think we’re cool again. Breaking free from obsolete positions and providing real solutions that don’t divide our nation further will. That’s why some in our party are scared. They sense the world around them is changing and they are unable to take the risk to jump free of what’s keeping our party down.

Republicans ought to be listening to people like Megan McCain. Sure she’s not as popular as Rush or Sean or the certifiable Glenn Beck but that begs the question: Are the people those blowhards are popular with the solution to what ills Republicans or are they the disease?

Youth isn’t the answer to everything and experience counts for a lot. But we’re not talking about kids when we say thata good size majority of American voters don’t much like Republican positions on so many issues. McCain and other (older) Republicans recognize the problem but the party’s Stalinist-style loyalty demands will keep them marginalized until someone new and fresh can begin to draw moderates, suburbanites, and immigrants back into the GOP.

It will happen. But in whose generation?

Gay Marriage Ruling on Tap (Twentieth Century Fox)

It will happen in the next 90 days. A decision that may reignite a culture war that could consume the Obama Administration’s best-laid plans on health care and the economy. Or not.

Thursday California’s Supreme Court heard arguments for and against the proposal that it overturn Proposition 8 — the initiative voters approved in November that overturned the Court’s prior ruling making same-sex marriage legal. Prop 8 passed with the help of a massive infusion of people and cash from the Mormon Church along with Christian and conservative groups after more than 18-thousand gay and lesbian couples had legally married.

While the justices appear likely to allow Prop 8 to stand they appear equally likely to allow those married gay couples to stay married. Whatever the eventual decision it will be seen as fundamentally un-American and unfair by a pretty large chunk of people.

Especially among those who are ambivalent about same-sex marriage the idea that the Supreme Court would overrule the will of the people as expressed by their votes for Prop 8 is likely to be very troubling. Opponents of court rulings (mainly conservatives but liberals at times as well) have gotten a fair amount of traction from demonizing the courts as “imperial” and “undemocratic.”

Likewise — especially with those who are ambivalent about same-sex marriage — the idea that same-sex marriage is now illegal but the 18-thousand couples who tied the knot before November get a free pass is inherently unfair and wrong. Think about it: If gay marriage is so bad that it should be illegal, why then is it okay for a select group who got in under the wire?

At the end of the day what this will provide is fuel for Republicans and conservatives to fan the flames of latent homophobia and use it to distract and challenge Obama. While it’s true Obama said he opposed same-sex marriage AND opposed Prop 8 (cognitive dissonance alert!) nothing reshapes the debate in Washington faster than a culture war.

You can see the salivating anchors on Fox and MSNBC now, fulminating as over-the-top graphics slide by, stoking the food fight between guests chosen for their ability to make good TV, if not necessarily any sense. And of course no one will be challenged on any FACTS. But I digress.

The reason this has so much potential is the economy, stupid. There’s plenty of history of scapegoating minority groups during tough economic times — the whole divide and conquer thing. Fan the flames of some envy and hatred enough and Obama’s highly ambitious and contentious proposals on really important things will be starved for oxygen. Especially if his most ardent supporters are pushing back from the other direction, insisting that Obama take their side if the court rules against them. Either way Obama will be forced to wade into waters he wants to avoid entirely.

Of course there is another scenario — and one that would say a lot about how much politics and culture in America really as changed. If the California court’s ruling blows over with just a minor flurry of chatter it will be because a majority of the voting public no longer buys into the fear and gay rights advocates recognize they have lost a battle in a war they are winning.

Polls have shown a steady progression of tolerance for gays and lesbians over the decades and younger voters in particular are completely nonplussed by the subject. Even a majority of self-described evangelicals under 30 now support same-sex marriage or civil union. Advocates have good reason for believing that civil unions will and same-sex marriage will eventually become commonplace.

But until then we watch and wait for a court in California and the reaction that follows.

 

GET REAL :: Rush Hour from Jay DeDapper on Vimeo.

Rush is Smoking with Conservatives

We’ve said it before and we say it again: Rush Limbaugh is the best thing that has happened to Barack Obama all year.

First came Limbaugh’s filibuster-worthy speech at CPAC (the convention for conservatives) on Saturday during which he “doubled down” (as White House Press secretary Robert Gibbs so eloquently put it) on his earlier statement that he was hoping for Obama to fail. The crowd and the conservative blogosphere could barely contain itself.

Then hours later the battle between Limbaugh and new Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele began — a cat fight that is so incredibly entertaining in a way only Washington can deliver — petty, political, and pathetic. By now you know the story: Steele tells CNN’s comic news host D.L. Hughley Limbaugh an “entertainer” whose popular radio show is sometimes “incendiary” and “ugly” — not as Hughley suggested the “de facto leader of the Republican Party.”

Limbaugh fires back repeatedly on his show Monday: “Michael Steele, you are head of the Republican National Committee. You are not head of the Republican party. Tens of millions of conservatives and Republicans have nothing to do with the Republican National Committee….” You can’t make this up!

By nightfall Steele, tail tucked firmly between his legs, tells Politico’s Mike Allen that he screwed up — or was at least misunderstood:

It was one of those things where I thinking I was saying one thing, and it came out differently. What I was trying to say was a lot of people … want to make Rush the scapegoat, the bogeyman, and he’s not. I’m not going to engage these guys and sit back and provide them the popcorn for a fight between me and Rush Limbaugh. No such thing is going to happen. I wasn’t trying to slam him or anything.

So the actual head of the Republican Party genuflects to the true head of the party. Limbaugh comes out on top. But remember what we said back in January:

Some Obama supporters have worried that the President was foolish in even acknowledging the existence of Radio Rush after the talk-show host said he hoped Obama would fail. They said Obama only gave the Rotund One more attention and therefore more power.

Exactly.

At a time when the Republican Party is in a desperate search for it’s soul — the website GOP USA has a fundraising email out talking about “real Republicans” reclaiming their party — Obama has managed to make Rush Limbaugh the poster boy for the opposition.

That was January 29th. Now we have Obama’s Chief of Staff saying it outright on Face the Nation (Limbaugh is the “intellectual head” of the GOP). And according to Greg Sargent’s excellent inside DC blog:

Top Democratic operatives are planning a stepped up campaign to promote Rush Limbaugh as the public face of the GOP — an effort that will include recruiting Dem governors to make this case on talk shows, getting elected officials to pen Op eds arguing it, and running more ads pushing it.

While Greg notes that James Carville started this in early February, Get Real said it before then and we stand by our original statements: Rush Limbaugh is an idiot because he’s being played by Obama.

On the other hand if you believe that Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer first and a conservative second then he’s no dummy because he’s getting just what he wants too. Attention.

The only people who are really hurt by all this are movement conservatives who have watched their political power fall off a cliff. They appear too smitten of Rush to notice he’s the head lemming who, unlike them, has a golden parachute.