Sen. Al Franken (D-Minnesota)

It was practically his first day as a Senator (he got a late start courtesy of the razor-thin margin of victory last fall and the ensuing lawsuits) but Al Franken jumped in feet first. While every Senator from both parties is working off a party-written playbook and is assigned questions and subjects to push the greater cause, Franken managed the task with interest and aplomb and — no surprise — good humor. On a panel stuffed with stuffy old white men, Franken stood out as a sort of normal person. He didn’t take himself too seriously and gave us a pretty good idea of who Sonia Sotomayor is without having to resort to the pathetic softball questions of his Democratic colleagues. Methinks Franken is going to be a pretty good addition to the august body.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Crazyville Oklahoma)

Senator Coburn is a doctor from Oklahoma who did more to help the Democrats in these hearings than even Texan Jon Cornyn (who stepped out of central casting for the role of the Senator who just stepped off the course at his whites-only country club) or Alabaman Jefferson Beauregard Sessions (no further comment needed). Those guys are caricatures of the modern Republican Party — old, Southern, white, conservative — while Coburn is more in the Glenn Beck mode. Coburn parried with Sotomayor about abortion and guns in a way that was pure culture war. But it was his “you got some ‘splainin’ to do” joke that was the icing on the cake. Whether it was offensive or not was almost besides the point. It made Coburn and the Republicans look like they were making fun of Latinos. For a party that has essentially lost all support within the fastest-growing demographic in the US it was yet another reminder of how very very far it has to climb.

Sen. Arlen Specter (R D-Pennsylvania)

Senator Specter loooooves Supreme Court nominee hearings. Especially the part where he gets to hear himself talk and ask seemingly probing, important questions. Specter also loves to be the odd man out. The Republican who might vote with the Democrats. The Democrat who might vote with the Republicans. It’s all so very endearing but it’s not hard to figure what his game is this time around as he faces a tough fall election. Make that two fall elections. Since switching parties this spring Specter has gone from facing an almost certain loss in a Republican primary to a tough-but-winnable Democratic primary against two-term Congressman Joe Sestak and a potentially nasty general election against far-right former Congressman Pat Toomey. Specter can’t win without Democrats and independents. With the support of President Obama and Veep Biden plus a ton of cash the Democratic side of things probably won’t be too hard. But getting independents in PA means Specter has to show his, well, independence and that’s what his tough prosecutor act was all about.

Sonia Sotomayor

Roberts and Alito played their parts to a tee during their confirmation hearings, answering almost nothing while appearing to be genuine, reflective, and intellectually open. On that score (the only one that matters in these things nowadays) Sotomayor was their equal. Or maybe their better. Her elucidation of fundamental Constitutional law was really quite brilliant in its simplicity. She dodged and ducked without looking like she was dodging and ducking and she appeared the embodiment of cool. Like Obama in the campaign, nothing ruffled her and she was in control the entire time. Should she serve a long time on the court it seems likely that she will become a driving force — the liberal version of the late Chief Justice Rehnquist. We would say Antonin Scalia but Sotomayor seems too smart and modest to allow herself to become an ineffectual partisan flamethrower.

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.

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.