Okay, Dems, What Went Wrong? And How Can We Fix It?

McGentrix wrote:

Why are they in Toronto? No American cities they could spend money at?

and yet so many republicans cheeeeered as ex-pat iraqis wandered around parts of the usa wagging a blue stained index finger.

go figure...

based on the posts I've read here on a2k about canada, I'm a bit surprised canada has a phone system.

DontTreadOnMe wrote:

McGentrix wrote:

Why are they in Toronto? No American cities they could spend money at?

and yet so many republicans cheeeeered as ex-pat iraqis wandered around parts of the usa wagging a blue stained index finger.

go figure...

Wow. You really stretched for that one. You might want to go see a chiropracter.

Thomas wrote:

... But I guessed wrongly in the past.

Noticed that, have ya? :wink: :wink:

Well, let us not get carried away. For all we know, each Thomasian word is typed from beneath a shiny spiked helmet.

blatham wrote:

Well, let us not get carried away. For all we know, each Thomasian word is typed from beneath a shiny spiked helmet.

Actually, the helmet is too bothersome when I go about my regular business of torturing unsuspecting New Yorkers.


(Inside joke. For background, see here)

I favor stem cell research, but I have been on record defending the compromise met by Bush several years ago, believing that compromise was possible. I was wrong. We were warned about the growing power of the theocrats, and we ignored those warning us. Hell- I derided them and chided them- at every opportunity. The day of reckoning is here, and it is going to be of Bibilical proportions. And I only hope that many of the Republicans in Congress, who like me were playing with fire and brimstone, begin to recognize it.

Filed under Domestic Affairs by John Cole at 11:26 AM
| Comments: 7 | TrackBack (3)

This certainly has been a fun week, as I am currently, to borrow a phrase, suspended somewhere between meltdown and release, having quickly passed from buyer's remorse and buyer's clinically-diagnosable buyer's depression and run smack dab into ownership disgust. I guess my recognition that my party's wingnuts are an honest-to-goodness threat just as real as the A.N.S.W.E.R. crowd is threatening to those who wish to continue the myth and makes me an enemy, which is pretty damned stupid.

Just for a little background, I am 34 years old. In 1983, during the Reagan Revolution, I joined the Brooke County Young Republicans, and pretty faithfully attended Republican party meetings in Brooke County, WV. The meetings consisted of me, Al Ossman, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Bethany College, and William Young, who is now deceased and a former Professor of History at Bethany College and a disabled WWII veteran, and about ten other men in their 50's and 60's. And that was the extent of the Brooke County Republicans.

I attended summer camp with Teen-Age Republicans for several years at a state 4H camp (my friends called them "Hitler Youth Camps"), and I registered Republican the moment I turned 18. In the 1988 election, I voted for Bush/Quayle. In 1992, I voted for Bush/Quayle. In 1996, I voted for Dole/Kemp. In 2000, I voted for Bush/Cheney. In 2004, I voted for Bush/Cheney. In every state election, I voted for the Republican candidate for governor, with the exception of last year when the Republican was too crooked and stupid for even the current Republican party, and I voted for the Democrat, now Governor Manchin.

I campaigned for the opposition to Byrd twice, including spending days going door-to-door, manning phones, stuffing envelopes- anyone else remember John Raese- I walked all over Brooke, Ohio, and Marshall County for that failed endeavor. I campaigned against Rockefeller. I voted for the Republican candidates against Alan Mollahan my entire voting life. When Republicans were not on the ballot, I voted for the Libertarian. When neither was available, I didn't vote for that office. Only at the local level did I vote for the individual, and then I tended to prefer the Republican when they were not flat out insane.

For those keeping count, in my lifetime, that is a 5/5 vote for Republicans in Presidential elections (including 4 votes for people named Bush), 4/5 for Republicans in Gubernatorial elections, a perfect record of voting for Republican House and Senate candidates, and mixed but decidedly Republican votes at municipal/local level.

In short, I am the Republican Party- except I still believe many of the same things I always have- limited government, lower taxes, fiscal responsibility, strong national defense (I still have my Reagan era "Peace Through Strength" button), free trade, free markets, individual responsibility, the right to bear arms, states right's (as something other than an excuse for racism), free speech, judicial restraint, individual liberty, and a general aversion to quick and unwarranted change. I think Reagan was one of the greatest human beings who ever lived, William F. Buckley is a legend, and Margaret Thatcher is the most important woman of the 20th century. I still believe in all of those things. My party, apparently, no longer does.

Enough with the credentials- if you have read me for a while, you should know where I stand. But most of all, if you ask any of the lefties, I have been a fierce partisan for the Republican cause. So, when my party gets co-opted by the God squad (which, as I have stated previously, is partly the fault of enablers like me), I find it pretty damned disturbing.

OP-ED COLUMNIST
Masters of Sleaze
By DAVID BROOKS

Published: March 22, 2005

Down in the depths of the netherworld, where Tammany Hall grafters and Chicago ward heelers gather amid spittoons and brass railings, a reverential silence now spreads across the communion. The sleazemasters of old look back into the land of the mortals and they see greatness in the form of Jack Abramoff.

Only a genius like Abramoff could make money lobbying against an Indian tribe's casino and then turn around and make money defending that tribe against himself. Only a giant like Abramoff would have the guts to use one tribe's casino money to finance a Focus on the Family crusade against gambling in order to shut down a rival tribe's casino.

Only an artist like Abramoff could suggest to a tribe that it pay him by taking out life insurance policies on its eldest members. Then when the elders dropped off they could funnel the insurance money through a private school and into his pockets.

This is sleaze of a high order. And yet according to reports in The Washington Post and elsewhere, Abramoff accomplished it all.

Yet it's important to remember this: A genius like Abramoff doesn't spring fully formed on his own. Just as Michelangelo emerged in the ferment of Renaissance Italy, so did Abramoff emerge from his own circle of creativity and encouragement.

Back in 1995, when Republicans took over Congress, a new cadre of daring and original thinkers arose. These bold innovators had a key insight: that you no longer had to choose between being an activist and a lobbyist. You could be both. You could harness the power of K Street to promote the goals of Goldwater, Reagan and Gingrich. And best of all, you could get rich while doing it!

Before long, ringleader Grover Norquist and his buddies were signing lobbying deals with the Seychelles and the Northern Mariana Islands and talking up their interests at weekly conservative strategy sessions - what could be more vital to the future of freedom than the commercial interests of these two fine locales?

Before long, folks like Norquist and Abramoff were talking up the virtues of international sons of liberty like Angola's Jonas Savimbi and Congo's dictator Mobutu Sese Seko - all while receiving compensation from these upstanding gentlemen, according to The Legal Times. Only a reactionary could have been so discomfited by Savimbi's little cannibalism problem as to think this was not a daring contribution to the cause of Reaganism.

Soon the creative revolutionaries were blending the high-toned forms of the think tank with the low-toned scams of the buckraker. Ed Buckham, Tom DeLay's former chief of staff, helped run the U.S. Family Network, which supported the American family by accepting large donations and leasing skyboxes at the MCI Center, according to Roll Call. Michael Scanlon, DeLay's former spokesman, organized a think tank called the American International Center, located in a house in Rehoboth Beach, Del., which was occupied, according to Andrew Ferguson's devastating compendium in The Weekly Standard, by a former "lifeguard of the year" and a former yoga instructor.

Ralph Reed, meanwhile, smashed the tired old categories that used to separate social conservatives from corporate consultants. Reed signed on with Channel One, Verizon, Enron and Microsoft to shore up the moral foundations of our great nation. Reed so strongly opposes gambling as a matter of principle that he bravely accepted $4 million through Abramoff from casino-rich Indian tribes to gin up a grass-roots campaign.

As time went by, the spectacular devolution of morals accelerated. Many of the young innovators were behaving like people who, having read Barry Goldwater's "Conscience of a Conservative," embraced the conservative part while discarding the conscience part.

Abramoff's and Scanlon's Indian-gaming scandal will go down as the movement's crowning achievement, more shameless than anything the others would do, but still the culmination of the trends building since 1995. It perfectly embodied their creed and philosophy: "I'd love us to get our mitts on that moolah!!" as Abramoff wrote to Reed.

They made at least $66 million.

This is a major accomplishment. And remember: Abramoff didn't do it on his own.

It took a village. The sleazo-cons thought they could take over K Street to advance their agenda. As it transpired, K Street took over them

...I think members of both parties would do well to work to put a cap on the fanatic fringe of the Republican Party.

We were warned about the growing power of the theocrats, and we ignored those warning us. Hell- I derided them and chided them- at every opportunity. ... So, when THE party gets co-opted by the God squad (which, as I have stated previously, is partly the fault of enablers like me), I find it pretty damned disturbing.

What should the Democrats do?

Lola wrote:

...I think members of both parties would do well to work to put a cap on the fanatic fringe of the Republican Party.

But Lola, they are much more engaging and entertaining than the harpies, wild men, superannuated boozers, and single-issue loonies of the Democrat party. With Barbara Boxer, Teddy Kennedy, Robert Byrd, and the lunatic chorus behing the new Democrat Party Chairman to entertain us there is no time or energy left for the inconsequential "fanatics" you fear so much.

Perhaps it is all just a conspiracy to create a backdrop of crazies against which Hillary can contrast herself as a moderate. We can see her now, morphing into a sweet little church-going lady from Illinois.

(PS: Your effort to work from conservative sources is duely noted and appreciated.)

And you say you're not a one-trick pony, george. How many times do I need to point out your only trick for you to acknowledge it?

Democrats need to stop assuming they'll win simply by producing a better product. It won't happen. Especially when the opposition is using sales techniques so skillfully.