Watching the GOP go Down in Flames

I had a hunch while watching John McCain's concession speech on election night that the near future of the GOP would be grim. McCain's graceful pleas that we get over our partisan divide and work together were met, from his own crowd, with boos.

The hard right's behavior over the subsequent 6 months have been akin to watching angry monkeys fling their own excrement all over their cage. Rush Limbaugh has taken center stage, and GOP politicians and leaders have bowed to kiss his ring. The right-wing blogosphere has gone berzerk, telling every moderate from Arlen Specter to Ross Douthat to David Frum to hit the road, because the party needs purity and the fewer impure members the better.

This is unfortunate because the Obama administration and the Dem congress have, predictably, already acted like big government liberals instead of common sense centrists. The out of control spending and debt is, for me, intolerable. The identity politics of the Sotomayor pick are regretable, though unlike the rabid right I'm willing to accept that a President has the right to pick who he or she sees fit and Ms. Sotomayor is qualified.

This overreach by the Dems could be met in '10 or '12 with a consistent, and in my mind conservative message: one that promotes, above all, competence. I think a campaign centered around competence needs to be the central message of the new GOP. After eight years of Bush and 6 years of an incompetent congressional majority, the GOP has little credibility on competence. But then it doesn't have any credibility on anything else, either.

I think Americans right now are looking for pragmatic, competent leadership. Unfortunately, the rabid right is practically anti-competence along with being anti-everything else. I am for limiting government, however given the economic uncertainty (which includes health care) what the GOP needs to do now is explain that it has learned its lesson and that, if given another chance, it will competently and smartly reduce the uncertainty of the current economic turmoil. Save the anti-government, uber-capitalist (and, in the end, politically infeasible) rhetoric for better times. Instead, some ideas include:

1. Push private-public partnerships that can ease the uncertainty in a fiscally responsible manner.
2. Push for the elimination of programs that operate incompetently (such as farm subsidies, if they can ever wean themselves off the farm lobby) to help reduce the debt.
3. Advocate for scientific research we do approve of, and ignore the controversy over stem cell research.
4. Advocate for a new tax code that people can actually understand, that is economically efficient, morally fair, and that provides incentives for innovation and job creation. Drop the anti-tax rhetoric.

Finally please, please drop the culture war. This, I realize, is highly unlikely, but stop talking about abortion. Start talking up adoption and comprehensive (competent) sex education such as they have in Europe, where STD and abortion rates are far lower than ours. Drop opposition to gay marriage, let it happen organically because it's the right thing to do and because it's going to happen anyway.

A socially tolerant, fiscally conservative and above all COMPETENT style of governmental leadership, I think, would win elections big time and do it for a long time. The ideal candidate? The Republican that Republicans don't seem to want anymore: Colin Powell.

Typical of a Hack

Republican hacks like to point out that Sarah Palin is the most popular Governor in the United States. They also like to call Obama a socialist for his tax policies.

Here's the thing: Sarah Palin fought for an increase in Alaska's tax on profits of oil companies that do business in Alaska, and she sent $1,200 checks with the resulting revenues to Alaskans to help pay their rising fuel bills.

So, in summary, the Governor of Alaska increased taxes on privately-generated wealth and sent the proceeds to the citizens of the state, to help pay bills that were higher because that taxed industry was doing so well.

That's socialism.

Now, it ought to be fairly obvious that if the citizens of a state get an additional check in the mail for $1,200 and the Governor takes credit for it, that Governor's popularity is going to rise. Handing out checks makes a person popular. I'm sure Ms. Palin is popular for other reasons, but I've got to believe those checks are a big part of it.

Try asking a right wing hack about that.

I have tried asking Owen Robinson three times what he'd think if Governor Doyle raised taxes on our primary industry and wrote us checks from the resulting revenues. He has not had the nerve to respond.

Tonight I tried asking Brian Fraley. His response was, well, Bill Ayers.

That's what hacks do. If facts are problematic and cannot be answered to easily, then those questions are either ignored or a diversion is attempted.

It works on the other side too.

So again I ask, how do people live with the hypocrisy and cowardice necessary for hard-core partisanship?

Throw Bachmann Out

It sounds as if Michelle Bachmann is on the ropes, and I sincerely hope she gets knocked out of office on election day.

The things she said on Hardball were bad enough - accusing Sen. Obama of being anti-American, and then demanding the press investigate members of Congress for anti-American sentiment.

Yet another in a long line of the "if you don't agree with me, you hate America" type of idiot conservative who adopted the victimology of the "if you don't agree with me, you hate blacks/women/the poor" liberals.

But no, after saying those things on Hardball she has the audacity, nay cowardice, to claim that it was all Chris Matthews' fault. He laid a trap, led me into it, I am a victim.

Any serious person who watches that interview sees pretty clearly that if anything, Matthews opened the door by asking Ms. Bachmann to clarify her beliefs, and Ms. Bachmann barged right through. There was no trap, no confusing language in Matthews' question. He asked directly what she thought of Mr. Obama and she answered as she obviously believes.

Cowards and idiots like her do not deserve to be in elected office, whether it's the city council or the U.S. Congress. And to show I'm bipartisan in my disdain for morons, the same goes for the Democrat Congressman in Florida who only won office because of Foley's sexual problems but who went on to cheat on his wife several dozen times.

I seriously hope that party loyalty cannot overcome common sense in both cases.

Why I am Voting for Obama

There are several reasons I will be casting my vote for Barrack Obama over John McCain in two weeks. Many echo the reasons of other independents and moderate conservatives:

1. The Palin pick. No reasonable argument can be made for why she is qualified to be Vice President of the United States.

2. McCain's campaign. I donated the max to McCain in 2000 because of the campaign he ran, and am now voting against him because of the campaign he has run. In 2000 he was honorable, moderate, coherent, and exuded competence. This campaign has been about anger, and not a lot else. He has pandered to the basest of the base, and as such the "Bombs and Jesus" crowd, as described by Hunter Thompson, runs the Republican party. Look at the ads. Watch the coverage of the rallies. Listen to Ms. Palin's rhetoric. Listen to the surrogates (including Congresswoman/Space Cadet Michelle Bachmann).

Only a few years ago it seemed the loony left might hijack the Democrat party. It still may, but it's become obvious that moderates and independents, like me, are trending that way. This is leaving only angry, nativist, anti-intellectual, Christianist whackjobs left in the GOP. I will not be associated with them.

3. Colin Powell. The man should have run for President in '96 and '00. He is, in my opinion, a caricature of what a President should be.

4. One Party Rule. This takes some explaining. The GOP had one party rule for most of 6 years. It was an epic disaster that may, hopefully, destroy the party (see #2). The Democrats are now poised to fall into the same trap. Rather than one party rule being a point for McCain, I see the 75% chance that Democrats will reach too far and implode as a positive.

Political parties are, like unions, dinosaurs that are gradually lurching towards irrelevancy. Obama will either be a centrist and very capable President, which would be good; or he will be a left-wing disaster who will lead his party to self destruction same as Bush.

I for one favor giving the other dinosaur the same rope with which the first dinosaur hung itself.

5. GOP Hack Reaction. Obama and a Dem Congress could tax us into 3rd world status and it would be worth watching the Fraleys, Robinsons, and Freiburgers of the world gnash their teeth for months and years after November 4. For all their complaining about the left's behavior towards Bush (and I agree the left was pathetic all 8 years), the idea that they will take the high road and act like the respectable, loyal opposition they demanded is laughable at best.

6. The prospect of electing an African American President. I will admit what few else will: I never thought I'd see a black President in my lifetime. I think it will be cool to finally have someone other than a white guy. Why not? I like new, exciting, and shiny things like anyone else. With all the other positives of an Obama victory, it's worth it.

Powell Makes the Case

Says it better than I can, as usual:

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/10/powell-endorses.html

Couldn't Have Said it Better About McCain...

Than this op-ed in today's Washington Post:

"But imagine if McCain had selected for his running mate not a partisan attack dog but someone with deep knowledge of the economy and a record of reaching across the aisle.
Imagine if McCain himself had decided to respond to this crisis as an American first, a candidate second. "Yes," he might have said, "Democrats contributed to our problems with their lobbyist-fueled defense of Fannie and Freddie. But let's not pretend that Alan Greenspan, Phil Gramm, George W. Bush -- and John McCain -- weren't part of this, too. Warren Buffett saw this coming, but not many of the rest of us did. Let's postpone the recriminations and work together to fix this thing."

He'd probably have my vote, for one thing.

The more I ponder it, the more I think I am opposed to McCain because I think GOP campaigns should strive for a higher standard than what we've been subject to since, oh, 2000.

Listened to Limbaugh Today

Because nothing else was on, trust me.

Anyway at one point, he complained about a cable news talking head who partially blamed people for living above their means for the recent economic collapse. Rush took umbrage that a member of the liberal drive-by media had the audacity to blame anyone but Democrats.

But, during her debate with Joe Biden, Sarah Palin said,

"We need to make sure that we demand from the federal government strict oversight of those entities in charge of our investments and our savings and we need also to not get ourselves in debt. Let's do what our parents told us before we probably even got that first credit card. Don't live outside of our means. We need to make sure that as individuals we're taking personal responsibility through all of this. It's not the American peoples fault that the economy is hurting like it is, but we have an opportunity to learn a heck of a lot of good lessons through this and say never again will we be taken advantage of."

This plea for personal responsibility - one of the few intelligent things I've heard Palin say - got high ratings from conservatives on the dials.

Funny.