20
Mar
The Republican Message
Democrats will love reading this WaPo piece:
Republican efforts to craft a policy and political agenda to carry the party into the midterm elections have stumbled repeatedly as GOP leaders face widespread disaffection and disagreement within the ranks.Anxiety over President Bush’s Iraq policy, internal clashes over such divisive issues as immigration, and rising complaints that the party has abandoned conservative principles on spending restraint have all hobbled the effort to devise an election-year message, said several lawmakers involved in the effort.
In 2002-2004, the Democrats appeared to run on platforms of “Anything But Bush.” It looks like the GOP platform in 2006 will be “We’re Not Bush.” Considering the Senate Majority Leader was handpicked by Bush, and Bush has signed EVERY piece of legislation passed by the Republican Congress, this should be an interesting sell.
Good luck with that, guys.
ppGaz
Republicans change the subject
Posted this yesterday, but it got lost in a sea of, uh, protests.
Excerpt:
in the November election. Just last week, House Majority Leader John Boehner and Whip Roy Blunt met with leaders of conservative groups to talk about these issues.
House Republicans, for their part, intend to seek votes on measures such as the Bush-backed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, a bill allowing more public expression of religion, another requiring parental consent for women under 18 to get an abortion, legislation to bar all federal courts except the Supreme Court from ruling on the constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance, a bill to outlaw human cloning, and another that would require doctors to consider fetal pain before performing an abortion.
Two pollsters consulted by Mehlman on the choice strategy said it would be counterproductive for Republican candidates to concentrate on highlighting their differences with Bush or congressional Republicans. Of course this is not exactly disinterested advice. Mehlman and company all want to help the president, who stands to lose most from Republicans’ adopting an “I’m not like Bush” strategy.
srv
I’ve always thought of GW as a sorta Jim Jones type guy. You’re either with him, or you’re against him. Fortunately for us, the party “adults” will be there to force the rest of the crowd to drink their Kool Aid. It’s going to be fun watching the implosion over the next few years.
The Other Steve
BWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA
!!
This is going to be so fun writing letters to the editor this year. :-)
I’ve decided my newspaper needs a DougJ.
jg
Bush is a lame duck, of course they’re distancing themselves from him. The base will follow whoever spouts PPG’s list of talking points above. We will still have a republican majority after november. If they can get Bush elected and re-elected they can win soem state contests too.
Steve
Surely they can find time to squeeze the flag-burning amendment in there somewhere.
Pb
Hey, I’ve got an idea… if the GOP really wants to distance themselves from Bush, maybe they could hold some anti-Bush protests! It’d be great, seeing all of them marching together, talking about how the tax cuts weren’t big enough, or how Social Security never got killed, or how we still have way too many civil rights, or how food stamps weren’t slashed enough, or how Pat Robertson never got nominated for the Supreme Court… and then, afterwards, they can all hang themselves for sedition!
SeesThroughIt
It’s pathetic what lemmings they are. Yes, they’re really focusing on the crucial issues that need to be hammered at now…like those durn hom’sekshuls thinkin’ they’re equal ‘Murricans and all that!
What’s even sadder than these pitiful attempts to thrash up some phony issues is the fact that it works as a strategy. It’s like they’re in a competition to see who can best prove H.L. Mencken’s dictum about the intelligence of the American people.
ImJohnGalt
Anyone else see “V For Vendetta” this weekend? Two thumbs up from the wife and me.
The Other Steve
Actually… when you think about it.
Isn’t this agenda they are proposing essentially…
“We aren’t Democrats”?
There’s no positive message in there. It’s all wedge issues. Shit that isn’t important in the day to day lives of people.
I’d have to say that this is evidence that the Republican economic and foreign policy message has been entirely discredited. They’re running away from it, and latching onto this shit.
srv
Everybody register as a Republican this year and just vote for the craziest ones you can find. In 2008, vote for Tancredo in the primaries. It’s really amazing, I haven’t heard so much hate radio “immigration” ranting since well, Rush in 1993. Here we are 13 years later…
You think they’d get disillusioned after so much failure, but they’re always up for failing harder.
jg
“We aren’t Democrats”?
Yup. And the base will love it since they keep the base in line by saying if you oppose us you’re a dishonest leftist liberal. They’ll do anything to keep from being called that.
Paddy O'Shea
Out here in sunny California the Republican message for hope and prosperity is pretty much a twofold approach:
1) Ship the Mexicans back to Mexico, but only after they clean your house, mow your lawn, and give your children the kind of attention you’re too busy going to lawn sales and golf dinners to do yourself.
2) Jesus loves you and hates homosexuals and Hillary Clinton.
Lovely bunch of bigots they are.
Jay C
It shouldn’t be much of a surprise to anyone that Republican PTB are looking to interject a raft of social-agenda wedge issues into the Congressional campaigns (obessed, as usual with sex and religion): they don’t have a lot else to run on.
The economy is, at best (or worst) pretty flat for most people; no booms OR recessions, so it’s (imo) a wash as an issue: the war in Iraq is increasingly unpopular; the Washington GOP has been shown up as the gang of sleazy grafters they are: their beloved tough-guy President Codpiece is reverting back to his national-joke status; and their supposed advantage on “national security” issues could very easily slip away. if (a big if) the Democrats can successfully decouple the concept of “strong on security” from “reflexive and uncritical support for Bush and his policies”.
About all that’s left as a national strategy for them is to try to “out-Jesus” the Dems by pushing the Piety/Prejudice buttons for all they’re worth, and hope the “base” gets riled up (or panicked) enough to flood the polls.
Steve
“Liberals are unacceptable” has always been the Republican battle-cry. It’s just that after winning elections they spend so much time trying to convince everyone that it was a victory of ideas, you know, the ideas that they never actually get around to implementing like smaller government.
SeesThroughIt
Yeah, that ties in with the “Republicans are excellent at winning elections and terrible at governing” thing. It’s kind of sad/funny to see them crow about how they win because they have better ideas, but I guess it’s the sort of smugness that comes with winning an election, you know?
KC
Hey John, don’t worry. Nobody can spoil opportunity like Congressional Dems.
Halffasthero
Hey John, don’t worry. Nobody can spoil opportunity like Congressional Dems.
That is too true to be funny. I swear to God, I have no idea what they are thinking at any one given time.
“Act like a doormat and people will walk on you.”
Someone needs to beat sense into them and remind them what an opposition party is supposed to be. I cannot believe how pathetic the Democrats have become. Every stinking one of them. Feingold – whether you agree with him or not – actually stands up for his principles. And what does his party do? Crawl into a hole and mumble something about not going through proper channels and being blind sided. I especially liked the part where Nancy Pelosi said that this all needs to be investigated first. As if the Republicans would ever allow that to happen. The only reason these guys aren’t embarassed by their spineless conduct is because they don’t see outside of D.C. which is just as well. The shredding they would be subjected to would tear them to within an inch of their political life.
drindl
You can hammer Dems all you want, but it wasn’t them who got us into a financial hole we’ll never crawl out of, nor is it Dems who are selling off the whole fucking country to oil shieks [btw, did you hear we are now selling them US military installations?], nor is it Dems who are trying to make birth control illegal and unobtainable, nor is it Dems who want to take away the religious freedom of anyone who isn’t a fundamentalist Christian, nor is it Dems who want to spy on and legislate what people do in their own bedrooms.
I have a lot of ‘issues’ with the Dems, god knows they’re frustrating, but they are the only thing standing between us and no fucking future whatsoever. So I’m trying to work with them.
Pooh
Go. See. This Movie.
The HS kids were talking about “what it was about” afterwords. Warmed the cockles of my heart, I tell you.
I’m almost ready to forgive the Wachowskis for Matrix Revolutions…
Eural
Can’t wait to see “V” – I did a heavy sell to my senior HS class and not only did it get very strong reviews but from some of the most conservative pro-Bush/Republicans in the class which really surprised me. We may have ourselves a real winner. But here’s an odd point someone brought up – where’s the marketing tie-in to sell the Guy Fawkes masks all over Wal-mart? Oddly missing, don’t you think?
Pb
Pooh,
Yeah, I’ve been meaning to go see it sometime… maybe this weekend or something.
Now that is high praise!
Pb
Eural,
LMAO!
But remember, it takes them like 2 weeks just to ship them all from China… :)
ImJohnGalt
I was this close to making some joke about the RealDoll version of Evey, but I guess I’d better not. Someone might think me serious (unless it’s Natalie Portman, who’s reading this, in which case come on over).
ImJohnGalt
One of the few criticisms I had of the movie is that I don’t think they adequately illustrated how insidious and slow the evolution of the totalitarian state was. That said, I did find my heart pounding during some of the non-action scenes. I especially liked Valerie’s story during the jail cell scene. Don’t think there were any spoilers there.
demimondian
You mistyped the url. You must be looking for Slashdolt
Ivan Carter
This was a pretty good post. However,it will not be a very tough sell (and in fact, is a pretty smart strategy). Heck, al Gore wanted to distance himself from Bill Clinton(mistakenly) when Clinton’s poll numbers were over 60%. President Bush’s are “uh, not quite” that high.
When one party is good at not only spinning, but convincing voters that (1) it is not spinning, and (2) the other party is, most things are pretty easy to sell. Witness the 2004 presidential election. Enough said.
John S.
It was very well done, and altogether disturbing. I’m not sure how many people who saw the movie ‘got it’ (particularly the ones in the theater who cheered when Parliament blew up), but hopefully it will fire some synapses in the brain dead masses that have been lumbering around the political landscape for the past few years.
Best line from movie: People shouldn’t fear their government, government should fear their people.