Posted on 04/14/2009 6:21:06 AM PDT by St. Louis Conservative
Having rendered themselves irrelevant on every major issue, Republicans consoled themselves last week with a delusional round robin. First, the Drudge Report, linking to a Pew Poll, featured a headline denying what most of us observe in the real world: President Polarize: Poll Shows Historic Divide Partisan Gap in Obama Job Approval Widest in Modern Era.
Perhaps demonstrating that Drudge, not Limbaugh, is the maestro of the GOP chorus, the point was quickly picked up by Karl Rove on the house network, Fox News. Then the Washington Posts Michael Gerson, one of the few Bush aides to emerge from that administration with a reputation worth having, vigorously banged the same tin drum, arraigning Obama as the most polarizing new President.
The charge is based on what could only be a conscious misreading of the Pew report. Analyzed honestly, the poll suggests that it is Republicans who are polarized, not the country. In their first months in office, according to Pew, both Obama and Ronald Reagan rolled up high, nearly identical approval ratings among votersabout five points higher than George W. Bushs and ten points higher than Bill Clintons. However, contemporary Republicans disdain Obama; their faithful gather in a shrunken and angry corner of the electorate while the partys moderates have defected to become independents who support this President with near-record enthusiasm. What the Pew Poll really shows is that Obama is on his way to redrawing the political demography of America.
In politics, the smaller a party gets, the more small-minded it becomes. With only 24 percent of voters identifying themselves as Republicans, the GOP is being miniaturized. The pettiness plays out on every conceivable stagefrom the do-nothing, denounce-everything Republican minority in Congress, to the do-anything Republican attempt to overturn the Senate election in Minnesota, and the say-anything attacks of right-wing...
(Excerpt) Read more at theweek.com ...
Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals should be required reading for Republican strategists and campaign managers. They would know in advance what the Democrat tactics will be and they will have a leg up on stopping them.
The problem, however, with Alinskyite methods is that they are designed to be effective when the agitators are in the minority and/or are out of power. Obama and the Democrats are firmly in power in all branches of government, thus Alinsky agitation methods don’t work as well. They are designed to usurp conservatives while they are in power, but they have no playbook for when they themselves are in power. Thus, Obama has no clue as to how to govern - he prefers to run a permanent campaign.
No. They have discovered an end run around it.
There is a movement afloat that would require state electors to cast ballots that conform to the National popular vote.
This falls under a compact or agreement within and between states, binding the respective state electors, and could tie us up in knots for decades. - Unless you believe that the courts are going to help us.
There are blue states taking this idea very seriously.
There isn’t much SUBSTANTIVE that the GOP has done wrong since The Messiah’s ascension, IMO. They’ve been pretty unified in opposing him - they just don’t have the votes to stop much without Democrat blue dog help. Stylisticly, they have had some misteps, but it’s the substance that I’m concerned with, and it seems pretty decent so far.
I don’t see it happening.
You've only got to form your sentences and paragraphs with conviction and snarkiness, and -- pow! -- it's like you're a real winner, and Mr. Know-It-All to boot.
I don't know. - a lot of good people never imagined that this country would elect a black Marxist Kenyan namedHussein either, but it did.
Remain vigilant.
Specter, Collins, & Snowe are an issue, but you can’t cast them as somehow representative of mainstream Republican opinion. They are famous liberal Republicans, and as 3 senators, they constitute exactly 1.37% of elected Republicans in Washington.
Unfortunately, their position in the senate gives them outsized influence over policy debates, but they are not at all in any way representative of Republican thought.
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