GOP Hands Are Wrung Over Party Prospects

(CBS)  With Republicans losing a third special Congressional election this week in a historically Republican district, party figures have been struggling to rebrand the GOP, refocus their outreach to voters, and stem a nationwide tide of discontent over politics-as-usual.

However, there are concerns among some Republicans about Washington-political-strategies-as-usual, such as tying local races to the Democratic presidential contenders (like the Republican attack ad tying Barack Obama to Mississippi House candidate Travis Childers).

The ad didn't help. Childers beat his GOP opponent by 8 percentage points.

When asked by Face The Nation host Bob Schieffer what was wrong with the ad, Republican strategist Ed Rollins said, "Everything.

"First of all, Obama is not running down there. Obama is John McCain's problem. And I think to a certain extent, that's going to be a tough enough campaign as-is. [But] people in Mississippi - or in Louisiana or in Illinois, the three seats we lost - want to know, 'What are you going to do about gas increases? What are you going to do that's going to relate to my life and basically help me, help my kids?'"

Which means, while Democrats have a potent lightning rod for nationalizing races by running against George W. Bush's record, Republicans running alongside the President risk looking defensive.

"We need to, as a party, go back to our roots, if you will," said Gov. Charles Crist, R-Fla., "make sure we understand we're the party of Abraham Lincoln, the party of Teddy Roosevelt, the party of Ronald Reagan, who had that wonderful optimism that people looked toward and were excited about and understood that there was greater hope, greater opportunity for the future."

Rollins also said it was a mistake for President Bush to inject himself into the presidential race with his inflammatory comments during a speech before the Israeli Knessit (in which he compared Obama's stated intention to talk to anti-democratic world leaders with Nazi appeasers in the 1930s) because it suggests that John McCain is running for Mr. Bush's third term. "If it's the Bush third term, John McCain can't win," he said.

"This president has to realize that he is no longer on the ballot," Rollins added.

Also appearing on the show, Mario Cuomo, the former Democratic governor of New York, believed the Democrats - regardless of how their contentious primary battle shakes out - have an enormous advantage come November, in a nation where 82 percent believed our country is moving in the wrong direction.

"How do we make the most of the Republican problems, all of which are Democratic opportunities?" Cuomo said.

"America wants and needs everything that we have got from 1993 to 2000," Cuomo said. "You got 22 million new jobs. You got a balanced budget. You got a potential surplus of $5.4 trillion. You got an ascending middle class. You got a shrinking poor population - all in those years. You got peace. And that's what the United States wants again."

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Read the full "Face the Nation" transcript here.

[antoniof123]

the party of Abraham Lincoln, the party of Teddy Roosevelt, the party of Ronald Reagan.

Let me see Lincoln was a Liberatarian, so was Roosevelt and his nephew left to become a Democrat because of the actions of the Republican party. Now that said Reagan was a moderate and we are seeing the true light of his actions.

Sorry neo cons but you had your chance so now it is the other sides turn.

[javalation]

I''ve seen the expression for our current economic system called "authoritative free enterprise", which is similar to your YOYO except for those with friends in high places.

McCain is firing, for now, his lobbyist advisers as if he just found out. The truth is he''s known all along and is just trying to give an impression, as he did with switching his religious affiliation at age 71. He must have hired a consultant who has painted a picture for his to fit into if he wants to get elected. And, as Bush demonstrated, after the election he can go back to being himself and behave any way he wants. Then, it''s too late for anyone to do anything about his misrepresentations.

[taotxzen]

It''s Our Turn Now

Posted May 18, 2008 | 09:09 PM (EST)

Candidate John McCain gave a truly innovative speech last week that suffered from one fatal flaw. The innovation: cast your speech as a fantasy, looking back from the end of your first term so you can tout all your great accomplishments without the distraction of pesky fact-checkers. The fatal flaw: recent history has shown that his policy agenda is antithetical to his goals. His vision of the future is divorced from his roadmap to get there.

To the contrary, anyone interested in a future that looks quite different from the present, and most Americans are leaning in precisely that direction, needs to remember but one mantra. It''s one of the most important arguments progressives can make between now and November, and it''s simple, compelling, and unarguably true: we''ve tried it their way, and it hasn''t worked.

Whether it''s the economy, the environment, foreign policy, fiscal policy, government competency, judicial fairness... you name it... we''ve tried it their way, and it hasn''t worked.

For this post, let''s focus on the economy. We''re aided by the fact that we are likely at the end of the economic expansion that began in late 2001, so we can now compare the results from this cycle to previous ones. We''re additionally aided by the fact that the work has already been completed by my EPI colleagues Josh Bivens and John Irons. They''ve done the math, comparing growth rates of all the key variables over this and past cycles.

(CONT)

[taotxzen]

(CONT)

We''ll get to those results in a minute, but consider them in this light: they are the outcome of a natural experiment, one wherein we turned every branch of Federal government, including the judiciary, over to conservatives with a unified vision of the economy. I describe the vision as YOYO (you''re on your own) economics, though you''re free to amend it to "you''re on your own unless you''ve got friends in high places... in that case, you can plunder the treasure." For the rest, it''s "here''s a tax cut, a private program, some deregulation, and a nudge into the market place to sink or swim."

Note, for example, that McCain''s speech revives privatizing Social Security ("personal retirement accounts) as a policy goal. He reforms health care though the injection of more "market forces," as we''re all incentivized to go out and shop for health care in the open market, a plan that has the potential to be both expensive and ineffective. And as I pointed out last week in this space, McCain''s tax cuts are Bush''s on steroids. He begins with extending the Bush cuts (10-year cost: $1.7 trillion), but that''s less than a third of the cuts that he''s planning. And remember, in the midst of all these cuts, he''s got to pay for a lot more war.

(CONT)

[taotxzen]

(CONT)

So, what are the economic outcomes of this great, neocon experiment? From Bivens and Irons:

* Of the 10 expansions since 1949, as measured from the end of the recession (trough) to the end of the expansion (peak), the expansion from 2001 through last year ranks last in average growth of GDP, investment, employment growth, and employee compensation.
* Despite [supply-side] tax changes that were promoted as incentives to increase investment, average growth in total investment over the latest expansion was less than half of the post-WWII average, and ranked last in this group. For the full cycle (from the 2001 peak to the last quarter of 2007), investment growth was also less than half the average and worse than all cycles in the last 50 years.
* Corporate profits were the only area of strength in the latest cycle, ranking 2nd strongest among the last the prior 10 cycles.
* The rankings for all 10 full business cycles since WWII show that the 2000s rank eighth in GDP, ninth in consumption spending and employment growth, and last in labor compensation and the ratio of the population employed.

The Huffington Post

[singingrick]

After 12 years of arrogance, corruption, big-spending, and religious intolorence, the GOP is now "looking for its conservative voice"?

Excuse me, we saw the results of that "conservative voice" and we rejected it outright.

If the Republicans ever want to see majority control again, they might want to welcome back the moderates they so unceremoneously booted from their party.

Posted by briannorwood at 07:54 AM : May 19, 2008



Exactly!

[jesterbelle]

If required, vote with your best gut instinct not with your party politics.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted by Riptide213 at 08:28 AM : May 19, 2008

Gut instinct?It tells me to buy a ticket to somewhere else,and get the *** out of here while I still can.

[jesterbelle]

Posted by SharnCedar at 08:14 AM : May 19, 2008

Sad,but true.Anybody that thinks dems are going to do anything different is naive.Oh well,in eight years we can buy into the republicans'' ********* again.Then the dems,then the reps,then the dems,then the reps,then the dems,then the reps,then the dems,then the reps,then the dems,then the reps,then the dems,then then reps,then then dems,then the reps,then the dems,then the reps,then the dems,then the reps...

[riptide213]

Remember this.

We the people in order to form a better nation. We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

When did it all go astray?

Make this election an historic 21st Century turning point in our national politics when the American people had their modern day resurgence to tear down the ivory towers of political cronyism and arrogance.

If the people dont win this one, if the people dont make politicians answerable now to us then we the people might not get another chance to really change the course of our prevailing political descent into an abyss of public desolation.

All those in power must play or pay by our rules not some privileged artificial construct of democracy without public accountability or rebuke.

Voters fix your bayonets of virtue and lunge toward a ballot box near you to save our nation from the enemy within.

Vote for them in political battle trenches isolating our nations leaders from their own citizens and putrefying spirit and intent of our countries founding principles.

If required, vote with your best gut instinct not with your party politics.

[sharncedar]

What were the actual differences between Clintons policies and Bush? There appeared to be many, but not e in substance, only in degree. Mayn of the things we are blaming on Republicans are just problems with America and its lack of order or real democracy or fairness.

More and more power accumulates into fewer hands, actual ownership of land or housing (as opposed to mortgage debt which is anti-ownership) and small proprietorships is lost. We are transforming rapidly from a democracy to an oligarchy, a heriditary oligarchy none the less, which is by nature a dumb, brittle, and reactive type of social system.

These "Bush" actions are the actions of that small group of those who have power, remember all of his attacks on America and all of his hate speeches were supported by the rest of our weak and immoral oligarchy, everyone from Nancy Pelosi the real estate developer to the Wall Street thieves.

We are proving again that Democracy and distributed control is the best form of system, by going aeway from those principles and failing utterly as we are.