What Bush & Company Has Done To The Republican Party

Yes, I do. Voters have to choose between two less than perfect alternatives. I think it is pretty obvious that Bush has betrayed the people who voted him into office, both by his policies and the stunning political incompetency of his administration. Republican voters didn't pick Denny Hastert to be Speaker, and they didn't vote to have a collection of homosexuals to be the leadership's top aides.

 

Tough question, particularly when we haven't seen either of them in debates, etc. I see McCain as fading fast. He had the traditional Republican "it's his turn" thing going for him, but he fumbled it. Now his biggest asset, the idea that he can defeat any democrat, is being eroded by Guiliani's strong polling. I can't see Guiliani getting the noimination though or defeating a strong democrat candidate. I just can't see the party's traditional southern, conservative and evangelical wings getting excited about a New Yorker on his third marriage who is anti-gun, pro-gay and pro-abortion and who has a closet full of ethical issues waiting to tumble out.

 

No answers, eh?

Here's some more problems with this poseur - his personal and business life is a disaster since he left the mayorship. Will Americans really elect a hedge fund grifter President and put that wife in as his "adviser".

Brittle candidate. He's all wrong and Reps have no chance at all running him. Better to stick with McCain - even Romney.

 

Some more from Krugman. Make no mistake about it, Republicans lost the midterms due to simple economic angst and will get slaughtered in 08 for the same reason. It never was Iraq as I have been saying because when it comes down to it, the middle doesn't know WTF to do about that mess. It's always the economy, stupid.

April 2, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
Distract and Disenfranchise
By PAUL KRUGMAN

"I have a theory about the Bush administration abuses of power that are now, finally, coming to light. Ultimately, I believe, they were driven by rising income inequality.

Let me explain.

In 1980, when Ronald Reagan won the White House, conservative ideas appealed to many, even most, Americans. At the time, we were truly a middle-class nation. To white voters, at least, the vast inequalities and social injustices of the past, which were what originally gave liberalism its appeal, seemed like ancient history. It was easy, in that nation, to convince many voters that Big Government was their enemy, that they were being taxed to provide social programs for other people.

Since then, however, we have once again become a deeply unequal society. Median income has risen only 17 percent since 1980, while the income of the richest 0.1 percent of the population has quadrupled. The gap between the rich and the middle class is as wide now as it was in the 1920s, when the political coalition that would eventually become the New Deal was taking shape.

And voters realize that society has changed. They may not pore over income distribution tables, but they do know that today’s rich are building themselves mansions bigger than those of the robber barons. They may not read labor statistics, but they know that wages aren’t going anywhere: according to the Pew Research Center, 59 percent of workers believe that it’s harder to earn a decent living today than it was 20 or 30 years ago.

You know that perceptions of rising inequality have become a political issue when even President Bush admits, as he did in January, that “some of our citizens worry about the fact that our dynamic economy is leaving working people behind.”

But today’s Republicans can’t respond in any meaningful way to rising inequality, because their activists won’t let them. You could see the dilemma just this past Friday and Saturday, when almost all the G.O.P. presidential hopefuls traveled to Palm Beach to make obeisance to the Club for Growth, a supply-side pressure group dedicated to tax cuts and privatization.

The Republican Party’s adherence to an outdated ideology leaves it with big problems. It can’t offer domestic policies that respond to the public’s real needs. So how can it win elections?

The answer, for a while, was a combination of distraction and disenfranchisement.

The terrorist attacks on 9/11 were themselves a massive, providential distraction; until then the public, realizing that Mr. Bush wasn’t the moderate he played in the 2000 election, was growing increasingly unhappy with his administration. And they offered many opportunities for further distractions. Rather than debating Democrats on the issues, the G.O.P. could denounce them as soft on terror. And do you remember the terror alert, based on old and questionable information, that was declared right after the 2004 Democratic National Convention?

But distraction can only go so far. So the other tool was disenfranchisement: finding ways to keep poor people, who tend to vote for the party that might actually do something about inequality, out of the voting booth.

Remember that disenfranchisement in the form of the 2000 Florida “felon purge,” which struck many legitimate voters from the rolls, put Mr. Bush in the White House in the first place. And disenfranchisement seems to be what much of the politicization of the Justice Department was about.

Several of the fired U.S. attorneys were under pressure to pursue allegations of voter fraud — a phrase that has become almost synonymous with “voting while black.” Former staff members of the Justice Department’s civil rights division say that they were repeatedly overruled when they objected to Republican actions, ranging from Georgia’s voter ID law to Tom DeLay’s Texas redistricting, that they believed would effectively disenfranchise African-American voters.

The good news is that all the G.O.P.’s abuses of power weren’t enough to win the 2006 elections. And 2008 may be even harder for the Republicans, because the Democrats — who spent most of the Clinton years trying to reassure rich people and corporations that they weren’t really populists — seem to be realizing that times have changed.

A week before the Republican candidates trooped to Palm Beach to declare their allegiance to tax cuts, the Democrats met to declare their commitment to universal health care. And it’s hard to see what the G.O.P. can offer in response."

McCain gives Republicans an 08 loss probably similar to Bush Senior's loss, perhaps even a better showing. Rudy assures the Dukakis style collapse I say. Big, big mistake going with him.

 

I completely disagree with Krugman.

War is only an easy "sell" to the electorate when it offers a diversion from economic malaise. American voters are too fat with prosperity to stomach international conflict.

C'mon 87, you've been around. Compared to 73-74, 89-91 or 01-03 this economy is thriving.

Those who're perennially poor are ALWAYS democrats and younger economically disenfranchised citizens are the type of folks who generally don't vote anyways.

I've said this before: To those who'd like to see a dramatic change in America's economic environment, don't wish too hard for what you want, you might just get it. The next trend change ain't going to be pretty.

 

Well put. Krugman is like the guy whose only tool is a hammer. Every problem looks like a nail to him, or in Krugman's case, the solution for everything from global warming to toenail fungus is socialism.

Republicans lost the midterms because of dissatisfaction with the war, because the dem's and their media allies skillfully orchestrated the Mark Foley "scandal" and because Bush upset his supporters over immigration. For Democrats to read the results as a mandate for socialism would be as big a mistake as letting their Bush hatred syndrome control their agenda. At some point the public is going to sit up and say, why are they still playing gotcha politics? They said they would produce solutions and all they have done is orchestrate media circuses over irrelevant issues like US Attorney firings.

Another Iranian hostage crisis is unlikely to play out in the Democrats' favor either, not when all they can think of is to surrender.

 

Since then, however, we have once again become a deeply unequal society.
You are right. Put it differently, we are getting back to normal "historically" speaking. There has never been "middle class" before Industrial Revolution and, most likely, there won't be "middle class" in the future. Proletariat keeps losing its bargaining power and hopefully "social democracy" is going down the drain along with it. Then, maybe, we can get back to respecting the law and Constitution.

If you think Democrats are going to save "middle class", dream on!!!

POWER TO THE PEOPLE- who pay the bills!!

 

I'll second that and add a caveat:

Knowledge is power. Without it, power is relative to correct perceptions about what is going on, and how to remedy the situation.

Jesus

 

Once again, with respect, I find that calling possible molestation a phony "scandal" is not becoming of a person that I've seen such good posts from. I also don't recall "Dems" saying that November was a mandate for Socialism, perhaps a mandate against an ill-conceived war, with the horrible costs involved, both financially and morally.

I think the democrats are simply reversing their roles for a time, and will hopefully help get the Country back to some level of working together. I hate the us vs. them mentality that has been so prevalent since Reagan. That type of mentality is no good for any administration in my opinion.

You're probably right about the British hostage situation being more helpful to the Bush administration than to the democrats. Let's hope it turns out to be a non-event, we'll have to wait and see.

c

 

Tell you what AA and Pabst -

Forget I put up Krugman's name and forget I punch out at that phony Rudy, or the hard right Republicans. Instead, take a look at the polls on Congress - aren't they even lower than W's approval ratings? Focus on that if you will.

That's what populism thrives on and that is really what I hear in the middle. It produced Perot once and he got 17 or 18%. I continue to believe that there are BIG numbers that are going to kick out at the party in power/incumbents next year and the root of it is going to be some variety of economic angst. It's angry voter syndrome - unruly, unpredictable, and it wants change.