Pajamas Media

46 Comments

1. Patrick Poole:

Great interview Jennifer, and very timely.

Nov 1, 2008 - 11:03 am 2. Marc Malone:

Hatch is right, in that this is ectremely important, but he’s whistling past the graveyard. It is too late for contributions to do anything, as new advertising requires a certain number of viewings to have effect. Boots on the ground are the only things that matter now.

Simply gotta get all the Pubs to the polls, and gotta talk to a neighbor or friend. It’s hard to do. I’ve talked to 2 people who are not Pubs and planted a couple seeds. All I could do, really, given my disabilities.(Turns out, all my friends are conservative. Shocking.)

Nov 1, 2008 - 12:07 pm 3. OLDPUPPYMAX:

Hatch has been a limp-wristed, spineless RINO time and again over the past decade. It’s his sort of republicanism which has placed the party in such jeopardy.

Nov 1, 2008 - 1:48 pm 4. geokstr:

Well, I’d like to see who Hatch and the republican senate committee supported in the primaries when Arlen Spector and other RINOs ran against real conservatives.

What you sow…

Nov 1, 2008 - 2:14 pm 5. dougf:

“Hatch has been a limp-wristed, spineless RINO time and again over the past decade. It’s his sort of republicanism which has placed the party in such jeopardy.”

Much like the old ‘Dolchstoßlegende’ revisionist theory, this current ’stab-in-the-back’ explanation of Republican woes is sadly lacking in both context and accuracy. It’s merely wish-fulfillment dressed up as analysis.

The Republicans in their control of Congress years did NOTHING about :

A. The disastrous and long unfolding sub-prime debacle when they could easily have used Congress to wave big warning flags and probably stopped the disaster before it had progressed to its current state. This ALONE is reason enough to be cast out. It matters not that the Democrats are if anything worse. A choice between cancer and leprosy is at best a false choice and at worst a sad little joke.
B. Energy Policy. They didn’t have one. They still don’t. They had a chance in 2001 to drive for National Self-Sufficiency. And they did NOTHING. On their watch.
C. Earmarks and Corruption. They should, for example, have booted Ted Stevens out of the Party over that godawful bridge idea. Just as an example to his betters.

The Republicans actually motivated themselves over one issue(apart from the War and I have begun to think that it was a only Bush being a Republican President that decided them to be sane on this issue) in the past decade — Terri Schiavo. Well that and the usual braying and posturing on the increasingly marginal socon ISSUES. What a joke they are.

Had the Democrats been a SANE Party instead of the complete LOONS they have been for a decade, the Republicans would have been done like dinner some time ago. The only reason they have won until recently is that the opposition was intent on being a circus rather than a political party. But nothing lasts forever and at some point you have to have a reason for existence. They don’t have one. Not a ‘good’ one anyway. And they don’t even know how to get one.

And it shows.

Hatch is predicting (hoping is more likely) that he won’t lose more than 8 Senate seats in 2008. Losing 8 Senate seats in one election cycle is a DISASTER. No amount of sugar will help that medicine go down. They are losing because they deserve to lose. And RINOism has NOTHING whatsoever to do with it.

If Obama actually manages to have a ’successful’ Presidency(not very likely given the economic meltdown still to come, but he is a very clever guy), the ‘conservative’ movement may well be cast into a political wilderness from which they will not return. RINO or no.

At this point the real question is — Who would miss it ?

Nov 1, 2008 - 2:45 pm 6. Anthony:

“At this point the real question is — Who would miss it?”

Anybody who sees the need for divided government, and putting some limit on the otherwise unlimited reign of Obama.

The political parties hate divided government, but the public benefits from it–it keeps the two parties from pushing ideas most of us don’t want. It creates a free space.

From a wider point of view, it isn’t necessary in this election to be “Republican” or “Democratic”, but it is necessary to keep debate open.

If we voters fail in this we will be governed by the very loons you say make up the Democratic Party, but with an executive whose Weather Underground ideals leave us exposed to extremism.

Who would miss the Republicans then?

All of us.

Nov 1, 2008 - 4:25 pm 7. Kevin R.C. O'Brien:

Great interview, as others have said.

I was once a donor to the NRSC. In 2004 I was appalled that the Committe threw its prestige and money behind Lincoln Chaffee in the Republican primary — now a Democrat, as he always, in his soul, was — and resolved not to give them another dime.

When I say never, I mean never, and it didn’t help when I saw the committee threw its weight behind not-then-convicted-yet-but-clearly-guilty Ted Stevens in the primary, again. The NRSC has been the tool of incumbents, even corrupt incumbents.

It’s unfortunate that the Republicans, who threw their majority away by concentrating on lining their own pockets, may lose their ability to exercise even minority rights in the Senate. But Senator Hatch should have thought of that when he made Senator Stevens the face of the NRSC.

If money’s a concern, they can stop wasting it sending me their junk mail three times a week.

Maybe in 2010 they can give me a call — if they pledge absolute neutrality in primaries. In the meantime, it’s just welfare for incumbents, without regard to their performance.

Nov 1, 2008 - 4:48 pm 8. Marc Malone:

I really hate the term RINO. Toe the party line or be rejected. WE decide who’s a eeal Pub or not. Fascist thinking. No wonder the party has been shedding membership like crazy. Dems do the same thing. Self-identified Inds outnumber either party. Mostly disaffected from both parties.

The Pub party has to learn that the conservatives need the moderates as much as the moderates need them. If the moderates had still been numerous in the party, McCain wouldn’t be struggling now. The base believes that only they work the ground game. They’re right… because they’ve pushed away the mods. The mods should be part of the base, too, but they’re constantly insulted by the conservatives. Even Reagan needed the moderate Bush I to help him win.

Nov 1, 2008 - 4:55 pm 9. cedarford:

OLDPUPPYMAX:
Hatch has been a limp-wristed, spineless RINO time and again over the past decade. It’s his sort of republicanism which has placed the party in such jeopardy.

Like Marc Malone, I hate the Republican Party Movement Purists that have gotten about as fascistic as the Democrats once were with their own version of litmus tests applied over matters like abortion. And have now taken to sliming anyone outside the shrinking Bible Belt and wealthy Corporatist Republicans as RINOS.

(As if a pack of Southern evangelicals with their grand daddies KKK uniforms and Dad’s Democrat Party convention badges kept as family souveniers get to define who is or who is not “a true Republican”)
What has jeopardized the Party is not the failure of insufficient numbers of true believers being a mile to the Right of Reagan and doing adequate bootlicking service to the Corporatists and Neocon-Christian Zionist nexus. It is that Republicans are losing the moderate Republicans, the Reagan Democrats of the working and middle class outside the South that retained many moderate class & culture perspectives even when they moved to the Republicans.

Add that the intolerant fanatics of the “Base” just got through calling Hispanic Catholics and Pentacostalists “near-heretics”, dissed the Mormons of the Reddest States as heretics through their sh*tty treatment of the Mormon candidate, and called the two largest fundraisers of the Republican Party outside the now hapless Dubya, Schwarzenegger and Giuliani – treasonous.
Now we have two brand new moderate Mormons in the Senate, Catholics, moderate women, moderate-conservative Hispanics. They just happen to be Democrats because the Dems never rolled up the welcome mat.

Yeah, fine big tent going on there, folks.
Even Saint Reagan said that he wanted 50 states of Republican majority and he didn’t expect them all to think alike for different constituencies, and didn’t want any group applying litmus tests to other Republicans. And he said he would sit down and negotiate with Democrats AND Gorbachev.
Reagan also assessed his ideas and dropped the ones that didn’t work, the interventions like Lebanon that went bad..

Now we have a mix of Fundie, Neocon, Christian Zionist, and Reaganomics true believers that say they are “pure” to the stuff Reagan trotted out 30 years ago and forget Reagan raised SS taxes to save the system, worked with unions other than PATCO, bailed out Chrysler, and set trade import quotas to save industries and jobs. He would have dropped supply side economics in his time if he had a chance to check it out as Dubya finaly had the Congressional support to do so – and see it failed to work under Dubya as advertised.

Nov 1, 2008 - 7:07 pm 10. AdrianS:

Obama’s support is falling fast. The polls have him BEHIND McCain and Obama is DOWN from one to several points.

All McCain ads are FULL STEAM AHEAD: Check-out the new ads from LET FREEDOM RING at
http://www.letfreedomringusa.com/pages/election-2008-tv-spots.

Let’s ELECT John McCain … PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Nov 1, 2008 - 7:40 pm 11. no fear:

He says, “Basically it says that the union can send a union representative — and these are not little people — to your work or home and intimidate people. If they get 50% to sign cards you are unionized against your will. It is the most anti-democratic thing you can think of.”

I dare some of them to come to my Home!

Ha.

/ If Jews in Hitlers Germany would have had guns in their homes as I do.
The only Army Hitler would have been left with, would have been his Navy.

Nov 1, 2008 - 7:48 pm 12. gs:

Senator Hatch is candid: It’s the money.

He emphasizes, “Even at this late date if everyone who reads blogs would go to NRSC.org and click we could raise enough to make a difference.”

Senator Hatch, you can count on my help.

As Big Media’s best Republican friend in the defunct GOP Congress, you did more than anyone to shrink the public domain and endanger fair use. Because of your activities, content which should be public property remains copyrighted, and legitimately copyrighted material is more expensive than it would otherwise be.

Alas, the money I’d like to give to the NRSC has already been spent on overpriced digital content.

Fortunately, I can make a suggestion which compensates many times for the inability of people like me to donate cash:

Go get money from Big Media.
***********
Jennifer Rubin’s piece does not report what Hatch said about why the GOP lost Congress in 2006, or about what the GOP has done to regain the confidence of the electorate. Perhaps Hatch said nothing because he had nothing to say; perhaps he had nothing to say because the Republican establishment does not much care as long as they retain their privileged positions. (After criticizing the MSM for being in the tank for Obama, Pajamas Media did ask Hatch these obvious questions, riiight…?)

The phrase ‘Atlas Shrugged’ is being revived to describe how productive Americans may react to a redistributionist Democrat government. It also describes my reaction to a GOP which feels entitled to my support because, supposedly, they wouldn’t wreck the country quite as fast as the Democrats would.

Nov 1, 2008 - 8:36 pm 13. abro915:

The Republican party is in its last convulsive throws of collapse – because shyster like Hatch. The party used to represent intelligent conservatism. Now it’s a maggot infested cesspool, watering hole for liers and hate-mongers. Hatch, Joe and his low-life, beer-sucking idiots buddies can have it.

Nov 1, 2008 - 10:30 pm 14. angry white dude:

I agree with the others who speak of what a lowlife RINO Borin’ Orrin’ is. He ought to stick to writing love songs to his best friend forever, Teddy Kennedy. He and the other RINO’s make me sick. The new Republicans need to vote out the wussypants RINO Republicans.

Nov 1, 2008 - 11:38 pm 15. Flyfish:

Hatch is part of the problem, not the solution.

Nov 2, 2008 - 5:30 am 16. Jabba The Tutt:

So, Sen. Hatch is complaining about the huge money advantage that the Democrats have.

Thank you, Republican Senators, who voted for and did not block Campaign Finance Reform. The Republican fundraising advantage was the only thing that leveled the playing field. But I’m glad the GOP got the corruption caused by campaign financing out of politics. Good job guys.

Orrin, why don’t you go talk to your GOP Senator pals, who voted for this and complain to them. Why whine to us? It’s your damned fault.

Nov 2, 2008 - 6:50 am 17. pink elephant:

What started out as the party of Lincoln now seems more like the party of George Lincoln Rockwell to judge from some of the “red meat” comments of the peanut gallery.
Fortunately, there are other people in the party who realize that this type of rabid fare is not the American nor the Republican way.
These people are the mirror image of Reagan Democrats. They are Obama Republicans. We Pink Elephants are really tired of having to hide our beliefs about evolution or free choice. We crave open discussions about important issues,the economy for example not diatribes about gay marriage and what God believes. Some of us see the bible as an artifact, a religious book and nothing more. And we believe firmly in a separation of church and state. We may have married a base of people with one foot out of the cave, but correct me if I am wrong; isn’t divorce still legal in this country?
Personally, I have often disagreed with Mr. Hatch, however, the comments here only reinforce my fears for the party. The GOP has signed a deal with the devil not so different than the one that conservatives were ready to sign with Hitler generations ago.
If Lincoln were to return, he would probably take one look at the convention and say, “what have you done to my party?”

Nov 2, 2008 - 8:06 am 18. view from afar:

Ok this is a rant, but I am very worried about the future of the US and of the resulting world we live in!pink elephant please note it isn’t just the fact that there is a separation of church and state, even the French have that! (God help them) What works in the US is the counterbalanced separtion of state and church. The wrecked party isn’t the fault of christian conservatives anymore than it is purely the fault of any group. I think the biggest fault comes from people being so sure that they personally, have all of the truth innate.
Cedarford makes some really good points, you make other very good points, but one thing I think that Americans has forgotten is how important the ground rules are for running the country, ie the constitution. Any reform is painful, and if the reform touches your person gain (campaign reform) you are likely to recoil from it. Being a conservative means when you get burned you get burned, however right now I think the points made by Senator Hatch are relevent to the current election, and I am sorry, Obama and the modern democratics scare me…so even of you think the republicans deserve the losses, I think we’d all better vote for them, and then continue pushing these issues about the RINOs while the iron is till hot ( the fear of almost losing is still there)

Nov 2, 2008 - 9:28 am 19. angry white dude:

Hey Pink, there’s a political party waiting for you that also thinks the Bible is an ancient artifact and supports gay marriage. Hey, for extras, they also support killing babies who weren’t killed during the abortion process, even if the baby would have lived! But wait..there’s more…the want to take most of your money and give it to their voters who might be poorer than you..for now. Strong military? Thing of the past with your new friends!! We want to make our enemies like us…then we won’t need a military at all in this best of all possible worlds!!

Is there a reason your user name is “pink?”

Nov 2, 2008 - 9:39 am 20. cedarford:

Is there a reason your user name is “pink?”

I kind of like the self-deprecating title “pink elephants”. It is sure to be hated by creationists and pimps for K Street, which makes it almost worth it for the nickname to continue for that alone.
It’s a play on blue dog Democrats, which was itself a play on the name “yellow dog democrats” – which referred to Fundies of the past who voted Democrat and KKK on pure dogma – before they dropped the sheets and went with new dogma.

I think it is better than going with Obama Republicans or “Obamacans” as The One Himself suggested.
Mainly because Obama doesn’t deserve it. The Pink Elephants are not shifting because they have fealty to the Messiah – they are shifting because they see the Republican Party under control of a faction of intolerant Fundies, corporatists, Neocons – that have done a good job wrecking the country, the futures of working poor and middle class.
It was only after 4 years of Reagan, and evidence that the Democrat defectors had voted other Republicans in and bought into some Republican ideas and help crush Mondale in 1984 did the term “Reagan Democrats” become durable. Because they had found a welcoming home after years of the Left dissing their beliefs, culture, and moderate aspirations.

The McGovernites did not have the “DINO” term back then, but if they did, they would have started using it back in 1972 as they worked to drive out those not in ideological lockstep with them. Finally achieving their true “success” in 1980. As the intolerant “Base” has tried to do with RINOs (defined as those Republicans outside the Bible Belt) starting in 1988. (Reagan himself did not put up with the fanatic’s sh*t, evoking the 11 Commandment)

Nov 2, 2008 - 11:26 am 21. JimCap:

“IF” “IF” “IF”

Enough already.

“IF” enough people voted Republican, we’d win.

But they’re not. And no one wants to face that grim reality. Try denial in business. You’ll get your ass kicked.

Maybe we need to talk openly about WHY people aren’t voting for us. Maybe we need to talk about WHY we, our selves, are not giving our money and time to the Republican effort.

But this “IF” business is for losers. We either win or lose. And “IF” doesn’t count, last I checked.

Sometimes people need a good slap in the face. I’m afraid ours is coming. We can argue about why that is and how “unfair” the media is to us (sounds like whining, actually) but we need to admit what is going to happen and begin to rebuild.

Let’s be adults and realists, people. I’m not planning to attend any “parties” on Election Night.

Nov 2, 2008 - 11:28 am 22. G.Johnson:

Maybe Orin was just to busy to notice but our sytem of free market capitalism went bye-bye about two months back.

The new system is socialism and handouts for the RICH and a life of poverty and servitude for the rest of the country.

Nov 2, 2008 - 11:43 am 23. Edward A.:

Maybe,it’s time for two Republican parties. One supported RINO’s, could be called RUSSA Republicans for a United Socialist States of America) and the other RRR (Religious Right Rebublicans.)

This might be one way to end all the fighting, name-calling and ugliness that has overtaken the Republican party.

Nov 2, 2008 - 12:53 pm 24. myth buster:

No pink, we haven’t done anything to your party. You are trying to kill my party. What does it matter if our candidate wins the election if said candidate doesn’t represent us?

Jim, I agree with you. We need to ask ourselves why we didn’t nominate Huckabee, because if we don’t address stupidity in the ranks, we’ll lose and we’ll keep losing. Liberal Republicans and Fred Thompson supporters, you are responsible for the nomination of John McCain, and you are the reason we are in danger of an Obama presidency. You could have had President Mike Huckabee easily, but you wouldn’t have a minister as your President. People said he didn’t have enough money to win, but he beat Mitt Romney despite being outspent 10:1. Why did he have so little money anyway? Whose fault is that? It’s your fault! Had we simply given Huckabee as much money as people gave Mitt Romney, not even counting Romney’s personal funds, Huckabee would be on his way to the White House right now because no one but liberal nutjobs and racist hacks would take Obama seriously. If we lose this election, it won’t be because of what we did on November 4, but because of what we did on March 4.

Nov 2, 2008 - 1:03 pm 25. tom:

the rnc has made some blunders, so has the McCain campaign, still Obama can’t close the deal even with the msm in his pocket

two just discovered comments from OBAMA 1/20008

OBAMA will bankrupt coal
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/11/02/obama-well-bankrupt-any-new-coal-plants/

OBAMA – coal caps will lead to skyrocketing electrical costs
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/11/02/obama-ill-make-energy-prices-skyrocket/

if these get out sufficiently in the last two days
McCain landslide, minor way – he still pulls it out

Palin commented on the radio interview today in Ohio
word is spreading fast, help out

Nov 2, 2008 - 2:22 pm 26. tom:

obama radi comments on bankrupting coal – skyrocketing electrical prices

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/11/02/obama-ill-make-energy-prices-skyrocket/

Nov 2, 2008 - 2:52 pm 27. André Kenji:

The Wayne Dummond case would kill Huckabee in the general election. And in most cases the problem with the GOP is the rhetorics, not the politics.

Nov 2, 2008 - 5:02 pm 28. gemma:

myth buster, you are so right! If Huckabee had brought Christ back to all the Blue States and the Red States now falling to the secular humanists, God could have given us 50 States.

We were lucky enough to get rid of the phony man and phony Christian Romney. For that matter, all Mormons if we are lucky. We pray in church for them. It’s not who wins this election but who is right in in their heart and soul – and if that means losing to the Northerners and RINOs and queers of California and the baby murderers in 40, even more states – only Final Judgment is what we should fear.

Luckily we have Sarah now. And Mike Huckabee. And we have the Jews and Israel on our side. Which makes us unbeatable. It’s our Republican Party, not anyone else’s to tell us how we should listen to anybody, especially the media. Sarah doesn’t have to know everything about anything if she knows the really important things Jesus says she should know. And she does. No matter what the snotty elitists that like killing defenseless children think. With Sarah and Mike now ready, they will lead us back in 2012.

Nov 2, 2008 - 5:03 pm 29. Richard:

Orrin Hatch is a career politician and a big part of the problem. He’s been in the senate since 1976 when Jimmy Carter was elected President. I don’t think people in Utah even pay attention to exactly what he’s been doing lately or they would realize that he’s lost touch with the electorate and has become just another member of a “ruling political elite” who thinks its their job to tell the rest of us how to live, instead of an ordinary citizen elected to public office. Over the past few years, Hatch has spent his time helping people get out of jail for possession of drugs in foreign countries and defending the character of his fellow Republican senators recently convicted on corruption charges. He likes to draft legislation with Ted Kennedy as a co-sponsor and thinks that selling us down the river is “compromise”. He regularly fights for government programs that have no basis in the constitution like CHIPS. Clearly he thinks that there’s no problem that government can’t solve, as long as he stops short of funding abortion. Whenever Hatch and Kennedy co-sponsor the same bill, it can only mean one thing: you, the regular citizen, are being screwed from both ends. While Bush did sign the spending bills that represent the most drastic increase in government power and expenditure since the Great Society programs under Johnson, its Hatch and all the other RINOs in the Senate and the House that passed those bills for the President to sign. The Utah state Republican party isn’t particularly happy with Hatch either — he barely got the nomination of his party in 2006. Add on top of that his uncontained desire to be a Supreme Court justice and what you have here is a Republican egotist elitist statist that is out of touch with his home state, with America, with the Constitution (where does it give you the authority for CHIPS, Senator?) and ultimately with conservative principles of smaller government and personal responsibility. He is out of touch, plain and simple. The electorate in Utah is starting to understand this, but the lock-step local voting mentality just keeps him there on incumbent cruise control.

Nov 2, 2008 - 5:22 pm 30. nlcatter:

gemma – show me where children are being killed

and ill rush right over there
and contact the local DA

Nov 2, 2008 - 7:18 pm 31. angry white dude:

Gemma, I’m a staunch conservative but you scare me! Calling Romney a “phony man and phony Christian?” Pathetic. Personally, Hucksterbee makes me sick…he is a man filled with hate for those who believe different than he does…and it sounds like you are the same. I know a lot of Mormons and they are very decent, family-oriented people. Also, fyi, the Mormon church is carrying most of the load in opposing Proposition 8 in California keeping “queers” as you call them from marrying. Why don’t you try being a good Christian instead of a good Evangelical. Because to me..a non-religious person…Evangelicals make the worst Christians! You seem to hate everyone!

Nov 2, 2008 - 8:01 pm 32. BeJay:

nlcatter re;#30,

Abortion kills 9 babies every 19secs.
The war kills 9 soldiers a day.

40+ million gone thru abortion since 1973.That’s a whole generation!
Obama has voted 4 times in the Ill. Senate against bills to provide care and protection for babies who are born alive after abortions.

Go to www. abortionNo.org.Warning the pictures are very disturbing.

Per Politico: Most journalists find Obama a distant and undefined figure.Obama has benefited from his ability to minimize internal drama and maximize secrecy and thus to starve feed the press’s bias for palace intrigue. In this sense his campaign bears resemblence to the 2 ran by Geo. W.Bush.

Nov 2, 2008 - 8:28 pm 33. Richard:

angry white dude, if you want to see the kind of dystopian future a Mormon government would give you, watch Demolition Man with Sly Stallone. Forced to be good, freedom be damned!

Nov 2, 2008 - 9:14 pm 34. angrywhitedude:

Richard, what in the world makes you think that Romney would create a “Mormon government?” Did he force his religion on the people of Mass? Has Orrin Hatch? Harry Reid? Even if Romney wanted to (which is ridiculous), what vehicle would he use to accomplish his dark Mormon desires?

And you pull this all together from a Sly Stallone movie? Richard, it’s time for your medicine.

I know several Mormon people. From what I see, their kids make good grades, are happy, don’t drink or use drugs and all go to college. They participate well with others not of their religion. Impressive. Maybe you Evangelical types are just jealous!

Nov 2, 2008 - 10:00 pm 35. Dennster the menschner:

Pink is right! The republican party has been taken over by a bunch of fundamentalist knuckle draggers who have no use for reason or facts. By the way angry white dude (should I substitute “dude” for “trash”)pink was a term used during the McCarthy witch hunt which refered to people of supposedly left-wing tendencies, not homosexual tendencies which you seem to infer in your question.

Nov 3, 2008 - 1:30 am 36. cedarford:

The thing to remember this election is that it was only 25% demography and a great political campaign run by Team Axelrod for Obama that won it.
The other 75% was Republicans deserving to lose it.
With equal percentages, roughly, of blame going to:

1. Failed Bush policies, and worse, indications that old Reaganomics policy – supply side economics, “trickledown”, tax cuts for the rich concentrating America’s wealth and productivity gains in the hands of the few – has exhausted itself over 30 years and failed to work as advertised.

2. The Republican selection process that weeded out some of the best candidates as of insufficient Right Wing credentials and gave us an old, somewhat erratic man widely distrusted and a woman widely thought not to be ready? A campaign that mostly bumbled along. Running as Bob Dole did on “old soldier character, and he suffered!” combined with a charismatic ideologue (Kemp), and doing just as well…A McCain campaign which mostly failed to organize, finance itself, do oppo research or use it effectively..people that finally use info about Obama’s friends and statements like he wants to bankrupt coal companies in the last 3 weeks? Come on!

Imagine a Romney, Huckabee, Tom Ridge campaign or Arnold or Jeb Bush campaign (if the 2 latter were not barred by citizenship or family name) doing so poorly. This is the McCain that showed his lack of executive skills daily – after melting down his 1st organization in bankruptcy – his 2nd try was riddled with poor strategy, ineffective & incoherent communications, bad and impulsive picks for his campaigns, near non-existant fundraising and local organizational activity.

3. An intolerant Base that is working like crazy to impose religious litmus tests, ideological purity standards no past Republican leader met, accusing any not in lockstep with them as “RINOs”. Resulting in scaring and driving away white women, independents, hispanic Catholics and Pentacostalists. Condemning whole regions of the country as “outside” the acceptable sort of Republican the Base wants. Learning in the 2008 race that they consider that the 3-4 Reddist States are awful because the Mormons so strong there don’t deserve a say within the Party – because “The Base” considers them heretics?????

Jeez Louise!

———————
Lets remember that “The Base” and intolerance was a very recent phenomena in the Republican Party. Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan built powerful coalitions of people that voted Republican not on religious dogma matters but on Republican principles going back to 1860:

(1)Being the Party of Fiscal Responsibility with no ruinous foreign wars, responsible foreign trade and high ethics in government and business; (2)Being the “tolerant, easy-going” Party of Hard-working Americans and middle class values; (3)Strong on responsibility, fostering domestic tranquility, and a good military.

The “Base” came recently. It comes from what was once a segment of the Coalitions Nixon gathered and Reagan carefully grew – Southern Democrats, Fundies – completely outside the traditional Republican core, save on militarism. The 1st time they had impact was in 1984, on wedge issues. They grew into the theocratic, pork-loving people insisting they have a veto power on All Matters Republican after 1988.
Remember the Fundies were not the Reagan Democrats – who were the people of the working and middle class that gave Reagan their vote from Maine over to Wisconsin, and along the Sunbelt and Rocky Mountain States, Texas and Florida. The Fundies were a separate coalition motivated by militarism, religion, and wedge issues.

To see how far the Republicans have fallen since Reagan had the Cali crowd, the Scoop Jackson Democrats, Pennsylvania union families with JFK and FDR portraits in their hoses, almost half the hispanics and solid majorities of white women? The scientists and the suburbs, the pre-looney Libertarians?…Reagan and Nixon and Ike who believed the more REpublicans of any kind the better?

Just look to this election to see how all that has been tossed away.

It is looking like a revolutionary landslide election. Like 1964. And the Goldwaterites did not eventually come back and dominate – the Republicans won from 1968 from 1992 – 20 of 24 years of it – because Nixon and Reagan had forged wide coalitions competitive in 45-48 States after watching the Goldwaterites and McGovernites commit Party suicide.

The “Base” is on that level now. Cheering as they lose all of New England, the West Coast, Great Lakes States…and most of the North Midwest – as “RINO States” not pure enough to fly with voters in Rural Texas or Alabama.

As States fall in the Southwest and the Rockies over. As even the New South has “apostate” states with transplanted “screwed up Northerners and college-educated types” – Georgia, NC, Virginia, Florida where Republicans have weakened badly and will even lose most of in 2008.

And now they are in full venom mode against “Mormon heretics” and “godless men” like Rudy and Arnold…

Circle the wagons, point the guns inward..that is what is happening as Republican Fundies ignore the 11th Commandment, and are shocked at all the arrows sprouting out of people’s backs. Don’t worry about the arrows! Shoot the Mormons! Shoot the RINOs! Shoot the moderate pro-choice Reagan Democrats!

Nov 3, 2008 - 6:28 am 37. Jason:

All is lost! All is lost!..and the blame game starts.LOL
Slow down folks…you’ll have at least 8 years to figure out
how you let the right wing lunatic fringe hijack your
party. Oh, wait…y’all ARE the right wing lunatic fringe!
You are a distinct minority now…completely discredited, out of ideas,
money, credible candidates (unless you count a simpleton former Ark governor,
a Mormon cultist or a truly pathetic Alaskan gaffe machine) or VOTERS!
Wed morning will be heaven…Squirm & Enjoy aholes!

Nov 3, 2008 - 8:32 am 38. Billy:

Could it possibly be said any better than this?:

“What will the GOP do after a catastrophic defeat? You might think, perhaps hope, that Republicans will engage in some soul-searching, that they’ll ask themselves whether and how they lost touch with the national mainstream. But my prediction is that this won’t happen any time soon.

Instead, the Republican rump, the party that’s left after the election, will be the party that attends Sarah Palin’s rallies, where crowds chant “Vote McCain, not Hussein!” It will be the party of Saxby Chambliss, the senator from Georgia, who, observing large-scale early voting by African-Americans, warns his supporters that “the other folks are voting.” It will be the party that harbors menacing fantasies about Barack Obama’s Marxist — or was that Islamic? — roots.Also, the Republican base already seems to be gearing up to regard defeat not as a verdict on conservative policies, but as the result of an evil conspiracy. A recent Democracy Corps poll found that Republicans, by a margin of more than two to one, believe that Mr. McCain is losing “because the mainstream media is biased” rather than “because Americans are tired of George Bush.”
I’m not saying that the G.O.P. is about to become irrelevant. Republicans will still be in a position to block some Democratic initiatives, especially if the Democrats fail to achieve a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.
But the G.O.P.’s long transformation into the party of the unreasonable right, a haven for racists and reactionaries, seems likely to accelerate as a result of the impending defeat.

This will pose a dilemma for moderate conservatives. Many of them spent the Bush years in denial, closing their eyes to the administration’s dishonesty and contempt for the rule of law. Some of them have tried to maintain that denial through this year’s election season, even as the McCain-Palin campaign’s tactics have grown ever uglier. But one of these days they’re going to have to realize that the G.O.P. has become the party of intolerance”

Nov 3, 2008 - 9:44 am 39. kevin c:

senator haTCH-I HOPE YOU DO A BETTER JOB THAN WHAT YOU DID WITH IMMIGRATION AND SEVERAL OTHER ISSUES. I HOPEYOUVE LEARNED NOT TO SUPPORT “JUSTICES” LIKE GINSBERG ,SOUTAR ,AND BREYER WHO THINK INTERNATIONAL LAW TRUMPS OUT CONSTITUTION. SENATOR HATCH,REPUBLICANS HAVE TO START TREATING DEMS AS DEMS TREATED OUR NOMINESS LIKE BORK,THOMAS, JOHN TOWER, ROBERTS AND ALITO. ROBERTS AND ALITO WERE FAR BETTER THAM SOUTAR AND BREYER EVER WERE, YET THE LEFTISTS IN CONGRESS TRIED TO DESTROY THEM. THESE FOLKS ARE AT WAR WITH AMERICAN IDEALS AND WE HAVE TO FIGHT THEM AS SUCH. THE ENEMIES WITHIN.

Nov 3, 2008 - 2:01 pm 40. kevin c:

GEO KSTER-IN 2006-PENN CONSERVATIVES DID RUN A FELLOW NAMED PAT TOOMEY TO RUN AGAINST SPECTOR. SPECTOR BEAT TOOMEY 51-49% IN THE PRIMARY. TOO BAD, TOOMEY WAS A REAL CONSERVATIVE. BUT THAT CAN BE A BLUEPRINT FOR HOW TO DO IT. CONSERVATIVES HAVE ALREADY FORCED HAGEL OUT IN NEBASKA AND DOMIENICI IN NEW MEXICO. TIME TO DRAIN THE SWAMP OF LIBSCUM REPS LIKE THE BUSHES,THE SNOWES ,THE CLIINSES ,AND YES THE ORRIN HATCHES OF THE WORLD.

Nov 3, 2008 - 2:14 pm 41. kevin c:

HEY CEDAR FORD-MAY I ASK YOU-WHO KICKED OUT THE LIKES OF ZELL MILLER ,JOE LIEBERMANN, AND ED KOCH? FUNY,BUT IT SEEMS TO ME IF YOU WANT TO THROW THOSE YOU DISAGREE OUT WITH,THE DIMWITS DO MORE OF IT. THE GOP HAS WELCOMED ‘MODERATES”(AS IN MCCAIN) AND HAS GOTTEN BURNED MANY TIMES OVER. THE DIMWITS HAVE NO ROOM FOR ANYONE WHO ISNT EXTREME LEFT. REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENS TO THOSE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD. THEY GET RUN OVER.

Nov 3, 2008 - 2:23 pm 42. BeJay:

In a 2001 interview Obama srongly suggests the constitution impedes his desire to redistribute the nations wealth.Obama thought the Warren Court, when it helped usher in Civil Rights, should have”broken free” from the constraints placed on the Constitution and the courts by the Founding Fathers and the Framers. How would he , if elected President, take the oath to ” preserve protect and defend the Constitution. ?

This plus his refusal to salute the flag because he sees it as a symbol of oppression, and changing it to his own version of what he thinks is appropriate, has really shown his true colors , and they’r not red white and blue.

His assocciation with a pastor for 20 yrs. , who cursed America.
His association with Bill Ayers.

You have to ask yourself, does he really have the interests of the country in mind?

NO Obama-nation for me!!!

Nov 3, 2008 - 6:04 pm 43. angry white dude:

Dennster the menschner, yes, I am aware of the left-wing connotation of the name “pink.” I was not inferring homosexuality.

And being called white trash by you?? I’ll take that as a compliment!

Nov 3, 2008 - 9:36 pm 44. Richard:

angrywhitedude, I notice that you latched on to my one minor jab at what a dystopian future a Mormon government would give you, but you managed to completely miss the point. You extrapolate my comments about what a dystopian future a Mormon government would give you into a me making some assertion about Romney. Excuse me, is Romney the only Mormon? No, and its beside the point anyway. Whenever a group becomes the dominant majority in a community they start telling the minority of that community how they can or should live. That, my friend, is 100% unamerican. It is the worst of mob rule and is in no way compatible with a system of government based on individual rights retained by the people, endowed in the people by their Creator (thanks Mom) — of the people, by the people and for the people. I live in the closest thing the present has to a Mormon government dystopia future — Utah. I can tell you here that the Mormon majority likes nothing more than to routinely tell “the rest of us” how to live simply because they can shovel it down our throats as a majority. Its truly ironic, because if anyone should understand in a deep visceral way why the majority should not be allowed to trample the rights and property of the minority, it should be the Mormons. But in the end, they show us that they are just as human as the rest of us and can be corrupted just like anyone else. They corrupt the ideals of individual liberty when they gather like 5 wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch. So many times they claim the mantle of legitimacy through majority rule over the minority.

As for your pathetic quip about “taking my medicine”, that only shows the weakness of your position that you must liken those who disagree with you as suffering from some sort of illness requiring treatment. I’ve been debating politics on the net for so long that your feeble attempts to get me angry are just laughable to me.

Nov 3, 2008 - 9:56 pm 45. Dennster the menschner:

Angry white dude, are you anti semetic? Then why are you so proud to be white trash? it seems that the repugs have really manipulated you low information voters who are white to be “anti- everything your not” so as to keep you voting against your own economic interest! WAKE UP!

Nov 4, 2008 - 12:40 am 46. Dennster the menschner:

WHERE’S THE PINKSTER?

Nov 4, 2008 - 12:41 am

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