The Alternate Reality Of The Republican Party

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The base of the Republican Party is no longer a singular entity with a similar ideology. It's nearly impossible for them to co-exist with some factions being "off-the-scale" nuttier then others. There are the Sarah Palin sycophants at the core of the base, but the core is now land-locked by The Tea Baggers, The Birthers, The 10ther's, and even more fringe segments that paint a picture of the GOP base as being motivated by a fundamentally different views than folks in the middle or on the Democratic side.

They see the country as being under a dire threat according to a focus group by the Democracy Corps (D), the consulting and polling outfit headed up by James Carville and Stan Greenberg.

"They believe Obama is ruthlessly advancing a 'secret agenda' to bankrupt the United States and dramatically expand government control to an extent nothing short of socialism," the analysis said."

While these voters are disdainful of a Republican Party they view to have failed in its mission, they overwhelmingly view a successful Obama presidency as the destruction of this country's founding principles and are committed to seeing the president fail.

The analysis argues that Obama's unpopularity among conservative Republicans is both quantitatively and qualitatively different from liberal Democratic ire against George W. Bush -- that the GOP is more heavily conservative than the Democrats are heavily liberal, and that the hatred of Obama is more intense than Dem hatred of Bush was.

So who are the protectors of this knowledge, the sources of information they trust. Obviously, Rush Limbaugh is widely admired -- but at the same time, he's seen as being overly abrasive at times. The real unblemished champion, the one they most identify with on a personal level, is Glenn Beck:

"Two aspects of the discussion on Beck among conservative Republicans were particularly noteworthy. One was a common fear among the women for his personal safety, a belief that his willingness to stand up to powerful liberal interests was putting his life, as well as the lives of those working with him, in danger. Of course, his willingness to face this danger head on only adds to his legend."

The voters in these focus groups saw Obama as being deliberately out to destroy the American economy in order to undermine personal freedoms, and that the speed of his agenda was a part of this strategy:

"I think that he is deliberately misleading people... if he is not deliberately trying to do harm to the country, which is my view, he doesn't understand anything about how the economy works."

Democracy Corps also interviewed a separate group of somewhat conservative-leaning swing voters, and these attitudes were not to be found: "One of the most telling differences between the partisan Republican groups and the independent groups was the language they used. Conservative Republicans fully embrace the 'socialism' attacks on Obama and believe it is the best, most accurate framework for describing him and his agenda.

Independents largely dismiss these attacks as the kind of overblown partisan rhetoric that obscures the facts and only serves to cheapen the political discourse. Conservatives see themselves as an oppressed minority, holding on to knowledge that isn't represented in the wider media and culture:

"Conservative Republicans passionately believe that they represent a group of people who have been targeted by a popular culture and set of liberal elites - embodied in the liberal mainstream media - that mock their values and are actively working to advance the downfall of the things that matter most to them in their lives - their faith, their families, their country, and their freedom."

And the base sees themselves as an emerging, growing movement -- manifested in the Tea Parties -- that will restore the country to its proper roots, but that is dismissed by the media:

"The tea party things, their point of view is, you are all crazy. You know, you are all nut-jobs out there holding these tea parties, but at least they were showing that something was going on where other people just totally ignored, I mean we are ignored... I didn't attend a tea party but we, the people, were non-existent according to some of the news stations."

Did The McCain Campaign Create The Birther Monster

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Is the McCain campaign responsible for the "birther" headache that has landed in the lap of many republicans in congress? You can see how reluctant they are to say flat out that President Obama is a U.S. citizen. Instead they hem and haw over the question so as not to freak out the far right conspiracy theorists in their party.

Did Sarah Plain and The Fox News Channel create this monster for the Republicans with their relentless claims of Obama being a Muslum, a radical, an socialists, attending a medrasa, palling around with a terrorists. Did Sean Hannity and the talking heads at Fox take it one "terrorist fist-jab" too far? - Survey says YES!

However, what was said and done during the 2008 presidential election will make their current rhetoric the equavalent of a bad hair day. I think that the likes of Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, etal have failed to realize that the country has grown a brain and is no longer suseptable to such unsophistocated propaganda.

It's like an old safe-cracker getting out of prison after 40 years and thinking that he can just drop down through the ceiling at First National to crack a safe. Totally unaware that infa-red laser beams and motion sensors have taken the place of the bells, batteries, and wires that he was once a master of defeating. It's like watching my grandpa who built the two-story house that he lives in trying to navagate his way through the menu of an IPod.

I wonder if these well-paid antagonists are even aware that the monster they created has nothing to do with a birth certificate, but rather the inability of a biggoted few to accept the fact that a black man is really the President of The United States. You can click your heels until your blue in the face Dorothy, but you'll still be right where you are. In good old 2009 with one Barack Hussien Obama, a black man as the leader of the free world. To quote Bill O'Reilly when he was referring to George W. Bush:

"Weather you like it or not, he is the President of The United States and we all have an obligation to support him or shut up!"

I wish that Obama would sign an executive order suspending congressional health care until they can draft a bill worthy of his signature. These people certainly earn enough money to go out and purchase medical insurance like the rest of us. After all, it is the best "health care" in the world. The fact that they don't call it medical insurance speaks volumes because that's what it is and it has nothing to do with caring about anyones health. It's no different then auto insurance except instead of refering you to an auto mechanic or body shop, they refer you to a doctor or a specialists. Instead of meeting your deductable, they hit you with a Co-Pay everytime you see the doctor.

In the the past 7 years I have handed Kaiser-Permenente $31,752 in premiums and all that I have to show for it is 7 annual check-ups, repair of two broken fingers, and 18 stitches on my right ankle. I must be their definition of the optimun customer, but inspite of the payment to service ratio between us, I'm still baffled as to why my premiuns keep increasing. You don't think I'm getting ripped off, do you?

The Peoples Republican Party At Odds With Itself

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The Peoples Republican Party At Odds With Itself.
I have often been amazed at how easy it seems for Rush Limbaugh to be so oratorically hateful. The words of intolerance seem to just slide right off his tongue and make relative sense until you realize what he’s really saying. However, it’s really quite easy if you give it a try with some issue that’s stuck in your own ideological craw.

Take for instance Carrie Prejean, the cum burping whore who recently lost her MISS USA Crown for breach of contract. Her oratorical skills were obviously not up to par to satisfy The Donald for further support. Perhaps Prejean should have taken the Monica Lewinsky course of oral persuasion. That being said, a whole industry has spawned in his wake of conservative media celebrities, and many of them emulate him. Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity and Michelle Malkin and Bill O’Reilly are basically making their livings by following in his footsteps.

Back in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, conservative talk radio wasn’t nearly the agenda of paranoia, fear, and rage that it is today and there is no argument that the Bush/Cheney era are a directly responsible for that. While some conservatives viewpoints are a vital, indispensable part of a healthy body politic, all I seem to hear or see nowadays from that sector is rage and fear.

I drive across a dozen states and find it amazing how the further east I travel, the less talk radio choices there are besides conservative demonizing talk. I’m turned off by the exclusionary, negative-defining and purity-purging aspects of some of conservative talk radio. It’s basic agenda is to go after, or question the sincerity of those who disagree. This makes for exciting radio controversy, it gets ratings and pumps up callers — but it has also become a way that conservatives and those inclined in that direction now tend to treat those who see things differently than they do. In so many venues in our politics now — talk shows, cable talk shows, comments on weblogs, weblog posts, even on Twitter — there is a growing notion that it’s intelligent and effective to discredit and insult someone who dares to hold a different viewpoint, but the reality is this: The republican party is now at odd with itself and you have the fringe furthest to the right doing all of the talking.

Yet those elected in both houses of congress seem contect to have the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, and former VP Dick Cheney at the microphone. The problem is that all of these people and their views are also at odd with their core constituencies. This will only serve to drive the Republic Party deeper into the obyss.

RNC Token Chairman Coming To See The Light

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While the real RNC has their token leader Michael Steel running around doing a kindergarten demonstration of hat wearing positions to college students, the $64,000 dollar question for the GOP still remains unanswered: Who speaks for the party? - - a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, which is among the reasons for the party's sagging state and uncertain direction. A 52% majority of those surveyed couldn't come up with a name when asked to specify "the main person" who speaks for Republicans today.

So the dominant faces of the Republican Party are all men, all white, all conservative and all old enough to join AARP, ranging in age from 58 (Limbaugh) to 72 (McCain). They include some of the country's most strident voices on issues from Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court to President Obama's policies at home and abroad. Two are retired from politics, and one has never been a candidate.

Only McCain holds elective office, and his age and status as the loser of last year's presidential election make him an unlikely standard bearer for the party's future.

"It's a problem," says Douglas Holtz-Eakin, an adviser to McCain's 2008 presidential campaign who this month is filing the papers to create a think tank aimed at generating new ideas for conservatives. "We need the perceived leadership of the party to be those who are the future."
"We cannot be a party of balding white guys," says former Republican Party national chairman Ed Gillespie, a White House counselor for George W. Bush. "We have to have a broader appeal, but there's time for us to make that change."
Republicans have seen an erosion of support across almost all demographic groups — the

steepest decline since World War II, even bigger than in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal in the 1970s. Since 2004, Republicans have gone from a 3 percentage point advantage in party identification over Democrats in USA TODAY polls to a 7 point disadvantage.
In that time, the GOP has lost control of the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate. It is struggling to forge a united response to the popular new Democratic president. The result has been to give Obama "an extension" to his political honeymoon, Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg says.

No surprise, then, that a debate rages over what to do next. The annual Congressional Republican fundraising dinner Monday prompted weeks of political drama over who would deliver the keynote address. Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's name was announced, but when questions arose over her schedule Gingrich was tapped. Then a last-minute kerfuffle developed over whether Palin, McCain's running mate, would attend after all.
In the end, she showed up at the Washington Convention Center, walked across the stage and waved but didn't speak. He delivered an hour-long, policy-laden address that castigated Obama for having "already failed" on the economy and called for a "majority Republican Party" that would tolerate disparate views.

In recent days, the party's divisions over Sotomayor have played out in public.
At one end of the spectrum, Limbaugh labeled the appellate judge a racist and Gingrich said she should be forced to withdraw, although he later backed away from his harshest words. At the other, Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, praised the nominee's judicial philosophy and defended Sotomayor's temperament after meeting with her last week.

"We're undergoing, obviously, an identity problem, both in terms of the issues and what we represent as Republicans, what the Republican brand is all about," Snowe says. One of the few moderate Republicans left in the Senate — their ranks shrank when Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania switched to the Democrats — she worries her party has "lost its way."

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, who declined to be interviewed about the GOP's future, has been caught in the crossfire between Limbaugh and others. (In the USA TODAY/Gallup Poll, only 1% said Steele spoke for the GOP.)
USA TODAY asked whether Republicans, to succeed, should either do a better job arguing for conservative views or change positions on some issues to appeal to moderates — an ongoing debate within the party. Cheney sparked headlines last month when he said on CBS' Face the Nation that he would rather have a GOP defined by the conservative Limbaugh than the moderate former secretary of State, Colin Powell.
A majority of those surveyed said the party should make changes to draw moderates. Among Republicans, however, nearly two-thirds said the party would be better off by holding a conservative line and advocating it more effectively — as Limbaugh advocates.
"They're disorganized, they don't have a leader, and they're trying to be too moderate," Kim Lowe, 43, of Charlotte, says. The conservative stay-at-home mom and interior designer, who was among those surveyed, predicts that a message of fiscal responsibility ultimately will prevail with voters.
"I believe they'll come back once America sees what Obama is doing," she says.
'Politics is self-correcting'

Political fortunes are cyclical, of course. Republicans were crushed in Lyndon Johnson's 1964 landslide but regained the White House four years later amid turmoil over civil rights and the Vietnam War. In the 1980s, Democratic liberals and centrists faced off, sometimes bitterly, over welfare, crime and other issues until Bill Clinton won the presidency in 1992.
"When you have a party out of power, especially after you've lost an election, it's not surprising there would be many voices competing to speak," says Frank Donatelli, who was political director in the Reagan White House and helped run the Republican National Committee for the McCain campaign last year.

Republican opportunities will come in response to Democratic excesses, Donatelli says: "Politics is self-correcting."
In time, the GOP will be defined and led by its presidential nominee, he says. Several prospects are laying the groundwork for potential runs in 2012.
Last week, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty announced he wouldn't seek a third term, stoking speculation that he is interested in the White House. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and Gingrich have been making appearances in key primary states.

Republican candidates also are competitive in this year's two gubernatorial races, in New Jersey and Virginia, for seats now held by Democrats. Winning either would help Republicans argue they are making a comeback.
Still, some see the GOP's immediate plight as perilous.

"We're in the basement of a 100-story building," says Ed Rollins, a Republican strategist who advised the presidential campaigns of Ronald Reagan in 1984, independent Ross Perot in 1992 and Huckabee in 2008.
Rollins says next year's congressional and state legislative elections are crucial. If Republicans don't make significant gains in the House, he says, the redrawing of congressional district lines after the 2010 Census could lock in Democratic advantages for a decade.
Then there are the demographics of the GOP's decline.

From Bush's inauguration in 2001 to Obama's inauguration in 2009, Republicans lost significant support among nearly every major demographic group, according to a Gallup analysis — among men and women, Americans at all income levels, residents of every region and those ages 18-64.
The losses were particularly steep among those under 30, the rising Millennial generation. Support for the GOP among college graduates fell by about 10 percentage points. Surveys of voters as they left polling places also showed a significant decline among Hispanics, the nation's fastest-growing ethnic group.

Republicans maintained support among seniors, conservatives and frequent churchgoers.
To win elections, Gillespie says, the party needs to make more inroads among the rapidly expanding parts of the population. "I was not a math major, but I know that getting an increasing share of a decreasing percentage of the overall vote is not a good thing," he says. "That's what we're doing now."
"The world has changed, and they cannot be staying in the same place where they've been for the last 200 years," says Erika Quinteros, 63, an independent from suburban Philadelphia who was called in the survey. The retired doctor sometimes votes for Republicans — she liked former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge— but says the current GOP seems "too radical" for her.
In the poll, 34% had a favorable impression of the Republican Party, matching the lowest level in more than a decade. In comparison, 53% had a favorable impression of the Democratic Party.

Dissatisfaction with the GOP extends to within its own ranks. Among Republicans, 33% had an unfavorable impression of their own party. In contrast, 4% of Democrats had an unfavorable impression of their party.
The GOP's electoral setbacks, policy divisions and image problems make it harder for the party to influence the national debate.
"It's as if the Republican Party is in a time-out chair," says Charlie Cook, editor and publisher of the non-partisan Cook Political Report. "Nobody's really listening to them. Nobody's caring what they think. The question is when they're asked to rejoin the class, are they going to have something new or different to say?"

"I don't think people know what they stand for," says Troy Collett, 39, a Republican from Shelbyville, Ind., who was surveyed. In the 2008 election, he says, "all they knew was there was a war in Iraq that most people disagreed with, and spending was out of control, and gas prices were high."
A GOP 'wilderness'

Asked by Gallup "what comes to mind when you think of the Republican Party," 25% said "unfavorable" and another 1 in 4 offered negative assessments including "no direction," "close-minded" and "poor economic conditions." Sixteen percent said "conservative" and 7% "favorable."
For the Democratic Party, the most dominant impression was "liberal," mentioned by 15%. One in 3 used positive phrases such as "for the people" and "socially conscious." The most prevalent negative judgments saw the Democrats as "big spending" (8%) and "self-centered" (4%).
The survey of 1,015 adults, taken by land line and cellphone May 29-31, has a margin of error of +/– 3 percentage points.
Like the Democrats or not, there was a broad consensus about who speaks for the party. Obama was named by 58%. He was followed by 11% who cited House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and 3% who cited Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Twenty-one percent couldn't come up with a name.
And Obama's popularity — 67% had a favorable opinion of him — is boosting his party. Even the 14-year-old daughter of Rollins, the Republican strategist, has put up posters of the president in her bedroom.

Some analysts say a stumble by the president and the Democrat-controlled Congress would give Republicans their best opportunity to recover.
"Republicans are counting on the Obama administration to disintegrate, to disappoint, very rapidly and very spectacularly, and a big popular movement of unhappiness with the administration to coalesce," says David Frum, a speechwriter in the Bush White House.
Frum, who says the party hasn't yet come to terms with its problems, has launched a website called newmajority.com to encourage a debate.
"There's a lot of time and nothing wrong with the Republican Party that health care reform or the cap-and-trade (energy plan) or something like that blowing up wouldn't help fix," Cook says. At the moment, though, "Republicans are going through a wilderness period, and it may take a while to come out of it."