CrossKos: Collapse of the Republican Party

The Week That Was In The Collapse Of The Republican Party Sat May 17, 2008

(cross-posted at Hullabaloo)

In the comments of my last post at Hullabaloo, which noted that George W. Bush gave up on the FEC nomination of Hans von Spakovsky in solidarity with the troops, Jemand von Niemand ran through some of the week's highlights.

dday's diary :: ::

On May 15th, the Senate cast a near-unanimous vote to reverse the Federal Communication Commission's December 2007 decision to let media companies own both a major TV or radio station and a major daily newspaper in the same city. (freepress.net)

On May 16th... Bush used a private visit to King Abdullah’s ranch here Friday to make a second attempt to persuade the Saudi government to increase oil production and was rebuffed yet again. (NYT)

The California Supreme Court struck down the state's ban on same-sex marriage on May 15th ... invalidat[ing] virtually any law that discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation. (LA Times)

On May 14th, about 100 House Republicans refused to vote for more war funding, voting 'present'... Democrats were able to increase their 'no' vote number on funding from 141 to 149; the bill failed...

Finally the GI bill passed with overwhelming margin of 256 votes in the House, including 32 Republicans... This might actually be the most remarkable piece of the votes today; conservative Democrats agreeing to raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for educational benefits for veterans. (Matt Stoller)

On May 16th, Hans von Spakovsky, a former Justice Department official who never had Democratic support to win confirmation, withdrew his nomination on Friday. Bush "reluctantly accepted" von Spakovsky's request, the White House said. (sfgate.com)

Hell of a week, huh, Bootsie? And there are thirty more to come.

Not even a mention of Travis Childers' win in a Mississippi House seat that has caused Republicans to despair of a landslide loss in the fall.

Representative Tom Davis, Republican of Virginia and former leader of his party’s Congressional campaign committee, issued a dire warning that the Republican Party had been severely damaged, in no small part because of its identification with President Bush. Mr. Davis said that, unless Republican candidates changed course, they could lose 20 seats in the House and 6 in the Senate.

“They are canaries in the coal mine, warning of far greater losses in the fall, if steps are not taken to remedy the current climate,” Mr. Davis said in a memorandum. “The political atmosphere facing House Republicans this November is the worst since Watergate and is far more toxic than it was in 2006.”

And let me give you another one to add to the list. Remember that Missouri voter ID scheme that Digby wrote about earlier in the week? Turns out the State Senate refused to consider it.

In a victory for all voters, Missouri lawmakers ended this year’s legislative session without a final vote on legislation that could have prevented up to 240,000 Missourians from voting. The proposed change would have altered Missouri’s constitution, allowing for strict citizenship and government-issued photo ID requirements that would make Missouri one of the toughest states in the country for eligible, law-abiding citizens to register to vote or cast a ballot.

“I am relieved that I will be able to vote this fall,” said Lillie Lewis, a St. Louis city resident, “I’ve been voting in every election since I can remember, but if I needed my birth certificate, that would be the end of that. I hope this is the last we hear of this nonsense.” Lillie Lewis was born in Mississippi, but the state sent her a letter stating they have no record of her birth.

Birdell Owen, a Missouri resident who was displaced by hurricane Katrina, also voiced her relief. “I should be able to participate in my democracy,” she said, “even if Louisiana can’t get me a copy of my birth certificate. I’m glad Missouri politicians had the sense to protect my right to vote.”

Oh, and Series of Tubes Ted Stevens might lose his Senate seat after 50-odd years.

We're seeing an entire political party's collapse happen before our eyes, and in many of these cases a strong citizen-led movement, aided by leadership in the political sphere, has been decisive. There are two things at work here. One, you have a conservative movement that has been horrible for the country and created all these terrible policies which have made us less safe, less economically secure, and weakened in the eyes of the world. And you have a vibrant progressive movement that has been able to broadcast these failures widely. Consider what we've learned in the last month or so:

• The Defense Department embedded "military analysts" as propaganda engines inside US media with the full knowledge of the White House, mainlining the Pentagon message directly to the public with the imprimatur of independent media voices.

• The politicized show trials scheduled to crop up at Guantanamo during the fall election have been delayed because of the amount of perversions of justice employed by interrogators. The top DoD adviser to military commissions has been barred from participating in them because of evidence of bias, and one detainee had his charges dropped because torture was used (authorized by the Secretary of Defense), making the testimony inadmissable. Meanwhile the US is planning a huge new prison in Afghanistan, suggesting that indefinite detentions of masses of prisoners will continue.

• Domestic spying in the United States has spiked at a time when actual terrorism prosecutions have decreased, a massive violation of citizen privacy with no material benefit in stopping crime.

• The US government routinely injects psychotropic drugs into detainees to keep them sedated during deportation flights. , in violation of international human rights standards.

• An official at the VA told his staffers to stop diagnosing returning soldiers with PTSD, in an attempt to lower the costs of permanent disability payments. Many leaders in Washington, including Sen. Obama, are demanding an investigation.

The Republicans are wasting away because of more than just bad branding. It's because over the last eight years they've taken the country we know and done something terrible to it. And despite media blackouts and whitewashes, Americans intuitively know this, and are reaching to alternative media sources to discover more. The historically high wrong-track numbers have a basis in economic struggles, but I believe just as much in this loss of faith in what we've become as a country in the Age of Bush. And no amount of cajoling or re-branding is going to lure people back to the GOP. Not this year. Not after all this.

It's going to take years to repair the damage, and the Republicans will be all too happy to sabotage those efforts as the opposition and pin the blame on their opponents. It's what they do. For now, however, it's time to bask in the glow of the demise of the Republican Party, and work very hard to restore America's trust in their government and the ability to move forward.

dkos:

The Democratic party is unified in Idaho, with a slate of legislative candidates that could be larger, but is still respectable. More importantly, they have two serious federal candidates in Walt Minnick (ID-01) and Larry LaRocco (ID-Sen), both of whom have been busy over the last few months criss-crossing the state to reach out to voters. There's also the Obama factor--Idahoans turned out in historic numbers to give Obama nearly 80% of the caucus vote. With him at the top of the ticket in November, you'd think even Idaho Republicans would start paying a bit of attention to the mood of the populace.

Instead, the state's leading candidates for federal office are displaying a degree of arrogance that would be surprising if it were coming anywhere but from Idaho Republicans. That arrogance has the potential to bite them with their own base. Both incumbent Rep. Bill Sali and leading Senate candidate Jim Risch are refusing to participate in primary debates.

Sali has backed out of tomorrow's debate sponsored by the League of Women voters on Idaho Public Television--the only one broadcast statewide--because he "just couldn't make it work in the schedule." Likewise, front-running Senate candidate Jim Risch refused to participate in the primary debate on IPTV, because he "didn't like the format, which allows for interplay between candidates that he fears could become negative."

Instead, Risch chose to participate in a debate by the most favorable of Idaho's media outlets, the NBC affiliate. Not only did they promise a format that was more to his liking--he wouldn't be challenged by his challengers--they controlled the audience, keeping out other political reporters.

Among those barred were the Associated Press, an Idaho Statesman reporter and independent candidate Rex Rammell, who parked a campaign bus outside the 1,500-seat Swayne Auditorium.

Quary said KTVB News Director Jim Gilchriest told him to exclude from auditorium access anyone not the list. Quary said Gilchriest told him he was too busy to talk to a Statesman reporter, who arrived a half-hour early about covering the only scheduled debate featuring front-running Lt. Gov. Jim Risch.

So let's review. The Republican party apparatus is at war with Republican elected officials. There's a grassroots movement by Ron Paul supporters who feel shut out of the party to take over precinct committee seats. The two leading federal candidates have blown off their responsibility to their base constituents by refusing to debate their primary. For the icing on the cake, Jim Risch has made some powerful enemies by shutting out key Idaho political reporters.

The national Republican party in a microcosm, arrogant and out of touch. That's a deadly combination in the face of a energized Democratic party and an electorate that's demanding change. Even in Idaho.

Race tracker wiki: ID-Sen ID-01

About how many are there? And, while we're on the subject, anyone know of a website that tells how many registered Dems and Repubs there are in each state?

ID no matter what the size of Dems in state is obviously historic you do understand that a certain portion of the state is known for its white supremists;

you only want to snark you only want the Dems to fail in November; hope cutting off your nose to spite your face isn't in your cards;

I challenge you to Wii tennis and spot you two points no surrogates ( HRC and Obama)

Bet the universe that BO, if nominee, can beat McCain.

no doubt it will be a challenge to win against McCain/GOP do anything say anything to win at all costs;

Obama brings out voters in large numbers that helps outweight vote machine fraud; and the vigilant democracy watch groups are making a great difference state by state;

every election carries risk nobody can offer a guaranteed outcome; Obama is a strong campaigner imagine how strong his organization and discipline is to have come this far against the Clinton's political machine;

what he has done so far forecasts to some degree how he will do when challenged in the general election;

everybody has baggage he has carried his real well;

challenged in the general election". Yep. For the most part, he's lost the working class vote, the senior vote, the Latino vote, the Asian vote, and the Jewish vote. And this is just the Dems.
Is voter fraud the newest excuse for BO losing?

he has the most states, the most supers now and the most regular delgates; BTW he

won the most delegates in TX even the corporate media doesn't put the big state of TX in HRC column;

and each

working class

senior

latino

asian

jewish

votes I could if I wanted to refute each with sources but I have some other things to do;

fringe to find "sources" that would refute the fact that BO lost the lion's share of these groups. All the time in the world won't be enough.

http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/astronomy/topics/TimeStandards.html

The equation of time (EOT) is a formula used in the process of converting between solar time and clock time to compensate for the earth's elliptical orbit around the sun and its axial tilt. Essentially, the earth does not move perfectly smoothly in a perfectly circular orbit, so the EOT adjusts for that. Graphically, it appears as:
For example, the EOT adjustment in mid-February is about -14 minutes. So when converting clock time to local solar time, you'd subtract 14 minutes. When converting from local solar time to clock time, you'd add 14 minutes.

BO's primary votes among the disputed groups will somehow grow to astronomical sums...
Hmmm...and as many chimps typing on as many typewriters will someday result in a movie entitled "The Wizard of Ozbama."

BTW space aliens prefer him over HRC; so far they have held their reptilian tongues which is fortunate by their nature when it starts looking bad for them count on space aliens to make ridiculous smears and they are never satisfied unless they have their way until they can dominate not simply reach a goal; they should be treated with kid gloves the real demographic of small grays and very tall space men has been hidden from the general population;they are able to speak to each other telepathically and project a hologram image that helps them blend in with whatever ethnic type, race or gender they are among; the seventy seven satellites creating the earth matrix have fallen under their control and they will command total obedience as soon as the next inauguration; they like Obama because he is tall and he look grey to them since they are color blind; another thing to watchout for if they don't need you you might as well be dead to them; but on the positive side I think space people are not ideologues they believe in common-sense practical solutions and are not interested in the slash-and-burn style of politics would rather try to bind people together that suits how a lot of space aliens feel around here;

flew back to your nest! But, anyway, I realize I've compared Obamaniacs to pod people and O-bots to zombies, but I never realized it was all TRUE!!
But, ya know, if BO is going to be one of their front guys, he needs to remember that the Vulcan philosophy is Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations--not Everyone Brought Together and Changed into Obamautons.
(Do Clintonistas need tin-foil hats?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-octweQ-s8

Texas working folk

More than 300 million living Americans will never be president.

national security than Wes Clark, eh?

Placing that here is in really poor taste. Americans are trained from birth to believe ad men & sales people.

pretty bad sh#$(*&#(#$& on CCN but Cokie Roberts posted article on being black is a great advantage

is the lowest kind of racism; and ya all like it - that's really bad taste;

More than 300 million living Americans will never be president.

The Borg are depicted as an amalgam of cybernetically enhanced humanoid drones of multiple species, organized as an inter-connected collective with a hive mind, inhabiting a vast region of space with many planets and ships, and sophisticated technology. They operate towards one single-minded purpose: to add the biological and technological distinctiveness of other species to their own, in pursuit of perfection. This is achieved through forced assimilation, a process which transforms individuals and technology into Borg, enhancing individuals by adding synthetic components.

Little intelligence is forthcoming about the Borg or their origins and intents. In alien encounters, they exhibit no desire for negotiation or reason, only to assimilate

More than 300 million living Americans will never be president.

it is the open sesame to advantages of being black ( Cokie Roberts ) permission/pass for Stargate to parallel universe

ginseng coffee is the goodtasting secret ingredient for our borg superpowers

More than 300 million living Americans will never be president.

I didn't read, star, or comment on whatever the Cokie Roberts thing is- Generally, I'd value her at about the level of a James Carville Mary Matalin or Bob Shrum, which is to say I find her of no value whatsoever. I don't know about borg superpowers, ginseng coffee, high fives or trademarking generic words like hope or change, but I do know a very visible sector of the Democratic party is showing every indication they are as out of touch with reality as I have suspected them of being for quite some time.

the media has hyped the rivalry of the primary season and morphed it into a palate

for division and wedge politics; everybody has lost their sense of humor and its boring and nasty how you can label the big Obama sector as out of touch I don't know I mean these people are plain people geeze people who go to work and take care of their families and love their country if they become the majority Dem voters why to you label them out of touch all they are doing is what you are doing they like Obama - you like Hillary - - the opposition is McCain

thinking about your long term and short term interests really goes up in smoke when people fight; that's my point (after space alien comments will come recipes because we still have no common ground to actually discuss so here is to food ingredients and space aliens ) when I get heckled at CCN;

More than 300 million living Americans will never be president.

So sorry to be so boring & nasty & scared shitless at the next big thing!!!!!!!

I HAVE NEVER CLAIMED THEY ARE OTHERWISE, I SAID CERTAIN ELEMENTS OF THE ACTUAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY HIERARCHY ARE OUT OF TOUCH. THAT'S NOT EVEN A QUESTION.

I DON'T GIVE A SINGLE CRAP ABOUT HAVING A CONVERSATION WITH YOU ABOUT BARACK OBAMA, OR "HIS PEOPLE" whatever that is supposed to mean.

You are not being heckled, you ARE heckling

CAN I SAY IT ANY PLAINER?

but true true true poltical parties are corrupt and out of touch because money rules; when that changes it won't be so hard to have progressive advances;

(see how you went up an octave I didnt' say you were boring or nasty the atmosphere gets that way quickly CCN; you have been better than most even so you are so upset for WHAT)

I'm asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington... I'm asking you to believe in yours. - Barack Obama

and the grey aliens really like Obama because they are color blind and they think he is grey too ;-) and I wish Obama would wear a sports warm up jacket or something made by anybody I am tired of his suit coat; he is so model-ishious and GQ I want to see him casual glamorous

some evening at a rally of supporters it couldn't hurt;

More than 300 million living Americans will never be president.

And, furthermore, our witty repartee added a bit of ginseng to an otherwise slow, boring night! But--psssst! Maybe your guy shouldn't wear the bomber jacket. Remember Dukakis in the tank?

it is a sports warm up jacket; looks good on people who attend sporting outdoor events;

More than 300 million living Americans will never be president.

it as one o' them bomber jackets. And impression is every'thin' in politics. Ya know, we have an activity called "ginsangin'"
[sic]whar ya go out in the woods 'n' hunt that ingredient you city folk put in your coffee. We always tuk it as a tonic, though.
Drink enough o' that, 'n' maybe you'll be tossin' that thar "sports warm-up jacket" aside and start donnin' one of them buffalo-print flannel shirts.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/05/18/record_obama_crowd_the_size_of.html

Sen. Barack Obama has seen his share of large crowds over the last 15 months, but his campaign said they have not approached the numbers gathered along the waterfront here right now.

The campaign, citing figures from Duane Bray, battalion chief of Portland Fire & Rescue, estimated that 75,000 people are watching him speak.

[ it is likely that working class, seniors,latinos,asians ,jewish citizens are well represented in the seventy-five thousand ]

now because with your Dukakis comment it is clear you are not wishing the Obamites well ... so best to let it go I got yaherepoint you are hoping for McCain ]

title=

More than 300 million living Americans will never be president.

Freebird! Freeeeeebbbbbiiiiiiirrrrrrrdddddd!!!!!

Home

More than 300 million living Americans will never be president.

I'd be looking for a new religion, somewhere in a big crowd. Of course, without a commitment to universal coverage, I wouldn't be able to afford it.

but everything is looked upon as a provocation and then you all offer insults in return; sorry you are so upset - ask Wes to at the end of this primary to blog what he is up to and what he wants you all to do from here on out;

It turns out that the most efficient delivery system for capitalism is actually a communist-style police state. - Naomi Klein

with this bullcrap, it would be difficult to quantify- months upon months of media psych-ops, then the e-trenches. Stop, please, with the little siblingy nagging & pinching unseen in the backseat then crying She Started It passive aggressive stuff. You know the ground here very well. If I want to bask in the glory of O!, I know where to go.

Perhaps you find this all quite amusing- I don't. At all. To my way of thinking, of the erm, "field" of candidates that started on the dem side of the field, this is, in my opinion, the third worst possible likely outcome & perhaps the second, actually.

Then there's that little detail about how there isn't a nominee yet, and that little manufacturing consent & that little craven corporate media thingee still kinda standing in the way, eh? Not to mention, we have standing orders.

Thanks for your consideration.

why you don't just ignore mine; you jumped into briarwhatever's snark on my blog about GOP; you traveled the extra mile I didn't go looking you up;

It turns out that the most efficient delivery system for capitalism is actually a communist-style police state. - Naomi Klein

to watch a fire.
Make that 300 million and one.
As your buddy Olbermann would say, "Good night, and good luck."

Puleeze.
Barack Obama 16,880 79.54%
Hillary Clinton 3,652 17.21%
Total Number of Votes: 21,221

Caucus system. Open to all voters.
State population: 1,293,953
0.016% of the population voted. Not very impressive.
And yet worth 18(?) delegates?

http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?fips=16&year=2008&f=0&off=0&elect=1

you could rate me down in star system if you like ;-)

Barack Obama's lead in pledged delegates includes a net gain of 77 from states with caucuses and territoies where he had a net gain of 48,951 votes (WY,HI,TX,NE,Virgin Is,CO,KS,UT,ND,ID,AK,Samoa,DemAbroad) which is hardly representative of Democratic voters.
This does not include primary wins in states he cannot in November like SC,AL,GA,LA,MS which built his alleged popular vote lead by 795,347 and pledged delgates by 67.
This includes even pretending he could be competitive in states like VA and NC which is another 505,278 and 44 delegates.