WataugaWatch

Worth reading: Conservative columnist and former speech-writer for George W. Bush, David Frum's slashing attack on Fox News and the yak-masters of talk radio for making it impossible for Republicans in Congress to compromise with this president and save themselves from their "Waterloo" moment ... which is happening right now, tonight, in the health insurance reform vote.

Frum thinks Republicans are waaay over-optimistic about taking back Congress come November.

Frum points out that the bill being passed tonight is really very "Republican" in basic outline (and, gee, thanks for reminding me about why I secretly hate it!):

...the gap between this plan and traditional Republican ideas is not very big. The Obama plan has a broad family resemblance to Mitt Romney's Massachusetts plan. It builds on ideas developed at the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s that formed the basis for Republican counter-proposals to Clintoncare in 1993-1994.

Frum sez to his tea-partying confreres: Get over yourself! This bill will never be repealed.

And he sez this: "We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat."

Labels: David Frum, health care, Republican "brand"

National Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele was in Greensboro yesterday and announced that North Carolina will be his come fall -- "Mine, MINE, I tell you!" -- and forever after. Apparently, come November 3, we North Carolinians will awake from our frightful nightmare to find ourselves wrapped in the sweet embrace of reactionary right-wingism, breathing in the miasma of obstructionism that has so far served the working class so well in this state and elsewhere.

Oh, goody.

Labels: Michael Steele, Republican "brand"

The South Dakota legislature, dominated by a lot of elected people with an "R" after their names, want to stick a finger in science's eye, so they pass a joint resolution calling for "balanced teaching of global warming," which in their particular language includes a warning that "the significance and interrelativity" of "astrological" (and other) data can be interpreted in a number of ways. We are NOT making this up. (Hat tip: the ineffable Ed Cone)

Lord knows, I had my doubts about my horoscope for today: "You don't have to worry about getting every little fact right today -- but your competition does! That gives you a serious advantage, as long as you are willing to move forward quickly into the darkness."

The South Dakota legislature has actually given me hope that they are the "darkness" I'm supposed to move forward quickly into.

Labels: global climate change, Republican "brand"

A new study published in the March 2010 issue of the peer-reviewed scientific journal Social Psychology Quarterly advances a new theory that more intelligent people are more likely than less intelligent people to adopt "evolutionarily novel preferences and values." It's summarized on the front page of ScienceDaily.

"Evolutionarily novel preferences and values"?

Apparently, humans are not biologically designed to stay up late, for example, for the obvious reason that our earliest ancestors had no artificial lighting. So ... "Being nocturnal is evolutionarily novel" (which makes my 19-year-old nephew, and many other college students, about as novel as they come).

Innocent enough, perhaps. But here's where the study gets political: "...humans are evolutionarily designed to be conservative, caring mostly about their family and friends, and being liberal, caring about an indefinite number of genetically unrelated strangers they never meet or interact with, is evolutionarily novel. So more intelligent children may be more likely to grow up to be liberals."

Ouch.

There is measurable data to support this hypothesis: "Young adults who subjectively identify themselves as 'very liberal' have an average IQ of 106 during adolescence while those who identify themselves as 'very conservative' have an average IQ of 95 during adolescence."

Double ouch.

But here's the money shot: "Similarly, religion is a byproduct of humans' tendency to perceive agency and intention as causes of events, to see 'the hands of God' at work behind otherwise natural phenomena. 'Humans are evolutionarily designed to be paranoid, and they believe in God because they are paranoid,' says [the study]. This innate bias toward paranoia served humans well when self-preservation and protection of their families and clans depended on extreme vigilance to all potential dangers. 'So, more intelligent children are more likely to grow up to go against their natural evolutionary tendency to believe in God, and they become atheists.' "

Let the head-exploding commence.

Labels: evolution, liberal, Republican "brand"

When does a Republican not run as a Republican? When the office sought is on the Wake County School Board. The admission that Deborah Prickett changed her party affiliation from Republican to Unaffiliated in order to run (successfully) for the Board of Education in Raleigh, because she thought that being Republican might hurt her chances, brings up an obvious question:

Why would voters conceivably think twice about electing a Republican, any Republican, to a school board, any school board?

Might it be that Republicans (especially in the South, bless its heart) don't really believe in public education and have extolled the virtues of being rich enough to afford private schools, or being brilliant enough to home-school your own youngins?

Or might it be that Republicans (esp. in South, yadda yadda), even when they believe that public education is okay, are a trifle concerned about the complexion of the kid sitting next to their own lily white offspring?

Or might it be that Republicans seem awfully willing to throw science out of the curriculum in favor of Creationism and to do what they can to prepare students in public schools for life in, say, the 12th Century rather than the 21st?

Whatever, now that Deborah Prickett is firmly installed on the Wake County Board of Education, she's gotten all brave and stuff and declared that she's actually a Republican and damn proud of it! Which only helps explain the severe right turn that educational policies have recently made in Wake County.

Labels: Republican "brand", Wake County Schools

Showing that they continue to be in touch with regular working-class Americans, the Republican National Committee is meeting right now on the beautiful sandy beaches of Hawaii and deciding, incidentally, to impose a litmus test (lite) on all their candidates.

The Republican National Committee's resolutions panel "strongly backed a proposal that would require party officials to determine whether GOP candidates 'wholeheartedly' adhere to the party platform before they can win financial support."

This "lite" version of a loyalty test was a substitute for a heavier version "that would have forced GOP candidates to agree to a litmus test of 10 conservative principles before receiving party campaign dollars." Wouldn't you love to see the details in that 10-point list?

The best part of the article about this struggle over conservative purity is the pressure being exerted by a certain unruly insurgent mob: "...a leader of the Tea Party movement called on the RNC to accept [the more rigid litmus test] as a signal that the GOP really is interested in gaining support from the movement's members. Dick Armey, chairman of FreedomWorks and a former House Republican leader from Texas, said the party's failure to establish a standard by which to measure candidate positions would hurt the GOP."

As a notoriously pure airhead from Alaska would say, "You betcha!"

Labels: Dick Armey, National Republican Party, Republican "brand", teabag protest

That monument to bad judgment, Karl Rove, was in Raleigh yesterday raising money for Sen. Dick Burr, who apparently needs help in the worst way.

Rove gave an interview to the News&Observer in which he opined that Republicans need "to address the kitchen-table issues that people talk about at home that affect their lives: jobs, the economy, health care, access of their children to college, how to pay for college, quality of life, the environment."

Look at that laundry list closely. When have the Republicans offered any substantive help on any of those topics? Why, Madam Virginia Foxx alone is a study in NOT helping. She votes against the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, she votes against raising the minimum wage, she votes against extending unemployment benefits, she votes against college loans, hell, she votes against the School Lunch program! And "the environment"? Don't make us laugh out loud and choke on our tongues!

So we don't know which Republican Party Karl Rove is talking about, but it isn't the one currently sending Madam Virginia Foxx to Congress.

Labels: Karl Rove, Republican "brand", Richard Burr, Virginia Foxx

South Carolina Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer, who is running for governor in the steps of disgraced Appalachian Trail hiker Mark Sanford, said in public that the school lunch program in his state is just like feeding stray dogs: those kids are just gonna hang around and breed more dogs:

"My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply.

"They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is, you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better....

"I can show you a bar graph where free and reduced lunch has the worst test scores in the state of South Carolina. You show me the school that has the highest free and reduced lunch, and I'll show you the worst test scores, folks. It's there, period."

In South Carolina, 58 percent of students participate in the free and reduced-price lunch program.

While Mr. Bauer is worried about giving curs "ample food supply," we're wondering what cut off the oxygen supply to his brain.

Labels: Andre Bauer, Republican "brand"

Congresswoman Virginia Foxx draws a Glenn-Beck-inspired challenger on the right, and the next thing you know, Virginia Foxx is planning on showing up at a Forsyth County "meetup" of the Glenn-Beck-inspired "912 group."

That's called cause and effect.

Anyone got an iPhone to go record her remarks in Rural Hall? Our guess is that V. Foxx is going to be moving even farther right than she already is, which means she may fall off the map of the known world. She will, however, want to keep those extreme opinions secret from the general public, or more specifically from moderate Republicans and independent voters in Forsyth county and elsewhere.

This a.m. the NYTimes has a long article up about the tea-party movement -- many diverse fringe and splinter groups, including Glenn Beck's 912 org and the guys who show up at presidential appearances packing guns. Some of that movement's savvier leaders are moving to take over the Republican Party from the precinct level up. We think this is a splendid idea. If they did that in Watauga County, however, they'd be essentially throwing out Virginia Foxx, since she runs the local party through her paid staff member who is also chair. We forget his name.

Labels: Aaron Whitener, Republican "brand", teabag protest, Virginia Foxx

Republican political analyst John Davis sez that North Carolina business interests have shied away from recent Republican politicians because most business-oriented voters do not regard a "preoccupation with a right-wing religious and/or socially conservative agenda" as the main business of government, let alone the main business of business.

Jack Betts quotes Davis:

If I am out of work, living on unemployment, can't afford health insurance, can't afford to keep my kids in college, can't afford to buy my family Christmas gifts ... don't come to my door asking for my vote based on your position on abortion. If my wife is sick and I can't afford to take her to a doctor, and my daughter lost her job and I can't afford to help her pay her rent ... don't come to my door asking for my vote based on your position on same-sex marriage.

In the photograph here reproduced, that's Congresswoman Virginia Foxx endorsing Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Renato Calabria in 2005. He evidently thought Foxx was good for his business.

Labels: John Davis, Republican "brand", Virginia Foxx

Though we've ground our teeth down to nubs over President Obama's lack of real leadership and Rahm Emanuel's backroom deal-making and Congressional Democrats' wussiness, we have not bought into the cable news chatter that 2010 will put Republicans back in charge of everything legislative, including the state of North Carolina. Finally, we find another NC analyst who seems to agree with us, Gary Pearce:

So what could keep 2010 from being a Republican year? The answer: Republicans....

Republicans' stridency, negativity and hypocrisy today stun me. But they don't bother me. I hope they keep it up. It's the Democrats' best hope.

We doubt seriously that Mr. Pearce had Virginia Foxx specifically in mind when he wrote those sentences, but she certainly comes to mind when we read them.

Labels: Gary Pearce, Republican "brand", Virginia Foxx

"Very distressed"
If not for this 140-character limit on Twitter updates, I would have said "I'm massively full of my adopted Baptist disgust, mixed with a healthy dose of true Catholic fascination with hell fire and the innovations of the Inquisition." But "very distressed" will have to do, unless you think it's a trifle limp-wristed. Maybe "sick on my stomach" would be better? Or "Puking up righteous bile"?

"about Obama"
There. I said his name. Are you satisfied? But notice the subtle dis. No first name. Ain't that cool? And I acknowledged no title for him. No "President." Hell no. Eff Obama.

"treating terrorist as criminal."
Damn this Twitter character limit! What I mean is, Obama (eff Obama) wants to put terrorist(s) behind iron bars instead of standing him (them) up against a wall and blowing their brains all over the stucco, or burning them in baths of phosphorus, or ... or ... see "the innovations of the Inquisition" above, or see for reference any bloody-minded echo of our heritage.

"Another example of Dems 'being soft on crime' "
Because it's not JUST that Obama (eff Obama) is black and Muslim and probably a foreigner with a faked Honolulu birth certificate. He's a Dem. Damn the Dems. Dem bones, Dem bones, Dem dry bones! Dem bones ain't gonna rise again! And thank Gawd for ancient slogans, like "soft on crime." That one comes from back when we used it ALWAYS to refer to black people, especially when they were agitating and marching in the streets for their so-called "rights." Animals! Our blessed forefathers knew how to deal, how to use the fire and the noose and the meat cleaver. Obama is a pussy. End of story.

"but now terrorists."
Got the "s" on there this time! America, are you paying attention? Booga, booga, booga ... TERRORISTS! The TERRORISTS are coming to get you! Hear that? It's TERRORISTS creeping up on you, and all Obama (eff Obama) and the effing Dems want to do is treat them as criminal. Not like us Republicans. We want to treat them the way you treated baby kittens when you were a poor sadistic kid with no social skills and what they called "lack of emotional connection" and with too much time on your hands. We want to open up a fountain of cruelty, those feelings you're sooo repressing right now. And we can do it, we believe, when we scream in your face, "TERRORISTS!"

Your believe-it-or-not reference to source.

Labels: Republican "brand", Virginia Foxx

Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, making his exit today from 14 years of incumbency, shreds the Eleventh Commandment for Republicans, which is to say, he speaks ill of some fellow GOPers.

As in ... Sarah Palin is an obvious bobblehead and the national Republican Party has begun to feel like acid reflux. Not in those exact words, but still.

When and if he decides to reenter politics, the right-wing of his party (which is to say, his party) is going to make him eat those words.

Labels: Pat McCrory, Republican "brand", Sarah Palin

Trouble in the "tea party" movement.

Sez a Texas tea party organizer: "You have some interesting folks in the Tea Party movement -- some of them I can support, but some of them are kind of out there and radical, and I don't want to associate myself with them."

So the supposed "movement" is making like cheap pine furniture: there's a lot of splintering and some sore asses.

Extremism is great for movements ... up to a point (to be specific, the point at which your movement needs to attract more people than it repels by virtue of its Obama-Is-Hitler and health-care-reform-is-the-Holocaust rhetoric).

Labels: Republican "brand", teabag protest

Tom Jensen over at Public Policy Polling:

All three of these folks [current top GOP contenders Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, and Mike Huckabee] reinforce the negative perceptions that much of the country holds about the Republican Party. The GOP needs a fresh face that challenges people's assumptions about who Republicans are and is visibly not just going to be George W. Bush under another name. I don't know who that person is, but he/she needs to emerge if the party is going to win back the White House in 2012.

Some conservative talking head the other day -- maybe it was Pat Buchanan -- uttered the name Bob McDonnell in reference to the above perception that something is dreadfully outta focus (rather than mavericky) about the current Republican field of presidential contenders. Which we think kinda proves Jensen's point, if you're turning to the man who just won a Southern governorship but hasn't even been sworn in yet.

McDonnell = a fresh face, yes. But "challenges people's assumptions"? Not so much.

Labels: Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Republican "brand", Robert F. McDonnell, Sarah Palin, Tom Jensen

For all the dissension in the Democratic Party, the Republicans have their own internal rotting fish heads.

Congressman Heath Shuler (NC-11) following not just PhRMA's talking points but the talking points that PhRMA specifically tailored for Republican members of Congress ... about protecting PhRMA's huge profits by way of prohibiting generic versions of certain cancer & AIDS drugs. UPDATE: Tom Sullivan at Scrutiny Hooligans goes a more complete blow-by-blow of all this under the appropriate headline "Corporate Ventriloquism."

The Barracuda bites the hand that fed her.

North Carolina Republicans, even with headliner Dick Armey and the personal blessing of Jesus Christ, can't get but 400 measly protesters out in Raleigh over the weekend? Who'd a thunk it!

Republican conservatives dismember their most promising politicians. Fine by me.

Labels: Charlie Crist, Dick Armey, health care, Health Shuler, Republican "brand", Sarah Palin

Madam Virginia Foxx stood on the west front of the Capitol yesterday, shucking and grinning as one of Michelle Bachmann's backup singers, basking in the glow of some 5,000 anti-abortionists and tea partiers bused in by Americans for the Prosperous to shut down the government and kill health-insurance reform. Many of the demonstrators were covered in fake blood and carried mangled dolls, representing aborted fetuses, as someone else dressed as the Grim Reaper mimicked leading them all to hell. Other demonstrators chanted "Weasel Queen," their favored nickname for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

In Madam Foxx's line of sight were a number of protestor signs: President Obama in white coat, his face painted to look like the Joker; "Stop Obamunism"; "Obama takes his orders from the Rothchilds" [sic], accusing Obama of being part of a Jewish plot to introduce the antichrist; and a pair of 5-by-8 foot banners proclaiming "National Socialist Healthcare, Dachau, Germany, 1945." Both banners showed close-up photographs of Holocaust victims, many of them children.

Those huge Nazi death-camp signs were the visual manifestation of what The Madam had already said on the floor of the U.S. House this past Monday.

Anyone who watched any of this bizarre Michelle Bachmann rally yesterday ("Taking the GOP Off the Cliff") could not miss Madam Foxx and her helmet of white crazy-lady hair. While others ranted at the microphone, she was always nearby, the perfect marionette, though for all her mimicking of great pleasure at being there in the company of so many other political whores, she looked as nervous and as pained as someone secretly passing gas in an elevator.

When her turn came at the microphone, she bellowed, "This Congress is on a collision course with the principles of freedom and liberty that our Founding Fathers bled and died for. We will not be silenced. We will kill this bill."

Well, they ARE clearly the Party of Death.

Labels: health care, Michelle Bachmann, Republican "brand", Virginia Foxx

Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-Poisontoadsville) is waaay too important for his britches.

On Sunday he left his SUV Ford Explorer (compensating much, Patrick?) illegally parked at the Charlotte-Douglas International Airport. "The front tires were on the curb. The back tires were in the driving area of the parking lot, one resting atop a yellow speed bump." The photographs that the Gaston Gazette reporter took are precious!

McHenry's spokesman said the Congressman was running late, had somehow temporarily misplaced his personal servants, and was greatly needed on urgent national business of shoving cream pie in Barack Obama's mug.

Labels: Patrick McHenry, Republican "brand"

Meet Doug Hoffman, losing candidate for the U.S. Congress in the NY-23. Hoffman did NOT run and lose as a Republican. He ran and lost as a tea-bagging conservative. The GOP did NOT initially pick Hoffman as its candidate. No, it was worse than that. It picked a "moderate" Republican woman, Dede Scozzafava, who does not hate gay marriage and is pro-choice on abortion rights. Which led (as we're sure you know) to a major uprising within Republican and tea-bagger ranks. Ended up that every major Republican presidential hopeful in 2012, along with many other prominent national Republican spokespeople, bailed on Scozzafava and started endorsing Mr. Creepy Man Hoffman. Got so bad that Scozzafava pulled out of the race and endorsed the Democrat, the Unknown Man, Bill Owens, who won last night ... the first Democrat to be elected from the NY-23 since before the Civil War. Put that in your tea bag and steep it!

If this is what the conservative movement brings to the Republican Party, GOP operatives have very little to be strutting about this a.m. Exit polling in both Virginia and New Jersey strongly suggest that the voters in those states were not lashing out at President Obama. They were lashing out at Corzine in New Jersey (good riddance to all such present and former Goldman Sachs bankers, sez I). In Virginia, the 2008 Obama voters stayed home and demonstrated that Virginia definitely ain't for lovers. It's for old people.

Certainly, in North Carolina Tom Fetzer and the state GOP have precious little to crow about (from what we've been able to see so far this a.m.). But more on that in a subsequent post.

The elections in New Jersey and Virginia WERE about Obama in one way: those states went for him a year ago because he promised change, he promised an up-ending of "business as usual," he promised visionary leadership and progressive ideals. He has not delivered. He surrounded himself with the wrong people, and instead of dynamic leadership, we've gotten maddening caution and Rahm Emanuel. I might have sat at home myself in New Jersey or Virginia yesterday.

We keep hoping that the other Barack Obama, the one who won that huge election a year ago and told us things were going to be different, is eventually going to actually inhabit the Oval Office.

If he doesn't, 2010 will indeed be awful.

Labels: Barack Obama, Bill Owens, National Republican Party, Rahm Emanuel, Republican "brand", teabag protest, Tom Fetzer

Keeping in mind that Madam Virginia Foxx is actively scared to death of actual voters in her district and that she does not appear anywhere that doesn't offer "safe," pre-screened, ass-kissing fans of hers, her truly violent statement today on the floor of the House has to be taken with the usual tablespoon of salt, as well as a generous dose of laudanum:

Everywhere I go in my district, people tell me they are frightened .... I share that fear, and I believe they should be fearful. And I believe the greatest fear that we all should have to our freedom comes from this room -- this very room -- and what may happen later this week in terms of a tax increase bill masquerading as a health care bill. I believe we have more to fear from the potential of that bill passing than we do from any terrorist right now in any country.

You can watch the whole sorry display here.

So, you understand, right, that the "threat" of health-care reform is worse than the threat from any terrorist in any country in the world?

This is a respected representative of the political party that is counting on us giving them control again over our lives, our welfare, and all our futures in 2010.

No thanks.

Labels: health care, Republican "brand", Virginia Foxx

Less than 48 hours before the election for governor in Virginia, at least some of the state's voters began getting robo-calls from Sarah Palin.

Apparently, she can see Virginia from her house.

The Republican candidate for governor up there, Robert McDonnell, a right-winger of the Pat Robertson school, had politely requested that Palin not stick her cute little button nose into his election campaign, fearing that the state's independents might not cotton to the under-informed former Alaska governor (who couldn't even get through a single term in office).

Curiously (or perhaps, understandably, given the above paragraph), Palin does not mention McDonnell by name: "Virginia, hello, this is Sarah Palin calling to urge you to go to the polls Tuesday and vote to share our principles. The eyes of America will be on Virginia and make no mistake about it, every vote counts. So don't take anything for granted, vote your values on Tuesday, and urge your friends and family to vote, too."

"Your values" = gay-bashing anti-abortion get 'em women back in the kitchen, all of which fit McDonnell to a tee.

The calls are being paid for by the Virginia Faith and Freedom Coalition, the state branch of a national conservative group founded by former Christian Coalition director (and Jack Abramoff palsy-wowsy) Ralph Reed.

McDonnell is heavily favored to win over Democrat Creigh Deeds, but perhaps Palin intends to brag that she turned the (already very red) tide in McDonnell's favor. She ain't nothing if she ain't an opportunist.

Labels: Ralph Reed, Republican "brand", Robert F. McDonnell, Sarah Palin

The boorish chortling of conservatives over Chicago's loss of the Olympics in 2016 may end up hurting the Republican Party more than ... say, the last eight years hurt them.

Celebrating an American defeat -- reveling in it -- is not only un-American, in the most basic meaning of that term, but just GROSS, in the medical meaning of that term.

Once again, Republicans seem so bankrupt, so morally uncentered, they're quite content to follow Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and little Billy Crystal off the cliff in the interests of personal animus.

Their laughter and applause at an American loss may echo down the halls of history a lot louder than their pious, empty posturing on "patriotism."

Labels: Bill Crystal, Glenn Beck, Republican "brand", Rush Limbaugh

All that August noise from Republicans about socialist Democrats seems now in the cooler shade of September to have done nothing particularly harmful to health care reform and several things very harmful to the Republican "brand." From this a.m.'s NYTimes:

...recent polling ... done for The New York Times and CBS News in the last week ... gives Democrats a clear edge over Republicans as the party favored to deal with health care issues. The same polls show significant support for a public option despite months of criticism from Republicans, who describe it as a government takeover of health insurance.

On the issue of reforming corporate, for-profit insurance, the Republicans are truly irrelevant, except as background noise and the occasional clown eruption. Democrats from red states or red districts are the entire story for what's to come.

Labels: health care, polls and polling, Republican "brand"

Meet Carrie Prejean, Values Voter Summit headliner and political guru. When the values of American beauty pageant contestants become the values of the iPootValues Voter, we feel like lying in a hammock and taking the next several years off from political activism. These folks seem sufficiently bent on self-destruction that they don't need any nudging from me.

You can't really satirize what is already satirizing itself so thoroughly. The former Moral Majority is packing some serious intellectual heft these days, no? A Barbie doll channeling George W. Bush tells the super righteous at the Values Voters summit:

"As I saw my goals and aspirations flash by me, I knew God had a plan for me .... God chose me for that moment."

All the Christian conventioneers applauded as though an archangel had come down from heaven to hand over The Restored Stone Tablets (or the Satin Sash of Righteousness and Breast Augmentation). Who knew God took such an interest in Vaselined teeth and runway strutting?

Said our good ole boy on the scene, "It wudn't nuttin but wut she said about The Gay that mattered."

The last time the Right Wing used a beauty pageant contestant as their life raft, we believe Anita Bryant took 'em all down with the ship.

The world we live in offers too much brilliant silliness. Dan Brown, the Absolute Worst Writer in the Universe, coins more money with a new thriller. Meanwhile, a serious new film biography about Charles Darwin will likely not be released in the god-blessed United States of America because it might "prove hugely divisive in a country where, according to a Gallup poll conducted in February, only 39 per cent of Americans believe in the theory of evolution."

Maybe we're all too dumb to survive as a sub-species. When the end comes, I'll be out back in the hammock.

Labels: Carrie Prejean, evolution, religion and politics, Republican "brand"

For all Glenn Beck and Fox News could gin up, they got a fraction of the 2 million they had hoped for Saturday in D.C. (60,000 - 70,000 actually showed up, according to official estimates by the Washington Fire Dept.). But they were rabid. And lied, incidentally, about their numbers. Of course. Wouldn't you? (More good pics on Scrutiny Hooligans, along with news that promoters of the 9/12 protest used Obama inauguration photos to bolster their claims of 2 million screaming meanies.)

Conservative writer David Frum summed up the current conservative fringe in the Republican Party as a combo of "wild accusations" and "paranoid delusions" arising from "the fever swamps." And he thinks it ain't helping the Republican Party get back on its electoral feet.

Meanwhile, in Raleigh, the John Locke Foundation/Civitas Institute/John William Pope Conglomerate for Doctoring the News hosted a Conservative Leadership Conference which featured (and we're not making this up) a keynote address by deposed beauty queen Carrie Prejean, whose talents include posing topless and opposing gay marriage. The Civitas Institute has been a bit vague on attendance, claiming "hundreds" who were hungry for the philosophical stylings of Miss Prejean, but our inside snitches say they barely hit 200, and several of those paying customers were some young progressive infiltrators from Durham doing oppo.

I dunno. With numbers like these, the Republican Party could hold a really loud, well attended national convention ... which is maybe all they want. Because, clearly, they don't want to attract actual voters.

Labels: Civitas Institute, Fox News, Glenn Beck, Republican "brand"

That's yeller-out Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) in the middle of the picture, leaning forward. Rep. Patrick McHenry (NC-10), busily tweeting, is sitting three slots to Wilson's right.

As for Rep. Wilson's open contempt for the president, fellow South Carolinian and House Majority Whip James Clyburn said, "Joe is very confrontational. He held his first town hall meeting three blocks from my house at my kid's high school. Now why would he have this town hall meeting in my congressional district, three blocks from my house in my kid's high school? It's not in his district. That's the kind of guy Joe Wilson is. He loves confronting people. So he was confronting the president, just as he was confronting me."

"Joe Wilson took our state's reputation to a new low. I thought Mark Sanford had taken it as low as it could go, but this is beyond the pale," Clyburn said.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said that in the eight hours after Wilson's outburst, his Democratic opponent, former-Marine Rob Miller, has received nearly 3,000 individual grassroots contributions raising approximately $100,000.

Wilson wasn't the only one openly displaying contempt. A group of Republican back-benchers kept waving sheafs of paper at the President during standing ovations (the 95 Theses perhaps), and other prominent Republicans were seen on camera tweeting away or scanning their Blackberries. It was like 6th period Study Hall, probably including the spitballs and audible farts.

These are the alleged adults who fervently hope their antics will convince the American people to put them back in charge of government.

FOOTNOTE
Dana Milbank reports that Patrick McHenry got up and left the House chamber before the speech was over, apparently late for a meeting of the Tiny Weasel Caucus.

Labels: James Clyburn, Joe Wilson, Patrick McHenry, Republican "brand"

Sez Dad:

"Listen, Junior, I don’t want you listening to That Man, That Muslim, on Tuesday. You’re to get up and leave the room, you got that? If someone locks the door – and they might – you stick your fingers in your ears and say 'Praise Jesus!' over and over until that sumbitch is done. You got that? I ain’t gonna have no kid of mine getting brainwashed by no commie fascist socialist. No siree."

The only thing potentially worse than denying junior the chance to hear the President of the United States address personal responsibility and doing one’s best ... is making the President of the United States forbidden fruit. Because you know teenagers, and if you don’t know teenagers, then you’re possibly an orthodox conservative Republican who actually thinks the taller the wall, the safer the doctrine.

So mark us down as applauding the loony right for making the President such a mysterious, dangerous force to be avoided at all costs. The odds are very good that they’re raising a generation of Democrats.

Labels: Barack Obama, Republican "brand"

Because, apparently, He justifies the actions of ... certain people.

Mark Sanford, the fornicating Guv of South Carolina, for example, sez God's on his side. And now we understand the whiteness behind the "white lie."

Rachel Maddow has had a segment lately spilling the only beans you need to know in this age of hypocritical self-righteousness: "It's okay if a Republican does it."

Labels: Mark Sanford, Rachel Maddow, Republican "brand"

A mere sampling of some of the comments posted at GoBlueRidge.net, on a thread about N.C. political figures commenting on the death of Sen. Edward Kennedy ... because anonymity brings out the best in everyone:

Molly Hatchet Registered | 08/26/2009 2:54PM
Truly the end of an error.

PlumbHollow Registered | 08/27/2009 10:59AM
Ted Kennedy was an extremely flawed and crooked man. Those who say that he "helped" the "little guy" need to ask themselves one question.

Why don't all those incredibly wealthy liberal politicians simply turn over their excess billions in personal fortunes to the "little guys"?

It's a proven fact that Liberals give very little of their pesonal fortunes to the needy but they damned sure do like giving away the "little guy's" money.

I can only hope that Teddy got right with the Lord before he assumed room temperature.

Just call me Bill Registered | 08/27/2009 1:11PM
It is indeed hypocritical to change what you have to say about someone just because he died. Nothing has changed.

Mr. Kennedy was an alcohol abusing, womanizing, liberal whose political policies hurt this country and who may have literally gotten away with murder. He is still an alcohol abusing, womanizing, liberal whose political policies hurt this country and who may have literally gotten away with murder. However, he is now a dead alcohol abusing, womanizing, liberal whose political policies hurt this country and who may have literally gotten away with murder.

This is not graceless or lacking compassion, but simple consistency of opinion.

lawnboy Registered | 08/27/2009 5:47PM
rum runner and murderer

lawnboy Registered | 08/27/2009 6:49PM
No I can still hate him all of the dead kennedy's..worm food

PlumbHollow Registered | 08/27/2009 10:54PM

I can include Ted Kennedy into a conversation of Hitler and Saddam because Kennedy BELONGS in such a discussion! Not only did he kill a young woman, he was absolutely complicit in the murder of millions of unborn children in his dispicable career.

I only wish he would have done the honorable thing and blown his pea-brains out years ago.

It amazes me that liberals give Kennedy a pass on a murder, the cover up of a rape, the slandering of a rape victim and the serial womanizing of dozens of women. Not to mention his well documented mistreatment of employees.

I suppose you can't expect rational thought from Liberals. After all, if you condone the murder of the innocent, what WON'T you condone?

As for Teddy's family?.....I can muster no empathy...they all knew he was a piece of human debris too. All the grief is strictly for show and the dough.

America will be a better place when the Kennedy Clan simply disappears from the political landscape.

Labels: Edward Kennedy, Republican "brand"

I heard this interview with Michael Steele this a.m. on NPR and couldn't believe my ears. A flabberglasticon of contraditions and confusions, Steele was all over the map, trying to sound half-way competent about the facts and stumbling repeatedly instead into deep potholes of faulty logic and twisted reasoning.

Hence, he's the perfect spokesman for the Party of No, the Party of Torture, the Party of the Smugly Prosperous.

Labels: health care, Michael Steele, Republican "brand"

"And it came to pass at the seventh time, that he said, Behold, there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man's hand." I Kings 18:44

When I was a kid, that passage was preached on as a sign of water coming to a parched land, a sign of hope, so last night when this story moved onto the NYTimes site and was suddenly everywhere else in Left Blogistan, we felt a quickening of the pulse and our nostrils flared with the scent of precipitation after months of drought.

It's progress if the White House (Rahm, we're looking at you) is getting over its pipe dream of "bi-partisanship," if it's finally realizing that negotiating with Republicans is akin to negotiating with a croc that has already swallowed one of your two legs and is bent on munching your private parts.

As much as the tea-baggers et al. scream that they speak for America, they speak for a minority that lost the last election, that is bloody-minded and wedded to lies, that totes loaded firearms to presidential appearances, that confuses the noise of talk radio and cable TV with "the voice of (all) the people," that is into bullying and bluffing and (now, apparently) dancing with the stars.

Let 'em scream. It's music to our ears, 'cause as long as those particular jerks are screamin', we figger something good is also happening.

Labels: health care, Rahm Emanuel, Republican "brand"

Ah, the odor of singed hair arising from the Republican Party of North Carolina. They're not so much "rebranding" (the source of that burned hair smell) as they're performing seances over the buried corpses of their ancient fears. The Know Nothings of 1840 were pikers compared to the hysterical mobs of today, taking their intellectual cues from the triumvirate of Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and Rush Limbaugh.

Public Policy Polling has found that "in North Carolina 64% of rural Republicans think [President Obama] was not born in the US, compared to 47% of Republicans overall." The statistic in the first part of that sentence is startling on its own, but what about the almost half of statewide Republicans who say they think we have an unconstitutional, unqualified foreigner (not to mention Muslim!) sitting in the White House?

That's what they say. Whether they actually believe it is another matter. It may be that they just woke up and discovered they lost the election and need some ready cudgel to flail at the air. "Foreigner" has had a long history as readily weaponized rhetoric in America.

Labels: Glenn Beck, Republican "brand", Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin

The best sign we've seen that the mob atmosphere at town-hall meetings, engineered by corporate-backed groups like Americans for Prosperity, is actually backfiring is this charge from Dallas Woodhouse, N.C. state director of AFP:

The outbursts against Democratic legislators at town hall meetings are being coordinated by the White House through the Democratic National Committee and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, so they can demonize those who speak out against the proposed insurance reforms, Woodhouse said.

"It's disgusting, thug-like politics, happening because President Obama is losing this debate on the merits," he said.

Note that Woodhouse admitted the behavior is "thug-like."

So, in case you're not following plain English, the Congressional Democrats, taking but a little time off from arranging death panels to send Sarah Palin's parents and Trig off to the ovens, are finding, recruiting, training, and encouraging a bunch of elderly white people with red faces to show up at Democratic town halls to shout nasty stuff at Democrats.

Makes total sense!

Labels: health care, Republican "brand", Sarah Palin

This is what Limbaugh/Beck/Hannity/O'Reilly wanted all along. This is what the Republican Party is reaping. This is their brand.

Labels: health care, Republican "brand"

I mean, you can't step over the shit.

Americans for Keeping Corporate Health-Care Profits manufactures coordinated mob action against Democratic members of Congress, inducing elderly Americans on Medicare to come out and protest "government-run health care," meaning, logically, that they want their own insurance coverage ended and will gladly put themselves at the mercy of the huge insurance corporations mounting the "astroturf" protests.

The racists of the Obama "birther" movement steal an Australian birth certificate and forge it to make the president appear to be born in Kenya before it was Kenya, supposedly in a Kenyan city that was actually part of Zanzibar at the time of his birth. Forgery ain't these guys' strong suit. The fact that we have a black president has deranged Lou Dobbs. And Chuck Norris (bless his heart).

Fox News, pausing to draw a breath in its promotion of astroturf protests against reforming health care, hyper-ventilates against "Cash for Clunkers," deciding that the overwhelming success of the program (in running out of the allotted money so fast) must mean the program was a huge failure. You can't just sneeze at "news judgment" that creative! Fox commentator Mara Liasson compared Cash for Clunkers to the failures during Hurricane Katrina. I'm not kidding.

John Bolton (whose puss is pictured above) gets indignant that former President Bill Clinton successfully springs Euna Lee and Laura Ling from a North Korean jail. There's moral relativism for you.

And our absolute favorite pile of bull feces today: Joe Lucas, vice president of communications for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a front group for (dirty) coal, told the Guardian that dynamiting the tops off of mountains is actually a good thing for Appalachia cause it gives the hillbillies some flat land to square dance on. Okay, he didn't say the last part of that sentence, but he did say that mountaintop removal was good because it provides flat land.

This is just a sampling of the people who were thrown out of power last November and who think if they scream loud enough, and insult our intelligence just a little bit more, the American people will welcome them back in 2010 to run everything further into the ground.

Labels: Republican "brand"

This is the bus supplied by Americans for Prosperity for the rally against health care yesterday in Winston-Salem. (Hat-tip: this and other pics gratefully found here.)

Grassroots, right? Yeah. Uncle Ted and Aunt Esther and some of their friends found themselves an old touring bus, and with some gallons of flat paint and a few camel-hair brushes, they painted that sucker to exercise their American right to disagree.

Well, no. This is "astroturf," so-called because it's fake grass(roots).

Americans for Prosperity started the tea-bagging movement. It's funded by corporations and other rich guys who've figgered out how to con the modestly salaried into screaming about taxes. Other than the outside agitators they bussed into Winston yesterday, they attracted local Republican activists, Paularoid remnants, birthers, the "Obama is the devil" crowd, and racists (but I repeat myself).

Madam Doctor Virginia Foxx was there and didn't say a word about the government putting old people to death. Instead, she harped on abortion, claiming that proposed health-reform was really a sneaky way to force teenaged girls to abort their babies.

Many in the crowd were clearly over 65 and therefore already on Medicare, that terrible, socialistic, government-run insurance program that they claim they're dead-set against. They are either willfully ignorant, or duped, or simply hateful, but all of them are serving the interests of big corporations who've labored all these years to take over our government and who have no intention of relinquishing their grip now.

Labels: astroturf, health care, medicare, Republican "brand", Virginia Foxx

I was 16-going-on-17 during John F. Kennedy's run for the White House in 1960, a member of a Pentecostal church which militantly viewed "the world" as enemy to the good, while all my high school friends were Southern Baptists. The father of one of those friends passed a printed pamphlet to my father, who gave it to me: "The Catholic Menace." I began to read about the dangers our beloved country was in should the Catholic Kennedy lie his way into the presidency. The hairs were standing up on the back of my neck by the time I finished. I was haunted by images of what Catholics did to Protestants (back when they did things to Protestants, whenever that was, as deliciously detailed in Fox’s Book of Martyrs). I knew that I had to do something to keep the Pope from taking over our government.

What I could do as a teenager was talk, a little wild-eyed, to my classmates, who couldn't vote, and to my extended family, many of whom never bothered to vote. That year, despite all the crazy talk by adults who could and did vote for Richard M. Nixon, Texas went for Kennedy and in January 1961 cast its 24 electoral votes for JFK.

That was the same year, 1961, that Barack Obama was born in Honolulu. Obama is now the target of the 21st century equivalent of nasty little printed pamphlets, that is, The Forwarded E-Mail, the most virulent recent one claiming that the president is actually the antichrist. Some of the more determined promoters of these vicious fictions are going on YouTube, like this guy, who, when he gets tired of misrepresenting Christianity as a paranoid's last resort, could have a great career as a twister of balloons into party animals.

The Republican Party is not only hanging out with these people. These people are the base of the Republican Party, they define it. In the absence of any visible party leadership, they're calling the shots, and it's the rare Republican politician willing to stand up and say "You people are plu-perfect cra-zee and have nothing to do with me."

I raise this connection between the paranoia of the super-religious in the 1960s and the paranoia of the super-religious in 2009 as a melancholy memory, since some lunatic managed to kill Kennedy. Some lunatic, fueled by the evil reverends in our midst today, will puff themselves up with the egotism of their own righteousness and attempt to kill Barack Obama. They're certainly capable of murder, and worse. They shot a doctor in the head in his own church in Omaha.

Beware of the righteous on a mission from God. No group should fear them more than the contemporary Republican Party, whose hands will not easily come clean of that blood.

Labels: Barack Obama, John F. Kennedy, religion and politics, Republican "brand"

Like this.

Or this.

Labels: Republican "brand"

Bill Greener, a Republican operative who on the eve of the election last fall was arguing that "undecideds" were going to break for McCain because of Obama's race, is now whining a very different tune:

Unless and until Republicans can demonstrate an ability to attract more support from minority voters, from younger voters, from voters living in urban areas, it seems to this die-hard Republican that we are kidding ourselves if we think the 2008 election was just a speed bump on our road to a lasting majority. Looking at nothing more than the math, it appears to me our challenge is far more daunting.

For a party whose Congressional leaders seem obsessed with finding the next racist argument against the president and whose "youth" just installed an openly racist candidate as president of the national Young Republicans, Greener's whistling through a particularly deaf graveyard.

Labels: Republican "brand"

The excerpt below was written by a Republican Party operative in Buncombe County about Republican prospects in the upcoming Asheville municipal elections. It was published on Scrutiny Hooligans, our favorite Asheville blog. It's an insider's analysis of the GOP's "branding" problems in the more urbanized areas of western North Carolina and might, in the short run, make its author unwelcome at Republican Party gatherings:

...the Buncombe County Republican Party has been characterized over the last several years more by its own infighting and proving itself relatively ineffective at get-out-the-vote efforts (GoTV). Although a recent influx of younger libertarians to the GOP are an exception, Republican activists are much older than their Democratic counterparts, and tend to consider party involvement more as a social outlet for its own sake rather than as a vehicle for political action. Republicans (social conservatives, particularly) also tend to be more isolated from the cultural life of downtown Asheville, many holding it in open contempt.

There is a virulent strain of isolationism and bigotry in the local Republican Party. The primary "issue" around which the base coalesces is a visceral fear of immigration, legal and otherwise and those fears are used for propaganda purposes by many Republican officials (though, arguably, it has largely backfired). Conservatives, especially, feel that their traditional way of life is threatened by what they see as an "invasion" by immigrants from the south and rapidly changing cultural mores regarding tolerance of homosexuality.

Republicans also lag far behind progressives in the effective utilization of modern technology, especially in the area of social networking tools. No comparable infrastructure exists in the GOP, and what efforts have been accomplished in terms of technology, it is more gloss than substance.

Since 2006, the local GOP has been crippled by intraparty ideological battles (between its social conservative and libertarian factions) and a recent spate of unviable candidates -- from the perennial to the polarizing to the incompetent. All this has had a marginalizing effect on moderate Republicans and has seriously hampered the Republican Party's local fundraising abilities.

The situation shows no signs of improving for the local GOP as the two factions have made peace, at least ostensibly. Ron Paul supporters, who several years ago planned to take over local Republican organizations, have been successful in Buncombe County, with the entire apparatus now controlled by them. Several self-annointed "principled" and socially conservative spokesmen for the local GOP continue to have a stranglehold on the dialogue, continuing to alienate and divide the party.

It should be noted that a grassroots effort has been undertaken in Buncombe County over the last few months under the auspices of the "Tea Party" movement, largely in protest of what they see as "socialist" bailouts, higher tax rates, and President Obama's expansion of government. While ostensibly "non-partisan," it has been largely a movement organized by local libertarians and Republicans and has tapped in to an undercurrent of Republican resentment at recent electoral defeat....

Labels: Asheville, Republican "brand", Ron Paul, Scrutiny Hooligans

Apparently, that small, mainly Southern political party known as "Republicans" intends to cement its racist bona fides one e-mail/tweet at a time.

We need to start naming these people: Sherri Goforth, an executive assistant for Tennessee State Rep. Diane Black (R-Gallatin) ... sorry only that she got caught.

And Mike Green, another brilliant GOP "operative" in South Carolina (is there something in the water?), but at least Green finally apologized after being outed.

That Republican "re-branding" is going very well, no?

Labels: racism, Republican "brand"

'GOD GUNS GUTS' ... not necessarily in that order.

The Sermon on the Mount ... on indefinite hiatus in east Tennessee.

Hat tip: LM

Labels: religion and politics, Republican "brand"

Rut-roh. Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-Munchkinville) is quoted as saying the Republican Party needs to drop its endless whining about taxes. The Reagan Era is over, he says, having just awoken evidently and having just smelled the coffee.

"Marginal tax rates are the lowest they've been in generations, and all we can talk about is tax cuts," he said. "The people's desires have changed, but we're still stuck in our old issue set."

Next thing we know, he'll be declaring gay people full citizens of the United States.

Labels: Patrick McHenry, Republican "brand"

From Roll Call today, an article titled "Foxx Hunts for GOP, Sometimes Misfires":

One North Carolina political strategist said Foxx's work ethic was impressive at home and inside the Capitol, but that her inability to communicate the Republican message effectively could end up hurting the party.

"I don't see how it's been helpful," the strategist said. "The party should do what it can to raise the profile of females and minorities, but a lot of the time the people we put out front may not be the most effective spokesmen."

We're sure the strategist meant "spokespersons."

Also mentioned in the article ... Republican Minority Leader John Boehner called Foxx down for grinning in front of Capitol cameras. Apparently, he was concerned that the Foxx smile might melt the faces of innocent bystanders.

Labels: John Boehner, Republican "brand", Virginia Foxx

The School Violence Protection Act, Senate Bill 526, passed the N.C. Senate yesterday. Not a single Republican senator voted for it because it recognized gay and lesbian students as potential targets of bullying. Republican politicians don't want to get caught being "gay friendly," no indeedy.

So Public Policy Polling's discussion today deserves some attention. In March, PPP found that 69% of the general public support the sexual orientation provision in the bill, and even a 51% majority of Republicans support the bill. Writes Tom Jensen,

This is a pretty good example of how legislative Republicans marginalize themselves and why Democrats have generally been able to keep control of the legislature in election years that otherwise went very well for the GOP. The truth is that the issues they choose to lose sleep over are outside the mainstream of even much of the Republican base.

In other words, the Republicans in the state senate are considerably to the right of even their base, who don't seem all that concerned that protecting gay kids from getting beat up is going to lead to Sodom&Gomorra, right here in River City!

Anyone waiting for the "rebranding" of Republicanism in N.C. needs to pack several meals and a bedroll.

Labels: homophobia, Public Policy Polling, Republican "brand", Tom Jensen

Nathan Tabor, the right-wing Republican battlebot of yore (he came in fifth in the Republican primary for U.S. Congress that Madam Foxx ultimately won in 2004), says he's now "gentler, softer, more agreeable" in his new role as chair of the Forsyth County Republican Party.

Groovy.

He was the cleverer-by-half candidate who did things like buy up all the domain names he thought his opposition might want to use. According to John Railey, "Tabor has the Facebook savvy and youth [Republicans will] need to [sell themselves to voters again] -- if moderates aren't scared off by his past stances."

Tabor graduated from the Rev. Pat Robertson's Regent University, and has been endorsed, if not enabled, by both Robertson and the late Rev. Jerry Falwell.

He now says that, though he still listens to Rush Limbaugh, he doesn't always agree with him. (For that slip of the tongue, he might want to keep this website bookmarked on his computer.)

Labels: Forsyth County Republican Party, Nathan Tabor, Republican "brand"

Published with permission of Kevin Siers, The Charlotte Observer (from May 1, 2009)

Labels: Matthew Shepherd, Republican "brand", Virginia Foxx

The Republican mayor of Hendersonville, Greg Newman, who recently heard both N.C. senators speak in his city, thinks the Republican Party is being too negative: "The Republican brand must remain positive, Newman said, adding the party must give reasonable alternatives to Democratic policies.

"I believe Americans will still look to the Republican Party to champion values," he said.

Right now, Mr. Mayor, we're watching the Republican Party champion torture in every media outlet, on every TV channel, on every Republican blog. Not only defend torture but actually advocate for ignorance. Peggy Noonan's "some of life has to be mysterious" attitude would fit well into the platform of the Know Nothing party of the 1840s.

Dick Cheney has handed the Republican Party shovels and commanded that they keep digging. Amazingly, they're following orders.

Labels: Greg Newman, Peggy Noonan, Republican "brand"

Did you know that Newt Gingrich recently converted to Catholicism, which as a religion has been known to frown on serial monogamy?

Newtie gives an interview to Christianity Today in which he takes the expected hard line against gays and abortion but can't seem to remember who Sarah Palin was, and when prompted, refuses to name Sarah as one of the presidential front-runners in 2012.

The thrice-married Gingrich also marvels about how anti-family the Democratic party supposedly is, having apparently memorized "The Works of the Pharisees" in his catechism. So he has determined to speak as a Pharisee and pray in the open as a Pharisee.

Labels: Newt Gingrich, Republican "brand"

In the debate in the N.C. General Assembly on whether parents of high school kids should get the option of putting Sally & Joe into "comprehensive sex ed" classes or into "abstinence only" classes or into study hall, where there'll be no info whatsoever about anything (the Healthy Youth Act, H88, would establish that parental option), some Republican members couldn't tolerate the thought of free choice:

Guilford Republican John Blust accused his fellow House members of living "on Fantasy Island…with Tattoo and Da Plane," for thinking more information would lead to less sexual activity. But supporters say the educational change is less focused on curbing teens' sexual activity (which they're obviously engaging in, anyway) than on making sure they don't get pregnant or ill as a result of it. (Via Laura Leslie at Isaac Hunter's Tavern)

While you absorb the political outlook that would sacrifice young lives for the sake of theology, Rep. Mark Hilton (R-Catawba) "argued the only people who want comprehensive sex ed are liberal fringe groups."

This is part of the reason the Republican Party is so robust and successful right now.

Labels: Healty Youth Act, John Blust, Laura Leslie, Mark Hilton, Republican "brand"

Rush Limbaugh is riding high, buoyed by his daily ability to be outrageous and get liberals all upset at him so that he can then play the victim of a liberal witch-hunt (uh, make that a "liberal Pillsbury dough-boy hunt").

So one day he says he hopes Obama fails.

Then yesterday he said that Republican leaders in Congress were essentially girly men.

This afternoon Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga., a very conservative member of the House, shot back and suggested that Limbaugh shut his fat trap. Rather, Gingrey essentially said that Limbaugh is out of touch:

You know you're just on these talk shows, and you're living well, and plus you stir up a bit of controversy and gin the base and that sort of thing.

In other words, Limbaugh's a dilettante? Instead of The Most Important Conservative Philosopher in the History of the Universe?

Labels: Phil Gingrey, Republican "brand", Rush Limbaugh

Sarah Palin "believes the Republican Party is at the threshold of an historic renaissance that will build a better future for all," and she intends that you give her a generous contribution (to "SarahPAC") to prove it.

The first Renaissance was all about enlightenment and learning and art, about discovering science and challenging The Church.

Yep. That's what Sarah is ALL about.

Labels: Republican "brand", Sarah Palin

"Obviously, these are not good numbers for the party to be looking at."

--Former Republican Congressman Dick Armey, on registration trends in 26 states ... away from the Republican brand

In 26 states and the District of Columbia where voter registration data by party are available, a study of those data by the New York Times reveals that since 2004 the total number of registered Democrats increased by net 214,656, while the number of Republicans fell by 1,407,971. While Democratic registrations increased in 15 states since 2004, the "independent" or "unaffiliated" designations swelled even more. Republican registrations grew in Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Kentucky -- very slightly -- which makes those three states fairly unique states of mind.

" 'This is very suggestive that there is a fundamental change going on in the electorate,' said Michael P. McDonald, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and an associate professor of political science at George Mason University who has studied voting patterns."

Where is North Carolina in this study? Although Democratic registrations have shot up statewide, North Carolina, along with Arizona and Colorado, has seen huge bumps in "unaffiliated" registrations, so that "nonpartisan voters essentially constitute a third party." That's actually been the case in Watauga County for some time now, where Republicans outnumber Democrats by a significant margin but where unaffiliated voters hold the balance of power. They have not been tilting toward the Republican Party for the last several election cycles.

Current voter registration by party in Watauga County:

Democrat 12,777
Republican 14,354
Libertarian 9
Unaffiliated 11,510

Statewide totals:

Democrat 2,669,616
Republican 1,937,735
Libertarian 512
Unaffiliated 1,282,698

Labels: North Carolina voter registration, Republican "brand", Watauga County voter registration