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In the wake of the disputed 2000 presidential election, many Republicans thought that election reform was a nonissue and that Congress shouldn’t be telling locals how to run their elections. Nine years later, with a Democrat in the White House, 52 percent of Republican voters surveyed by Public Polling Policy said they think ACORN stole the 2008 election for Barack Obama. The polling firm concluded: “The constant harping on ACORN by Republican politicians may sound nutso in some circles, but it certainly has hurt the organization’s image and it looks like the anti-ACORN message may resonate with a decent portion of the American electorate.”
RealClearPolitics’ Tom Bevan and Mike Memoli have cast their imaginations beyond Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty, and drawn up a list of GOP dark horses for 2012: South Dakota Sen. John Thune (in photo), Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn and former Vice President Dick Cheney, and, calling them the “best of the rest,” Gen. David Petraeus and Reps. Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, Mike Pence of Indiana and Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.
Two takes on the prospects of a Sarah Palin presidential nomination in 2012, offered Sunday by participants on ABC’s “This Week” roundtable:
– “She’s a joke. I just can’t take her seriously. We’ve got serious problems in the country. . . . The idea that this potential talk show host is considered seriously for the Republican nomination. Believe me — it’ll never happen,” said New York Times conservative columnist David Brooks.
– “You cannot underestimate the degree to which women will be drawn to her story, and that’s who she’s speaking to. These are people who are ignored, who nobody counts into their thinking,” said Gwen Ifill, moderator of PBS’ “Washington Week.”
Meanwhile, only 28 percent of Americans surveyed think that Palin is qualified to be president, according to a new CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll. And Newsweek is taking heat over its cover photo of Palin posing in running gear.
Given the conservative challenges in several states against incumbents who are viewed as RINOs (Republicans in name only), would Ronald Reagan, if judged on his record, be pure enough for the GOP circa 2009? Newsweek’s Evan Thomas noted that “Reagan piously gave lip service to the right-wing social agenda while doing nothing to further it by legislation; he also chose George H.W. Bush to be his vice president and allowed the ultrapragmatic James A. Baker III to run the White House.” MSNBC’s First Read blog further observed that Reagan “raised taxes” and “increased the size of the deficit.”
Republicans have moved ahead of Democrats, 48 to 44 percent, among registered voters on the latest Gallup survey question asking: “If the election was held today, which party’s candidate would you vote for in your congressional district?” Last month, Republicans trailed by 2 percentage points. The gain came from independent voters, who favored GOP candidates by 22 points.
The liberal group Media Matters has launched a Web site that tracks the major financial backers of conservative activist groups, the “money behind the movement.” Listed at the top of the site, conservativetransparency.org, are foundations controlled by the Koch family. It reports that these foundations have contributed millions of dollars to the Cato Institute and Americans for Prosperity, “as well as to other influential conservative think tanks, advocacy groups, media organizations, academic institutes and legal organizations, thus participating in every level of the policy process.”
GOP wins Tuesday in the governor races in New Jersey and Virginia boosted Republicans’ hopes for a 2010 comeback. But the win by Democrat Bill Owens (in photo) in a special New York congressional race — a seat that Republicans have held for more than a century — highlighted what can happen when conservatives try to purge moderates from the GOP. National conservative talk-show hosts blasted the GOP candidate as too liberal and not a true Republican. And politicians such as Sarah Palin and even Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, injected themselves into the race by endorsing the Conservative Party candidate. But Newt Gingrich warned that such national interference in local elections could make Nancy Pelosi the House “speaker for life” and guarantee President Obama’s re-election. “I think we are going to get into a very difficult environment around the country if suddenly conservative leaders decide they are going to anoint people without regard to local primaries and local choices,” Gingrich said.
Two more Sarah Palin books are coming out. “The Persecution of Sarah Palin” blames the media elite for Palin’s problems. “Sarah From Alaska” is sympathetic to the challenge Palin faced but argues that her lack of preparation contributed to her poor interview and debate performances. But neither book fully explains why Palin causes such derangement in many of her supporters and critics, a Washington Post book review argued.
This may be the moment for conservative Democrats. More Americans are conservative than are moderate or are liberal, according to a new Gallup poll. Forty percent of Americans polled described their political views as conservative, compared with 36 percent who said they were moderate and 20 percent who said they were liberal. Moderates and conservatives were tied in polling from 2005 through 2008, but conservatism has gained ground among independent voters, according to Gallup. Meanwhile, a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll puts the Republican Party’s favorable rating at its lowest in at least a decade, 36 percent, compared with 53 percent favorability of the Democratic Party.
Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post ranked Sarah Palin as the most influential Republican, noting the upcoming release of her memoir, “Going Rogue: An American Life,” and her ability to draw big and energetic crowds. Meanwhile, the editors of the Nation are publishing “Going Rouge: Sarah Palin, An American Nightmare” on the same day that Palin’s book comes out.
The Republican Party’s opposition to all things Obama has earned it the nickname “the party of ‘no.’” But the GOP is betting that its opposition will attract voters concerned about deficits and unemployment. “We’re the party of know: k-n-o-w,” said Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, chairman of House Republicans’ campaign committee. GOP strategist Vin Weber sees no downside to “no” votes. “The basic rule is you rarely pay a price at the polls for being against something,” he said, though he acknowledged, “that’s quite aside from whether you should or shouldn’t, or whether the country needs it or doesn’t need it.”
Given all the times Rush Limbaugh has dragged out old quotes to demagogue liberals, it’s rich that he is so upset about being sacked in his effort to buy the St. Louis Rams over racial comments he has made over the years. “This is about the ongoing effort by the left in this country, wherever you find them, in the media, the Democrat Party, or wherever, to destroy conservatism, to prevent the mainstreaming of anyone who is prominent as a conservative,” he said Wednesday on his radio show. “Therefore, this is about the future of the United States of America and what kind of country we’re going to have.”
More commentators are voicing concerns about the recklessness of conservative talk show hosts. Former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan (in photo) said ranters aren’t responsible critics. “This isn’t debate, it’s more like incitement,” she warned. Columnist David Brooks said the undeserved influence of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sean Hanity is “the story of media mavens who claim to represent a hidden majority but who in fact represent a mere niche — even in the Republican Party. It is a story as old as ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ of grand illusions and small men behind the curtain.” Steven F. Hayward of the conservative American Enterprise Institute worried that “the brain waves of the American right continue to be erratic, when they are not flat-lining.”
“By 2030, the Latino share of the vote in America is likely to double,” former George W. Bush administration speechwriter Michael Gerson noted. “Some Republicans seem to be calculating that this influence can be countered by running up their percentage of support among white voters. But this is not eventually realistic, because non-college-educated whites are declining as a portion of the electorate. And it is disturbing in any case to set the goal of a whiter Republican Party. This approach would not only shrink the party, it would split it. Catholics and evangelicals, who have been central to the Republican coalition, cannot ultimately accept a message of resentment against foreigners. Their faith will not allow it.”
Columnist Thomas Frank noted the “curious reversal” by Republicans who argue that private insurance companies wouldn’t be able to compete with a “predatory” public option insurance plan that covers all comers, including those private companies won’t insure. Thomas wrote: “Just think of the conservative caricatures that must be inverted for this argument to work: All those soft liberal bureaucrats? Ferocious man-eaters. The welfare state? Law of the jungle. And the actuarial-minded hardliners of the insurance biz, the ones who deny your claim or cancel your policy? A gentle but endangered species that needs our nurturing, sort of like panda bears.”
Rather than leave health care reform to Democrats, “conservatives should seize the mantle of reform and lead,” Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal wrote. He offered 10 ideas to increase the affordability and quality of health care (nearly all of which have been around for some time). The proposals include voluntary purchasing pools, lawsuit reform, increased transparency and payment reform, electronic medical records, tax-free health savings accounts, rewarding healthy lifestyle choices and requiring coverage of pre-existing conditions. “The public is interested in solutions that will improve America’s health-care system, not dismantle it,” Jindal wrote. “Republicans can lead on this.”
For years, Democrats wrongly portrayed GOP proposals to curb the growth of Medicare as attempts to kick medicine out of Granny’s hand. Now the roles have reversed, and Republicans are falsely accusing Democrats of cutting Medicare benefits as part of the health care reform proposals. Some may cheer this role reversal as “turnabout is fair play.” But it shows how both parties are willing to scare seniors in order to score political points. No wonder it is so difficult to reform entitlement programs.
Columnist Rod Dreher warned his fellow conservatives to back away from Fox News host Glenn Beck. “Beck is a white Jeremiah Wright, a crazy-pants conspiracy theorist whose worldview is rooted in the paranoid teachings of a far-right Mormon political guru named W. Cleon Skousen,” Dreher wrote. “Before signing up as a recruit in Beck’s army, conservative Becketeers had better think long and hard about where their affable leader is taking them.”
From Joe Klein’s review of “The Clinton Tapes,” the new book by Taylor Branch: “The rowdy, discursive intellectual brilliance of the man is evident on almost every page, and so is the self-indulgence, self-pity and self-destructiveness — the magisterial excessiveness of every sort. Compared with the buttoned-up cool of the Oval Office’s current occupant, Bill Clinton is a one-man carnival — a magician, tightrope walker, juggler, mesmerist, hot-dog-eating contestant and burlesque show.”
When she was first lady, Hillary Clinton said that a “vast right-wing conspiracy” was out to destroy her husband’s presidency. When asked Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” whether the conspiracy is still there, Bill Clinton said it was. “It’s not as strong as it was because America has changed demographically,” Clinton said. “But it’s as virulent as it was.”
ACORN has received a grand total of $53 million in federal funds over the past 15 years — an average of $3.5 million per year. Meanwhile, not millions, not billions, but trillions of dollars of public funds have been, in the past year alone, transferred to or otherwise used for the benefit of Wall Street. Billions of dollars in American taxpayer money vanished into thin air, eaten by private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan. So with this massive pillaging of America’s economic security and its control of American government by its richest and most powerful factions growing by the day, to whom is America’s intense economic anxiety being directed? To a nonprofit group that devotes itself to providing minute benefits to people who live under America’s poverty line. Apparently, the problem is not that taxpayer dollars are going to prop up billionaires, oligarchs and their corrupt industries. It’s that America’s impoverished — a group that is growing rapidly — is getting too much, has too much power and too little accountability. — Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com
The Census Bureau recently severed ties with the advocacy group ACORN, and the Senate voted to deny it access to federal housing funds. That’s the good news. The not-so-good news is that it took this long and hidden-camera video footage of ACORN workers apparently advising others to commit crimes before officials would act. Allegations of fraud have dogged ACORN for years, sometimes resulting in convictions. Florida authorities recently arrested 11 ACORN workers and charged them with submitting fake voter-registration papers. The videos, which were made by self-described conservative activists, show ACORN employees exhibiting disdain for the law. In one, a couple posing as a prostitute and her pimp are given advice on how to open a brothel and launder the ill-gotten earnings. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., called on Congress and the Department of Housing and Urban Development to investigate ACORN. That’s a good start, but the videos suggest that a Justice Department criminal investigation is also needed. — Wall Street Journal editorial
Though some cads can be somewhat lovable or redeemable, “John Edwards is not,” columnist Eugene Robinson wrote. “His caddishness, it appears, has no redeeming social or political value. He’s just a bad cad.” Robinson noted claims by a former close aide that not only is Edwards the father of his mistress’ 19-month-old daughter, Edwards allegedly promised the mistress that he would marry her after his wife, Elizabeth, had died of cancer, and that they had started to plan the wedding. “The forgivable kind of cad could never do such a thing,” Robinson wrote. “Only the worst kind would.”
Despite all his ranting and conspiracy theories about President Obama, Fox News host Glenn Beck (in photo) thinks GOP nominee John McCain “would have been worse for the country” than Obama. Beck also told CBS News’ Katie Couric that he might have voted for Hillary Clinton over McCain, whom Beck described as a “weird progressive like Theodore Roosevelt was.”
The 2012 presidential election is a long way off, but former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is the favorite so far among those attending the Values Voter Summit last weekend in Washington, D.C. Huckabee received 28 percent of the vote in the summit’s straw poll. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty each received about 12 percent of the vote, and Indiana Rep. Mike Pence received 11 percent.
Rod Dreher, a social conservative who writes for the Dallas Morning News, went public with how demoralized and politically homeless he’s feeling amid the angry right-wing mob led by the likes of “foul-mouthed” Rush Limbaugh and “paranoid” Glenn Beck. Dreher wrote: “The conservative movement is herking and jerking like a zombie, dedicated to little more than frenetic gestures execrating Obama, and to regaining power. To what end? Given that they’re birthing a conservative party whose instincts are dictated by loudmouths, reactionaries and crackpots, and overseen by cynics, it’s dispiriting to contemplate.”
