Republican Columnist: "The GOP's suicide mission"

[Andy9o8 0]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-05-26/the-gops-suicide-mission/?cid=hp:mostpopular4

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The GOP's Suicide Mission

by Mark McKinnon

Memo to my party: Blasting targets like Sonia Sotomayor and Colin Powell is a surefire strategy to guarantee our extinction.

If the GOP is ever to be resurgent, it has to pick its fights carefully. The tendency is, unfortunately, to shoot at everything that moves.

Here are a couple of fights we don’t need: Colin Powell and Sonia Sotomayor.

Let’s face it, Sotomayor is a political trifecta. Woman. Hispanic. Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval from George H. W. Bush.

Yes, Mitch McConnell has to make his pro forma gestures about doing due diligence. And it is important to fully examine Judge Sotomayor’s judicial record. But, every day this confirmation battle gets unreasonably extended is a good day for Democrats and a bad day for Republicans.

We should be on our knees praising Colin Powell for declaring that he has not, despite the desire of some narrow and vocal forces within the GOP, left the party. Because if he does, we might as well turn the lights out.

Sotomayor is going to be confirmed. There is little doubt about it. So, going into weeks or months of paroxysms and hysterics about alleged “judicial activism” is just going to make the party look bitter, mean, tone deaf, and out of touch.

And we should be on our knees praising Colin Powell for declaring that he has not, despite the desire of some narrow and vocal forces within the GOP, left the party. Because if he leaves the party, we might as well turn the lights out. This is a man who, arguably, could have been the first African-American president had he made the decision to run against Bill Clinton in 1996.

Powell is a man of unquestioned military experience and diplomatic skill, the first African-American chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and secretary of State under a Republican president. And yet, some attack him as just not “Republican enough.” Not a good message for independent and swing voters.

No one is suggesting that Dick Cheney or Rush Limbaugh leave the party. So why are they insistent on defining the party as such an exclusive club? Because if they keep it up, they’ll offend enough Republicans so that’s just what the party will be: exclusive. It’s a recipe for permanent minority status.

I admittedly and proudly align myself with the more centrist, Powell wing of the party. But I think it’s great that there are strongly conservative voices in the party. Hell, I loved seeing Liz Cheney out burning up the TV circuits defending the policies of President Bush. She’s a superstar in the making. I don’t agree with everything she says, but I think it’s good that the party has a broad chorus singing the hymns. Even if it’s not in perfect harmony.

So, for the good of the party, after applying reasonable due diligence, we ought to be prepared to wave a white flag on Sotomayor, give Colin Powell a big bear hug and sincere thanks for sticking it out, and move on.

[lawrocket 3]

The GOP is a bloody mess right now. I find it to be quite marvelous, myself. It shows a party consisting of no core leadership that has a degree of measured response. They are acting like over-emotional juveniles.

The GOP is coming apart. Perhaps as a result it will mold into a party I can at least respect. I don't see that happening any time soon.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[SpeedRacer 1]

Good point.

What exactly does the GOP mean when it talks of "Conservative Values?"

To some Republicans, that means small government.

To other Republicans, it means the government should act & intervene to ensure Christian/family values.

To some Republicans, it may mean the government should use military might to control the world (since Conservative = traditional, and Traditionally, that is the way the nations achieved greatness: by military conquest).

It seems to me that the GOP is all over the map here.

Speed Racer
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[TomAiello 25]

Totally agree on Sotomayor. From a tactical standpoint, the GOP ought to skip this battle. It's a loser, both technically (there's no way they'll stop the confirmation) and politically (the general voting public doesn't want them to stop it).

I'm also very curious to see where Sotomayor really lands on Roe. Parts of the GOP may end up pleasantly surprised there.

On Powell? I agree that tactically it's a loser, but personally I'd love to see Powell (and Cheney) and the rest of the Neo-Con foreign policy hawks find some other home, so that the Republicans could get back to their limited government roots.

-- Tom Aiello

[email protected]
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[rehmwa 2]

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Good point.

What exactly does the GOP mean when it talks of "Conservative Values?"

To some Republicans, that means small government.

To other Republicans, it means the government should act & intervene to ensure Christian/family values.

To some Republicans, it may mean the government should use military might to control the world (since Conservative = traditional, and Traditionally, that is the way the nations achieved greatness: by military conquest).

It seems to me that the GOP is all over the map here.

seems the Dems are fractured too and it was just a while ago we were hoping they, also, would suicide and fix their extremists

I would love to see both of the parties "of big government" explode and a couple new parties for small government in all areas emerge to choose from

current trends say otherwise for either party

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[rehmwa 2]

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the rest of the Neo-Con foreign policy hawks find some other home, so that the Republicans could get back to their limited government roots.

absolutely, and it wouldn't be a suicide mission, it would save the party

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[ryoder 1,397]

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The GOP is a bloody mess right now. I find it to be quite marvelous, myself. It shows a party consisting of no core leadership that has a degree of measured response. They are acting like over-emotional juveniles.

The GOP is coming apart. Perhaps as a result it will mold into a party I can at least respect. I don't see that happening any time soon.

I can't fathom why the decent people still left in the party don't just leave and start a new Party. What possible reason is left to be associated with the GOP? When I hear the name, I think of the fiasco of the last eight years, and a party that prioritizes partisan politics above all else, and could care less about what is good for the country.

The GOP has jumped the shark;
It is time for a new party;
I don't think anyone is using the name "Whig" right now.

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[billvon 2,426]

>I can't fathom why the decent people still left in the party don't just
>leave and start a new Party.

An excellent idea. They could split into two groups:

The fundamentalists, who can continue doing their thing by attacking gays, muslims, foreigners, the UN, gay marriage etc etc. This group can also take Limbaugh, Coulter, Beck et al. They'll be able to scream at each other for years.

The more reasonable conservatives, who could pick up a few libertarian principles (like allowing women the right to choose, allowing gays to marry whoever they like, avoiding foreign military adventures and reducing the power of the executive) and start sucking away the democrats who like the human-rights platform of the democrats but not the intrusive big government aspects.

[billvon 2,426]

On the original post:

> Blasting targets like Sonia Sotomayor and Colin Powell is a
> surefire strategy to guarantee our extinction.

Definitely agree there. Already hispanic groups are coming forward with "we are not racists" campaigns. GOP strategists are saying things like this:

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Lionel Sosa, a Texas-based Republican ad maker who designed Latino outreach for GOP presidents from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush, said that opposing Sotomayor "would be one more nail in the Republicans' image coffin in terms of Latino voters."

"When you're anti the first Latina on the Supreme Court, you're anti-my-family. . . . I would take it that these people are anti-Latino," Sosa added. "The worst thing the Republicans can do is oppose her."

The Senate's Republican leadership, aware of the potential pitfalls, began conferring Tuesday with several Latino strategists, seeking their assessment of conservative opposition.

The GOP's dilemma on Sotomayor is the latest example of the party's internal struggle over how to reinvent itself at a time that its voter base is increasingly dominated by Southern, conservative white men.
==========

And what are their arguments? Her name is funny:

"insisting on an unnatural pronunciation is something we shouldn't be giving in to."

She's touting her ethnic background, claiming that gives her more experience than some other guy, and we can't have that:

Alito: "When a case comes before me involving, let's say, someone who is an immigrant -- and we get an awful lot of immigration cases and naturalization cases -- I can't help but think of my own ancestors, because it wasn't that long ago when they were in that position. When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account."

[Andy9o8 0]

Even top Republican Senators are repudiating this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/28/john-cornyn-repudiates-gi_n_208915.html

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John Cornyn Repudiates Gingrich And Limbaugh Comments About Sotomayor

One of the top Republicans in the Senate, John Cornyn, is repudiating recent comments by Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich which claimed that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is a racist.

Cornyn, the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told NPR's "All Things Considered":

"I think it's terrible... This is not the kind of tone any of us want to set when it comes to performing our constitutional responsibilities of advise and consent."

Cornyn dismissed Limbaugh and Gingrich, adding: "Neither one of these men are elected Republican officials. I just don't think it's appropriate. I certainly don't endorse it. I think it's wrong."

In recent days, Limbaugh and Gingrich have made headlines and stirred up controversy, along with condemnation from the White House, with their comments.

On Wednesday, Gingrich wrote on Twitter:

"Imagine a judicial nominee said 'my experience as a white man makes me better than a Latina woman.' New racism is no better than old racism."

Limbaugh, citing Sotomayor's decision in Ricci v. DeStefano -- an affirmative action case involving the New Haven fire department that's being reviewed by the Supreme Court -- called the judge a "reverse racist" on his daily radio show Tuesday.

[funjumper101 15]

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>I can't fathom why the decent people still left in the party don't just
>leave and start a new Party.

An excellent idea. They could split into two groups:

The fundamentalists, who can continue doing their thing by attacking gays, muslims, foreigners, the UN, gay marriage etc etc. This group can also take Limbaugh, Coulter, Beck et al. They'll be able to scream at each other for years.

The more reasonable conservatives, who could pick up a few libertarian principles (like allowing women the right to choose, allowing gays to marry whoever they like, avoiding foreign military adventures and reducing the power of the executive) and start sucking away the democrats who like the human-rights platform of the democrats but not the intrusive big government aspects.

That would be a party that I could wholeheartedly support. How do we pull this off?

[TomAiello 25]

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An excellent idea. They could split into two groups:

The fundamentalists, who can continue doing their thing by attacking gays, muslims, foreigners, the UN, gay marriage etc etc. This group can also take Limbaugh, Coulter, Beck et al. They'll be able to scream at each other for years.

The more reasonable conservatives, who could pick up a few libertarian principles (like allowing women the right to choose, allowing gays to marry whoever they like, avoiding foreign military adventures and reducing the power of the executive) and start sucking away the democrats who like the human-rights platform of the democrats but not the intrusive big government aspects.

Unfortunately it's not that simple.

In general, your "reasonable" conservatives are people who are in favor of bigger government which does more to push other countries around, spends a ton of money on the military, and generally feel that the US is in charge of policing the world.

The truth is that the libertarian wing of the GOP is generally more comfortable with the religious right than it is with the foreign policy hawks, because the religious right is a lot more willing to see reductions in government size (for the vigorous foreign policy folks, a reduction in government power strikes directly at their primary interest).

-- Tom Aiello

[email protected]
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[BikerBabe 0]

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because the religious right is a lot more willing to see reductions in government size (for the vigorous foreign policy folks, a reduction in government power strikes directly at their primary interest).

Well, with the exception of wanting the government all over our bodies and beliefs...

Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

[TomAiello 25]

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because the religious right is a lot more willing to see reductions in government size (for the vigorous foreign policy folks, a reduction in government power strikes directly at their primary interest).

Well, with the exception of wanting the government all over our bodies and beliefs...

I actually think that's mostly an issue when they feel like they are "in charge." When (as now) they feel like they're out of power, the Religious Right tends to revert to "just leave me alone to do my religious things," which is actually a fundamentally libertarian position.

On a personal level, I (I'm a libertarian) have been able to find a lot more political common ground with uber-christians than I have with people who want America to go "kick some ass!"

There's just such a fundamental disconnect between libertarians and the "aggressive foreign policy" types. The one wants to shrink government power, while the other depends on it to pursue their goals. In my mind, the "push other nations around" types really belong in the Democratic party (which is, at it's core, unified by it's belief in expanding government power to pursue various goals). I was pretty flummoxed when Dick Cheney tried to say that someone else had ideologically left the GOP, because one of the basic tenets of the GOP (and one which has gotten pretty much only lip service in the last 20 years) is the reduction in government power, and Dick Cheney is a staunch advocate of an increase in government power.


Another way to view this is to look at the Ron Paul phenomenon. Paul is a very christian person, but he's attracted the libertarian segment of the GOP (and even some non-GOP libertarians), as well as a good chunk of support from the religious right. The New American Century folks, though, can't stand him, because of his opposition to foreign entanglements.

-- Tom Aiello

[email protected]
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[rehmwa 2]

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>I can't fathom why the decent people still left in the party don't just
>leave and start a new Party.

An excellent idea. They could split into two groups:

The fundamentalists, who can continue doing their thing by attacking gays, muslims, foreigners, the UN, gay marriage etc etc. This group can also take Limbaugh, Coulter, Beck et al. They'll be able to scream at each other for years.

The more reasonable conservatives, who could pick up a few libertarian principles (like allowing women the right to choose, allowing gays to marry whoever they like, avoiding foreign military adventures and reducing the power of the executive) and start sucking away the democrats who like the human-rights platform of the democrats but not the intrusive big government aspects.

That would be a party that I could wholeheartedly support. How do we pull this off?

Both parties are ready fracture, but neither will do it while the other party stays whole - so we wait for one to collapse under it's own weight and the midline party to form from the ashes.....

either way, it'll let the OTHER nuts take over for a while - they'll start bailing out banks and industries, nationalizing everything, butting into everybody's private activities, taking all the income and putting us into bad economies etc etc etc - good thing that's not happening.

Sad, I think the first party to choose to fracture out from their nutjobs (picture the Reps losing the uber-hawks and the religious nuts, and the Dems.....well......LOTS of splinter groups) and adopts a more libertarian viewpoint will absolutely draw out like minded people from the other party.

It's inevitable, it's just a matter of how much damage the two current parties will do until it happens one way or the other.

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[tbrown 26]

There's a good article in Rolling Stone about the Republican's path to self destruction. The party is in the hands of its own Taliban element and is in danger of becoming a regional party.

Nothing could make me happier. A once respectable party that has become so obsessed with power and ideological purity has no place in America.

The question is, who will replace the Republicans to speak for the conservative faction in America ? The Republicans replaced the Whigs, who had replaced the Federalists. My wife is suggesting that the Libertarians might just supplant the Republicans. Interesting thought - and so it goes...

Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

[nerdgirl 0]

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… so that the Republicans could get back to their limited government roots.

Depends on what you mean by “roots.”

When it was founded the Republican Party most strongly resembled a liberalist political philosophy & a fairly radical one at that! Liberalism as tending to be concerned with equality and civil, political, and personal liberties and more willing to challenge traditional assumptions or ways of doing things. (In contrast to being supportive of long-standing institutions and favoring slow, prudent change, if any change at all.)

Liberals of the 1800s opposed slavery and were part of the early Republican Party. The Democrats were the conservative party.

The Southern rural Democrats of the 1800s supported slavery - they were the (staunch) conservatives (maintaining tradition) of the time and supporters of States rights. The Northern Democrats also tended to support States rights, which was something of a ‘cop-out,’ as northern States had outlawed slavery by the early 1800s. (I would argue that economics were just as much a motivator as normatives, i.e., “ethics/morals”. Northern industry was not dependent on {black} slave labor, and workers in the north didn’t want competition from the South/competition from freed slaves).

When the Republican Party was founded back in the 1850s, it wasn’t just anti-slavery. The slogan of the first Republican Presidential nominee was “Free soil, free labor, free speech, free men.” Early Republican activists were pro-universal education, pro-technology (of the time), supported growth of cities and institutions (such as federal programs, i.e., the progenitor of the Federal Reserve & the first income tax; state programs; and private programs for progressive growth), supported universal suffrage (i.e., women), also opposed polygamy and alcohol, supported what were early experiments in early rights of workers, e.g., see Lincoln’s Speech on Free Labor vs. Slave Labor (full test available through the "Lincoln Log”) sounds almost ... (& I don my asbestos underwear here) Marxist. Obviously Lincoln was not a Marxist ... and not just because of the whole time dilation issue. He was, however, a radical Republican! (He also was the only US President thus far to have been granted a patent.)

Originally, the Democratic Party evolved from the anti-fderalists (anti-“Big government”), pro-States rights, rural, and strict interpretationalists of the Constitution (constructivists) in opposition to the pro-federalists, pro-interpretationalist, urban, progressives (Federalists).

Things change, eh?

/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[TomAiello 25]

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… so that the Republicans could get back to their limited government roots.

Depends on what you mean by “roots.”

When it was founded the Republican Party most strongly resembled a liberalist political philosophy & a fairly radical one at that! Liberalism as tending to be concerned with equality and civil, political, and personal liberties and more willing to challenge traditional assumptions or ways of doing things.

Um, in the 1800's, "liberals" were what we'd now describe as "classical liberals" which is basically a synonym for "libertarian" which, basically means folks who want to limit government.

-- Tom Aiello

[email protected]
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[JerryBaumchen 1,061]

Hi Tom,

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A once respectable party that has become so obsessed with power and ideological purity has no place in America.

Sort of reminds me of when it was being run, in the back rooms, back in the late 50's & early 60's by the Birchers.

What goes around comes around, I guess.

JerryBaumchen
A former Republican

[nerdgirl 0]

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Depends on what you mean by “roots.”

When it was founded the Republican Party most strongly resembled a liberalist political philosophy & a fairly radical one at that! Liberalism as tending to be concerned with equality and civil, political, and personal liberties and more willing to challenge traditional assumptions or ways of doing things.

Um, in the 1800's, "liberals" were what we'd now describe as "classical liberals" which is basically a synonym for "libertarian" which, basically means folks who want to limit government.

No, “classical liberals” is not a synonym for “libertarians.” And “classical liberals” is not a synonym for the early Republican party. Sorry, it’s just not historically accurate. The liberals of the 1800s were not equivalent to today’s liberals either. One could probably build decent cases to argue either one or the other is closer, largely depends of the bias of the observer to prioritize property rights versus equality, I suspect.

Like the roots of Republican Party (& the Democratic, as well), it’s more complicated.

The liberals of the 1800s had much greater confidence and trust in public (as well as private) institutions than late 20th/early 21st Century libertarians. This was the era that saw the institutionalization of things like mandatory public schooling – a liberal political agenda; the first age-labor law (mostly for young children in the northeast) – part of the liberal agenda; etc. There was much greater recognition of *both* Adam Smith’s ideas from _Theory of Moral Sentiments_ and from the _Wealth of Nations_. Remember what we *now* call classical liberalism was defined against notions of the monarch as having absolute authority over much of the population, including the right to seize property, force boarding of the crown’s soldiers, etc. That’s the government they wanted to limit – the King, not progressive institutions. The focusing of neo-liberal economics and near-myopic focus on Smith’s latter work is largely (*largely* not completely) a product & definitely credit for popularization due to Prof Milton Friedman and the Chicago Boys of the 1970s. And seems to forget that history of liberalism – liberte, equalite, fraternite. That’s “classical liberalism” at its highest form. That very different than the neo-liberalism economics-sounding definition you suggest above.

What has evolved to be the modern libertarian ideology can trace its roots in no small part to the anarchists (don’t think Sex Pistols either) of the late 1800s … particularly in Europe, i.e., French political philosophers like PJ Proudhon and the economists of what came to be known as the Austrian school. There was where the distrust of government institutions originates.

Merge that will some selected pieces of classical liberal (e.g., largely ignore _Theory of Moral Sentiments_) thought on individual rights and property rights to get the progenitor of 20th century libertarianism.

The main US driving forces that pushed away from those early anarchists roots were probably the early 20th century economist, Murray Rothbard, philosopher Robert Nozick, who’s main treatise Anarchy, State, and Utopia, and popularization of Ayn Rand’s works. Modern libertarianism has moved *a long* way from its roots in mid-19th Century anarchist ideas too.

Rewriting libertarian to mean liberals of the early Republican party and to ignore its history (as well as ignoring the Progressive Republicans like Pres Theodore Roosevelt, establishing things like a National Park System, The “Square Deal,” policies against monopolies: “trust busting”, first food & drug regulations, and California's Gov Hiram Johnson) is liking rewriting history of the much of the nineteenth century Democratic party to pretend that they didn’t tacitly and explicitly support slavery.

/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying