Get out your ice skates Satan, me and Newt Gingrich actually agree about something!
The Republican loss in the special election for Louisiana’s Sixth Congressional District last Saturday should be a sharp wake up call for Republicans: Either Congressional Republicans are going to chart a bold course of real change or they are going to suffer decisive losses this November.
The facts are clear and compelling.
Saturday’s loss was in a district that President Bush carried by 19 percentage points in 2004 and that the Republicans have held since 1975.
This defeat follows on the loss of Speaker Hastert’s seat in Illinois. That seat had been held by a Republican for 76 years with the single exception of the 1974 Watergate election when the Democrats held it for one term. That same seat had been carried by President Bush 55-44% in 2004.
Writing in the conservative online rag Human Events, Gingrich outlines the desperate situation Republicans find themselves in these days. President Bush’s approval ratings are at historic lows, while the Democratic advantage on the generic Congressional ballot is at historic highs, both “reminiscent of the depths of the Watergate disaster.” The Republican brand has been so damaged that anti-Obama or anti-Clinton attack ads “are simply going to fail.” And when it comes to the issues Americans care about most?
A February Washington Post poll shows that Republicans have lost the advantage to the Democrats on which party can handle an issue better — on every single topic.
Americans now believe that Democrats can handle the deficit better (52 to 31), taxes better (48 to 40) and even terrorism better (44 to 37).
This is a catastrophic collapse of trust in Republicans built up over three generations on the deficit, two generations on taxes, and two generations on national security.
Remember, this isn’t me saying these things (though I’ve already said many of them myself), this is Newt Gingrich, the man who engineered the Republican takeover of the House back in 1994.
Man it must suck to be a Republican right now.
UPDATE:
More bad news for GOP Inc.
Bad news for Goopers, I’m sure. However, if the GOP can continue to suppress the 90 year-old nun-in-a-wheelchair vote and stop the fraud committed by dead Dems then they just might pull it out.
I’ve been saying this since 2005 and I haven’t been proven wrong yet — Americans have given the notion of “conservatism” a very legitimate shot at governance when they ushered in Reagan in 1980. We bought the “ideas” they presented.
It’s taken 25 years to prove beyond the shadow of doubt their model of government simply does not work. Conservatism will go they way of Marxism and communism. In the proverbial crapper.
R.I.P. Conservatism.
Republicans are going to be irrelevant in national politics, except for filibustering and obstructionism for years to come, or more likely decades to come.
@2
As they leave the political stage we can at least thank the Goopers for one thing – identifying 90 year-old nuns-in-a-wheelchair as the threat to democracy that they really are.
The last time the U.S. conservative movement was doing this poorly was in 1932 during the Great Depression. While their policies haven’t brought something like this on (yet?…subprime), they’ve still played a large role in the high levels of economic inequality, wage stagnation and high levels of poverty plaguing our country.
For some reason though, I don’t see the ideology losing traction, in the same way that some parts of socialism make sense as well.
Liberalism in general is the median between the extremes of socialism and libertarianism. It seems like no matter what we do, there will be oscillating back and forth between, no matter their name.
@ 3:
Man, when you’re a Christian Conservative politician and you have to be worried about the 90 year old nuns in a wheelchair demographic as a threat to democracy and your grip on power, you know you’ve hit rock bottom.
“The last time the U.S. conservative movement was doing this poorly was in 1932 …”
1964, not 1932. The Golden Age of Liberalism, not the Great Depression.
1964 was as low as conservatism could go. Then liberals disemboweled themselves, and we began our Long March.
And now, as then, we’ll rise again ….. except we won’t.
@ 4:
When you look at the picture up close that what it seems to look like. But when you pull back and look at the big picture it looks completely different.
Take for instance the argument of slavery. People who were socially conservative wanted the practice of slavery to continue. But, Democrats like Thomas Jefferson lobbied mightily to abolish the practice of slavery in the Constitution. Unfortunately, the pendulum was too far to the right.
Over time it has swung back and forth and we finally abolished slavery, granted full rights to all people, now we have a black candidate who is poised to be the leader of the free world and forever shatter all the “ceilings.”
The point is: yes the battle pitches back and forth. In the end, the founding Liberal ideals and principles of our nation continue to win the day and it will continue to do so until EVERYONE is truly and equal in the country.
Right now it’s not that way in America. Ask anyone who is a law-abiding citizen who works, pays their taxes, serves our nation’s military, votes but wants to legally marry someone of the same gender.
Social conservatives say NO! Just like they did to ending the practice of slavery.
Social Liberals see the obvious inequality and ask; why shouldn’t they have the exact same rights I enjoy as an American? And, then we fight for their cause at the ridicule of social conservatives, no matter what the issue is.
It’s not like it is not their fault. We warned them time and time again that if the let these neocon criminals run their party, the Republican party was gonna die a quick and painful death.
But would they listen? Hell no!
They deserve what they get. Too bad they had to harm this great country so much with their stupidity.
“Why is John McCain always telling us that he didn’t say things that he did say?”
McCain worries me, too. Rabbit was vexed that I didn’t follow (like Hansel following bread crumbs) his projectile pellets to the harmonic convergence of Hillary and McCain pre-policy on (bomb bomb bomb) Iran, but aside from the bomb-bomb-bomb bad joke, McCain doesn’t have a pre-policy on Iran. Unless Holy Joe Lieberman knows what it is and isn’t telling.
McCain’s chronic Shia-Sunni confusion suggests there’s no trail to follow.
Therefore: gas-tax holiday is all they’ve got in common. That and $100,000,000.00.
The Newt seems to be showing up alot lately all over the media. I think he’s more interested in his comeback, than the GOP.
Hey! Grab that 90 year old in the wheel chair and get her through the X-ray, security check. She looks like a tearist to me. They’re everywhere.
I looked up high, I looked down low.
I even checked the toilet bowl.
Nope, no terrorists in there.
Educating Joel re 1932: Herbert Hoover was a progressive. FDR won that year by running to Hoover’s right: Roosevelt campaigned for rigidly balanced budgets and for the end of Hoover’s wasteful wastrel spending on social safety nets.
FDR Brain Truster Raymond Moley (Moley Moley Moley, Great God Almighty) confessed, long after the Hundred Days, that most of the New Deal had been stolen from Hoover, and then plastered with FDR’s smiley face.
Uptown: yes, I think you are right. Newt is leveraging himself to be called back as the “savior” of the Republican Party. Problem is, so is Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly, Buchanan, etc., who all think the problem is that Bush wasn’t conservative enough.
Newt formed an exploratory committee to consider a run for President this time around. But he got widely ridiculed when it was pointed out that he was carrying on an extra-marital affair with a staffer at the same time he was being so vocal about how Bill Clinton needed to be impeached because he was too immoral to be President.
Unless you are running for prez, then it’s a great time be a republican, as Hillary and the Corporate Media screws up the nomination for the country.
I’m just saying!
Clinton Takes Early Lead In Indiana
With 10% of precincts reporting, Clinton leads Obama, 58% – 42%. Clinton has 71,731 votes to Obama’s 52,499 votes. Indiana has 80 delegates + 13 superdelegates.
Newt’s nine points to revitalize the Republican brand are astonishing by what they omit, and by the niggling level of what he proposes.
OMIT:
Iraq and lowering taxes.
FIGHT FOR:
1. Repeal the gas tax for the summer
2. Redirect the oil being put into the national petroleum reserve onto the open market
3. Introduce a “more energy at lower cost with less environmental damage and greater national security bill”
4. Establish an earmark moratorium for one year
5. Overhaul the census and cut its budget radically
6. Implement a space-based, GPS-style air traffic control system
7. Declare English the official language of government
8. Protect the workers’ right to a secret ballot
9. Remind Americans that judges matter
All is not lost for the GOP — they can still count on the stupid bloc.
And dogs.
I’m not voting for Hillary in the General. I refuse to reward her for her tactics of destruction and being a corporate shill and being being dishonest.
re 12: That’s absurd. FDR campaigned on a promise of a “New Deal” for the American people and Hoover ran on the proposition that Roosevelt was a dangerous radical who would increase taxes to improve the social safety net.
Who’s your history teacher, Jonah Goldberg?
“while the Democratic advantage on the generic Congressional ballot is at historic highs”
For months, our wingnut friends have gleefully pointed out that Congress’ approval ratings are even lower than Bush’s. Unfortunately for them, this does not translate into good news for Republican candidates or their supporters. Because, you see, the source of the public’s dissatisfaction with the Democratic-controlled is they’re too meek in standing up against the Republicans. The public wants less, not more, Republicanism and more, not less, liberalism. The current crop of Democratic congressional candidates understands that, as demonstrated by how many signed on for Darcy Burner’s “Responsible Plan” to end the GOP’s military misadventure in Iraq, and how quickly they signed onto it. And as wingnutdom’s economic chickens come home to roost, public disaffection with the GOP will only deepen. There is absolutely no good news in the offing for Republicans between now and November. All the hoopla over the Obama vs. Hillary nomination contest is a mere sideshow; at this point, it doesn’t matter who the Democrats nominate or what church our nominee used to go to because Republicans are going to drown in an ocean of voter anger regardless.
@1 As long as nobody interferes with their fraud and they can suppress the military vote.
I’m not surprised one little bit.
Too many Repubs are selling “Democrat Light.”
If, for some reason, I want a Democrat I’ll vote for the real thing.
All that poppycock about Repubs being crooks, liars and thieves is balderdash. That description fits almost ALL politicians.
I expect soldiers will have difficulty voting or getting their votes counted this year, but it won’t be the Democrats interfering with the military vote. After how Republicans have treated soldiers and veterans for the last 5 years, the last group the Goopers want voting is our brave troops.
@2 Why should Conservatism be allowed to rest in peace? We should spit on its grave. We should string toilet paper in the trees above its final resting place. We should deface and knock over its tombstone. But probably the best thing to do with its mortal remains is to cremate them and throw the ashes into a river so there will be no grave at all to attract cults and groups of youthful outcasts in the future. That’s what they wisely did with Hitler’s and Himmler’s last molecules of earthly existence — they ended up in the Elbe River.
Unfortunately, that description fits
almostALL Republicans.“Amazon.com: Herbert Hoover: Forgotten Progressive:”
So what? George Bush calls himself a Conservative.
@20
It’s important that a party member in Oceana actually believe that 2+2=5.
Looks Like McCain is still not gonna break 80% even though he is the only candidate running.
Man, it must suck being a Republican. Why the hell would anybody even claim to be a Republican. It is like wearing an “I’m with stupid” t-shirt with the arrow pointing up.
For those of you who don’t know this, Soviet archives revealed that Hitler’s charred body was recovered by Russian troops and buried in Magdeburg, East Germany. In April 1970, these remains were exhumed, cremated, and cast into the Elbe River along with East Germany’s other sewage and pollution.
@3 Don’t forget that Reagan armed the rightwing death squads who murdered American nuns in Central America. And wingnuts call him a “great” president … ?!!
@20: Start with progressive historian Richard Hofstadter’s American Political Tradition (Atlantic retro here) and work up.
@29 It’s more like they’d have the arrow pointing down. Silly Goopers. At least they have those nuns pegged for what they are – a threat to our democratic way of life.
@31
Ronnie obviously recognized early on the threat that nuns pose to our great nation.
Mike @ 16: Newt does mention cutting taxes, both with respect to the gas tax holiday (he says it can be paid for by unspecified cuts to “domestic discretionary spending”), and with respect to earmarks in general.
But it’s the old GOP in action, playing on prejudice and emotions (English as Official Language); out-sourcing (he really wants to turn over the census to a private company, perhaps Diebold?); and GOP partisonship disguised as fiscal responsibility (no earmarks while Democrats are in charge, but if GOP is in charge, then full speed ahead!).
He’s just really trying to set this up as a way to use smoke and mirrors to blame the Democrats for the mess created by the Republicans over the past eight years.
I really hope the American voters have learned enough by now to see through that garbage.
@32
I had no idea that Hofstadter did stand-up:
Kazin wrote, “Felice seriously tried to get Dick work in a nightclub as a stand-up comic. We all howled when he did his imitation of FDR and of the Ozark farmer whose daughter had fallen into the well. “Must get her out of there one of these days.””
For those of you who don’t know this:
Tune in next week for the MAD MAD denouement. **
The venerable doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction. that radical Reagan destroyed, required us or them to launch a full retaliatory strike at the first sign of a first-strike launch from the other side.
** Excerpt from Reagan’s Disciple by Lou Cannon and Karl Cannon, 2008.
@4 “The last time the U.S. conservative movement was doing this poorly was in 1932 during the Great Depression. While their policies haven’t brought something like this on (yet?…subprime), …”
You are mistaken to believe what’s happening to the economy is due to, or limited to, subprime mortgages. The economic situation is much larger — and scarier — than bad mortgages.
Here is the big picture. U.S. wages haven’t risen at all since 1970; although the U.S. economy has grown over that period, virtually all of the gains have gone to the top 1%. Consumers, it is true, bought bigger houses and more expensive cars, and more playthings. But they didn’t do it with income gains. Here’s how the middle class continuted spending over the last 35 years:
First, they stopped saving.
Then, they spent their savings.
Next, they borrowed and spent their home equity.
Then, they maxed out their credit cards.
And where are they now? Out of collateral, in debt up to their credit limits, their cash flow stretched to the breaking point, and getting hammered by runaway inflation. This has to produce a big drop in discretionary consumer spending that has barely begun.
Bernanke’s interest-rate-slashing policy may be good politics but is bad economics because it guarantees higher inflation, to be followed by an even harsher recession. Because this is a presidential election year, the consumer economy is being kept on life support with artificially low interest rates until the election is over. Then, the shit will hit the fan. And boy, will it ever! Next year is going to be real unpleasant for businesses, employees, and consumers alike. And with business activity and personal incomes plunging, government revenues will decline and the deficit will grow, creating even worse inflation and even nastier recessionary pressures. This is gonna get real ugly before it’s over and economic growth resumes.
Today’s economic crisis has its roots in the GOP’s philosophy of deregulation — in particular, in their efforts to deregulate the banking industry and credit markets. What has happened over the last 25 years is that most Americans have been sucked into a vortex of high-interest debt from which there is no escape. This sustained an artificially high level of consumer spending for a quarter century, but the American middle class’s ability to sustain our consumer economy on the back of credit is collapsing — and this will inevitably lead to an enormous contraction of the U.S. economy and a steep decline in U.S. living standards. This is much, much bigger than a few million people being unable to pay their mortgates. It’s nothing less than a meltdown of the laissez-faire capitalism foisted on us by Republican snakeoil salesmen. And it’s all the GOPers’ fault.
Obama Leads North Carolina, 66% to 32%
@11 Hell, even those 2 Middle-Eastern-looking guys on the ferry turned out to be just a couple of tourists. It’s getting downright difficult to find a genuine terrorist anywhere these days! They’re rarer than Indian arrowheads in the day use area of a state park.
@12 “AUH2O …”
You are soooo out of date …
@14 I’d rather be us than you. Across the board. Oh, and what’s with this “Blue John” moniker? Are you another Repub pretending to be a Democrat? All the Repubs wear blue these days because they don’t want to be recognized. Can’t say I blame them. If I were Ted Bundy or Adolf Hitler (thank God I’m not!), I’d try to look like someone else.
I listened recently to an interview on “Fresh Air” with a guy who was a senior “targeteer” in the Pentagon in the early part of the Iraq war. Basically, those were the people who analyzed the the intel and the recon photos and figured out exactly where and when to drop the bombs and fire the shells.
At one point, this fellow mentioned that during the first part of the war, he was surprised to see how many people were hanging out in his part of the Pentagon, which needless to say was supposed to be restricted to those with the highest security clearance. This included all sorts of minor functionaries from the Vice President’s office, Karl Rove….and Gingrich.
Newt’s never been out of the loop, folks. He’s a hardcore member of the neocon fraternity, and like Rove, he’s still in the game. He just doesn’t happen at the moment to have a number on his shirt.
@19 I feel pretty sure you’re not voting for Obama in the general, either. Just as I feel pretty sure you didn’t vote for Bill Clinton, Al Gore, or John Kerry. Or, for that matter, for JFK …
@20 We get a lot of wingnuts posing as Democrats on this blog. They think it’s funny. They also think it’s original. yawn
The warning shot from the frigate USS Newto ought to be very clear. Newt sees the existing party as dead, the election as lost BUT the pieces are there to be taken, reassembled and built into something … well something he will dominate.
This has happened before. The Lee Atwater wing of the Rep Party used RR to take over the wrecked corpse of the Goldwater/Nixon debacle. Their machintions gave use Reagan, Bush, Bush.
If the Dems win that is nice, but they need to do so in a way that lets our whole system move back form the fantasy land Reagan and Clinton pushed.
@23 Yawn. Another Republican pretending that Democrats are the same as Republicans. No, we’re not. Not by a fucking country mile. Even among run-of-the-mill politicians, Republican dishonesty, thievery, lying, and lawbreaking is in a (low) class by itself.
Republicans are sooo declasse.
This summary via Democratic Underground
Rabbit is soooooooooooooo full of hairballs.
@37 We’re still here and Petrov is an unsung hero who singlehandedly saved civilization from insane Republicans and Soviets. Needless to say, he was rewarded for this by his country’s authorities by having his career destroyed, but at least they didn’t shoot him. (Not that a Soviet military career offered much of a future in the 80s anyway … )
@48 I bet it’s hard work being a Gooper.
Waiting for the snappy comeback to Clinton deregulation. Sticky keyboard stuck again, kemosabe? Chemo for your mind cancer messing with your projectile pelletizing?
@35, the sound you should be hearing right now is that of me smacking my forehead. Re tax cutting and the gas tax holiday, I was saying in my head that there are no permanent tax cuts, as opposed to a temporary quickie like the gas tax holiday. Just, you know, forgot to actually type that.
As to earmarks, that’s not cutting tax revenue, that’s cutting federal spending. Yes, there’s implied future taxes required to pay interest on bonds issued today, but…
Regardless, it’s a manifesto that is astonishingly light on the tired old Republican line of spurring economic growth by cutting taxes for the wealthy.
@49 I’m sure it gives you great satisfaction that Bill Clinton was a stealth Republican. Not that he was very stealthy about it …
In any case, my hands are clean, because I never voted for him. On the other hand, I’m compelled to say that, in retrospect, he was an infinitely better president in all respects than the GOP’s trained monkey.
@52 See #54. BTW, I’ve got a great Kemosabe joke for ya. Lone Ranger and Tonto were riding across the prairie when a band of Indians appeared on the horizon in front of them …
@52 Your post reminds me that I never understood the hate you people had for Clinton. Maybe you folks just need to hate somebody.
Cutting gas taxes results in less highway construction, costing American workers their jobs; meanwhile, the oil companies raise their prices by an amount equal to the gas tax cut, and most or all of that additional profit goes outside the country to people who hate us.
” … my hand are clean”
Hmmmm. That the hand are sticky-typing with, or the hand are tweaking with?
@56 The most interesting thing about #52 is that he posted it only 4 minutes after posting #49 while I was busy responding to #37. This is what our wingnut friend thinks is a “gotcha.”
We done been there & we done done that, white man.
And who’s this ‘we’ I’m talking about?
@58 You must be new here, because anyone who’s been around this blog for any length of time knows that I didn’t vote for Bill Clinton. This is hardly the first time I’ve mentioned that. I voted for Perot in ’92 and Dole in ’96 — I’m a Vietnam veteran and refused to vote for Bill because I didn’t like his draft dodging. Make of that whatever you wish, friend.*
* The word “friend” is here used as a euphemism for something else which I will leave to your imagination.
“the hate you people had for Clinton”
My love for DeWitt Clinton is boundless. Truly it is. It’s not a capitalistic love, but it’s capitolhillistic as all get out.
@58 (continued) As you’re new here, and I’m the ex officio HA greeter, it is incumbent upon me to acquaint you with HA’s ad hoc posting rules, to wit:
1. This is a liberal blog.
2. Anyone (except JCH) can post here.
3. There is no censorship.
4. As liberals, our mission is to verbally kick the living shit out of you unpatriotic fascist goatfuckers.
5. No mercy for wingnuts!
6. Our terms are unconditional surrender, which will be followed by trials.
7. klake is a nazi.
Any questions?
“You must be new here …”
Isn’t this your cue for laying your official-greeter-excreter offal on me?
How predictable. How pathetic.
Hot damn! There it is!
@60 Let’s us rabbits and you Injuns make common cause against stupid white guys. I’ll run out into the open to distract ’em so you can shoot arrows into their asses.
@64 I’m glad you liked it! I’m here to serve, and I aim to please!
Are you, like, Punxutawney Bill Murray? Wired and mired in some subhuman time warp?
My wingnut friends, I must leave you now because it’s Mrs. Rabbit’s turn on the computer. I’m cheap, you see, so we have only 1 computer and 1 phone line. But I’ll be back! I’ll see you traitors again later, unless they’ve hanged you.
“Let’s us rabbits and you Injuns make common cause …”
Ugh.
@63 I knew they fucked mules – that’s common knowledge – and this thing about them and their gerbils is totally weird, but I had no idea at all that these flying-monkey freaks fucked goats too. Damn, they’re sick.
“Damn they’re sick.”
Rabbits copulating with goats? Effing-A-Right they’re sick.
@ 49 & 52
Typical wingnut–more interested in who should take the blame (or who should get the credit) than in learning the lessons of history, he’d rather we notice only that DLC member President Clinton signed the bill into law and ignore the fact that it was Phil Gramm’s law and that Republicans universally applauded it.
As for me, I’d rather look at the extent to which the deregulation in question reflects the current Republican philosophy or the current progressive point of view, and, when we do, there is one inescapable conclusion. The Republican philosophy of less government is a spectacular failure.
Roger Rabbit at 38 left out one of the main ways in which wage-earners have maintained their spending despite earning less money than they did in 1970:
Dual-Income Households.
It now takes two wage-earners to try to keep up with a standard of living which Americans used to enjoy with only one wage-earner. Of course, it’s a losing gambit, because the second-wage earner always has a much higher job-cost which reduces the net pay (child day-care expenses, commuting costs, more meals eaten out, etc.).
But hey, according to the Republicans, things are going along just fine.
Remember also that Phil Gramm is McCain’s chief economic adviser.
More retreads…
“The Republican philosophy of less government is a spectacular failure.”
The era of “the era of big government is over” is over.
re 60: Good reference — Jay Silverheels.
Conservatism, like Communism, sounds better when talked about in a think tank or book; but both ideas fail in actual practice in the real world for the same reason; naked human greed.
looking through history it appears the country keeps flip-flopping on which party does best in the white house. Each party lets the country down and allows the other party to win the white house.
[D] Roosevelt
[D] Truman
[R] Eisenhower
[D] Kennedy
[D] Johnson
[R] Nixon
[R] Ford
[D] Carter
[R] Reagan
[R] Reagan
[R] Bush
[D] Clinton
[D] Clinton
[R] Bush
[R] Bush
Like the name says – BYEBYEGOP!
That’s what happens when your just a bunch of lying, scheming, greedy bastards.
The whole country got what it deserved…
PATHETIC!
HEY BARTENDER, newt needs another round of Koolaide
and you better make it a double
reality is really beginning to show thru for the poor bastard in a BAAAAAD way
this one is for all the repuglitarded people in the audience tonight
@ 78
Conservatism is greed,
Communism is putting an end to greed.
“Naked human greed” as you’ve labeled it is not inherent or immutable but the result of social forces on the individual. As Evo Morales has recently told the United Nations “If we want to save the planet, we have to put an end to and eradicate the capitalist model”
Because if we continue to accept the validity of “greed” our species is doomed.
‘Hands up, ya terrorist!’
It was the mailman.
He got away.
Idealist from any end of the spectrum, be rabid capitalism or rabid communism do not accept reality like greed exists but too much greed is toxic.
What is the positive replacement bumper sticker concept of “Greed is Good!”? That ends up with “Give me mine and to hell with you” and many 3rd world nations and worst of the robber baron age. It cannot be “Greed is bad!” because that is not a positive. “Shared Balance is Good”? What does that mean? It’s not intuitively obvious and it needs to be. Any thoughts?
RE: 85
Is it good for everyone?
85 I would have to say you are fucked up!
Conservatives give 10 times more of their own
personal money to charity than libs. Not even
up for debate. I’d have to say libs are the
greedy bastards.