How the GOP will steal the 2010 midterms

Two pivotal events happened to the Republicans in the 1960s, both involving Nixon.



First, the Republicans sustained a terrible shock in 1960, losing by a hair to that upstart Irishman. They have insisted ever since that Kennedy stole the election, but the argument is so bogus that even Pat Buchanan laughed it down, pointing out all the illegal stuff the Republicans did in the same election. But they vowed never again to lose a close race without a fight. They started Operation Eagle Eye to nudge election results in the right direction, beginning with the 1962 race in which young lads like William Rehnquist cut their teeth as political gangsters, harassing black voters in Arizona under the guise of protecting “ballot security”.



The Republicans have been screeching “Democratic voter fraud” for the last fifty years. Study after study shows that the voter-fraud meme is utterly baseless, but they keep yelling it, complaining to the media and to their own supporters about unsubstantiated “tips” and “reports” of “irregularities”, magnifying any error by any Democrat anywhere is a titanic vote scandal…All to crank up their own turnout, to get people like the Wall Street Journal to endlessly repeat the accusations, and to justify their own thug-like political tactics, on the reasoning that real Republican voter disenfranchisement is less important than imaginary Democratic voter fraud.



The second issue involves race. As civil rights became a central issue in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Republicans, led by Nixon, realized they couldn’t woo both blacks and white racists at the same time, so they chose to dump the legacy of Lincoln and go with the rednecks. And they decided also to get into the vote-suppression business in a big way. They have exploited the fear of the shrinking white majority regarding minorities, as well as anyone trying to help minorities to vote: Obama, the Rainbow Coalition, ACORN, the NAACP, and the ACLU; the aim is to sell the notion that anybody black or brown is illegitimate dishonest, criminal, and anyone who helps them to vote must be a crook. The Republicans also worked to combine the concept of the big Democratic party machines with the black vote into one scary meme – “urban”. In one case they openly admitted targeting blacks and got barbecued by a judge. Later on they decided to write off the Latino vote for reasons no one can understand, and decided to criminalize that entire community with the immigration jihad as well.



So the Republicans made vote suppression a fixed part of their political strategy: seeing to it that minorities don’t vote.



How do they do all this? Long before the polls open, the GOP launches a very public, organized, completely unauthorized effort to “deter” fraud in black and Hispanic areas. It goes something like this: “When you get to the polls, election officials are watching. We will ask you questions, and if you get them wrong you could go to jail. Voter fraud is illegal. It’s a crime. The FBI could become involved. We are putting out a reward for catching perpetrators of fraud!” All to scare minorities away. And when that doesn’t work, they simply lie: “There are new residency requirements! Voting machines can see who you are and notify government agencies! If you have a traffic ticket, a parking ticket, or a child support issue, if you have been questioned by the police for anything, or even been a witness, or anybody in your family, you will be arrested if you vote!” That last one was sent by the “Harris County Negro Protective Association” which of course does not exist. And once they figure out their message, they bring out all the King’s men to get it out: robo-calls, radio ads, newspaper inserts, posters, mailers, postcards, even signs posted at polling places. Blacks and Hispanics, who have years of experience being harassed by the police even though they’ve done nothing wrong, get the message, just as they did when they tried to vote in the 1950s: show up to vote and nasty crap will happen.



For fifty years the Republicans have been training white poll watchers and sending them into minority areas to intimidate minority voters with harassment and abuse, to frighten and humiliate voters. Their poll watchers challenge minorities with nosy, abusive questions. “Where’s your ID? You’re illegitimate! Fraud! Fraud!” Once they even justified their abuse with “some of them were voting more than once….most blacks look alike so it was hard to tell.” If a minority voter is foolish enough to ask for assistance, the Republican poll watcher is likely give them an abusive answer, or complain about the “improper assistance” they are getting from other poll watchers. Another trick is to take pictures and film of voters, to include recording their confidential conversations with real election officials. The Republicans are quite open about trying to terrorize voters they don’t like, on the grounds that since they’re black they’re probably crooks anyway: “‘Browbeating’ is a common defense to cover irregularities.”



Next come the goon squads: big scary guys who stand in the doorway, Wallace-like, to intimidate voters. They are quite open about encouraging assault: They want to “have a human body who is tough and even mean, at the polls counting the ballots.” At one polling place, “We dispatched a 6’6,” 275 lb. football player to the polling place; he walked in, cracked the guy on the kisser, and flattened him to the floor, turned around and walked out, and no more problems occurred at that polling place! Use force if needed!”



If that isn’t good enough, bring in the fake cops. The Republicans have been caught many times sending their own people with uniforms, guns and radios to the polling places, giving the impression that they have the power to arrest people. Some wear badges that say things like “Ballot Security Program.” Some of them write down license numbers, ask questions about citizenship, sit next to the real election officials



Of course the real cops can intimidate people too: just the fear of immigration officials will keep perfectly legal Latinos from going to the polls in Arizona this fall, so the Republicans have already won that battle. Courts have had to direct unofficial poll watchers to coordinate any complaints with the secretary of state’s office rather than starting to whoop up trouble right there at the polls or call the police.



The Republicans also push local cops to go door-to-door in black areas, armed, to ask about their absentee ballots – try to vote and you’ll get a cop on your doorstep! They have also hired private investigators and other unregulated freelancers to go out into minority areas, ostensibly hunting down fraudulent voters, offering rewards for the purpose. We will absolutely see the teabaggers taking the law into their own hands this fall.



A key aim is to ensure that their dirty work is done on election day itself: scream at election officials on election day to get their way on the big day itself, get the media reporting the results they want to see, and then…it’s too late to correct errors or outright fraud.



The larger aim is to make voting a negative experience so that minorities don’t come back. Minority areas don’t have enough polling places close by, lines are long, equipment is antiquated, ballots run out, dragging out the process of identifying voters. The Republicans have been known to send homeless panhandlers to polls for harassment, or to put out the word that “anybody who moves within the county must verify their address at the clerk’s office!” So you must go to poll, learn the new rules, go to city hall, then back to vote. Or give up and go home, which is a Win for the GOP.



The Republicans are particularly energetic at illegally attacking documentation. They aggressively (and illegally) purge voter rolls in minority areas, particularly in the South, as they did in Florida in 2000; often the claim is that the people being purged are convicts, which neatly feeds into white fears of blacks. They vigorously challenge voter documents, especially the increasing number of absentee ballots; in minority areas they illegally demand notarization of absentee forms, and they will challenge ballots for pencil marks that stray outside the box, for example. Many times they have used the subterfuge of sending registered mail to minority addresses; if they are not returned, the voter is illegally tossed off the voter rolls; they can also target renters who are disproportionately poor, old, black or Hispanic.



Their real pet peeve is voter identification in minority areas, a way to suppress turnout, pushing for more and more identity documents. A key aim is to criminalize being a minority, to push the “Brown = Criminal” meme: just as they screech about Obama’s birth certificate, they pop up in minority areas and bark “Show me photo ID! Show me a bank statement, a gas bill!” In at least one case a Republican poll watcher sneered at one voter “Where’s your government check??” They also resist anything that increases minority participation, such as motor-voter.



The GOP sometimes tries to distance itself from these efforts by hiring operatives who are not officially on the payroll – the same deniability strategy that failed disastrously in Watergate. But they’re not really trying hard -- GOP officials have admitted privately, many times, that they are suppressing the minority vote illegally. They even gave out trophies to the goons who stole the 2000 election. And the Republicans have been caught, sued and punished in court over and over. They’re answer, effectively, is “tough crap, you’re sore losers! Rules are for sissies!”



The GOP leadership is running all of this, controlling thousands of GOP lawyers via the Republican National Lawyers Association (who played a key role in the Florida fight), borrowing help from their corporate pals, using the local secretaries of state (remember Katherine Harris?), exploiting their control of the U.S. Attorney organization during the Bush era to illegally use the Justice Department to suppress Democratic votes…and I’ll bet they use the teabaggers this year too!



So where will they attack? The Republicans target blacks and Hispanics not only because they hate them, and the feeling is mutual – but also because targeting them is easy, since those groups are still heavily segregated, half a century after the civil rights movement. In addition it is easy to continue selling the “Brown = Criminal” theme. They also target the elderly and native Americans; they go after college students with residency requirements. They are particularly exercised in races which were decided by razor-thin margins last time or could be this time, or races with black and Latino candidates.



Just as the Democrats have insisted on pursuing their legislative agenda by Marquis of Queensbury rules while the Republicans have been kicking them in the balls over and over, we seem to be heading for another election cycle in which we play by the rules and the Republicans don’t. Which is how you lose. Just as we lost in 2000 and 2004 by allowing the Republicans to suppress the vote. So as we wheel the Obama campaign machine out of the garage again, be sure that the effort includes voter education and resistance to vote suppression. Keep working with the usual suspects to register voters and fight voter suppression: the Rainbow gang, the NAACP, the ACLU etc. Utilize another group the Republicans loathe, the trial lawyers. When their goons show up at the polls, take their pictures, and their cars too!



So, Republicans, it is useless to deny you’re doing it, because the party has admitted doing it, and they have been caught and punished in court. And it is also useless to holler “Democrats are doing it too!” because, time after time, you fail to back up your baseless claims.


**UPDATE** -- Wow, they're not even waiting for November.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/07/kentucky-senate-2010-elec_n_528274.html


Kentucky's election fraud hotline lit up on Tuesday with claims of numerous election violations, according to the Bluegrass Politics blog on the Lexington Herald-Leader's Web site.

According to the Herald-Leader's Janet Patton the charges have varied from vote buying or selling to “electioneering" (campaigning within 300 feet of a polling station) to voter harassment and appear to have been made mostly against Rand Paul supporters.

“Some are local but primarily they have been with one campaign: the Rand Paul campaign,” Les Fugate, deputy assistant secretary of state, told Bluegrass Politics of the complaints.

reasons for Democrats to smile

The website ThinkProgress has had a great couple of days:

77 percent of Arizonans want Obama to pass immigration reform – they prefer a federal law over their own brand-new, idiotic state law. (elsewhere on the net, Republican operatives have admitted privately that they chose Tampa rather than Phoenix for their 2012 convention partly because the new Arizona immigration law would make the GOP look bad. Ouch!).

Maine Republican caucus-goers were forced to apologize for vandalizing a junior-high building. They tore down a poster, went through a teacher’s personal effects, and stole property. Even the kids were incensed. My favorite quote: “Republicans opened a closed cardboard box they found near Clifford’s desk and later objected to the fact that it contained copies of the U.S. Constitution donated to the school by the American Civil Liberties Union. “ After busting into the guy’s private effects, they complained that he had a copy of the Constitution!

More frat-house hijinx! The House GOP killed a jobs bill by attaching poison-pill language calling for any federal worker who even sees pornography to be fired. One giggling Republican brayed “We certainly should do more of this type of thing!” And actually they have played this kind of frat-house stunt to obstruct an energy efficiency bill, a health care bill, and a health and education bill. And if the Democrats don’t fold, the Republicans run ads like “Barbara Boxer Votes To Allow Convicted Sex Offenders To Receive Taxpayer-Funded Viagra!”

[ As we noted earlier, the Republicans are stomping all over Democratic ideas because, as they have admitted, they have no ideas of their own. They launched an abortive effort to set up a fancy cool-ideas council which really consisted of holding town halls so the party leaders could crib from the ideas that the voters themselves suggested. Then they set up a remake of “Contract With America” which, again, is just a suggestion box so that voters can do the party’s homework for them. And now House GOP leader Cantor has set up a website called “YOUCUT”, and again the idea is that you, the voter, come up with ideas for how to cut government spending. The problem with the plan is that the cuts proposed on the site are described dishonestly, and even if voters chose all of the cuts, it would only save a billion out of a trillion-dollar budget. So the Republicans are dishonest AND lazy AND futile. ]

The Oklahoma legislature has passed legislation mandating that abortion patients must: give up their personal details so they can be posted on a website, look at an ultrasound of their embryos, give up the right to sue a doctor if he lies about the state of the fetus, and give up any form of insurance coverage for abortion, unless you get a special policy.


http://thinkprogress.org/

And some other reasons to smile:

A new poll shows that a majority of voters would not support Sarah Palin for presidency. A majority of ALASKANS. One of the most conservative, Republican states in the union, and they don’t want her to run. Meanwhile, her opponent should she get the nomination, Obama, is hitting his highest approvals since October 2009, according to a new PPP poll.

The latest USA Today analysis shows that Americans are paying less tax than at any time in the last 60 years – going all the way back to Harry Truman. This is largely based on the middle class tax cut in the stimulus bill that the GOP opposed. So much for the teabaggers – their whole reason for existing is a gigantic fraud. “Taxed enough already” indeed.

Not that this is really good news, but Obama’s effort to pass climate energy legislation seemingly gets another boost every week: coal mines blow up, oil wells spill, nuclear reactors leak radioactive waste into drinking water….just as the nonsense in Arizona gives new momentum to another Obama initiative, immigration reform. Two other issues are also boosting the immigration effort: evangelicals who hope Latinos will vote GOP if the GOP stops fighting immigration reform, are defying rightwingers who want to block reform; also, people are beginning to ask how the Republican plan to build some sort of Maginot Line along the Mexican border can possibly work, when almost half of illegal immigrants cross the border legally and then overstay their visas. And a lot of the rest of them use tunnels, which makes a fence kinda stupid.

As we learned earlier, the GOP leadership said publicly that they would not defend its incumbents against attacks from the right by teabag candidates. Senator Bob Bennett was just tossed out of his own reelection race by the Utah GOP, and some raised the prospect of Bennett running as a write-in; John Cornyn, head of the Republican committee that is set up to elect Republicans to the Senate, reiterated that Bennett will get not a nickel from the party. Wouldn’t it be neat if Bennett stuck it to the Republicans by (a) switching parties, or (b) backing Harry Reid in shooting down GOP filibusters?

For that matter, since the Maine GOP has been hiacked by teabaggers, and has approved a platform slamming Obamacare, unions, motor voter which helps minorities too much, apparently), gay marriage, climate change legislation….isn’t this the perfect time for Collins and Snowe to quit a party that clearly doesn’t want them anymore, and join the Democrats? Particularly when their fellow Maine Republicans are acting like a Mongol horde?

And lastly, I finally figured out why I keep laughing involuntarily whenever John Boehner comes on TV to yell and scream about Obama’s evil communist plots. It’s because he sounds exactly like Sylvester the Cat. Suffering succotash! That one had been bothering me all year.

Down goes Frazier!

Ron Paul did pretty well in the recent GOP straw poll, because he had his minions vigorously flacking his name there. So some of his supporters are pumping him up as the guy to save the GOP from Palin, Romney, Newt and the teabaggers.

But is he really ready to fight in the heavyweight class? Plenty of fighters look tough when they've never really been in the ring. And Paul has never faced a real heavyweight challenge. So let’s see the tale of the tape.

Even in the featherweight class, he underperformed. As a Republican in Texas he has, at times, struggled to get and hold his House seat. But let’s hope he’s added some muscle since then.

The next step would be the GOP primary process, where the big boys (including Palin) would pummel him for months and months, because wants America to pull all our troops back to the States and reject all military conflict; he wants to pull support for Israel; he wants to end the Cuba embargo; he opposed the Patriot Act; and he wants to end the war on drugs. And he’s run as a Libertarian.

Then if he gets that far, in the general election he'd be pounded by the Democrats because he wants to pull out of the Fed, the WTO and NATO; he hates immigrants of all kinds; he wants to end Medicare, and in fact he wants to cut government programs to the point where it would destroy the economy; his tax policy is simply insane; he hates affirmative action; he liked DOMA; he wants to overturn Roe; he wants to eliminate VA hospitals; and he opposed the Civil Rights Act. And he supported Pat Buchanan in 1992.

And all along he would get pounded by the reporters because of his record, and his controversial positions on racism and other issues.

But of course he will be able to stand up to all that pounding for a solid year. When he’ll be...a 77 year old great-grandfather.


Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!

hair mousse can poison your brain

The Republicans seem to think that if they can only find some brain-dead wingnut who happens to have gorgeous, luxurious, Ken-doll hair, they’ve got an instant presidential candidate. Thus all the unwarranted presidential oohing and ahhing over guys like John Thune and Rick Santorum. Pawlenty, Pence, Romney, the whole metrosexual set.

The latest candidate from Mattel Toys: Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell.

Sadly, like virtually all of these yapping Ken dolls, he is not just a rightwing yahoo, he is OT-NAY OO-TAY IGHT-BRAY.

…That’s “not too bright”, Governor.


We’re removing regulations which protect gays and lesbians from discrimination. No wait, we’re not! Oops!

Hooray for the Confederates, who cares about slavery! No wait, slavery is bad, oops!

Bringing back Jim Crow literacy tests for convicts – no wait, we didn’t mean to send that out. Or rather, we didn’t mean to get caught sending that out. Oops! It wasn’t me, it was a staffer!

With such a talent to stumbling into a minefield and then being forced to backtrack, this guy should be…RNC chairman!

He hasn’t even been governor three months yet! Once a month the guy steps on his crank publicly. Funny how, every time, it takes the form of trying to pander to his bigoted followers by slamming people like blacks and gays, without getting caught. Hey, you're governor, when you do something stupid we're going to notice!

In his spare time he cut almost a billion dollars from elementary schools.

A billion. Just in one state. A cut of $600 per student.

I guess he wants to win by making the whole state ot-nay oo-tay ight-bray.

Gingrich warming up to the idea of a 2012 run?

When Republicans start attacking each other instead of, say, a black Democratic president, there's probably a reason.

Four names which are regularly bandied about for the 2012 presidential nomination are the wingnut-friendly Palin and Huckabee, and the would-be grownup "moderates" Romney and Gingrich.

Right now, Gingrich is attacking Romney's health care initiatives in Massachusetts. Which is exactly what he would do if he was thinking about competing with Romney for the rapidly-shrinking non-crazy electorate within the GOP.

Let's see if he also criticizes the other two -- particularly Palin.


**UPDATE** -- Newt is also out raising money for the Iowa Republican party. So, yeah, he's running.

Obama still polls way ahead of GOP challengers

For more than a year, Obama has been pounded with an unprecedented rightwing campaign of lies and smears, on everything from death panels to birth certificates.

Meanwhile his potential challengers for 2012 have gone largely unscathed, except for a few well-earned potshots at Palin for her latest outrages, like resigning her post mid-term.

So you would think Obama wouldn't poll very well in head-to-head matchups with potential GOP candidates, right?

Wrong.

CNN says that if the election were held today, Obama would beat Romney by 8, and Romney is still sinking because of his connection to health reform. Obama would beat Huckleberry by 9, and Huck is signalling that he won't even run. Obama beats Newt by 12 and Palin by 13.

In other words, no Republican can even get as close to Obama, as McCain did in the 2008 blowout. Obama could quite easily in even more electoral votes than he did last time.

And once Obama gives up on trying to make nice with the GOP and begins counter-attacking and exposing their lies and shortcomings, those gaps will widen. And it will be a landslide in 2012.


Also, we learned today that Palin has made special arrangements for her appearances across the country: all questions from the public or the media are to be pre-screened. This means that not only does Palin have no skill in fielding unscreened questions on policy issues, she isn't even going to try to learn. So in 2012, she either will decline to run, or she will run, but refuse to truly face the media. And since the media has refused to challenge the GOP on its endless stream of lies, they will probably make only a feeble effort to force her to face the music. If she runs it will be all Nuremburg-like rallies and fundraisers -- as few reporters as possible.

In the past she has also tried to ban cameras and recorders at her events, in case she makes a booboo.

Santorum for President! Down with black Muslim commie terrorists!

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/node/36248

Potential presidential candidate Rick Santorum is out there claiming that Obama is…a black Muslim totalitarian communist who hates families – so jump out of your chairs and fight!

Read his words, and let’s break the code together. They’re all about speaking in code words.

“The founding documents upon which our founding documents were based and that's the Judeo-Christian ethics that is the base [i.e. no Muslim presidents for us!]... We are a people of western civilization [i.e. white folks] founded upon the Bible [Ack! Muslims!]. We believe in the ability, the collective ability of free and virtuous people to do more for our society than a benevolent authoritarian government [Obama’s a tyrant!!]….We believe in free markets, free enterprise, we believe in democratic capitalism [He’s a communist!!]. We believe that families are the basic unit of society, not government. That families are responsible for educating and cultivating character in our children, not our schools [no sex ed, no evolution, but pray pray pray!!].….Barack Obama wanted to make us into Europe [scary furriner!]….We are going to fight for America. We are going to fight for the Jedeo-Christian ethic. We’re going to fight for our founding documents and we will win in November.”

Easier with the subtitles, isn’t it?

He missed some of the classic code words – state’s rights, ACORN etc – but it wasn’t a long speech.

Interesting day for Romney

At the recent GOP White Boy Conference in New Orleans, Romney won the straw poll although he didn’t even show up. Romney 439, Paul 438, Palin 330, Newt 321. Not bad. And neatly enough, of the four big vote-getters, three are at least seen as sane. The party leaders are clearly nervous about throwing too much meat to the teabaggers by pumping up Palin or Bachmann or some other loon.

Palin marches in to great fanfare…and comes in third, behind a no-show and a guy who is as much Libertarian as Republican. The party base, to include the all-important primary voters, love her, but the party leaders are afraid of her.

Huckabee just went public with his views that gays are like addicts and molesters, and shouldn’t be allowed to adopt children. Huckabee on same-sex marriage: “You don’t go ahead and accommodate every behavioral pattern that is against the ideal. That would be like saying, well, there are a lot of people who like to use drugs, so let’s go ahead and accommodate those who want who use drugs. There are some people who believe in incest, so we should accommodate them. There are people who believe in polygamy, so we should accommodate them.”

Huckabee on gay adoption: “I think this is not about trying to create statements for people who want to change the basic fundamental definitions of family. And always we should act in the best interest of the children, not in the seeming interest of the adults. Children are not puppies. This is not a time to see if we can experiment and find out, how does this work?”

So it’s sounding more like he really isn’t running – certainly he isn’t being careful with his words. This could be good for Romney, by removing a potential rival for 2012, but it could also be very bad for Romney, by uniting all the wingnuts behind Palin.

This next one is definitely good for Romney. Ron Paul on Republican foreign policy: “Conservatives spend money on different things. They like embassies, and they like occupation. They like the empire. They like to be in 135 countries and 700 bases. Don’t you think it’s rather conservative to say, ‘oh it’s good to follow the Constitution, oh, except for war. Let the President go to war anytime they want.’ …We can do better with peace than with war!”

So Paul clearly isn’t sucking up to the GOP base any more than Huckleberry is. However, if this is a prelude to Paul running in 2012 as a Libertarian, that could be disastrous for the GOP.

And then Newt. Something which Jon Chait pointed very recently: we ran John Edwards out of town on a rail for cheating on his wife, but Newt did it with two wives in a row. He told Wife 1 he wanted a divorce…while she was in hospital for cancer, just coming out of surgery. And the second time he cheated with a very young aide. And all this crap was going on while he was trying to harpoon Clinton for..infidelity. But he is still taken seriously as a presidential candidate. Perhaps because the Republicans are much more desperate for gravitas than the Democrats are? I mean, how low do you have to go before a guy like Newt counts as “gravitas”?


ADDENDUM -- apparently, Romney, Palin and Paul all had activists drumming up support. Romney's support, interestingly, came from some kind of evangelical group, so apparently all that Mormon-magic-underwear-liberal-health-care stuff is forgiven. The other interesting thing is that Newt was the one big vote getter who had no organization pumping for him. Hmm...

John Thune, Man Of Mystery

Some Republicans, in a desperate search for any credible presidential candidate not from Alaska, are touting the clear and obvious brilliance and greatness of that glorious piece of presidential timber, John Thune of South Dakota.

But they don’t really say why he’s such hot stuff.

They’re kinda quiet about Thune and his record.

Hmm…

Could it be because Thune twisted arms in the Senate, to get provisions supporting ethanol, to help South Dakota farmers, even though it is really stupid policy?

Or are they quiet because Thune twisted arms in the Senate, to get language supporting wind-power passed, to help windy areas such as…his hometown in South Dakota?

Or because Thune twisted arms in the Senate, to get a crooked $2 billion deal for the crooked railroads he used to lobby for?

Or because Thune twisted arms in the Senate, to save an unnecessary air force base in…South Dakota?

"I've said all along that I'm going to play whatever cards I have to get the best possible outcome I can for my base."

Or because Thune twisted arms in the Senate, to force an amendment to a troop support bill – so that the folks back home can enjoy concealed-carry gun rights?

If you’re from South Dakota, or one of Thune’s crooked paymasters, or a nut with a gun, or someone who hates gays, or hates women’s rights, Thune is your pal. For the rest of us, who want good honest policy, not so much.

No wonder they’re so quiet about his record.

Who could stop Palin in 2012?

Chris Bowers of Open Left says that the 2012 GOP nomination is Palin’s if she wants it.

She can draw a crowd and raise money, as Bowers noted. Right now the Republicans are intensely focused on fundraising, because Steele clumsily broke the GOP money pipeline right in the middle of the midterms, by angering party donors with his strip-club fiasco.

The Republicans have expressed fear of Palin in the past, due in part to her gaffes and her extraordinary baggage, and the fact that she polls very badly against Obama. She even polls poorly in the south, which could potentially give Obama a shot in a state like Georgia, where Obama made little effort but still came within about 5 points of McCain (Obama lost by 9 in South Carolina and 12 in Texas). The party could have blocked her path to the nomination. But they haven’t done so, for whatever reasons. Right now I think they’re too busy figuring out how to deal with Steele, to worry about reining in Palin. Perhaps they fear to support her, but they also fear to oppose her.

The GOP has a weak primary field for 2012 –- so who could stop her? Huckabee probably won’t run, so he won’t force Palin to split the wingnut vote. Romney did a mediocre job running in 2008 and now has Republicans gunning for him on the health care issue. And the GOP has a historic reluctance to gamble on unknowns.

Does she want the nomination? Is she concerned about embarrassing herself on the campaign trail or in the press, or embarrassing herself in a landslide loss against an incumbent when she could instead run in 2016? So far, her ethos seems to be “nothing to apologize for and nothing to lose”….

If she chooses not to run, she will wait until the last minute to say so –- once she rules out a run, the attention stops. But she needs to decide soon, so she can set up an organization, networks, donors etc.

But the underlying question remains: if Palin decides she wants the nomination, who can stop her? Unless another, stronger candidate can bring her down in the primaries, what other option is there? Senior party leaders could get together and try to block her path, by changing the rules or uniting behind a challenger, but there is no such challenger, and again, currently the party leadership is in disarray, dealing with Steele, the teabaggers, challenges from the right, and so forth.


http://www.openleft.com/diary/18180/is-there-anyway-that-sarah-palin-isnt-the-republican-nominee-in-2012



PS the latest poll, from Clarus, has Obama beating Palin by 18, if the election were held today.

Palin-Bachmann! Palin-Bachmann!

Palin and Bachmann had a monster teabagger rally today, and people were running around wearing Palin-Bachmann buttons.

2012 GOP ticket?

I'm not a praying man, but please please please could we have this ticket to run against?

Palin-Thune 2012?

I am beginning to wonder if Obama is even smarter than we thought.


Until recently, Mitt Romney would have been considered the frontrunner for the 2012 GOP nomination: he consistently wins straw polls among Republicans, he has the money to run, and he does okay against Obama in head-to-head polling (although Obama still leads).


But by winning passage of health care reform, Obama has seriously damaged Mitt Romney’s chances -- by drawing attention to the fact that the Democrats will soon give America a health care plan which is very similar to the plan that Romney enacted as governor. Which means that Romney will have a tough time campaigning against Obama’s signature legislative achievement, and that the other Republicans will rip Romney apart in the primaries, because they have been likening Obamacare to some sort of Stalinist apocalypse.


According to Intrade, the following candidates are reasonable bets to compete seriously for the Republican nomination in 2012.

Romney, the favorite at 26 percent. But his problems are mounting: the teabag core of the party dislikes him, he is a notorious flipflopper, and they will dislike him even more once they realize that the Obamacare plan is very similar to Romneycare. So his prospects have indeed taken a serious hit.

Palin, with a 23 percent chance. Outside the party base, she is seen as an unqualified buffoon, but those party loyalists who vote in the primaries worship her. Once Romney’s shortcomings catch up to him, she could be top dog again.

Thune, 18 percent. The fact that he is a factor at all shows how weak the big-name candidates are. He is a little-known hard-core evangelical with antediluvian beliefs on abortion and gays, and his only real claim to fame is pushing a law which offers billions to his former railroad clients from his days as a lobbyist. And he has pretty John-Edwards hair. He’s essentially Dan Quayle, but a little smarter and a lot more crooked. He is probably measuring himself for a VP nomination already, like Pawlenty and Jindal were in 2008.

Pawlenty, 10 percent. His stock dropped like a rock once the teabaggers realized he wasn’t one of them, and in part because Al Franken ended up getting certified as Senator.

Huckabee, 5 percent. Dropped way down, in part because some of the prisoners who sentences he commuted turned out to be seriously bad seeds.

Some tie-breakers:

1. Only Palin and Romney can really depend on finding or raising money (and perhaps Newt or Barbour).
2. Only Palin can guarantee a big crowd wherever she goes.
3. Only Romney and Huckabee poll within single digits of Obama, head to head.
4. Only Romney, Palin, Huckabee and Gingrich have the support of a majority of their own party.
5. And only those four are solid national names.

On that last point: the Republicans don’t gamble on relative unknowns like the Democrats did with McGovern, Carter, Dukakis and Clinton, because unknowns often get their butts kicked. The Republicans generally play it safe, and nominate people who not only have a national reputation, but have also paid their party dues. Dewey was famous for conquering the mob; Ike, for conquering Europe; Nixon, Senator and then Vice President; Ford, President; Reagan, presidential contender in 1976; Bush 41, presidential contender and Vice President; Dole, VP contender; McCain, presidential contender. Reagan, Bush 41, Dole and McCain were rewarded for politely waiting their turn, as Romney, Huckabee and Palin have waited.

The only two times the Republicans strayed from that philosophy was when they let Goldwater split the party in two, whereupon he led the party to disaster by losing; and Bush 43, who led the whole nation to disaster by winning. So they probably have little interest in gambling on an unknown for 2012.

This is why I don’t consider people like Jeb Bush or Scott Brown to be true “national names”. Or Jindal.

And this is why handicapping the race isn’t so crazy in early 2010: in the Republican party particularly, we shouldn’t expect to see a lot of violent change in the political outlook, or an out-of-nowhere nominee like Obama was.

Desperation may force the Republicans to broaden their standards if not lowering them entirely – with Palin in the mix it’s really impossible to lower the bar anymore – but I don’t think the party leadership really understands just how damaged the GOP brand is, so expect them to choose a known quantity.

The other guys who got 3-4 points on Intrade: Jindal, who was rated much higher until his disastrous national speech exposed him as a fool; Jeb Bush and Scott Brown who have a little visibility; Paul, Daniels, Ryan and Pence who are relative unknowns; and Newt who is seen by two-thirds of the country as the Prince of Darkness.

Palin qualifies on four of the five tie-breakers noted above, and the one she doesn’t have – doing well in a head-to-head poll against Obama – may not matter to the GOP primary voters, whose present undercurrents of messianic, apocalyptic insanity may overcome whatever pragmatic political sense they might have had.

The GOP voters could be persuaded to set their emotions aside and make a more pragmatic choice than Palin, if the national Republican party had responsible, courageous leadership to guide them in that direction. But they don’t: they have Steele, who has no credibility and is terrified of the far right, and a bunch of other guys who also take their marching orders from Rush, Fox and the teabaggers. And the far-right sets the bar very high, crazy-wise – they have already decreed that even Newt is too liberal for them. They will push the nomination toward the most conservative in the pack, and given the eerily liberal records of Romney and Huckabee as governors, that makes me think Palin could grab the nomination.

Palin-Thune 2012?

Palin in 2012: Republican or third party, or...?

Something to watch for: Palin's movements over the summer. When someone plans to run for president, they build up a stack of chits they can cash in later, by helping party candidates across the country, with campaign visits and particularly with fundraising. That's how Nixon rose from the dead in 1968.

So if you see Palin out there raising money for normal, sane Republicans, then she is taking conventional route to a presidential nomination.

If, however, she decides to embrace the teabaggers instead of the mainstream candidates supported by the national party, then that means she has chosen not to lead the party in the conventional sense in 2012. She has chosen instead to lead the teabaggers -- and neither she nor the teabaggers really knows where that leads.

Which means that things could get really weird in 2012: she could lead the teabaggers to conquer the Republican party like Goldwater overthrew Rockefeller in 1964. Or they could run Palin as a third-party candidate for president, which means that the Republican nominee in 2012 could actually come in third like Taft did when Teddy Roosevelt split the GOP in two in 1912.

The good thing is that almost all of these alternative-universe outcomes lead to the same ending, a gigantic Obama victory.

Something else to watch for: what to the teabaggers think of Palin.

Romney, Mormons, and blacks

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2010/01/03/romney_will_hit_key_primary_states_on_book_tour/

They just announced that Mitt Romney is launching a book tour. Guess where he’s going to flack the book and speak out? Iowa.

So, to the shock of nobody, he’s running again in 2012.

Romney is no mere dabbler in Mormonism. He used a ministerial deferment to dodge the draft, spent two and a half years as a Mormon missionary, and got his bachelor’s at Brigham Young.

So, Mormonism.

Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism, came from quite humble beginnings, born to farmers in a New York community that dabbled in mysticism, visions, and folk magic. The folk magic included a semi-mystical New England practice known as “treasure-digging”, sometimes using magic stones to hunt for treasure and lost items. One of these adventures, an alleged gold expedition, led to Smith’s conviction for fraud. At the ripe old age of 18 he was allegedly visited by an angel named, swear to God, Moroni. The angel allegedly led Smith to a site where ancient Egyptians, who had somehow wandered into upstate New York (wrong turn at Albuquerque?), had buried the Book of Mormon conveniently near Smith’s house.

The “sacred” texts were carved on metal plates in “reformed Egyptian”, a language unknown outside the world of the Mormons, but known somehow to Smith, despite the fact that he was a young farmer with no education, who of course had never been on the same side of the planet as Egypt. Smith convinced someone to write down the “Books of Mormon” as Smith dictated them from the “magic plates” hidden on the other side a blanket, like Clark Gable in “It Happened One Night”; the scribe was warned that if he tried to see the magic plates he would be struck dead. At other times Smith claimed he was reading the texts using magic glasses, or by looking at magic stones inside his hat. Then the plates were “magically” assumed into heaven. Thus, the “holy” book of Mormon was given to the world.

On the strength of this book, the Mormons insist that the church established by Jesus, Christianity, has fallen into spiritual chaos, changing Jesus’ laws and teachings, and following doctrines that are wrong, as Paul had allegedly foretold; as a result, God considers the modern Christian churches to be an abomination. The Mormons claim they are the ones who have restored Christianity to its proper form. Thus, the Mormon view of Christians.

Smith claimed that blacks, African-Americans, were descended from creatures who had refused to take a side in the battle between god and Lucifer; Smith referred to blacks as cursed and inferior. Brigham Young believed that blacks were lacking in intelligence, and that anyone who had sex with an African-American would die on the spot. Until 1978 the Mormons banned black men from the clergy.

Mormons also believe that native Americans are actually part of the lost tribes of Israel (I’m thinking BYU is a little shaky on anthropology and geography). They oppose gay marriage and equal rights for women.

Huckabee's 2012 hopes go up in flames

Recently, Iowa Republicans were turning away from Sarah Palin and toward Mike Huckabee as the conservative choice for the all-important Iowa primary in 2012. But now the SS Huckabee has taken another torpedo in the side. A second Huckabee commutee, Maurice Clemmons, seems to have murdered four policemen. Huckabee also commuted the sentence of Wayne Dumond, who raped and murdered two women, one of them pregnant.

Huckabee acknowledges that Rush is the true party leader

Mike Huckabee is arguably the strongest GOP presidential candidate for 2012; he has a legitimate claim to being the top leader of the party.

But wait! I'm wrong! The real party leader is...

COURIC: Were you referring to anyone in particular or anyone specific because I know Rush Limbaugh had criticized the day before you made that statement.

HUCKABEE: No one in particular. I wasn’t criticizing Rush. He’s got a bigger megaphone and microphone than I do and I’m not going to get into a war with him. It wasn’t about Rush Limbaugh; it was about the general tenor.

Palin and Romney in Iowa

Although the Republican wingnuts nationally are turning away from Palin and toward Huckabee, in Iowa she is at least as popular as Huckabee is, according to the latest polling in Iowa. Both of them poll better than Romney in Iowa, but in the Iowa caucuses Palin and Huckabee will be competing for the same wingnut votes.

So while we know Palin is still alive as a presidential candidate, despite her sinking national numbers, perhaps the guy to take a good look at is Romney. In 2008 the score was: Huckabee 34, Romney 25, Thompson 13, McCain 13, Ron Paul 10. Assuming that the votes for Huckabee, Thompson and Paul were from the wingnut side, while Romney and McCain were votes from supporters of the party establishment, the wingnut-establishment split was about 57-38. If Romney gets most of that 38, while Huckleberry and Palin split the 57, Romney could pull an upset in Iowa and then take New Hampshire without breaking a sweat.

Recently I pointed out that with the winner-take-all system used in a lot of Republican primaries, someone like Palin could rack up some early wins and then run the table the way McCain did last year. But Romney could be the run-the-table guy too.

2012: Obama would crush Pawlenty even in his home state

According to a new poll, Obama would beat Pawlenty by 9 points – in Minnesota. Even in his home state, he would be crushed even worse than Obama crushed McCain nationally.

chaos and opportunity in the GOP

The GOP brand gets weaker every day. Only 22 percent of Americans identify themselves as Republicans now, way behind both the Democrats and the Independents; among other things, this means the GOP would need a huge majority of independents to reject Obama, just to get a tie in 2012. Also the latest ABC poll shows that 72 percent of Americans support the kind of limited public option offered in the Senate bill.

The GOP isn’t helping itself with its seemingly endless series of embarrassments. GOP screeching about Obama’s bow to the Japanese emperor blew up in their faces when the media posted images of Bush kissing the king of Saudi Arabia and holding hands with him, and Nixon bowing to Mao. More and more conservatives are ridiculing the GOP whining and yammering about trying terror suspects in criminal courts. Beck made conservatives look even more ridiculous by equating Obama with a rapist: "We're the young girl saying 'no, no, help me,' and the government is Roman Polanski." And the RNC had to admit a week ago that their employee health plan covers…abortion.

The newspaper of record for the wingnut movement, the Washington Times, is collapsing – the Op-Ed editor is now complaining to the EEOC (!) on grounds of religious discrimination. Meanwhile the Tea Party Express and the Tea Party Patriots are locked in a nasty, spitting, hair-pulling brawl, complete with expulsions and expensive lawsuits, over the direction of the wingnut movement; among other things, the TPP people think the TPE people are too subservient to the GOP – some wingnuts really do consider the GOP as the enemy worth rebelling against and attacking at election time -- and accusations of shoddy business practices are filling the air. One teabagger announced he would rejoin the GOP only if the national party met a lengthy list of demands, particularly declaring war on all Democrats and anyone who votes for health reform. The splintering of the wingnut movement into an alphabet-soup of competing movements like the TPP and TPE calls to mind Monty Python’s satire of the dozens of Palestinian terror movements in “Life of Brian”.

But establishment Republicans still kowtow to the rightwing loons. Pawlenty, terrified of the wingnuts, is tacking to the right, flipflopping on climate change, and veering wildly to starboard on ACORN, death panels and the 10th Amendment. And Palin, for all her airheadedness, still seems to be a major player in the conservative movement, simply because everyone is terrified of her and her wingnut followers. Mark Kirk, GOP Senate candidate in Illinois, who originally ridiculed the selection of Palin as vice presidential candidate, is now sucking up to get her endorsement. No dice. Palin also launched the death panel insanity and the intra-GOP lynching of Scozzafava – like it or not, everybody pays attention when she has another one of these grand mal seizures of wingnuttery.

Also, Politics Daily points out that because a number of Republican presidential primaries are winner-take-all, in 2012 Palin could rack up a bunch of early victories in places like wingnut-rich Iowa and South Carolina, and wrap up the nomination quickly the way McCain did last time. One spoiler could be Huckabee, who also has wingnut cred and is now more popular with the party faithful (or perhaps Romney who has more money than God). The party could change the rules, or try to unite behind an anti-Palin candidate, but that would require a unity of leadership which the party doesn’t seem to have right now.

The current chaotic, leaderless state of the GOP could provide the kind of power vacuum that Palin could exploit, whereas in normal times no credible political party would ever nominate her.

The Democrats smell blood: they know the wingnuts have overstayed their welcome within the non-crazy 80 percent of America. Robert Reich is joining the chorus of Democrats calling for Reid to ignore the Blue Dogs and get going on reconciliation. Tom Harkin is among those planning to counter GOP obstruction efforts by forcing Republican Senators to stay on the Senate floor 24/7 to make their obstructive tactics stick.

wingnuts attacking GOP leaders

The next time you hear the Republicans yammering that they want more bipartisan efforts in Washington, look what they’re doing to Lindsey Graham. Right after they barbecued Olympia Snowe for daring to talk health reform with the Democrats, they are crapping all over Graham for daring to talk climate change with them. The local GOP has censured Graham – the man who led the impeachment fight against Clinton -- for “weakening the Republican brand”, as though the wingnuts themselves aren’t already doing that. So the GOP civil war extends to destroying anyone who even talks to “The Enemy”, and strengthening the brand means ideological purity and purges of anyone even remotely suspected of…contact with reality.

As for Snowe herself: new polling shows that in her home state it’s the Democrats and Independents who like her, while the local Republicans dislike her, 40-46. The polling also shows that a generic conservative challenger could wipe her out in a primary. So switch parties already!

The Club For Growth still hasn’t forgiven Mike Huckabee. Huckleberry holds some rightwing views that appall even some Republicans, like his plan to put HIV patients in concentration camps. But as governor in Arkansas – you know, out in the real world – he had to do some things that were, ya know, realistic and pragmatic, even though they infuriated Planet Wingnut. And they still haven’t forgiven him, even though he is actually the wingnut candidate with the best chance of grabbing the GOP presidential nomination away from some moderate apostate like Romney.

The Vietnamese Republican Congressman who ignored all the GOP pressure and voted for the House health bill is now being bombarded with emails comparing him to Mao and hurling racial epithets at him.

The Tea Party loons have officially registered “Tea Party” as a party in Florida. They have Crist in their sights.

Obama is eating this up with a spoon: almost any Republican who could be a credible candidate for 2012 is being slaughtered by the wingnuts: Newt, Crist, Huckabee, Huntsman….Only Palin has avoided their ire. (I don’t count Jindal and Pawlenty because nobody takes them seriously.)

The wingnuts also have a hate group protesting outside the schools used by the Obama daughters, and the group’s website calls the girls "satanic spawn" of a "murderous bastard."

GOP strategists are lamenting that McCain got two thirds of his votes in the South and that “we are too white, too male, too old, too out of touch." Their troubles with women, particularly, are mounting, what with the treatment meted out to Scozzafava and Sotomayor, the Stupak nonsense, and the notion popular among the GOP’s insurance buddies that being a woman is a preexisting condition. Former party leader Haley Barbour said purges are a dumbass idea. But the wingnuts are in charge: we saw the proof when GOP leaders went out there to cheer on the wingnuts at the Bachmann rally.

The wingnuts have succumbed to hubris before. Regularly they declare that America is forever conservative and that the GOP will ever rule the waves. Then Reagan is smacked down for trying to rip apart Social Security, Newt is slapped down for trying to shut down the government, and Bush is slapped down again on the Social Security issue. In 2009 the Democrats have elected two new House members and grabbed two Senate seats, but the wingnuts refuse to believe that America has rejected them.