The Party of Sam's Club (Very pessimistic article in The Weekly Standard)

[Up2Late]

(I know this could be the first time an article from "The Weekly Standard" has appeared here, but this one is unique. Ross Douthat is the associate editor at "The Atlantic Monthly" and co-author of this article. I don't know much about the new editors of "The Atlantic Monthly," and don't read "The Weekly Standard," but I heard an interview with the co-author on NPR <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5019085> and decided to check it out. The level of DOOM and pessimism about the direction of the GOP is HUGE! He even said he thinks, "...we've reached the end of the line for 'Starve the Beast' theory." Think they are worried? I think so!) :evilgrin:

The Party of Sam's Club

Isn't it time the Republicans did something for their voters?

THE PRESIDENCY OF GEORGE W. Bush has three years yet to run, but this season of scandal and disillusionment is an opportune moment for conservatives to start thinking seriously about the post-Bush era--and particularly how to fashion a domestic policy from the wreckage of Bush-style, big-government conservatism. Thanks to the abiding weakness of the Democratic party, Republicans haven't yet paid a political price for insider-friendly appropriation bills, Medicare boondoggles, or the smog of semi-corruption rising from the party's cozy relationship with KStreet. But even if the GOP's majority survives the next election cycle, conservatives shouldn't kid themselves: President Bush's domestic policy looks less and less like a visionary twist on traditional conservatism, and more and more like an evolutionary dead end.

Forget the misplaced loyalty and incompetence on display in Hurricanes Katrina and Harriet. The intellectual exhaustion of the current majority should have been obvious at the close of the last legislative term. After months of political reversals--including the defeat, without a shot fired, of Social Security reform--the congressional leadership managed three victories: a pork-laden $286 billion in new transportation spending, an energy bill larded with generous corporate subsidies, and a noble but unpopular free trade act, CAFTA, that may prove a poison pill for vulnerable GOP congressmen come 2006. All in all, not a bad week--unless, that is, you believe in small government, expanding economic opportunity, and the long-term political viability of the Republican party....

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...In May, the Pew Research Center released the 2005 edition of its Political Typology, a survey that slices the American electorate into nine discrete groups. Unsurprisingly, the core of the GOP's support turns out to be drawn from "Enterprisers," affluent, optimistic, and staunchly conservative on economic and social issues alike. But the so-called Enterprisers represent just 11 percent of registered voters--and apart from them, the most reliable GOP voters are Social Conservatives (13 percent of registered voters) and Pro-Government Conservatives (10 percent of voters). Both groups are predominantly female (Enterprisers are overwhelmingly male); both are critical of big business; and both advocate more government involvement to alleviate the economic risks faced by a growing number of families. They tend to be hostile to expanding free trade, Social Security reform, and guest-worker proposals--which is to say the Bush second term agenda....

(clip)

...Then there are female voters--many of them the indispensable "social" and "pro-government" (think "war on terror") conservatives, without whom the current GOP majority wouldn't exist. Between 2000 and 2004, Bush wooed them successfully: His margin of victory among white working class women climbed from 7 percent to 18 percent; among married white working class women, it rose from 15 percent to 31 percent. But Bush's electoral success with this group has not translated into lasting gains for the GOP; white working class women now favor congressional Democrats by wide margins. The "achievements" of the Republican Congress--massive highway spending that goes straight to well-connected contractors and an energy bill that does nothing to address gasoline prices at the pump--are unlikely to bring them back....

<http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/312korit.asp>
(more at link above)

(Note: this is a very long article, (12 pages) it does still have bits of RW BS sprinkled throughout and I haven't read all of it, but the bad news, very pessimistic tone of it, I find very good.)

[bluedawg12]

1. The Pew Poll is why I have said forget the die hard RW

they aren't that numerous. Go for those who don't vote. The other 1/2 of the nation.

[MADem]

4. I think a very large, and heretofore untapped voter pool is the SINGLE

voter. Single, planning on staying single, and getting no breaks for it. They pay more for insurance, they don't get the family tax breaks, many rent rather than buy (at least when younger) and they are completely IGNORED in "FAMILY values" America. And too many of them do not vote.

But there are a boatload of 'em. If they could be prodded to go to the polls, they could make a massive difference.

[libbygurl]

2. There's a wacko proposal to encourage big families in there, too --

-- so that parents will not need to depend on the govt in old age, just their numerous progeny who will take care of them. This is the thinking of many poor families in poorer countries - more hands to work. But how about all those mouths to feed, too?

My take on this is that it's a ploy for the GOP to 'go forth and multiply', so that more of their ilk will populate the earth.

I still disliked the tone of their article, although I'm glad they're critical of BushCo.

[melody]

3. Only problem is, just coz they raise 'em GOP doesn't mean they stay GOP

Just ask my late John Bircher, George Wallace voting, "None Dare Call it Yadda Yadda" father who raised me to believe that, if Nelson Rockefeller or George McGovern ever became President, the Constitution would be suspended and we'd cease to have elections. The mistake he made was sending me to good schools where I was taught to think for myself. :) Well, that and I had good liberal Democrat grandparents on my mom's side.

The best laid plans...

[libbygurl]

6. Well, bully for you! There is that hope, of course....n/t

[ClintonTyree]

5. Horse Hockey!

"Thanks to the abiding weakness of the Democratic party, Republicans haven't yet paid a political price for insider-friendly appropriation bills, Medicare boondoggles, or the smog of semi-corruption rising from the party's cozy relationship with KStreet".

UP YOUR'S, ASSHOLE! :grr:

Thanks to a government in which Republicans control the White House, and both Houses of Congress you mean? I love how they still blame the Democrats for their fucked-up shenanigans. So all of this, the war in Iraq, record deficits, a struggling economy, and out of control foreign and domestic policy are SOMEHOW the Democrats fault? :wtf:
Just like the Slugs, the "party of personal responsibility" to blame everything on the Democrats just because they don't scream bloody murder every time the Slugs fuck our country over again.

Would the media even report it if we did? Hell no, they haven't been! They've been too damned busy jerking off every member of this administration so they can maintain their precious "access".

I think we're at the beginning of a REAL revolution here, and I don't mean that in a figurative sense. I'm getting VERY pissed off at these fucking clowns! :mad:

[dsc]

7. that isn't what they said

They said that thanks to the fact that Democrats have been so ineffective as campaigners Republicans have kept winning elections despite doing what they did.

[Up2Late]

8. Agreed, but you have to remember, these are the same people...

...who blamed everything that didn't go right and every problem that we had as a country, during the Reagan/Bush years (1981-1992), on things Jimmy Carter did while he was President. Luckily, they all made so much money during the Clinton years, that they are having trouble blaming the current troubles on him, but they are trying.

I have a feeling though, that they are going to try to blame "Congressional Democrats" for "...not being effective enough" or that "...they (Congressional Democrats) didn't offer any alternative plans..." which all of us here know it total BS.

This problem (counteracting the RW "blame game") is probably the most difficult challenge we, as Democrats face going forward.

[Up2Late]

9. kick n/t

:kick: