Voinovich slams DeMint and Coburn for GOP downfall; blames 'the southerners'

[Joanne98]

Too many conservative senators like Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) are to blame for the GOP's downfall, one of their retiring Republican colleagues complained Monday.

"We got too many Jim DeMints and Tom Coburns," Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) told the Columbus Dispatch. "It's the southerners."

Voinovich, a native Clevelander who retires after the 2010 election, continued after the southern elements of the GOP.

"They get on TV and go 'errrr, errrrr,'" he said. "People hear them and say, 'These people, they're southerners. The party's being taken over by southerners. What they hell they got to do with Ohio?'"

Voinovich has broken with his party at several significant points during his two terms in the Senate. He bucked leaders to vote against a dividend tax cut pushed by President George W. Bush earlier this decade, for instance, and only last week voted against an amendment sponsored by Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) to expand Americans' ability to carry concealed weapons.

Voinovich, along with Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), voted against Thune's amendment, providing the key swing votes preventing it from passing.

http://briefingroom.thehill.com/2009/07/27/voinovich-slams-demint-and-coburn-for-gop-downfall-blames-the-southerners/

[xultar]

1. He got that shit right. Those racist ass southern repubs are for shit.

They are still fighting the fucking civil war.

THE WAR IS OVER!

[Kalyke]

4. Actually, the aren't.

I live in the South and I hear more people yakking about the Civil War and how we're allegedly still fighting it from Yankees on this board than I even hear about the Civil War, period, when talking with my neighbors and co-workers here.

We don't really talk about the war that much.

And, there are a lot of southern Republicans who aren't a bit racist. They're the more fiscal variety, rather than the hide-your-racism-in-religious-rhetoric variety.

[xultar]

8. Well I live in GA. If I see one more fucking confed flag I'm gonna smack some heads

I saw a bumper sticker not to long ago...

If I'd known I'd have picked my own cotton. With a confed flag on it. Helen GA over run with confed flags...

Now...

"Not all but some"...seriously does a person have to type that every time. Isn't that just a given?

So, when I say black folk are cool...you and I both know that not all black folk are cool so do I have to type not all but some black folk are cool. I mean it's a given right? Let's not pin prick the poor elephant to death.

[Kalyke]

10. I'm just tired of all the Southern-bashing on this board.

You have to admit it's like a sport to some.

[xultar]

12. Do you think you're taking it too personal? I mean I'm a southerner born and bred.

The Michigan part of the family likes to pick on us and we get back with them.

You gotta admit though, there is a problem in the south. I see that shit up close and personal. I think it is a given that not all southerners are racist. So, though there is a problem I don't think people are dissing the good ones too just the bad ones.

I'll be the first to admit there are huge problems in the black community. I over generalize a lot and ask myself what the hell is wrong with these brothas. But I know there are some good ones too.

[provis99]

21. are you a transplanted Yankee?

cause back in Mississippi, we never heard of the "Civil War". It was referred to as the "War of Northern Aggression". And I got fed up of southern dimwits wearing the "you got your X , I got my X " shirts all over the place.

[burning rain]

26. Really fierce fiscal conservatism can tie in with racism, though.

The tendency to underfund public education, especially prevalent in South Carolina for instance, relates in part to large-scale white abandonment of public schools and desire not to pay for education of black youngsters. It harms whites too, though to a lesser degree, hurting white kids who go to public schools, and costing everyone the benefits that would accrue to all South Carolinians from reaping the benefits of a better-educated citizenry. After all, when we all do better, we all do better.

[SlipperySlope]

2. Will the last sane person to leave the Republican party please turn the lights off.

I can only hope that someday the Democratic party has a "sane" opposition party to compete against. This country deserves to hear a variety of political views, but the ludicrously idiotic doesn't count.

[LiberalAndProud]

9. Exactly.

It is sad to see reasonable men leave while lunatics remain. So many Eisenhower Republicans have been disenfranchized.

[SuperTrouper]

3. Oh oh, Atlanta is burning and Scarlett DeMint is crying and bitching and Rhet Voinovich

is not happy. Voinovich is right, the Southeners have destroyed the GOP and they probably would like to nominate crazy horses like Haley Barbour or Huckabee for their ticket since Sarah Palin has set herself on fire in front of America.

[Kalyke]

5. Since when was Oklahoma a Southern state???

I'm so tired of the South being referred to as the root of all evil when the mid-west is so red, it makes the South look positively blue.

[depakid]

16. South and lower midwest are pretty much the same

Bane of the nation- and they bear the lion;s share of the blame for America's decline towrd third world status.

[provis99]

22. Oklahoma ain't a midwest state, except according to the US Post Office

Oklahoma was settled overwhelmingly by Southerners.

[David Zephyr]

6. "What they hell they got to do with Ohio?" LOL.

Voinovich is only saying what millions of Republicans outside of the Deep South have been saying among themselves for years.

I think it's just the beginning.

I'm glad he said it. It needs to be said.

[Kalyke]

11. Oklahoma is the Deep South?

Since when?

Seriously, not everything that is evil comes from the South.

Jimmy Carter is from the South, for Pete's sake. So is Al Gore.

[David Zephyr]

18. Get the southern chip off of your shoulder. I'm a native of the South.

The truth is that that electoral block that Nixon forged in 1968 has been the root cause of the undoing of Roosevelt's progressive government that made the middle class, took care of children and seniors and more.

I am a Southerner. Grew up in Galveston. I have family strung from Alabama to California like the Joads in the Grapes of Wrath. I organized the moratorium against the Vietnam War on my college campus in Texas and was nearly expelled for doing so.

You don't need to drag out the list of Southerners who are/were progressives. I know the list better than anybody. You should mention Molly Ivens, Bill Moyer, Barbara Jordan...the list is long and noteworthy. It's hard to be a liberal in the South and it's easy to be one in NYC or on the West Coast. But there's also a reason for that: the South resisted unionizing, the South fought Child Labor Laws, the South literally fought to hold humans as property, it's the South that is still pushing religion in science classes, and the South keeps sending poisonous politicians to Washington, D.C. that took this nation into an illegal war, bankrupted the economy and have us where we are today. If that Southern Electoral Block didn't exist, America would be a better nation.

And what the the Senator from Ohio said is true. And what I said is true: Millions of Republicans in the West, the Rust Belt and New England are sick of the GOP becoming a Regional Party.

Fortunately, that Southern Electoral Block is slowly breaking up: Florida, Virginia and North Carolina. And this is a good thing.

Read J. Cash's monumental book "The Mind of the South" written by a Southerner in 1940. And take the chip off your shoulder. There's a lot to cherish from the South, but the majority of politicians that are elected from that Region are monstrously backwards.

[Cal33]

13. "I'm glad he said it. It needs to be said."

Now that the Deep South Republicans have heard it, how do you
think it might affect their attitudes? Possibly stiffen their
necks and become even more deeply entrenched?

I wouldn't mind it if they did. It would only help to isolate
themselves more from the rest of America. They'll be cutting
themselves off.

Naturally I'd prefer it if they would consider softening
their stand. This is not likely, though. They haven't done
so in the past 150 years, why should they begin now?

[David Zephyr]

19. What matters is that the Rust Belt and the West are breaking out of the GOP.

That was the brilliance of the Obama/Axelrod strategy. They won by working Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado. I think Arizona would have gone for Obama if not for McCain being on the ticket.

At some point, even the Southern Electoral Block will crack. Virginia and North Carolina have moved away from the GOP. And Florida, never really a dependable harbor for the GOP is teetering more and more our way.

[Cali_Democrat]

7. oh my

Well somebody finally said it.

[rudy23]

14. Oh yeah, I forgot how sane the rednecks from Ohio to Alaska were

I won't deny that the South is worse than other places overall. But the southbashing on DU is a huge reason we haven't taken advantage of the GOP's recent stupidity and made them a permanent fringe group.

I've met rednecks from New York to Oregon, and they're just the same as the ones down here. Many are worse.

[Cali_Democrat]

15. A lot of rednecks in California also

I totally understand what you're saying.

[Kalyke]

17. Agreed, completely, especially since Oklahoma isn't a Southern state.

:hi:

[provis99]

23. Oklahoma is THE Southern state.

rebel-flag wavin' religious fundamentalist land settled by Southerners. In what worldview is Oklahoma not a Southern state? Next you'll tell us Missouri and Kentucky aren't Southern states, either.

[a la izquierda]

24. clearly you've never been to ok...

trust me, it's the south. i live there

[tanyev]

20. How does he explain Michele Bachmann?

It's not the southerners that are the problem, George, it's the bat-shit crazies.

[burning rain]

25. Will he have to apologize to Jefferson Davis?

The Party of Lincoln has become the Party of Jefferson Davis.