WP: Hard-Core Republicans Are Fleeing President

[kskiska]

Spending, Immigration Cited by Conservatives

Thursday, May 11, 2006; A01

Disaffection over spending and immigration have caused conservatives to take flight from President Bush and the Republican Congress at a rapid pace in recent weeks, sending Bush's approval ratings to record lows and presenting a new threat to the GOP's 12-year reign on Capitol Hill, according to White House officials, lawmakers and new polling data.

Bush and Congress have suffered a decline in support from almost every part of the conservative coalition over the past year, a trend that has accelerated with alarming implications for Bush's governing strategy.

(snip)

There are also significant pockets of conservatives turning on Bush and Congress over the their failure to tighten immigration laws, restrict gay marriage and to put an end to the Iraq war and the rash of political scandals, according to lawmakers and pollsters.

Bush won two presidential elections by pursuing a political and governing model that was predicated on winning and sustaining the loyal backing of social, economic and foreign policy conservatives. The strategy was based on the belief that conservatives, who are often more politically active than the general public, could be inspired to vote in larger numbers and would serve as a reliable foundation for his presidency. The theory, as explained by Bush strategists, is that the president would enjoy a floor below which his support would never fall.

It is now apparent that this floor has weakened dramatically and collapsed in places.


more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/10/AR2006051002040.html

[Sydnie]

1. Couldn't happen to a more deserving person!

I want to see him broken and crying like he has left most of us.

[grytpype]

2. HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! And it's just going to get worse.

[anitar1]

6. Excuse the language , but I can't wait to see all of these

rat bastards "fleeing". they have sucked the public tit long enough. I wish everyone of them the worst that can befall a person.They supported this sociopath out of pure greed and are irredeemable in my eyes. We should bring back branding people on the cheek. Why not face AND ass cheek? They should be branded and shunned , along with their families, for the rest of their days on earth.I am fed to the eyebrows with ALL of them. Should the worst happen to any of them I would hang my flag out and throw a big party while playing "Happy Days Are Here Again", over and over. And let's include all of the crooks who fix elections. The word is treason, far as I am concerned.

[Ferretherder]

58. I'm just trying to get a grip on where you stand on this issue.

Seriously though, I'm with you, 100%, on exactly what you said. On my morning walk, I was thinking that I would LOVE to see the day when trying to get elected to political office with an (R) after your name was like trying to run as an avowed NAZI!

....wait a minute.........

...it's already like that.



....sheesh.....

[Kikosexy2]

43. Like I said...

Repugs will either have to turn on their Commander in Thief and company to save their asses or sink with him...What's a Repug to do? Scream & Screw?....

[TheCowsCameHome]

3. Oooooooh! A threat? Imagine that. Even the brain-dead are waking up.

Will wonders never cease?

[tanyev]

4. Now what do they do with the huge "W" branded on their backsides?

[anitar1]

21. Play with it. n/t

[Uncle Joe]

42. They stand on their hands and pretend it's an M for moderate. n/t

[tanyev]

47. Brilliant!

It will work until all the blood rushes to their heads and they pass out.

[Uncle Joe]

48. Don't get your hopes up,

that only works for normal people, if your head is up your posterior end as it is in most all neocons then you can do this trick for years on end. Apparently the tight fit prevents too much blood flow from ever reaching the brain, (such as it is) and causing them to faint.

[TheCrankyOne]

5. I would love

I would love to stand out in the Walmart parking lot and make fun of all of the losers that still have those stupid W stickers on their cars!!

[nookiemonster]

9. LOL. That would be a hoot!

You'll probably get company. Just wait......

It's happening.

It's gonna get pretty sh**ty to be branded by the "Bush" brush.

Count on it.

:evilgrin:

BTW, welcome to DU!

:toast:

[TheCrankyOne]

15. Thanks!

I am glad to finally find a place like this. I am not very internet savy.

[darkmaestro019]

37. Welcome to DU : )

Most people here are pretty nice. If you're stuck on something, feel free to ask. : )

[blondeatlast]

17. Ah, but they don't realize how badly the cretin is doing.

It's easy to be deluded when all your news comes from FAUX and Rush.

I seriously know someone for whom this is the case--she's had her logic twisted to the point where she thinks 31% is a GOOD approval rating.

I only wish I were joking here.

[MadMaddie]

22. When they start paying 5 bucks for a gallon of gas....

oooh...it will be painful but I want to see the look on their stupid faces...I think it will get to 5 in August...

then it gets better....all of a sudden the gas prices will be reduced tremendously and it will show that the Repugs have been manipulating the prices the whole time and lining their pockets.......:popcorn:

[DUBYASCREWEDUS]

39. I thought

I was the only one who yells "You voted for that Moron? How embarrassing!"

[cliss]

7. Of course they're running from him.

There's even an Old Saying which applies to Bush and his "victories"

"You can win the battle but you can lose the war"

[Oversea Visitor]

8. It is over

Signs right before everyone eyes.
No way US wont turn blue.
Only by cheating can they win

People want changes, lots and lots of Republican Americans (you know the one who has to do hard works to survive ) want changes. So how can the Democrats not win. Only 2 choice R or D
R= Stay the course D= Hopefully Change the course ( Hopefully= Cause I am not sure about many of them)

It is beyond belief that anyone who knows what happened or who has awaken to what has happened can ever vote for STAY THE COURSE.

I beleive that Democrats has like more than 68% of the voters now.
The American people has spoken and there is no denying them
It is over

Now come Chapter 2
Will their voices be silence
Will their right to have a goverment of their choice be denied
Coming soon to all American Cities Towns Villages 2006 Nov.
One would think that it is a given but why does so many has the fear that it wont happen.
Watch the truth unfold Nov 2006. Maybe for all the effort to manipulate it might not even be enough
to prevent the people from execersing their right of choice.

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

10. But none of these rotten-to-the-core conservatives

are turning their backs on Bush because he is a criminal.

None of them are fleeing because Bush is a Constitution-destroying lawbreaker intent on stripping every citizen of every civil liberty.

They're turning tail because his thieving, lying efforts haven't gone far enough to turn back the clock on a century of progress.

Proving that it isn't just the deluded, the simple, and those in denial who are sticking with this human offal till the bitter end. His partners in crime are also disenchanted with their treasonous ringleader. Where oh where will they find someone who can finally bring this country to its knees?

Senator McCain, would you like to field that question?

[robbibaba]

13. Traitors and dupes

The two kinds of Bush supporters. It would be interesting to see the percentage breakdown in this backwash group. I almost feel sorry for some of the dupes. Their desperate need for an all powerful father figure probably stems from the worst sort of abusive childhoods. And cognitive dissonance is a painful path to enlightenment. Probably their heads will blow off soon.
As for the criminal-traitors, especially the corporate media collaborators, once we get the pot heads out of prison there should be enough room for most of these guys.

[JoFerret]

49. Excellent point

.

[KoKo]

11. K & R! But, the last paragraph says Rove will deal with this by pushing

policy battles and restricting abortion...plus a couple other things that would make their ruin of the constitution and America complete. A parting gift that will take decades to undue.

We better hope that Fitz's Grand Jury comes through for "the People" because nothing will be left soon....

[kurth]

27. When are they gonna cuff this pig for wartime treason?

[Champion Jack]

35. and WHY does he still have his security clearance?

[Eurobabe]

46. Screw Rove, he better be collecting journals

for his years in the slammer. I hear time goes by really s-l-o-w.

[AndyTiedye]

12. That Is What We Are Supposed To Believe. The Real Story…

Bush won two presidential elections by pursuing a political and governing model that was predicated on winning and sustaining the loyal backing Diebold Republican Electing (DRE) voting machinez. The strategy was based on the belief that Diebold Republican Electing machinez, which are uninspectable by the general public, could be inspired to vote Republican in larger numbers and would serve as a reliable foundation for his presidency.

[Kurovski]

14. It would appear that Bush won neither election,

but having them figure that one out would be too much to hope for.

[Zorra]

16. Too late. Every last one of these corrupt weasels supported Bu*h

in every decision he made, and every one of those decisions was wrong.

They should all do the right thing for America and just go down with the Hindenburg.

[zeemike]

18. But remember bush is not running in 08

So they can abandon him with no penalty, especially if the reinvent the party with a reformer maverick like McCain.
All they need now is a week Democrat opponent and another 4 years will be under there control.

[InkAddict]

23. Dictators don't need to run for election

They just "decide" to "stay their own course." So, what does it matter if his party faithful desert him - Congress is inept at best and the system of checks and balances is gone - of what good are courts holding to law when the "unitary executive" can interpret laws any way he sees fit at the time and at will and/or disregard them whenever his little paranoid brain hollers "national security," of course, meaning whenever he gets that feelin' that somebody don't like him or his agenda? Will the American military obey these cretins' orders to bring harm to more innocent international civilians and Americans or have they already crossed the line toward that heinous sacred duty to obey this POS leader and his offensive supporters-MIHOP, duck, and cover-up.

Sorry, I've got great big holes in my TinFoil and I'm

:scared:

[alcibiades_mystery]

19. Er, EXCUSE me?

There are also significant pockets of conservatives turning on Bush and Congress over the their failure to...put an end to the Iraq war

Um, since when have conservatives wanted to put an end to the Iraq War?

[Oak2004]

41. Many, from the beginning

If you remember, there were a number of prominent conservatives who spoke out before the war to try to prevent the war.

I think many people here make the error of blurring the diversity of conservativism into one big mass labeled "freeper". That's just not accurate. And, even though we don't, in general, agree with them, it's important to understand who they are -- in fact, especially because we don't agree with them.

Like any mass movement, you can divvy conservativism in many different ways. So what I'm about to say isn't the gospel truth from on-high-- it's a loose categorization created to explain conservatives on this day concerning this war. It's subject to change as circumstances change, and not all conservatives even today will fit neatly into one of these categories. But, here goes:

Group 1: Antiwar from the start (prominent example: Brent Scowcroft). These people tend to be from one of three camps. They are pragmatists who saw that we would be bogged down and didn't like the stupidity of it. They are traditional Republican isolationists who did not want to send American soldiers and dollars off on another foreign adventure. And they are the scattered handful of liberal Republicans who are, almost pathetically, clinging to the mutated remnants of our once-great party.

One of the features of this group is that they are (unlike the bulk of Fox viewers) well informed about the issues and they never bought into the Administration's claims that Saddam Hussein=9/11.

Group 2: The party loyalists. These people either believed the Administration and the propaganda mouthpieces when they connected Iraq and 9/11, or they felt some doubt but suppressed it out of party loyalty and/or the belief that the President would not lie to them.

There are a lot of subgroups here, all of whom share one thing in common: they are ill-informed, eith through lack of information or through ingestion of too much propaganda. I'll discuss two.

There are the mainstream party loyalists. The Republican party has historically been much better organized and has a strong culture of party loyalty as compared to Democrats. Many of these people may have had nagging doubts about what they were told, but they willed those doubts away in the interest of loyalty.

There are the hard right rank-and-file. These are the people whipped into a frenzy by the propaganda machine, and those with genuine protofascist ties to the ultra right -- i.e., freepers.

The party loyalists are jumping ship in droves. They are party loyalists, but not to the point of national suicide.

And even some of the freepers are, most likely, quietly creeping away from, not just Administration support, but freeperhood itself. Why? Because to be a freeper, you need to believe things which are not true. And it is hard to do that when truth is slapping you in the face.

The propaganda machine is starting to slip in the ratings. Once it takes really hold in the public mind that the propaganda machine has been lying, you will see as precipitous a ratings collapse for the propagandists as you have seen in support for this Administration.

Group 3: Pro-militarists. These people wanted to go to war with Iraq. They knew the reasons given were a ruse or they did not care that the reasons given were a ruse. Some of these people are well informed -- in fact, this category is the category which includes the Administration itself.

Some of these people, too, are appearing to jump ship, though with the explanation that the war was incompetently fought. Unless a ship-jumper shows signs of truly getting it, consider his or her regrets to be crocodile tears. These people are making excuses for their failures. They still want more of this war, and more new wars just like it -- they just want different results.

[0rganism]

20. After the primaries are over, I expect these guys to come crawling back

They may loath bush for various reasons, but they'll never vote for a Democrat, and their religious leaders are right there instructing them to GOTV. Most of them, hell, maybe almost all of them, will be right there come November.

[kurth]

28. They always do. The Party über alles.

Like mindless robots.

[cassiepriam]

30. I agree, Rove will have them whipped into shape by then.

If he is not in prison, that is.

[noel adamson]

24. They should be fleeing the owners of the Republican Party ...

...who have cursed us with Hoover, Nixon, Reagan, Bush and Bush not to mention all of the Joseph McCarthy's.

[Bruden]

25. I guess they think * still ain't as evil as they are.

[flaminbats]

26. how long will the superglue hold them together..

Republicans I know either avoid talking about politics or agree with most of my points. The ones I know who still think of Bush as the best President ever usually change the subject, or say I'm being unpatriotic by criticizing the President during a war. These Republicans are usually older voters. When I bring up their criticism of Clinton in Bosnia as policing the world, they ask me why I want to argue..:eyes: These are the same Republicans who I hear complaining most about gas prices and the Republican Congress..for opposing Bush's agenda.

The younger voters I know are leaving the Republican party. One Republican I knew, who voted for Bush, asked me which Democrat he should vote for in the next primary. Another said that he opposes this war in Iraq and blames Bush for the exploding debt. He plans to vote Democratic this year for the same reason he voted Republican in the 90's, he thinks that Congress and the White House should be controlled by different parties. Another Republican I knew, who told me in 1996 that Cheney should run against Clinton, now considers himself to be an independent. What changed? He served in the National Guard..and lived constantly with the fear of being sent to Iraq. Another thing that changed..seeing the difference between Clinton's job as President and Bush's. After 12 years of Republican control of Congress he is the first to tell me that Democrats need to win the next election!

Conservatives had problems with Reagan, but most conservatives viewed Reagan as someone who could occasionally work with the Democratic leaders or campaign for Democratic votes. Bush doesn't do this, instead of campaigning for the popular vote, he campaigns for votes in selected states. Conservatives don't know what to argue for..a small government or department of Homeland Security, for state's rights or obedience to the federal government, for tax cuts or more military spending, for this war in Iraq or an exit strategy, for defending this country's borders or hiring illegal immigrants who will work at any price.

[Tiggeroshii]

29. There should be somethign that says

"hard core Democrats are fleeing Dean."

With a link to DU. Just when they start screwing themselves, we do it to ourselves. In a heartbeat.

[kestrel91316]

31. He's not ENOUGH of a fascist for these people?????

[Iowa]

32. These defections may be temporary...

Many republicans who are now deserting the sinking ship aren't doing so for noble reasons. Example:

"...they are fed up with what they see as out-of-control spending."

If the GOP were to slash human services, education, Medicare, SS and other good and decent government services - just to balance the budget - I suspect that many of them would be right back on board. They aren't deserting because they are coming around to our way of thinking.

[bling bling]

33. Exactly!!

Anytime the Repubs jump ship, the headline itself is refreshing only until you read the article and discover it's because he's not satisfying them with enough policy that most of us would deem frightening.

What's frightening is how so many of these fundie-right-wingers are so completely over the top that they make Bush look almost rational by comparison.

[4dsc]

34. Won't change their voting habits

I believe this article is a red herring as most of these conservatives will still vote republican in the next election..

[Oak2004]

45. Actually a lot of them would rue the day they got what they want

That would be the day they became caregivers for mom and dad (including footing the medical bills), AND the budget wouldn't go down anywhere near as much as they'd have imagined.

For genuine budget reduction, you need to cut corporate welfare, they'd learn fast enough.

[Iowa]

50. Yep, many of them don't really think it applies to them...

...until they encounter a crisis. Then they're the first to come running for what (until their crisis) they liked to refer to as a "government handout". When it's someone else, it's a handout - but when it's them, it's services they paid for with their "hard earned tax dollars". I know because I worked in a human services occupation and dealt with these people all the time. And I knew the political affiliation of many of them because I was required to register them to vote, or they told me, or I knew via other means. Many were wealthy repukes with a renegade child. It is also well known in my area that some of the wealthier republicans figured out how to transfer Mom's assets so she'd qualify for Medicaid at the nursing home and her farms would pass to them intact. That's getting harder to do, but until recent years it was very commonplace. Damned hypocrites!

[paparush]

36. 3rd Party Splinter??? Could be the time...

[suegeo]

38. How do they flee when their head is up their a$s?

Do I spy a new Olympic event?

[GoddessOfGuinness]

54. ...

:spray:

[thoughttheater]

40. Bush Poll Numbers "Suck"

See my tongue-in-cheek take on the "tanking" Bush poll numbers here:

www.thoughttheater.com

[izzybeans]

44. He was the great white power hope. Now they will be stuck looking

for their next David Duke.

[revbobbob]

51. He can't even succeed at being a conservative

Miserable, miserable failure. Hope he enjoyed catching that fish.

[Speaker]

52. Even the inbreds.....

.....are starting to be afraid of the little corporal.

Little Boots is getting scarey.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

53. Chickenhawks turned chickenshits

They flee in the face of his unpopularity rather than his crooked dealings. And do you think they'll apologize or admit that they were wrong? Never!

I despise them even more now.

[struggle4progress]

55. What limo company do hard-core Rs use when fleeing?

[Trajan]

56. A post by kskiska ...

ALWAYS reminds me of Khephra .....

Im sure he still smiles down on you ....

THANKS kskiska ...

[Wayne_in_WA_State]

57. mammalian response to stench

These guys smell bad . . .

We should expect almost everyone to be repulsed. Republicans and conservatives have taken longer for the olfactory inputs to register with the cerebral cortex. But even they are starting to say

Save me Pepe Le Pew! The odor is just too strong..

Wayne in WA State