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   Dan Savage, the brilliant and foul-mouthed sex columnist, has become one of the most important ethicists in America. Are we screwed?
 The federal government is supposed to issue new rules about debt levels for students in for-profit colleges. In the meantime, the states are working on their own regulations.
 Washingtons budget hawks want to decimate the federal workforce to shrink the deficit. It will have the opposite effect.
 There arent nearly enough counterterrorism experts to instruct all of Americas police. So we got these guys instead.
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December 2, 2006
By: PUNDIT DISEASE....Responding to the Lexington column that I linked to yesterday, Matt Yglesias says it's absurd to believe the Republican Party is about to shrink into regional irrelevance:
For the record, I agree completely. My post yesterday was mostly just an excuse to riff on the "Texification" of the GOP and to resurrect my old post about the Texas Republican Party platform, a document that really can't be linked to often enough. As for the question, "What the hell is wrong with Lexington?" my guess is that he's suffering from a variety of pundit disease that doesn't get much attention because it's usually overshadowed by other more spectacular disorders: namely that columnists are required to say something provocative every week, even if there's nothing all that provocative to be said. This is, for example, why the media spent two solid weeks after the election insisting on a wide variety of demographic lessons from the GOP defeat even though the data pretty clearly suggested there were very few specific lessons to be learned. Unfortunately, writing a column saying the GOP got spanked because people were tired of corruption and the war, and that's pretty much it, just isn't exciting enough. —Kevin Drum 1:30 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (58)
Comments
The Democrats can assist in the reduction of the Republicans from the "natural party of government" to "a bunch of corrupt hacks whose raison d'etre lies in destroying the middle class" by tying the Republican Party to the South. Northeners mostly hate the South. Posted by: POed Lib on December 2, 2006 at 1:43 PM | PERMALINKTalk radio has the same problem, which is just another reason why we've become so polarized. If you have to say something provocative every single day, you end up just having to make stuff up. Posted by: PaulB on December 2, 2006 at 1:43 PM | PERMALINKIn general, I think Matthew and K-Drum are right - the pendulum will swing back at some point. I mean, this cycle had several specific things that were bad for GOPers: the liberal media willing to spread lies about the Bush and the War in Iraq and the the fact the Republicans were too afraid to confront them about the lies. I don't think the Democrats can count on the Republicans being so timid in 2008. The American people support American values not liberal San Franscisco values. The refusal of Republicans to defend their conservative principles because of the liberal media attacks is what did them in. In the next two years, I predict the liberals and Democrats will overreach by trying to pass extremist left-wing legislation rather than support sensible centrist legislation that would get the support of moderates like John McCain and Joe Lieberman. Also, with Democrats in power the next 2 years, liberals will no longer be able to shirk off their responsibility for the War in Iraq. Anything bad that happens in Iraq will now be blamed on the Democrats because they are the ones in power. These factors and others will combine to form a Republican resurgence in 2008 leading to the conservatives retaining control of the Presidency and taking over both houses of Congress. Posted by: Al on December 2, 2006 at 1:50 PM | PERMALINKThe only reason the Republican party lost the house and senate is because they pandered to the liberals, and allowed some of their members, like Foley to adopt Clintoesque sexual mores, and democrat greed. When the Republicans clean house, they will regain the trust of the American people. Posted by: Al on December 2, 2006 at 1:51 PM | PERMALINKPundit's disease is a partial explanation, but it doesn't account for several other defects in Lexington's column. 1) Lexington's range of analysis ranges from the solid-right to wingnutistan. As Matt and Brad point out, the same conservative analysts show up over and over (David Brooks! Charles Murray!), but never any centrist or liberal or lefty voices. Maybe my standards are too high, but the primary American political writer for the Economist should cast a wider net than The Corner and this week's fill-in host on the Rush Limbaugh show. 2) The relentless, grinding weekly schedule doesn't explain why, if it's a slow news week, Lexington doesn't go find something else to report on. There's lots of stuff out there that isn't in the headlines. Lex is just too lazy to get off his ass unless something is handed to him on a Heritage Foundation press release. Posted by: FMguru on December 2, 2006 at 1:53 PM | PERMALINKIs Lexington's column weekly or daily? If the former, you're right -- he's got no excuse and pundit disease doesn't cut it as an explanation. Posted by: PaulB on December 2, 2006 at 2:01 PM | PERMALINKAh, Kevin. "Texification?" We're demonizing Texans (fellow Americans) now? How racist. How typical. The fact is is that the south, and primarily Texas, is the future of this country. Its the engine of growth because the governments down there don't believe in taxing their people to death. They don't believe in teaching their kids about families with "two daddies." And most of all, they DON'T BACK DOWN when the terrorists try to terrorize. TEXANS DO NOT APOLOGIZE! In fifty years, the Northeast will be a backwater: irrelevant and derelict. Posted by: egbert on December 2, 2006 at 2:09 PM | PERMALINKI would like to see the GOP marginalized, but first we have to do something about compromised Democrats like Steny Hoyer. Posted by: Balzac on December 2, 2006 at 2:16 PM | PERMALINKWell, three of the trolls have responded (counting Al twice, since there are two of him today). All we need is two more and we've got our poker hand. egbert, dear, do a Google search for "Massachusetts liberal" and let us know what you come up with, won't you? Posted by: PaulB on December 2, 2006 at 2:23 PM | PERMALINKnamely that columnists are required to say something provocative every week, even if there's nothing all that provocative to be said. Totally agree that pundits just make stuff up to fill wordcounts. (But I disagree that "there is nothing all that provocative to be said" - there might not be much to be said "within the narrow range of acceptable political opinions", but that's something else). But take your observation and apply it where it needs it most - the War on Terrorism and its incarnations. Writing a column saying that...the risk from terrorism in the US is almost non-existant, or putting it into perspective of risks we all face daily...just isn't exciting enough. Only amoral sociopaths would justify overturning governments, with the concomitant loss of innocent lifes, to mitigate the miniscule risk terrorism poses. And pundits who legitimize this War on Terrorism (even in the instrumental sense that Mr. Drum does - as in, the Democrats need to appear tough on Terror, etc.) further this myth, perpetuating this fearmongering nonsense. And are, in a small sense, culpable for these wars. Posted by: luci on December 2, 2006 at 2:48 PM | PERMALINKYah, Lexington's recycling some bright think-piece. But I think it's highly likely that the GOP will become a southern regional party for a generation. Its bright minds wanted to make politics about identity issues, and they succeeded in the 70s. They became a brand. But times have changed, and what people cared about in the 70s and 80s doesn't work so much anymore. Republicans have also stretched their brand far out to the authoritarian wacko right. They now stand for things most people don't think are all that important to their own lives. The middle is still where the votes are. But the middle doesn't control the GOP, unless you think Judge Roy Moore is the middle. You get GOP nominations by pandering to the Roy Moores of the party. Oh, they'll still get 40% of the vote outside the South. But until a new generation of anti-Democrats arises that can use the remains of the GOP as its vehicle-- a generation that thumbs its nose at people like Roy Moore-- the 40% of the non-southern-white electorate in the middle won't go GOP. That's assuming the Dems can address what most people care about these days, of course. I sure hope so. With this election Congressional GOP had become more conservative, but to win in 2008 they should nominate a centrist like Hagel. a) How likely is that? b)If party nominates someone like him, what does that mean for Bush's last year? And most of all, they DON'T BACK DOWN when the terrorists try to terrorize. The jokes write themselves, don't they?
Texification?" We're demonizing Texans (fellow Americans) now? How racist. Texans are a separate race? Oops, sorry, that was an egbert post, and egbert is a raving fucking moron. Should have realized. My bad. Posted by: Vladi G on December 2, 2006 at 3:34 PM | PERMALINKthe liberal media willing to spread lies about the Bush and the War in Iraq and the the fact the Republicans were too afraid to confront them about the lies. Laugh Of The Day, right there. Your eyes must be killing you from looking through the wrong end of the binoculars, Al. Posted by: Stranger on December 2, 2006 at 3:37 PM | PERMALINKMy post yesterday was mostly just an excuse to riff on the "Texification" of the GOP and to resurrect my old post about the Texas Republican Party platform, a document that really can't be linked to often enough. Okay, I will address this issue one more time, but now I will go more slowly for Kevin and select others. Given: The Texas Republican Party Platform, is a strange document, writing by some crazy-assed folk, but most Texas Republicans have no idea what is in it, though, granted, they should. Why is this the case? As I wrote yesterday: The current Texas Constitution was written during, and was a product of Reconstruction. It under went extensive revision in the 1880s. As such, it is a document that has tilted much of the governments powers away from urban areas and given them to the rural areas. Platform of the Texas Republican Party reflects this reality. It was written by and for ranchers and farmers and some suburban bible thumpers. By now you should be thinking. WTF does this have to do with the price of tortilla soup in San Antonio? Both political parties base their state convention delegations on the configuration of the voting districts in the Texas House of Reps. As noted in my quote above, those districts are skewed so that rural Texas is rather highly over-represented. Although most Texans live in large, modern cities (which are often world leaders in many positive categories, and a few negative), our state politics is dominated by farmers, ranchers and lonely goat herds (yodel-ly). As such, far from being a rallying cry for the masses, most Texans in the know understand the repug platform is an eccentric, backward document written by some of the most mediocre intellects that the 19th century might have produced. ?Sabes? The repugnacans will continue to believe that God hates liberals. They will strive to demonize science. They will continue to drive fossil-fuel powered cars (even though creationists don't think fossils are really all that old). They will continue to deify the rich and trash the poor. I like liberated minds better. Posted by: Tom Nicholson on December 2, 2006 at 3:39 PM | PERMALINKIt's my fervent hope that the GOP reacts to its current reduced status by rigorously enforcing ideological purity. The California Republican Party did this back in the early 1980s in Sacramento when they couldn't seem to capitalize on Reagan's nationwide success. The Assembly caucus passed a "unit rule" requiring everyone to vote as a solid bloc whenever the GOP leadership required it. When a Republican from a swing district rebelled, they disciplined her and she rewarded them by switching to the Democratic Party. I think the GOP leadership should immediately track down all of its wavering members among those left in Congress and subject them to stringent loyalty investigations. Make them swear to support the Texas GOP platform, which was ordained by God (or someone very like God). Posted by: Zeno on December 2, 2006 at 3:40 PM | PERMALINKAs long as Republicans continue to successfully undermine public education, which Benjamin Franklin championed as the great equalizer, by passing abominations like No Child Left Behind they will get votes. As long as they continue to destroy labor unions by supporting and singing the praises of pirates like Sam Walton and Ken Lay, they will get votes. As long as Republicans champion anti-scientific causes like creationism and defeat govt. funding to combat problems affecting the poor like global warming, they will get votes. However, education, knowledge and a strong middle class will defeat Republicanism forever. Posted by: The Conservative Deflator on December 2, 2006 at 3:59 PM | PERMALINKThe alternative for the GOP is to turn their backs on the Bush family, back down a bit from the corporatism and evangelicals, and point out things like the endless line of links between Democrats and the Mexican government. (Did you know that Democrats BobMenendez and LuisGutierrez received one of Mexico's top awards? If most Americans knew that and were also informed of all those other links, what would they think of the Democratic Party as a whole?) Posted by: TLB on December 2, 2006 at 4:33 PM | PERMALINKWell, but I'm cursed with being able to see everybody's point here -- so I dunno if it's so much pundit disease rather than just a partial insight. Lemme try to tie this whole thing together. If I fail, at least gimme a little credit for trying: First off, back up to the post-election analysis. While pundits were scrambling to find some overarching trends, the GOP was attempting to solidify the meme that the Republican party had failed rather than the country repudiated conservatism -- with the corrolary that Reps can't win by becoming Democrat Lite. This is a marvelous bit of eyewash, and if they take it literally they'll never win another national majority and Lexington will have made a wise point. But it's partial. Here's what Lexington got right and the GOP (and Kevin) missed: There *has* been something of a realignment that the Dems have an opportunity to capitalize on and build a permanent majority. But it's only an opportunity. Many analysts get bedazzled by the social issues that have been defining "liberal" and "conservative" since the outset of the culture wars (and the era of Karl Rove), but that isn't the truer ideological yardstick. What the Democrats have done, at long last and to some displeasure from hardcore liberals, is to table the hot-button social issues on a national level. This started with gun control, but it's also led to the recruiting of pro-life candidates (at least more rhetorically so than has been the norm for Democrats), and also a dedicated quiet about gay marriage, along with an open embrace of faith from some of them -- the Big Four hot button issues: God, gays, guns and gynecology. This has allowed a new competitiveness in the Midwest and border states. However, there's a bigger trend here, and this is why hardcore liberals are for the most part smiling after the election. Even among the most "conservative" of the newly-elected Democrats, there's been a fervent embrace of the government's role in protecting the poor, the environment, corporate regulation and -- significantly -- a questioning of our trade policies. This is economic populism -- much older than DLC Clintonism. It's what Global Citizen means by "your grandfather's Democratic Party." Now it's questionable whether this can, at the end of the day, produce sound policy rather than rile up expectations that will never be met, or produce a backlash from another round of intrusive Big Gummit. As I say, the Democrats only have an opportunity here, and I'm praying that we don't blow it. The GOP was partially correct that the American people rejected an ineffectual Republican Party. And, as I've noted, the American people didn't exactly reject a bunch of GOP-identified positions. But the country most assuredly *did* reject -- on a molecular level -- the GOP right wing. And this was inevitable. How, after all (and this is one of WM's longtime hobbyhorses) can you govern effectively if your core ideology is anti-government? You can't; you have to sell out your principles and bring home the pork. You might think that the GOP would get around to *questioning* that ideology -- but let's all pray that they don't for awhile :) It's why the election boiled down to the rest of the country vs a bizarre coalition of corporate hacks and religious fundamentalists that the Rovian GOP has become. And this is precisely why the Democrats won with such a hugely diverse slate -- old-school paleoliberals like Sherrod Brown and John Yarmuth to social conservatives to everything in between. Another thing that has bedazzled pundits like Lexington is the lingering mystique of Karl Rove. This is evident in the GOP attempt to generate the "America still supports pure conservatism" meme I initially mentioned. But what we forget is that Rove may have had his moment. In a wonderful Rove profile in Harper's last month, it was made clear just how tenuous the Rovian analysis has always been. Aiming for a permanent majority, even in 2000 Bush arguably "won." 9/11 came along, and Rove got a shot in the arm: nothing makes the tactics of divide and conquer, of purist base-energizing and alienating everybody else work like a goodly dose of existential fear. I think it's going to become pretty clear -- even to the GOP who are peddling their reverse-image Howard Dean meme -- that long-term majorities aren't built by dividing the electorate, but rather by building coalitions. The GOP has to become the party that appeals to the center again. They can't do this under Rove; the base has had their asses so slobberingly kissed they'll put up a furious fight against moderation -- but this is what Kevin's on to when talks about the blue urban archepelagos vs the red new suburbs and exurbs. The GOP has a chance to make up ground by rejecting ideological extremism. But will they? I think this is where the Democrats have a clear structural advantage. By taking off the table some of the most hard-fought social issues, Democratic ideology has settled to its core principles of providing opportunity for everyone -- "the common good." The Rove GOP, OTOH, is bipolar and unstable: a government-off-my-back ideology combined with a government-into-everybody's-bedrooms-and-into-the-Muslim-world-besides ideology. As long as the GOP remains deluded that the way to win national elections is to pander to an ideologically fractured base, as long as the ghost of Karl Rove keeps showing up at GOP seances -- then our opportunities to build a stable, long-term Democratic majority are that much more strongly assured. Let's all hope the GOP doesn't wise up for awhile, eh? Bob Posted by: rmck1 on December 2, 2006 at 4:49 PM | PERMALINKSo now Mexico is rogue nation or something? Americans, like all people, get awards from foreign governments all the time. For instance, Powell has pretty much been knighted in Britain (he fits in this highly technocratic category where he can't be called "Sire" but was honored as such by the crown). Posted by: Reality Man on December 2, 2006 at 5:01 PM | PERMALINKNot bad analysis, Bob. I only have two quibbles. First you, among others, use a mistaken construct: the Dems have an opportunity to capitalize on and build a permanent majority. I hate that notion. Permanent majorities when and where they exist tend to lead to abuse and anti democratic behavior. Have we fucking learned nothing over the last decade? Please stop this nonsense. I want, and this nation needs, competitive parties where the minority is only one good idea away from winning the majority. Get it?!! Second, Bob, some one as intellectually virile as you can certainly manage the tags needed to create bold text instead of continuously using the rather amateurish *stars*. Come on! Peace. egbert wrote: "The fact is is that the south, and primarily Texas, is the future of this country." The truth is that due to anthropogenic global warming caused by CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels, the American southeast is going to be ravaged year after year by monster hurricanes, and the entire south is going to ravaged by killer heat waves and prolonged droughts, while at the same time both surface water supplies (ie. rivers) and underground aquifers will be exhausted. Within 50 years many of the major cities of the southwest, such as Las Vegas, will become uninhabitable and simply cease to exist because they will have no water supplies. Many people have a hard time grasping the enormity of the changes that are coming in this century as a result of human impacts on the Earth's climate and biosphere. The changes will be on a scale previously unknown in human history, indeed since the end of the last major ice age. Pretty much everything that we accept as "normal" and seemingly "eternal" about life on Earth will be swept away, not quite as suddenly but just as surely as the world that the dinosaurs inhabited was swept away by an asteroid impact 65 million years ago. Keith G: Well-taken point about the "permanent majority" construct. I thought about that briefly after I proofread and let it go. I probably shouldn't, and said something like "competitive majority" instead -- although I'm not quite satisfied with that phrase, either. Boil it down to not being able to find a phrase that would encapsulate the idea of a coalition that can win national majorities at least half the time. Hopefully even a little more :) But I take your point about the creeping insidiousness of triumphalism. As for *stars* -- hey, I already link URLs, something which about half the commenters here (even some who use HTML tags) haven't learned how to do. Not that I link terribly often. Call my use of *stars* a bit of nostalgia from the old BBS and USENET days, when nothing above 7-bit ASCII was allowed in cyberspace ... And hey, it could be worse. For the longest time, I used (g)s (with angle brackets that HTML can't see as characters) instead of smileys -- which seemed to infuriate a certain cohort and allegedly imply all sorts of things about personal eccentricity :) But they beat that mannerism out of me. I've yet to feel the truncheon that relentlessly about *stars*. Perhaps that day will come. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on December 2, 2006 at 5:47 PM | PERMALINKAnother scintilating post by TLB - Hey, Tom, how are you going to get any rockets built, if you keep posting. Must be all of those day laborers outside your garage who will help build those suckers while you type, amigo. Posted by: thethirdPaul on December 2, 2006 at 5:58 PM | PERMALINKthethirdPaul: You think TLB is tbrosz? Nahhhh .... Bob Posted by: rmck1 on December 2, 2006 at 6:05 PM | PERMALINKNow that we have won a few seats lets not forget about those Diebold machines! Posted by: ppk on December 2, 2006 at 6:17 PM | PERMALINKI thought that for a minute too, Paul3, and almost welcomed him back. But this guy is a monomaniacle xonophobe in L.A. tbrosz is in Silicon Valley and a libertarian/conservative, but relatively sane. I actually miss tbrosz. What happened there to make him leave, anyway? Posted by: Global Citizen on December 2, 2006 at 6:35 PM | PERMALINKRealistically, I think this is all more-or-less hysteria and nobody is going to become merely regional things will just sort of swing back and forth, Sometimes, the pendulum never swings back. Consider as Exhibit A the fate of the Conservatives in England, who seemed invincible under Thatcher and then fell into permanent irrelevance. I would not be surprised at all to see the same thing happen with the Republican Party on a national level. The real problem for the Republican Party, in my view, is that it has no way I can see to redefine itself so that it can appeal to the American electorate in adequate numbers. It has the Bush brand to hang around its neck for decades to come -- and Bush is now, nearly by consensus, regarded as the worst President in history. How do the Republicans disengage their image and policies from those of Bush? I simply don't see how it's possible. And redefining a Party is a multi-decade process -- consider how long it took to put together the modern Conservative movement (of which Bush is the pinnacle and exemplar, in perception if not in fact). Just take, for example, the issue of foreign policy. How does a Republican come back to a sensible view of how to conduct foreign affairs, so as to avoid catastrophes like that in Iraq, without sounding exactly like a Democrat, emphasizing diplomacy and careful use of force? Where's the differentiator here? And if instead Republicans come out like McCain, and sound as aggressive as ever, how do they not get punished by an electorate disgusted with the chaos of our Iraq venture? One very interesting thing is to listen to the proposals for redefining the Republican Party. What's interesting is that it is really nothing but complete silence. Clearly, they don't know what to do; they are simply stumped. Nothing works; every direction they turn makes things worse. I see much of this as the inevitable logical progression of how the Republican Party has chosen to define itself over the years -- of which the "Southern strategy" is a crucial component part. They adopted and advocated for an ideology that could not possibly stand the test of actual implementation. It's inherent defects became fully exposed to the electorate in the years of perfect Republican control under Bush and the Republican Congress. I simply can't see where the Republicans go from here, but down. Posted by: frankly0 on December 2, 2006 at 6:57 PM | PERMALINKWonder how Kevin's doing now (UCLA 10-USC 9) Posted by: atlantan on December 2, 2006 at 6:58 PM | PERMALINKUnfortunately, writing a column saying the GOP got spanked because people were tired of corruption and the war, and that's pretty much it, just isn't exciting enough. Maybe the Republicans can in the future assert that, if they are put in power, they won't be corrupt like the last time. Maybe people will believe them, though most likely they won't. But what are they EVER going to say about the war? Remember, national security has been THE signature issue of the Republicans. Ending the war in Iraq does not end the issues that the war raises for their credibility on national security. Again, how do they address the problems raised with the Iraq war without acknowledging that it was a reckless adventure that should have been avoided by diplomacy and perhaps a threat of force? And how does that NOT sound exactly like a Democrat? The problem with the Iraq war goes to the very core of how Republicans have branded themselves. The catastrophe in Iraq is a political catastrophe for the Republicans, and likely one that will be felt for decades. Posted by: frankly0 on December 2, 2006 at 7:06 PM | PERMALINKGlobe: I agree with you about ol' T-bone; I never found him to be a particularly noxious troll. Kevin says that after leaving, tbrosz used to keep up an email dialogue with him. So my guess would be that throsz, who's a pretty temprementally civil guy (unlike, say, rdw who seems not to mind roundhouse knife-fights even as he pretty much sticks to the "issues") just got tired of all the relentless attacks, especially from some of our usually more sane and intelligent regulars. I saw this happening and it wasn't pretty; some of the people here who I respect the most would just melt down at what they felt was throsz's relentless misdirection, straw men and passive-aggressive "moderate" pose. I never really did see that; I never read T-bone on the same level as, for instance, the pseudo-civil ex-liberal -- whose civility was always a transparent front for the talking points. I thought tbrosz was an honest SoCal conservative. I felt bad for the guy, truthfully, and don't blame him at all for leaving. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on December 2, 2006 at 7:45 PM | PERMALINKfrankly0, I can think of a few things that could upset your analysis. 1. The Democrats are now in charge in Congress. Rightly or wrongly, anything that happens from now on is going to be widely perceived as at least partially their fault. And lord knows, there are any number of pitfalls that are likely in the next couple of years. 2. The Mighty Wurlitzer appears to be abandoning Bush. If that trend continues and he is tossed overboard and vilified as not a "true" conservative or "true" Republican, it gets harder to run against him. 3. One tactic that worked in some races was tying Republican incumbents to Bush, as "voting with Bush xx% of the time." That becomes harder to do when Bush no longer sets the agenda. 4. Some of the seats the Democrats won were in fairly red districts. Hanging on to Tom DeLay's seat, for example, even with the power of incumbency, is going to be pretty difficult. 5. Iraq, in particular, could be just as troubling for Democrats in the next election as it is for Republicans, now that the Democrats control Congress. In two years, I could easily spin this as, "See, we gave them control, just like they asked, and they totally fucked it up!" 6. If the economy goes into a downturn, the Democrats will take some of the heat. And if it really goes into a downturn, as in a full-blown recession, anything can happen. I absolutely guarantee you that the Republican talking point will be: "We were in charge and the economy was great; you put the Democrats in charge and they fucked it up!" 7. Another major terrorist attack will likely have an impact, although it's definitely debatable as to which party would be hurt or helped most. 8. Taxes will almost certainly have to be raised, unfortunately, to pay for Bush's spending spree. That creates an opportunity for the usual "tax & spend" stereotypes and campaign ads. As for Iraq itself, it's not clear to me just how this will play out, mostly because I have no idea just how bad it's going to get. If we retreat into enclaves and expose our men to fewer attacks, then it may well mostly disappear from the news again, even if it is a frigging mess otherwise. U.S. news tends to be remarkably parochial -- if U.S. troops aren't dying, it's not covered. The other way this could be mitigated for the Republican Party is by use of the technique we've already started to see -- Iraq was a great idea and was a necessary step for our security but it was badly executed by the Bush administration. It's a variation on the "throw Bush to the wolves" tactic. Since this is not provably false, it could well take some of the heat off of them. Notice that none of these require any major shift in the Republican Party and, taken together, all of them could spell trouble for the Democratic Party. Note that I'm not actually predicting any of these; just presenting them as possibilities. Posted by: PaulB on December 2, 2006 at 8:02 PM | PERMALINKfrankly: I don't know if I fully agree with that analysis -- as much as I'd like to. I think what's been more definitively stomped is Rove-ism; I think parts of the contry still remain fairly conservative, at least on social issues (I tried to spell all this out in my long post above). The thing is -- the GOP can learn from this and repudiate the Rovian divide-and-conquer strategy, emphasizing pocketbook issues and deemphasizing social hot-buttons -- or they can crawl into a cuccoon and try to insist to themselves that Rove is still right and America is a fundamentally conservative place. That's what they're doing now, and it's been kind of a joy to watch. But this may only be the denial phase of loss, and the GOP may begin to get over it ... we'll see soon enough. As far as Iraq and foreign policy -- well I totally agree that America has to get back to its consensus position on realist internationalism. While they'll always be a strong constituency for remaking the world -- it's a minority and it's been thoroughly repudiated. If McCain gets the nod, that might be the best thing for the Dems -- here was can offer the clearest of contrasts. But most GOP politicians are not, by nature, neocons (Christian right aside). They're more comfortable with a Bush I view of the world, and I think the GOP could get back to a Warner/Lugar/Hegel view of things without losing too much. But it *would* require repudiating their right-wing frothers. It may be that the right has grown so used to being pandered to that they won't cotton to the GOP mainstreaming its messsage very lightly. I expect to see battles about this throughout the next two years -- and they'll be quite fun to watch. But at the end of the day, this has been less an historic ideological realignment than a rejection of the tactic of letting the base rule the Party. Depending on how much of a stink the base wants to put up, we could see the GOP returning to normalcy within the next few cycles. And to some who value a lively and competitive debate between two parties (nod to Keith G), this may not be such a bad thing. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on December 2, 2006 at 8:12 PM | PERMALINKPaulB: Very nicely done problematization of specific points. I tried to take it on a more meta-level of political strategy, but I think our points dovetail to a degree. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on December 2, 2006 at 8:15 PM | PERMALINKAnother thing worth noting: now that the Democrats are back in charge, their own base is fairly well charged up and is going to want some action. Now I happen to think that the Democratic Party base is more moderate and a bit more pragmatic than is the Republican Party base, not to mention supporting policies that are fairly popular overall, but I could be wrong. And if I am wrong, that will have an impact, as well. In short, I ain't rejoicing just yet. This country is still pretty well split right down the middle and it doesn't take much to sway that crucial 5% one way or another. Posted by: PaulB on December 2, 2006 at 8:18 PM | PERMALINKWhat I find most disheartening is that most of my bullet points would be non-issues if we had a news media capable of more than surface analysis. If we do have an economic downturn, as seems somewhat likely, of course the Democratic Congress would have nothing to do with it. But you just know what will happen: The economy took another turn for the worse last month as the joblessness rate rose another two tenths of a percent and demand for durable goods fell for the third month in a row. Republican Senator Daffy blamed the Democratic minimum wage hike for the problem, while Democratic Senator Dizzy denied this. I'm John Smith reporting for CNN News. Gad, what I wouldn't give for a genuine, honest-to-god, independent news media again, capable of and interested in thoughtful and in-depth analysis. Posted by: PaulB on December 2, 2006 at 8:26 PM | PERMALINKrmck1 wrote: "Very nicely done problematization of specific points." Thanks. I think you've been doing a pretty good job at analyzing the deeper level. Mine's just the basic and fairly obvious surface stuff. One other additional point -- the Republican Party is pretty likely to continue to hold their advantage in money-raising. Suffice to say that I'm not counting the Republican Party out just yet. I would actually love it if they would return to their more sane roots -- small government, fiscal responsibility, low regulation, socially live-and-let-live, and so on -- because then we could actually have a real and meaningful national debate again. Unfortunately, I see no sign that their evangelical base is any less powerful and any less deranged than they have been in the past. Hmm... Forgot another potential factor. What happens if Roe v. Wade is overturned, as is distinctly possible with the current court? Posted by: PaulB on December 2, 2006 at 8:33 PM | PERMALINKSome of the seats the Democrats won were in fairly red districts. Hanging on to Tom DeLay's seat, for example, even with the power of incumbency, is going to be pretty difficult. Sorry, but not totally correct. I live next door to the TX 22. In order to strengthen other repugs, a hubris-drunk Delay watered down his own district. Also, the talent pool is very weak for the repugs. I doubt they will find a consensus candidate any time soon. Shelly Sekula-Gibbs, the former Houston city council flak who ran in Delays place is nearly as crazy as Ms. Harris of Florida. She will run again and it will be ugly. Barring an outbreak of Democratic stupidity (never a safe bet) Nick Lampson (a moderates moderate) should be highly competitive for a while. General comment, off topic but in response to the tbrosz/TLB debate-- TLB is a relentless blog whore; he most emphatically is not tom brosz. I have fisked his site clean, and there's nothing there--he is a racist xenophobe with one issue and one take on it. What he is, is a guy in California who is obsessed with the immigration issue and he has a shitty blog he tries to promote by coming to this site and posting the link to his blog over and over again on pretty much every thread. He is no less than a chinese spammer, and with decidely less talent. Posted by: Pale Rider on December 2, 2006 at 9:33 PM | PERMALINKBut, but, but - Oh, all right guys and gals, er gals and guys. Posted by: thethirdPau;l on December 2, 2006 at 9:58 PM | PERMALINKDear reader: I want to avoid encouraging people like "Pale Rider" as much as possible, however I believe that "PR" only commented on my site on one thread. Obviously, since "PR" won't reveal his or her identity I can't verify that, but the appearance of those comments coincides with my only previous reply to him/her. I think you the reader will see that it didn't work out too well for whoever left those comments. Reality Man: Several Democrats have gotten one of Mexico's top awards. That comes after (and in most cases before) they support Mexico's agenda by doing such things as trying to arrange benefits for Mexican citizens who are here illegally. So now Mexico is rogue nation or something? If a knighthood followed someone steadfastly supporting Britain's agenda in the U.S., then most Americans would question that person's allegiance to this country. If those receiving the knighthoods were elected representatives, then there would be good cause for impeachment or similar actions. Powell might agree with Tony Blair on some things, but does anyone doubt his allegiance to the U.S. or does anyone think he tends to act like a British agent? No, but the same cannot be said of the award recipients I mentioned at the link, such as LuisGutierrez. Is there any difference between how he acts and how an actual Mexican agent would act? On the wider issue, in 2008 there are at least two pro-American GOP candidates, so I expect that, even if most Americans are clueless about these issues now, they won't be over the next year. A lot of Americans are going to reassess their opinion of the leaders of the Democratic Party and wonder as I do just how fragile is their allegiance to this country. Posted by: TLB on December 2, 2006 at 10:49 PM | PERMALINKIt isn't that telling the truth isn't exciting enoughit's TOO exciting, in that it could result in all the miscreants, especially the fellating press, losing their precious jobs. Better that Americans and Iraqis keep losing their lives compared with that! The horror, the horror! Posted by: Kenji on December 2, 2006 at 11:11 PM | PERMALINKegbert: "The fact is is that the south, and primarily Texas, is the future of this country." Really? Then why are seven of the ten states with the fastest growing GDP located west of the Mississippi? And why would California, if it were independent, have the fifth largest economy in the world? The South's economic growth has been primarily due to government largess -- and that can change rather quickly now that southern Republicans no longer hold the reins in Congress. Posted by: Donald from Hawaii on December 2, 2006 at 11:50 PM | PERMALINKRegarding the downturn of the economy being blamed on the democratic congress: The congress was controlled by democrats in 1992 but the recession was blamed on Bush I and Clinton won by a solid margin over an incumbent president. In 1982, the dems controlled the house when their was a severe recession but Reagan still bore the blame and the dems made significant congressional gains. So don't expect a bad economy to hurt the dems in 2008, at least based on recent history. Oh yes--the Northeast "backwater" has been subsidizing the "economic engines" of the south for decades, as the largest recipients of federal assistance have been, by far, southern states, while the "welfare state" of New York has forever given over far more in money to the federal government than it has received. I wish this was the beginning of the end of the GOP. With all my heart I wish it. But anyone whose memory goes back, oh, 2 or 4 years will recall that similar obituaries were written for the Democratic Party. Pundits are profoundly stupid. It used to be said, of France's Bourbon Dynasty, "They forget nothing and they learn nothing." Pundits go the Bourbons one better: they not only learn nothing, they forget everything. Then again, pundits get paid vast sums of money to be wrong all the time. So maybe they're not stupid. Maybe they're just venal. Posted by: CaseyL on December 3, 2006 at 12:32 AM | PERMALINKAl: "The only reason the Republican party lost the house and senate is because they pandered to the liberals, and allowed some of their members, like Foley to adopt Clintoesque sexual mores, and democrat greed. When the Republicans clean house, they will regain the trust of the American people." Wow. "adopt Clintonesque morals" and "democrat greed". Yes, and the Jews made Hitler do all that bad stuff, too. What is it like to be the biggest friggin' idiot who ever lived and still be able to type? I'm sure medical science would be fascinated to know. Sorry, I meant medic science. Posted by: Kenji on December 3, 2006 at 12:48 AM | PERMALINKWait, that wasn't a parody Al? It's hard to tell. And it's funny how dissing Texas get's you called a racist (?) and yet people like Al can dismiss San Francisco as not American with shame. What is really more important to this country and defines this country more, San Francisco or some bumblefuck town in Texas with a population of 7, a total of 20 teeth and a record of everyone voting Republican 100% of the time? Basically, the right somehow gets away with this whole retarded "Heartland" values (which always seems to not include any progressive Midwestern values) = "American" values. Somehow the South - the part of the country where a symbol of treason is flown over state houses - is supposed to sum up the US. Why don't more people call bullshit on this? Posted by: Reality Man on December 3, 2006 at 5:10 AM | PERMALINKTLB You have that strained, forced (tight assed) style of communicating that quite often marks an obsessive and somewhat paranoid poster with an axe to grind. Chill out. Wash down a Xanax with some tequila. Go to a Mexican cafe, enjoy the great food, and make friends with the staff. Posted by: Keith G on December 3, 2006 at 9:01 AM | PERMALINKKevin, In fairness, you should set us up with a link to the most radical state party platform for Dems. What would that look like? Posted by: Chuck on December 3, 2006 at 9:02 AM | PERMALINKOk, in fairness, link to the most radical Democratic platform where a state is controlled by the Democratic party... Posted by: Chuck on December 3, 2006 at 9:03 AM | PERMALINKI want to avoid encouraging people like "Pale Rider" as much as possible, however I believe that "PR" only commented on my site on one thread. Obviously, since "PR" won't reveal his or her identity I can't verify that, but the appearance of those comments coincides with my only previous reply to him/her. I think you the reader will see that it didn't work out too well for whoever left those comments. Oh, shut the fuck up and quit whoring yourself on this blog. That's all you're doing and you know it. Posted by: Pale Rider on December 3, 2006 at 9:22 AM | PERMALINKIf the issue was the future of Republicans and/or In every age, and in every country with a representative form of government, there has always been, and always will be, an Urban Party and a Rural Party. True in the US, true in Mexico, true in Canada, true in the UK, true in France, which are all the countries that I know anything about. And they hate each other & always will. The Urban party is self-centered & thinks only of the good of urban areas. They know nothing, they want to know nothing, of country yokels. Their one saving grace is the programs they would like to introduce for city folk would generally improve life for rural folk, if rural folks would only trust them. On the other hand, the Rural party hates the cities. And not from ignorance. Every year, rural folks go to the cities & return with the same story: Too big, too noisy, too corrupt, too immoral. They firmly believe that cities should be like the countryside: More friendly, more accomodating, more honest, more moral. Which is to say that rural folk have no idea how cities work, nor why they work that way. They are also far too ready to excuse their own failings, of which there are many. This has gone on for as long as there have been cities, which is to say, as long as there's been civilization. The current Mexican crisis can easily be seen as a contest between AMLO's rural supporters, and the PRI's urban supporters. (Or whatever the PRI has morphed into.) Yes, it's also a contest between descendants of Aztecs & Mayans, versus Spanish immigrants, but remember that immigrants largely settle in cities, and always have. Same is true of the former Yugoslavia. Supposedly the recent Balkan war was a contest between Christians & Moslems, or ancient Turkish invaders & the people they invaded. It was also a contest between the cities & the countryside. When the Turks invaded those many centuries ago, where did they go? They settled in cities, where, for the most part, they still are. I once had a neighbor from Sarajevo, born & bred. She was nominally "Moslem" but in fact knew nothing about it. But she knew country yokels. She could spy them walking down the streets of Ventura, CA. They looked just like ordinary Americans to me. The Khmer Rouge, as is generally known, were a movement of rural people who wanted to somehow tame the wild cities of Cambodia. First thing they did was apply their misunderstood urban theories to clear out the cities. Theories that were largely developed in the US & UK in the late 19th & early 20th centuries. Theories that were mocked by the late Jane Jacobs in her celebrated book. We might also note that Communism has always been strong in cities & weak in the countryside, and that in its early days, whenever Communists came to power, the Communist cities imposed strange "agrarian reforms" on a rebellious countryside. Which was true in Russia, true in China. Which the rural Khmer Rouge inverted in Cambodia. There will always be a Rural Party, there will always be an Urban Party. Republicans will not disappear into the Deep South. They will always flourish wherever rural people live. Nor can the Democratic party, as incompetent as it ofen is, ever completely disappear. A single-party state can be imposed, but is never a natural state of affairs. Posted by: Dave of Maryland on December 3, 2006 at 9:36 AM | PERMALINK"the liberal media willing to spread lies about the Bush and the War in Iraq and the the fact the Republicans were too afraid to confront them about the lies." I think this "Al" guy huffs paint. Posted by: OXYMORON on December 3, 2006 at 11:53 AM | PERMALINKYeah, if there's anything Repubs are afraid of it's causing a fuss and hurting people's feelings. Oh, and mice. Posted by: Kenji on December 3, 2006 at 4:42 PM | PERMALINKOrder Generic drugs Buy Generic drugs without prescription You could get the following medicines at cheapest prices: attract women pheromones
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