The Republican party is the party of white Protestant Nativism. The traits described are shared with ethonationalist parties around world.

I disagree.

They do think, but they think nonsense.

Exhibit A: Jonah Lucianne.

The GOP isn't in any hurry to quit being stupid. President Sarah Palin?.

The answer to "Whatever are they thinking?" is -- of course -- that they quit thinking to elect George Bush and aren't up to the task of resuming the practice.

They learned this contempt for learning and for science at Reagan's knee. It had been one of the strains in post-WW II Republicanism (John Birch Society, e.g.), but Reagan made it succeed, and from him Republicans took the lesson that proud, even agressive ignorance was admirable, because it was politically successful.

The republican party, to me, is nothing more than a bunch of bible thumping, gay hating, science fearing, close minded, anti intellectual bigots. Or at least they play them on TV.

The rights' energetic embracing of Sarah Palin as their new leader is representative of all that is wrong with the party.

Those republicans who are disturbed by the prospect of Palin representing their party have some soul searching to do, because they seem to be the minority in their party. Perhaps they should consider forming a third party. Better yet, make amends and come over to the democratic side of the aisle.

Unfortunately for the GOP, there's no cure for stupid. EVEN IF they decide "time to get smarter", they'll go about it in a stupid way; they might get more glib, but no smarter.

Their only hope (other than just waiting until the current generation of RepugnoTards dies off) is to make the American public stupider.

What was very interesting in the Mark Lilla piece is that, even as a conservative, the author chose to identify himself at the very end as a "liberal." Lillia and I share very similar political backgrounds. Both of us first came to conservatism by reading conservative intelletuals in the 1970s (Commentary, George Will) who seemed like voices of learning and reason in the wilderness of the turbulent post-Vietnam era, when there was a very ideological and mindless knee-jerk quality to liberalism.

My how things have changed. Now we have the "faith based" conservative coalition squared off against the "reality based" agents of liberalism. Over the years I have felt less comfortable identifying myself as a conservative as that label now seems to apply to the mindless primativism and provincalism that Lilla describes. And like Lilla, am comfortable calling myself a liberal, which I define as an approach to politics that applies reason, logic, and empiracle thinking unclouded by the bias of orthodoxy.

There are other aspects of conservatism that I now find disturbing, even dangerous. Fear is often described as a tactic that conservatives use to win elections, but I think we can also see that fear (of the unknown, of others who are different, of change) is a defining characteristic of the narrow conservatism that controls the GOP today -- so out of step with the country, and with the sunny optimism of "morning in American Reaganism itself. It is not apparent how such a fearful base can engage in democratic politics at all, which requires discussion and compromise with folks who are different from you.

With a base like that, caught in its own fearful tribalism, it is not clear where the GOP goes from here to build a nationwide coalition capable of governing the country again. My guess is that so long as people like Palin are considered its leaders, the GOP will retreat to its natural regional redoubt in the deep South and become nothing more than a pesky annoyance for the larger Democratic coalition -- a coalition that is both nationwide in scope and includes most of those (like me) who once considered themselves to be moderate or centrist Republicans, more interested bringing reason and logic to political debates instead of orthodoxy, religion and ideology.

Today's Oregonian has a farewell piece by their "Conservative" writer. The writer laments the deteriorating discourse of the conversation between the two politics.

As if the jingoistic knee jerk accusations of "You're either with us or against us", were never uttered. Not much room for nuance there.

I canvassed for Barack Obama. I met an elderly man who had been a registered Republican his whole life. He told me that the party he used to believe in used to care for people. Now his party was run by people whose motto is, I've got mine, screw you.

"Nuff said."

Reagan took pride in not wanting the Federal Government involved with helping Research and Development. His reasoning was a tale of FDR calling the leading scientists into the White House and asking them what would be the next major development - Reagan claimed no one gave a definitive response.

Perhaps, he was so stuck in fanciful stories from his youth, he overlooked the development of the micro chip for the moon shot.

By the way, if any of you don't listen to steve's weekly podcast, poli-sci-fi-radio, you are missing out on a great show. It's live on sundays at 4PM eastern. Listen at poliscifiradio.com, or download the podcast on itunes.

Sorry Steve, but your show rocks and I want to spread the word.

Yep--like I posted a few days ago after the Maddow show--I am reminded of the VERY recent charade of McCain at his rally when he did the 'blah, blah, blah' spiel--mocking Obama's thoughtfulness on safe nuclear energy. The crowd roared with laughter, I might note.

That was Homer Simpson in the flesh and blood.
But as I stated earlier of course, Simpson is meant to be a satirical cartoon.

Excellent piece, Steve. And I was beginning to think you spent the night, well, sleeping.

But perusing the papers this weekend, there's a strain of thought Republicans would be wise to take seriously: it's time to abandon the anti-intellectualism that's come to dominate the party's ideology.

There was never time to take it up. In the not too distant past the American dream included learning as a way to improve one's lot. Now the GOP has made this bizarre set of rules where self-improvement can only come when non-plumbers buy plumbing businesses and get lots of tax breaks or some guy who already has a shit ton of money gets even more tax breaks and gives you one of the few jobs he hasn't outsourced because he's so happy. No thought or planning required! However, they did take it up and now they're stuck with a core voting block that regards knowledge with suspicion.

Enjoy that cleft stick suckers!

Rich Lowry briefly referenced the party's "intellectual exhaustion" in a piece this morning, but that's incomplete

Lowry's exhausted but it ain't from being intellectual. Someone take a way his clip of Palin winking before he gets carpal tunnel syndrome.

Thinking only works if your mind isn't jammed into an ideological view of the world. Until the Repubs stop shitting on good ideas or facts because they're not ideologically sound they will forever be stuck on Stupid.

What the Republicans are discovering is what Religions and the Repubs favorite boogymen, Communists, discovered long ago. Ideology can't crush reality.

Goons are not supposed to do the thinking. They're bosses are.

The tragic missed opportunity for the Republican party was passing over Bobby Jindal for Sarah Palin.

McCain would have lost either way -- the party is too redneck to accept Jindal. But Jindal would have been able to recreate the party for 2012 or 2016 with a coalition of fiscal and minority conservatives.

Oh well. Too bad. Maybe Obama will co-opt him and offer him a cabinet post. Nail in the coffin for the Repulicans.

> when he did the 'blah, blah, blah'
> spiel--mocking Obama's thoughtfulness on safe
> nuclear energy. The crowd roared with laughter, I
> might note.
> That was Homer Simpson in the flesh and blood.

Sorry, you have hit the "insulted the comparee" problem here. Having worked in nuclear power, the general consensus on Homer in the industry is that he is /concerned/ about safety; he is just utterly incompetent. So by comparing McCain to Homer you have insulted Homer.

Cranky

And I am willing to bet that Homer voted for Obama. Although I am also looking forward to the first Obama roasting on _The Simpsons_ ;-)

What the conservative movement in general has done, at least over the course of the past 30 years, is to swap out actual intellectuals (Will, Buckley, etc) for a cabal of uneducated, uninformed blowhards who have no policy knowledge, no expertise of any kind, no concern for reality, no principles whatsoever, whose single only identifiable skill is being able to concoct rationalizations.

Limbaugh, Coulter, O'Reilly, Hannity, Jonah Goldberg (the list is endless) can "explain" anything, period, no matter how false, irrational, or flat-out insane. Shamelessness and sophistry have replaced intellectual rigor and reason. Acceptance by large, gullible audiences is the goal, not the truth.

I really, really hope that the elections of 2006 and 2008 have demonstrated that a sufficient number of rational people have gotten sick and tired of all the bullshit. I hope.

So many anti-intellectual comments were tossed out and used as weapons during this campaign that this is an important blog and one that deserves even more exploration, IMO.

Even Arnold Schwarzenegger did his part in contributing to this dumbing down by emphasizing at a McCain Rally that Obama has skinny legs and scrawny arms...

I always thought that was a stupid comment when he made it last time around, but wow--this time--I found it particularly startling and just so pathetically NOT funny especially given the times we're living in..

Arnold, you really need a new shtick. Poor Maria. I would have been embarrassed to have my husband use that worn out sexist and just lame sort of comment on the campaign stump.

So glad the skinny guy from Chicago won.

I'll bet he's in a lot better shape than an aging weight-lifter/ body builder anyhow.

as long as they insist on "social conservatism" being part of the package the republican party will remain in the wilderness.

I will never forget in 2000 seeing some grinning idiot George Bush supporter being interviewed on tv saying, "He sounds stupid just like me!"

The anti-intellectualism rampant in the GOP won't go away as long as it appeals to their rank and file voters. They're a prisoner of their own base.

I think there is a very good chance that Sarah Palin will end up getting Steven's Senate seat sooner rather than later. She will spend every waking minute riling up the base and trying to discredit and derail the Obama adminstration. We've already heard Republican Senators vow filibusters. Christian right organizations have promised to impead the Obama adminstration as much as possible. This is a test. either they win or they lose. I think they'll lose. The general public is sick of the direction we're heading, the stagnation of the country on every level. If the Obama Adminstration makes a real effort to turn things around and these people are seen as vindictive, anti-intellectual obstructionists we'll see a real backlash.

I'd like to see them abandon using fear and greed to control their base. I'd like to see them return to the principles the party was founded on. What a difference if both parties would quit hiring the advertising salesmen to "package and spin". Maybe the media would start reporting differently then.

There used to be things I admired in the GOP... but it was a long time ago!

If the only problem was that Republicans didn't take facts, reasoning, theory and conclusions seriously, there would be little problem.

The real problem is that so many let them get away with something much worse: deliberate confusion of these elements of intellectual thought.

Republican A says that "Obama is a socialist", and in one breath an unsupported conclusion becomes a fact. Instead of laughing at anyone who would say such a thing with a "hot mike" there to record it, the media starts jabbering about it like a new gadget just released by Apple, the iFactoid.

Maybe it is the sound-bite culture where a question is asked which contains so much fantasy, the answer can't be found with words.

Obama's skill is in rejecting this fantasy world where unsupported speculation becomes fact and short meaningless sound-bites replace a useful description of reality.

Some have speculated that Obama's Administration could get lost in un-reality as they try to deny bad news. That they will start to spin, send out their media representatives to spin the news cycle, etc. My guess is that the exact opposite will occur, just as it did during this long campaign: give the media a taste of clear reasoning based upon provable facts. When the "other side" responds as they did during the campaign with old worn out fantasy, the choice will be clear.

You simply cannot be an intellectual in the Repukeliscum Party today.

Of course, it is very confusing. On the one hand, you are supposed to aspire to education. Education is viewed as a good thing.

However, once you are educated, you are not allowed to use your education. Because if you do, you are viewed as an elite.

It's simply a fundamental contradiction. Either expertise is good or bad. If it is good, it is a positive thing to be an elite. If it is bad to be an elite, education itself is suspect, and the very process of becoming an elite, the process of education, is itself corrupt.

I personally want elites to run Washington. If there is anyone smarter than me, I want them running Washington. There are people who are smarter than me, but I am smarter and more capable than many. That is, after all, why I spent 24 years (12 to high school, 4 in undergraduate school, 8 in graduate school) becoming educated. I am smarter and more capable than most people, and that is not a boast - I got educated, and I have, like the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz, the paper to show that I am smarter than most people.

Being smarter than most does not mean that I am better. It just means that I am smarter. I think that this is the key - you can be a member of the intellectual elite (which I am) without asserting that this makes you a better person. You can be a member of the intellectual elite without this causing you to consider others your inferior. I certainly am not a member of the social elite - while i am a good person with people, I must work at it.

This is what we must assert:

1) Education is good.
2) Educated people are more capable than uneducated persons.
3) Having expertise is a good thing to run the components of government which you have expertise in.
4) Being an elite is better than not being an elite.

They do think, but they think we can't!
Their confidence that they can control by fear worked for a long time. I give credit to the internet for being a big factor in changing that before it was too late.

I really feared a totalitarian future.

Evolution within the devolution

Mark Lilla gives us much to munch on. Refutation will not come easily. But bubbling beneath his timeline of populist chic is actually some good cultural news: The Sarah Palin farce has actually forced our society to evolve to a more perfect plane.

Here's why:

The Republican fundamental base is the element in our culture most hostile to a female President. For huge swaths of the GOP a woman's place is in the home. But over the last few months they have defended Palin tooth and nail. They have evolved. Not just to except a woman, but to defend her stupidity against all comers. Going forward, fundamentalists won't be able to argue against a woman's election on strictly religious terms or inferiority terms. This is how a culture secretly changes right beneath our feet.

Hillary may have made 18 million cracks in the ceiling, but it was the blunt hammerhead of Palin that finally broke the pane.

Stupid is not a top hat. It's a way of life.

Cranky Observer: I agree with you--I had posted last week that while it was a fun comparison (Homer says this in at least one episode), Homer really is much more lovable and virtuous than McCain ever hope to be. Homer often knows not what he speaks.

===========================================
McCain in general is much more like the Mr. Smithers meany-pants character: 'Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran'--that was another really scary one--and McCain was actually proud of it at the time he made it!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I was so glad Obama referenced that in Debate #2--that was perhaps one of his best comeback lines.

I think what's happening is that people are paying attention. You can't be an idiot and hold down a reasonably well paying middle class job, pay a mortgage, and put kids through school. After 8 years of being told up is down, black is white, etc, the contradiction between reality and GOP fantasy simply became too big to ignore. I've heard a number of people say that Palin was the final straw, including Republican colleagues. They just got tired of having their intelligence insulted.

Joe the f*cking plumber, ferchrissakes.

If the Republicans got in the habit of thinking things through, they'd become Democrats!

The next line from the piece Steve quoted is "And all of us, even liberals like myself, are poorer for it." That's true. Good decision-making requires a lot of opinions and perspectives, and with the Republican party embracing anti-intellectualism, that removes a huge base from the national conversation.

But I think their problem with thinking is twofold. One, they have selected the politics of resentment, and tried to communicate to a less educated base that smart people are ultimately untrustworthy (as though nobody in the Republican party was smart?) and elitist. But two, they also have no real answer to the scientific data that endangers the narrow interests of their corporate clients. That requires a firm hand with those clients, and the party has been unwilling to risk their power in the short term in order to do that. They can hardly afford to admit that global warming is a problem while taking cash from the oil companies and car companies. They can hardly afford to have an intelligent conversation about the different aspects of stem cell research when their evangelical base is so dead set against it. Facts are poison when you have a steady diet of ideological certainties coming in, whether they come from free-market worship or from religious dogma.

I don't know what they'll do, but I hope they can learn that without engaging with reality, they will become less and less able to shape it. They've had their way for a long way, but the strategy of denying reality in hopes of changing it doesn't work forever -- as we saw last Tuesday. My first thought when Obama got elected? "Yay, the adults are going to be in charge again!"

For those of you who enjoy reading Republican 'intellectuals'; there is a pretty interesting dialogue going at "Slate"

There are several of them discussing how the Republicans can get back to running the show. Go check it out on Slate

Granted some of them are full of s*** but I was actually impressed with one of the points Tucker Carlson made:
I recommend someone who speaks fluent English. This matters, it turns out, and not just for aesthetic reasons. In a democracy, eloquence is a basic condition of leadership.

This anti-intellectualism is why their 2012 bench isn't very deep. The only "intellectual" they have left is Newt and that's a pretty sad statement.

GOP/Christian anti-intellectualism is one of instruments consciously exploited by the Cheneys and Rumsfelds of the world to make it easier to use fear as a cover for otherwise impossible policy impositions. The Palin fans of our nation lined up like sheep to have their rights stripped and their wealth purloined after 9/11 precisely because they lacked the intellectual tools and historical perspective to overcome their initial (and fully understandable) fear. The Bushies milked that fear for years, to our great loss. If you haven't, read The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein, to which our financial crisis adds a terrible chapter.

"...Republicans have grown tired after an aggressive battle of ideas. That's false. Republicans have come to think of reason, evidence, and scholarship as necessarily flawed, to be reviled as an enemy."

Conservatives don't have ideas, they have reactions to ideas. That's why we call them reactionaries. Cutting taxes isn't an idea; it's a reaction to taxation. Small government isn't an idea; it's a reaction to effective government. Deregulation isn't an idea; it's a reaction to,well, effective government!

Perhaps someday there will be such a beast as a conservative with ideas. But I sort of doubt it since the very core of the conservatives' being is to harken back to "better" times, stay out of the way of business, and give me my freedom even though society demands my participation.

That set of conservative concepts doesn't require ideas beyond, perhaps, the occasional updating of marketing images.

Rich Lowry briefly referenced the party's "intellectual exhaustion

The Rich Lowry who felt compelled to be Sarah Palin's foremost cheerleader after the debates because he thought Palin was winking at him? Palin being of course the ultimate symbol of Republican anti-intellectualism. That Rich Lowry?

"Intellectual exhaustion" is an imperfect metaphor that begs the obvious question. I propose "paint-huffer fatigue" as a more apt term.

Jack Lindahl made a good point earlier, when he said that Republicans don't have real ideas, rather they're against things.

In the link to Slate I provided above, that is exactly what one of them was advocating:

He posited the question that the Republican Party needs to figure out what they stand for... then he corrected himself and said "better yet: what are we against?"

Pretty amazing.... they have a session to figure out what they are against, instead of figuring out what they stand for.

Steve Benen wrote: "If the party is sincerely looking for a way out of its self-dug ditch, taking facts, reason, and evidence seriously again would be a good start."

The real problem with the Republican Party is not ideology and anti-intellectualism.

The real problem is that the Republican Party of Dick Cheney and George W. Bush is a political party only in name. In reality, it is an organized crime cartel.

It is a gang of career white-collar crooks, corporate gangsters and war profiteers, masquerading as "neo-conservative" ideologues in order to seize power, using a fake, phony, trumped up pseudo-ideology as a smokescreen to distract and bamboozle both its supporters and opponents while the crooks loot the Treasury and misuse the US military as the private mercenary army of the oil corporations.

They are, in a word, thieves. They seized control of the government in a stolen election, and repeated that theft four years later. And for eight long years they have done little other than lie to and steal from the American people to enrich themselves and their ultra-rich cronies and financial backers.

The reason the Republican Party abhors "facts, reason, and evidence" is simply because the "facts, reason, and evidence" are more than sufficient to send most of its principal leaders to prison.

If there are any Republicans left who actually want to use the Republican Party as a legitimate political party, to advocate a genuine political ideology whether sensible or crazy, whether "principled conservative" or "social conservative" or "libertarian" or whatever, then their first priority must be to purge the Republican Party of the blatant, ruthless, rapacious corruption and criminality that have become its defining characteristics.

. I couldn't care less about the future of the Republican Party

I really hope that isn't true.

It would benefit all of us to participate ion a debate that might steer Republicans to back reason and freedom. The better they do at it, the harder Democrats will need to work to maintain power.

A sloppy fat stupid GOP lets the Democrats slip into complacenecy. The kidn that gives us the weak-kneed centrism of Pelosi (and the Clintons) and the forced tolerance of self-important, puffed up hacks like Joe Lieberman as well as outright crooks like William Jefferson.

High standards don't come from a party opposed by idiots.

As for anti-intellectualism and strong black and white issues, the religious right is at the heart of this. Evolution is a key component of health sciences and symbolizes the inevitable confrontation of what facts and evidence says versus what the Bible says. Dogma and Science are eternal enemies.

If the GOP embraces the raw power of the scientific method, they must inevitably undermine religious sensibilities. The temptation to try to steady themselves on the tightrope of humoring the superstitious masses while enriching themselves will be so difficult to avoid that the GOP should be crippled for a decade unless a new faith in Newt Gingrich's 1994 miracle converts them in an unthinking swarm.

A new cult behind Newt to replace that of Jesus until they get their 51% "mandate" back.

I expect it will work too unless the Democrats do three things:

1) Extract us from the depression with 4 years (signs of hope will be sufficient.)
2) Lower taxes ever so slightly to remove their only universal plank from their shaky platform.
3) Defeat / veto gun legislation to undermine their key time-tested weapon against western Democrats.

Do these things and Newt won't be able to save them.

By "black and white" issues, I don't mean race, I mean the tendency of teh proud ignorant to believe everything is good or bad, right or wrong and shades of gray are merely efforts of liberals to get their way.

Dogma.

Low taxes are ALWAYS good.
Lowering taxes ALWAYS increases revenue.
Islam IS evil.
Christianity IS good.
Judaism IS good. (for now.)

Apologies for my ambiguousness.

For years the likes of Rush, Hannity, Beck, Coulter, Savage, O'Reilley, Ingram etc, have been cultivating an ignorant, indignant hateful, faullt finding, self centered republican base, throwing in the religious right dishonest fanaticism and boom, you've got the Palin cheerleaders.

MSM's media millionaire darlings out to protect their wealth and their corporate owners, would further this agenda and any agenda that protected their wealth.

This election only proved that the overwhelming majority in this country are sick of this routine and of these people and their self serving ideals.

Immediately we get from the media darlings that in spite of this 'mandate' from the voters we really are still a 'center right' country...completely ignoring the voice of the people. It's an utterly ridiculous claim as the majority of citizens poll progressive liberal on all the main issues.

Until we bring back the Fairness Doctrine or what ever it takes to end this completely biased self serving media, we will not turn around the "cultivation" of ignorance and bigotry growing the republican base. We are hearing the perspective of the millionaire's view of the people making it virtually impossible for those without money to get elected to government.

btw...of all the brilliant people in our society how do ignorant low information idiots like "Tito the builder' or "Joe the Plunger...er..I mean...Joe the Plumber" get a voice on a national level to spout their ignorance??

stupid people always fear smart people taking advantage of them. As a result, truly unscupulous smart people pretend to be stupid, to turn the truly stupid people against the scrupulous smart people. Once the stupid people distrust the obviously smart people, it's easy for the stealth-smart, disguised as stupid people, to screw over the actual stupid people.

that philosophy has defined the GOP for quite a while now. Their problem NOW is, the truly stupid people think the unscrupulous smart people, the ones who pretend to be stupid, are just as stupid as ACTUAL STUPID PEOPLE are, and thus, an unscupulous STUPID person will believe he or she is just as qualified to lead the rest of the stupid people as the unscrupulous SMART people are. This is the culture that allows Sarah Palin to thrive.

The solution? Reverse a generation of anti-intellectualism. whoever is left in the upper ranks of the GOP that's "smart" need to convince everyone who's been trained to distrust smart people "yes, I'm smart, but you can trust me. REALLY. You HAVE to!"

Good luck with that.

It would benefit all of us to participate ion [sic] a debate that might steer Republicans to back reason and freedom.

You're pushing the political version of "Too big too fail."

There are dozens of more pressing matters demanding the country's attention than the fate of a bunch of bozos who have shot themselves in the feet so often they're hobbling around on their knees. Let the free market work its magic. If the GOP can pull its head out of its ass, good for them. If it can't, at least one viable party will fill the gap. No one who isn't a member of the party should waste his time on those clowns.

Other than to point and laugh.

Sadly it's not just anti-intellectualism...it's a code of corruption...that winning is all that matters. They want loyalty oaths signed...meaning that even if you disagree with their policies...you must still vote for them. This pretty much throws "country first" right out the window.

It's always been "Party first"...look the other way when your fellow member is corrupt...lie, steal, cheat...what ever it takes (caging, purging voter rolls,bribery, what ever it takes) to win...just win.

First and foremost is "motivation". No matter how intelligent one is or not, one must be motivated to take action...any action.

The biggest motivator is "necessity" making it a requirement that we must or are being forced to take some sort of action. That's why JACK LINDAHL's comment above about republican conservatives being reactionaries makes perfect sense.

Look at it this way...When the government is running according to you way of thinking you are not really motivated to get involved to change it. But let it start going rogue and invading on your rights etc then it becomes "necessary" to get involved to change it or lose it.

Failed policies meant discussing the continuation of those issues a mute point...people wanted them changed...so being informed and 'educated' was not crucial or even necessary to republicans because their policies were failures. Since their 'motivation' was to win they took the only road open to them to accomplish that(since dems were already offering 'policy' alternatives).

If your were intelligent and well informed you would not side with republicans so the only alternative was to attack the character of your opponents. ("I don't have any better ideas..but "that one's" a terrorist") In fact the less informed you were the easier it was to manipulate you vote. The less intelligent, the harder to see through the manipulation tactics.

Now we will see no new ideas coming from the republican party only "reactions" to Obama's administration. And until we stop the cultivation of ignorance by the MSM,s millionaire "media darlings" and the right wing hate pundits on the air waves who continually motivate listeners on who it is we should blame and hate... the republican party will be the last refuge for reactionary racists, bigots and fanatics. It will take us years to de-nazify our government now so I remain motivated to make sure no republican get elected anywhere to any office.

In response to :

2) Lower taxes ever so slightly to remove their only universal plank from their shaky platform.

He can claim that he will maintain the Bush tax cuts by NOT raising them, but allowing them to continue past 2010. The disclaimer would be that this applies to everybody making less than $250.000.

That way he would make it very hard for Republicans in congress to claim that he's a tax and spend democrat. After all he is keeping the Republican tax cuts.

On the other hand, when Obama allows the tax cuts to expire for the people making more than $250,000. He is NOT raising taxes, he is merely allowing the Bush/Republicans proposal run its full course. The republicans wrote that law to do exactly that.

(As progressives we know exactly 'why' they did it that way, but let them explain it to their base why it is they had this 2010 loop hole)

Besides... even low information voters with low intellect will find it hard to believe when Republicans try to convince them that they need to give that 2% of the population that already makes a ton of money another tax cut.

The economy has finally shown the so called 'white collar' worker that trickle down economics doesn't automatically includes them into the equation.

fantastic comments folks...really..

two points...i highlighted the brooks column steve cites last month...one thing that jumped out at me was how, even in the south, the gop had lost the college educated whites...

on the flip, it would be great if a prez obama took on the "anti-education" mindset of too much of the urban black community...the whole idea that someone seen in a school uniform or carrying books is "acting white.".....