House Minority Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia, one of 10 leaders who attended a strategy session in Annapolis, Md....

I hope they sanitize the town before the next time I run up there.

"Which is why the 80-20 strategy will almost certainly be, at best, the 95-5 strategy"

I admit I'm a cynic, but I'm guessing 99-1 will prove to be closer. It is truly sad that such a strategy appeals to anybody, but when you are describing 50% of the country - that's REALLY sad!

Steve does not understand the brilliance of Cantor's 80/20 approach.

Spend 80% of the time attacking the democrats and use the other 20% of time promoting our policy ideas to our base.

Why only 20% when our base is closer to 25% of the voters? Because our base will support us even if we propose making a pact with the devil; as long as our religious right television preachers tell them to do so. That our policy ideas screw over our base is never comprehended by them!

Why 80% screaming about the democrats? More than that might give the impression that we have nothing positive to offer (our wealthy and corporate owners). 80% is about the right amount to spend time cursing the 'socialist' president and the commie democrats. We have a solid 25% that will vote for us and we only need to confuse another 25-30% enough to vote for us.

So let's see. Here is what the Democrats and Obama have accomplished so far:

Indeed, the House's to-do list features a lot of checkmarks, which the president was only too pleased to emphasize: economic recovery, health care, cap and trade, Wall Street reform, Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay act, SCHIP, reducing Pentagon waste, cutting spending, reforming credit card rules, regulating the tobacco industry, a new national service bill, expanded hate-crime protections, new investments in education, etc. "In one of America's darkest hours, you answered the call," the president said. "Time and again you stood up and you led."

So this is what these evil pieces of pig shit are going to attack ? And then offer nothing ? Except more tax cuts for the rich ? And somehow the general public is then supposed to vote for them ?
This is the con game that the corporate/repiglican media wants to peddle .......

Scorched earth.

We wealthy republicans have much more to offer than just tax cuts for the rich. Moreover, we really do not want tax cuts for the truly wealthy; we want the elimination of taxes on us. We will be happy to raise taxes on the working class to make up the difference. Maybe a good national sales tax like my rich friend Steve Forbes keeps pushing!

We really do not want to privatize social security, we want to eliminate it. And medicare and medicaid. Privatization is just a poor second choice to elimination. Everyone knows that the proper role of the federal government is to transfer wealth from the working class to the upper class.

We wealthy republicans do not really give a damn about stopping gay rights and abortion. We just use those issues to provide lip service to our base to keep them in line and voting for us. As for the illegal immigrants, divide and conquer on racial lines has worked for us for a long time.

On the positive side, we do support more wars (and the attending transfer of wealth to us). Nothing like a good war to enrich us and make our End of Times base think we are working for them. A bigger 'defense' budget not only provides more wealth for us, it provides additional ammunition in our battle to eliminate social programs which we cannot afford (all of them).

The republicans drink from the same cup these days to one sort of one part the anti-social policies of Ayn Rand, one part anti-Keynesian economics of Friedman Milton and one part JP Morgan Sr with a dash of Huey Long populism and garnished with the rabid faith of Father Coughlin.

Like League of Arab states in decades gone by they are struggling to keep their membership from exlporing other delicious drinks. When Rush Limbaugh or Pat Robertson, for example, starts spouting hurtful hate filled speech, and like the League looking at Arafat or Gaddifi, individual members may be privately mortified but refuse to say anything which may seem to hurt their "brand."

Republicans are now beholden to the largest donors to their party. The oil rich billionaires, barons of industry, and religious leaders who supply their money are obviously pleased to operate in this fashion.

if this is their strategery, I say "...knock yourself out!"

I think we should refer to the man as Eric Can't.

Will Cantor's strategy work if the economy starts feeling better?

Will Cantor's strategy work if people get so bored or annoyed with the fact that a large segment of Congress is whining that they stop paying attention?

"And somehow the general public is then supposed to vote for them ? This is the con game that the corporate/repiglican media wants to peddle .......

Posted by: stormskies on January 15, 2010 at 12:57 PM"

Stormskies - you forget that in Republican world, nothing you listed is good or successful, and most is just liberals lying to make Obama look good.

You listed reality - they don't acknowledge such things!

>"...but he argues that Republicans will benefit most from the public loathing of Washington"

Bingo. That is going to engage most americans.

Most independent americans are anti-washington rather than being of one party or another. All they republicans have to do is walk in and spew '80%"... the american voters are bullshit-stupid and won't recall what the repubs have done.

Witness Scott Brown versus Coakley...

When your vision for the future is to create a higher poverty rate, a higher death rate, and a higher pollution rate, I can sorta see why you would only spend 20% of your time on it. After all, everyone has a pretty clear idea of how these things have been achieved in the past.

20% my ass....i laughed out loud when i saw that number....eric kant-error strikes again

What is so bloody pathetic is that Cantor is so open about the fact that his political party has no ideas that can help America and there are a large percentage of people who don't care and will vote for these shitbags anyway. I'm sure Cantor and his cronies are preparing an emergency capital gains tax cut for the people of Haiti, that's how fucking clueless they are!

At what point does it become clear that either a) the GOP has given up on 2010 or that b) they are politi-crack addicts who think one more score is going to push them over the top?
The reason they are going public with this now is because they will never ever talk about their own plans, and if (a big if) some reporter calls them on it, they can make some vague comment about tax cuts, and let the bean-counting reporters (are there any?) sort out if that amounts to 20%.

Underpants Congresscritters Strategery (sic):

1) Whine, blame, complain a lot
2) [something]
3) Win majority in both houses

Seems like I've seen a similar plan somewhere else. Oh yeah, on Comedy Central.

Elections are won or lost at the local level. Witness MA. Dems need to go after each and every Republican candidate on what their solutions will be. Should be fun.

Wonder what this site's ratio of (criticism-of-Republicans)/(promotion-of-Democratic-ideas)?