Category Archives: Republicans

by | May 16, 2013 · 12:30 PM

Why the GOP Hates Eric Holder?

Washington Post’s “The Fix” thinks its Holder’s contempt for the Republicans:

Maybe it’s because Holder makes no secret of his feelings toward the House GOP. He called the way Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) conducted himself “unacceptable” and “shameful.” He told Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.) that he did not know and “could not know” what he was talking about in regard to the Boston Marathon bombings.

Asked earlier this year about the contempt vote, he told ABC News, “For me to really be affected by what happened, I’d have to have respect for the people who voted in that way. And I didn’t, so it didn’t have that huge an impact on me.”

That quote clearly got under Republicans’ skin. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) called it “shocking” in March. Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho) suggested Wednesday that Holder’s attitude “may have led also to people in this administration thinking they can go after conservatives and conservative groups” — a reference to the IRS scandal.

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by | May 8, 2013 · 12:33 PM

Mark Sanford: The New Rick Santorum

On Tuesday night, former Governor of South Carolina Mark Sanford defeated Elizabeth Colbert-Busch for South Carolina’s first congressional district House seat.  Sanford not only won the race, but he won by nine points (54-45%).  Journalists, pundits, and casual observers of politics are all pondering the same question:  How did a man who only four years ago cheated his wife with an Argentinian woman and lied to the citizens of South Carolina claiming he was hiking the Appalachian Trail while he was off on more exotic excursions?  More to the point, this is what everybody was thinking:


From reading reports, he pulled a Rick Santorum, which does not mean what you probably think it means.  First, Sanford ran a very Republican district, never underestimate the power of partisan voting blocs.  Second, he was personable and charismatic.  He became the “New Mark Sanford.”  Finally, as Chris Cillizza and Sean Sullivan at the Washington Post point out, Colbert-Busch tried to turn the focus of the campaign on Sanford and it failed.

So how does this connect to Rick Santorum?  When Rick Santorum ran for the Republican nomination in 2012, he had to reset his image from the anti-gay, anti-woman, and anti-modern image that voters conceived of him into a plausible nominee.  His best route was to win the Iowa caucuses first and hope that would lead to victory in other states. Of course, Santorum couldn’t take back all the problematic statements he made in the past, so he decided to don this look:

GOP voters found this image to be friendly and his style to be easygoing.  Not to mention, the former Pennsylvania senator visited all 99 Iowa counties before the caucuses ended and quickly mobilized a large evangelical voter network the weekend before the contest.  Nevertheless, he won Iowa, and he did it with charm.  Since Santorum couldn’t replicate that strategy everywhere else in the country, he lost the nomination (one of many reasons anyway).  Without the tacky sweater vest, Sanford incorporated a similar strategy of handshaking and baby kissing that helped him win South Carolina, which is not all that “inconceivable” after all.

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by | August 13, 2012 · 11:14 AM

Three Ways Picking Paul Ryan Helps Mitt Romney and the GOP

 

I wanted to wait a few days before commenting on this story, especially since it was wall-to-wall coverage most of the weekend.  There is a lot to digest with this pick.  The golden boy from Wisconsin is loved by conservatives and hated by liberals.  He’s a wonk with sex appeal (how often do you get to say that), and he is not a bad speaker either.   Most of the coverage has focused on the central question: what is going through Mitt Romney’s mind?  While I don’t know the details of Mitt’s vetting process, I do have three reasons why this pick is important for the Romney campaign:

1) Ryan excites the Republican chattering class:  The intellectual wing of the GOP likes Paul Ryan.  I mean they really like Paul Ryan.  If the Weekly Standard was a high school, all the writers would have pictures of Paul Ryan inside their lockers.  I watched Fox News for part of the morning after Ryan was pick and the atmosphere was electrifying.  Every commentator called this pick a “game changer” (of course that may not have good connotations).  While the writers at National Review plan to vote for Mitt Romney without this pick, having them excited will make the conservative base excited.  Fox News and conservative media have a lot power and the base does listen to them.  Elites have the power to persuade (to borrow a phrase used for presidents).  By picking Ryan, Romney is going for a top-down persuasion strategy through conservative media.

2) This Pick Separates Him from W.:  George W. Bush has not been mentioned much this election.  Currently, he is like Voldemort on the right (no one dare speak his name) and Romney does not want to be compared to Bush.  This is especially true on the deficit.  There is a fear in the minds of some on the right that Mitt will promise deficit reduction, but, in the end, he will spend like drunken sailor once he gets into office.  Republicans already have a trust deficit with Romney over his healthcare plan looking exactly (in fact the model for) President Obama’s plan.  By putting a man with the plan on the ticket, Mitt Romney shows that he really cares about the deficit and will not repeat the Bush years.

3) No Sarah Palin PTSD:  When Barry Goldwater (a conservative ideologue) lost the 1964 presidential race to Lyndon Johnson in a landslide, the GOP made a collective vow not to pick another candidate that was too far to right.  It could be argued that Ronald Reagan was the byproduct of that campaign 15 years later, but there is certainly some disagreement I have on that point.  As time passed, Goldwater’s legacy loomed pretty large over the Republican Party, turning to legend.  I think a similar argument can be made about Sarah Palin and the vice presidency.  To some Republicans, Sarah Palin was a risky choice as John McCain’s running mate and that risk partially caused his downfall in 2008.  This time around, Republicans wanted Mitt Romney to play it safe and pick someone who was plain (like a Tim Pawlenty or Rob Portman).  Picking Paul Ryan as VP gets the GOP past another Goldwatereque legacy with Sarah Palin.  Romney shows the Republican Party that it should not be afraid of risky vice presidential picks, which is easier to do now than forty-years from now.

These are probably not the reasons Mitt Romney picked Paul Ryan, but they are affects of choosing Ryan.  Certainly this changes the tone of race.  It will take until election day to decide whether it changed the game in Romney’s favor or not.

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by | January 29, 2012 · 11:49 AM

The GOP’s Dilemma: Tea Party or the Future?

By Luke Brinker

When the Tea Party emerged in 2009, its leaders asserted that the movement represented a dynamic new force in American politics. Motivated by a visceral hostility to the bailout and stimulus policies of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Tea Party activists would emphasize the free market and small government, not social issues.

In reality, the Tea Party is not so much a new force as an emboldened old one. The profile of the typical Tea Party member is that of a typical member of the Republican Party base. Tea Party supporters tend to be older voters who identify as conservatives (including on social issues) and watch Fox News. Tea Party membership is also correlated with racist attitudes and fierce opposition to the rights of undocumented immigrants. For all their self-professed independence from the two major parties, Tea Partiers are partisan, conservative Republicans.

Because it’s virtually impossible to win a party’s nomination without support from the party base, Republican candidates are heavily reliant upon Tea Party support in primary elections. A Washington Post-Pew poll in October found that while only 32 percent of Americans overall sympathize with the movement, 63 percent of Republicans express Tea Party support. To paraphrase the legendary Chicago columnist Mike Royko, a Republican who would seek office by denouncing the Tea Party is an individual who would probably begin a diet by shooting himself in the stomach.

But while courting the Tea Party may serve the GOP’s immediate interests, adopting Tea Party policies could prove electorally disastrous in the long-term. Mitt Romney has reversed his positions on abortion, gay rights, and immigration to appeal to core GOP voters, which may well help propel him to the presidential nomination, but such hard-core conservative views are out of step with long-range trends. A recent survey found that 71 percent of college freshmen (including 43 percent of self-described conservatives) support same-sex marriage. Sixty one percent espoused pro-choice views. Younger voters are also more likely than older voters to perceive gaping economic inequality as a major problem. (And contrary to popular belief, people don’t usually become more conservative as they age.) Finally, with the nation’s Latino population expected to triple by 2050, right-wing anti-immigration views endanger the GOP’s hold on even the most reliably Republican states, including Texas.

To remain relevant in the 2020s and beyond, the GOP will need to adopt a more socially tolerant, immigrant-friendly stance, and be willing to address mounting concerns about economic inequality with more than a promise to discuss the problem in “quiet rooms.” Republicans attuned to this reality do exist; former presidential candidate Jon Huntsman, for instance, supports civil unions (albeit not same-sex marriage, at least yet), endorses the scientific consensus on climate change, refuses to adopt the conservative base’s harsh anti-immigration rhetoric, and says he understands why the Occupy Wall Street movement is upset (even if his economic policies mostly adhere to conservative orthodoxy). What remains to be seen is whether in future years the GOP will listen to Huntsman or its aging, dwindling Tea Party base

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by | January 8, 2012 · 2:10 PM

The Selective Faith of Rick Santorum

By John Stang

Religion is an interesting attribute in politics.  It serves as convenient tool for candidates to claim “WWJD” whenever there is a particular issue they see as important (i.e. abortion, same sex marriage, or even giving to the poor).  Of course, this is not a secret.  It’s also not a secret that candidates tend to have more open religious experiences than other people, probably to garner votes with more religious voters.  Rick Santorum has always been the “social values” candidate.  The person who believes in “family, faith, and freedom.”  He has little problem winning the Evangelical base, despite being a Roman Catholic.  When questioned about his record, especially some of the more controversial statements he has made about same sex marriage (man on dog sex anyone?) or his protest against abortion in all circumstances (even rape and incest), Santorum will justify it by proclaiming his strong Catholic faith.

What’s fascinating about this is how Santorum often emphasizes social teachings of the Catholic Church, like abortion, same sex marriage, and his disdain for contraception.  Yet, I never hear him speak, or he does very little, or the social justice doctrine of the Catholic Church (such as feeding the poor and clothing the naked).  Andrew Sullivan has described him this way:

It’s also important to note that Santorum is a cafeteria Catholic. Opposing any sacrifice from the very wealthy in cutting the debt, while slashing healthcare for seniors is not orthodox Catholicism. Nor is support for torture; or pre-emptive war. The Vatican doesn’t really care as long as he keeps up the war on gays, privacy and contraception. But he is a dissident in the church – from the fringe right.

Margery Eagan at the Boston Herald calls him the antithesis to many Catholic teachings:

It turns out that Santorum, despite his uber Catholic posturing, is a cafeteria Catholic in reverse. Or maybe I should call him an “all about sex” Catholic because he only agrees with the church’s doctrines on matters sexual. Look at his record. He’s for the death penalty and a foreign policy macho hawk (both against Catholic teaching). He’s opposed to illegal immigration and social justice for the poor (both big time against Catholic teaching from the Vatican and the American church).

None of these should be surprising.  Many elements of conservative thought and many Republican ideals hardly match the Catholic Church on many issues.  Still, the strong focus on sex and abortion has always baffled me.  Why those issues are on the front burners, I may never totally understand.

What does bother me about Santorum is how he likes to be standard bearer for the Church as the holy crusader, historical pun totally intended.  The Catholic vote is more of a myth.  Even opinion polls show a divided Church constituency on a whole host of issues.  John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, John F. Kennedy, and other Catholic Democrats represent other views within the Church.  As Catholic, I proudly support gay marriage and consider myself pro-choice.  What has caused one side to stand up against the other is this “culture war” phenomenon where conservative Catholics see certain views as marginalized and the liberal side as outside the Church’s teaching. Not a new conflict, but one that has been resurrected, yet another pun, for another show.

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