The Real News: Causes of the GOP resurgeance

This is a progressive view of the GOP resurgence. Rightardia will discuss the ones we thought were interesting and relevant

5. Not investigating  Bush and Cheney which was probably fueled by Obama's naive belief in bipartisanship. 

Obama was reluctant to go after Bush and Cheney who committed many crimes in Iraq and also bugged the Internet with NSA's help, which was also against public law. Perhaps Obama feared a GOP backlash. He got that regardless. This was simple Democratic timidity.

4. Bailing out bankers but not the banks.

Rightardia suggests that administration should have let more the banks fail. FDIC Laws insure the small accounts. The government should not be bailing out CEOs and billionaires.

3. Not defending the public option for health care reform.

We agree that the heath care debate went on far too long and the insurance industry was modestly reformed at best. Political stock  was squandered on one initiative.

Extending Medicare to age 55 and to other age groups like children would have been simpler. The Democrats probably could have rammed through a budget resolution in three months or less if Obama had abandoned bipartisanship early.

2. Old mindset in US foreign policy.

The defence budget actually increased and Obama escalated the war in Afghanistan. The big cuts that were needed in defence never happened.

1. Allowed the GOP to re-brand itself as populist with Tea Party.

I agree with the Real News that The Democrats abandoned their populist agenda. The Bush Tax cuts should have been rescinded before the election. A jobs program was needed and Employee Free Choice Act passed to bolster union organisation.

At the end of WW2, one in three Americans was in a union. Today less than 10 per cent belong to unions because of GOP union busting efforts such as "right to work laws which are really the right to not pay union dues. 

Obama talked the talk, but he didn't walk the walk. He went centrist far too early and lost much of his base.

Republicans are "in the box" types and it is unlikely they will abandon their principals which are irrelevant in the present economic crisis. Cutting taxes that will give the 'have mores' more won't get us out of the ditch.

The Real News is right: the real problem in America is the views of billionaires and millionaires are very different from the rest of society.

Cutting government spending won't help either.  We got out of the Great Depression by increasing government spending, not balancing the budget. An increase in defence spending will simply benefit small group of corporate elites in the defence industry. It will not spread the government largesse around.

Rightardia believes the Tea Party is a bad brand and once exposed to the light of day and it becomes Sun Tea, it will be rejected by Americans. It is unlikely that anything the GOP Congress will do in the next two years will help unemployment or the economic recovery.

Mitch McConnell and most economists have stated that unemployment will not subside until 2011. Any improvements that occur in the next two years will primary caused by the Obama-Pelosi economic stimulus, not anything the GOP does. The GOP, in fact, could slow the recovery beyond 2011 with its regressive policies.

Republicans will be forced for once to try to fix some of the mess they created during the Bush presidency. Rightardia wishes them luck, but know they will fail. You cannot teach that old dog any new tricks!


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Rightardia election predictions

The US House is going to the Republicans with John Boehner likely to be the new Speaker of the Houise. Nancy Pelosi is expected to retire before the new 112th Congress convenes.

The Senate  looks like it will stay in Democratic hands. Notice the big bump the Democrats took this morning on Intrade.

Nate Silvers's 587 blog agrees. "While Republicans retain a plausible path toward taking control of the Senate on Tuesday night, it would involve their winning at least two seats in which they appear to be underdogs, while simultaneously avoiding upsets in several other races in which they are narrowly favored.

Unless the Republicans have a significant wind at their backs and are over-performing in most parts of the country, their chances of doing so are slim."

The state that appears to have gotten away from Republicans is West Virginia, where Joe Manchin III, a Democrat running far to his right, appears to have created some space in the polls between himself and his Republican opponent . . ."

The GOP will also make headway in the governor's races which could have a big impact on congressional reapportionments. Many of the Southern states will pick up new seats for congress. Both the governors and the state houses will have to create new  districts especially  in the South, where comically gerrymandered districts are drawn up in states like Texas to benefit Republicans.

Nate Silver's predictions show a big shift in the governor's races.

As long as the Democrats can retain a hard corps of 40 true blue Senators, they should be able to stalemate the GOP in the House. Rightardia would expect the Democratic timidity to cease and the Senators to start playing some hardball like the GOP did in the Senate after the 2008 elections.

Screw bipartisanship: what is good for the goose is good for the gander!

We plan to judge the Democratic senate by the number of filibusters and cloture votes that occur. We will not contribute funds to the DSCC if they behave like a bunch of vacillating wussies after the election. 

Intrade has a great run down on the key Senate races. Harry Reid will be defeated in Nevada due to an influx of out of state money to help Tea Bagger, Sharon Angle. Russ Feingold will also be defeated. Rand Paul has been leading in Kentucky for a long time. Barbara Boxer will defeat Carly Fiorina in California. We also expect Jerry Brown to defeat Meg Whitman. Christine O'Donnell never had any change of winning in Delaware.

From a blogger perspective, Republican victories have a silver lining. Rightardia will have more Republicans to make fun off. 

John Boehner, Rand Paul and Sharron Angle seem to be easy targets.

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Is Obama a day late and a dollar short?

Is Obama a day late and a dollar short? According to Intrade, the GOP has a 94 per cent probability of taking control of the House so that appears to be a done deal.

It also has a 59 per cent probability of winning 60 or more seats in the Senate which are great odds for Republicans.

We hope the Democrats can hold onto at least 40 seats and return some favors to the GOP.

Rightardia predicted more than a month ago that the Republicans would take the House. We suggested a firewall around the Senate would be the best approach.  I the Democrats lose the Senate, the Republicans will have 'clintonized' Obama.

Our view is that the Democrats spent entirely too much time on bipartisanship and health care and not enough time on unemployment. 

Haley Barbour is right, too.The public has no love for Republicans.

“We Republicans, we have to understand they’re not saying, ‘Hey, we love you, Republicans,’ ” Barbour said. “They’re saying, ‘We’re not satisfied with this, and we’ll give you guys a chance.’ ”

Republicans, he said, need to be careful to not stray away from the narrow set of issues they’ve been successful campaigning on if they want to remain in power if they take control the House in Tuesday’s midterm elections . . .

The Republicans are going to hear the people very plainly,” Barbour said. “Cut out all this spending, don’t raise our taxes, focus on job creation, economic growth.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/44488.html#ixzz142j6N07q

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Elvira: I am not a witch, I just have bigger . . .

It's time for a change. For too long stations have shown crappy movies late at night with no cool hosts to make them fun.

Well despite rumors of her dabbling in witchery... Elvira comes clean and states her plan for change.

Yes, she does! This one's for you, Christine O'Donnell....

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Al Jazeera : US midterms are a political freak show

Cliff Schecter Last Modified: 11 Oct 2010 13:04 GMT

I’m you, dear readers. Well, actually, I’m not. But I’m also not a witch, so at least I’ve got that going for me.

The above is of course a reference to Delaware’s favourite Wiccan of Wilmington, Republican Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell, who began her most recent television advertisement by assuring viewers that she, indeed, is “not a witch.”

In past political years this might have been considered a bit low-brow, to actually have to assure the voting public you didn’t spend most days at dusk swooping over the heads of the Lollipop Guild . .

For Jay Leno may have once called politics “show business for ugly people.” But the larger truth these days is that a run for political office is a surefire way for those seeking a moment in the spotlight . . . It’s show business for crazy people.

Let’s take two brief examples. First, we have Republican gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino in New York, whose fits of fury and chest-thumping bravado makes Jimmy Hoffa seem like Boy George.

Paladino really is the whole package. A family values maven who fathered a daughter with someone not his wife, he threatened to “take out” a New York Post reporter (for being a biased liberal…at a publication owned by Rupert Murdoch) and told anyone who’d listen that his opponent, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, had an affair while married to his former wife - without any proof to back up this claim, of course . . .

Meanwhile, in South Carolina, Democrats, trying to defeat Tea-Party-tart Senator Jim DeMint, somehow nominated Alvin Greene. In August, to quote from The Huffington Post, a “grand jury indicted Greene, 32, for disseminating, procuring or promoting obscenity – a felony – as well as a misdemeanour charge of communicating obscene materials to a person without consent.”

Basically, in that known prime pickup spot - inside a college computer lab - Greene thought it wise to show pornographic material to a young lady who unsurprisingly was uninterested. He has since said he was “joking,” which simply means he jokes the way Billy Joel drives.

Yet, somehow Palmetto State Democrats thought it wise to pick this guy - albeit before the obscenity charge, but also before anyone knew who he was as he had no website, staff, or fund raising operation - over a former judge and lawmaker to be their guy to go after the demented DeMint. Hats off, well played.

Now, it’s necessary to stop here and note something important. I have chosen to single out one looney-tunes Democrat and one ribald Republican, not to imply equal responsibility, but simply to show how widespread is the insanity. I do not operate under the faux-balance of many in the US media, where perfectly smart people pretend that 50% of all bad things are Republican, while 50% are Democratic.

In fact, if I were to assign blame for the crazy that has invaded the current US political system - keeping in mind everyone from the Tea Party to Todd Palin - I’d probably feel comfortable assigning about 86.45% to Republicans, 11% to Democrats and 2.55% to Lady Gaga.

But that’s just a rough estimate, mind you.

And when you start looking at more and more of the Republicans currently running for office, it can begin to even feel a tad generous. How often do you get the former CEO (Linda McMahon of Connecticut) of the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) running for the US Senate?

For the uninitiated, the WWE is the high school dropout’s ballet, where Americans pay perfectly good dollar bills to watch half-naked, grown men with the disposition of Carl Paladino pretend to fight, while cutting themselves with razor blades so that it appears more “real.”

The WWE has also functioned as a drug cartel, funnelling steroids to their wrestlers so they could appear ever-more Schwazerneggerian (another Republican).

McMahon and her husband Vince even got involved in the clown show, simulating emotional and physical abuse onstage, as well as his committing adultery while she helplessly watched in a comatose state.

It’s like a Saturday night at Mel Gibson’s house!

But even that, apparently, wasn’t “entertaining” enough. So they decided to send their daughter Stephanie onstage and simulate her rape. Yes, you read that right. Linda McMahon, for money, had men simulate the rape of her daughter in front of a crowd of screaming, inebriated, 50-inch-waist men.

Well, geez, I sure hope if she wins she’ll get to Chair the Senate Judiciary Committee.

This, my friends, is only a taste of the tottering truculents running for higher office in America this year. And with a media establishment that’s in love with political soap opera, a political party (the Republicans) that has come to think of George W. Bush as a dirty liberal, and a Supreme Court that has said it’s perfectly consistent with democracy for any overcompensated, inane individual to dump a billion dollars into a race for town clerk - politics in America should continue to be the provenance of the soulless and shirtless for some time to come.

Winston Churchill once famously said that, “democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” Yet, one perhaps imagines that had Sir Winston seen 21st Century American democracy in action, he wouldn’t have been so hard on all the others.

Cliff Schecter is the President of Libertas, LLC, a progressive public relations firm, the author of the 2008 bestseller The Real McCain, and a regular contributor to The Huffington Post.

Follow Cliff Schecter On Twitter: @Cliffschecter

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

source: http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2010/10/201010117544100306.html

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POLITICO: Rich candidates crowd midterms

By JEANNE CUMMINGS | 8/3/10 4:28 AM EDT

Connecticut Senate candidate and former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon has spent more than $22 million of her own money to burnish her image and overtake her more established Republican primary opponent, former Rep. Rob Simmons.

Real-estate billionaire Jeff Greene, who made his money betting against the subprime mortgage market, has sunk $5 million into his bid for the Florida Senate Democratic nomination and recently took a commanding lead over his primary rival, Rep. Kendrick Meek.

However, Rick Scott who is running for governor in the Florida GOP primary has spent $24.9 million of his own money. Scott was ousted as the CEO of (Columbia) HCA after his company received a record $1.7 billion fine for Medicare and Medicaid fraud. Some Republicans call Scott an un-indicted co-conspirator in the fraud case.
Similar approaches are on display in a host of House and Senate races and in Wisconsin, New Hampshire and California. Wealthy newcomers are using their cash and fresh faces to scramble the campaign field.

Indeed, frustration with Washington, the possibility of a Republican surge and some choice open-seat races are all contributing to a bumper crop of 2010 self-financing candidates. History suggests most of them will lose.

Jennifer Duffy, who analyzes Senate races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, said some of this year’s class of millionaires and billionaires could defy the odds because of the toxic sentiment among voters toward Washington.

“This is an environment particularly ripe for self-funding candidates to succeed. It is the year of the outsider, and pretty much across the board, these candidates really are outsiders. They’ve never been active in the process, even from a voting standpoint in some cases,” said Duffy.

Other good examples are Meg Whitman of California who is running for governor. She was the former CEO of EBay. Carly Fiorina is also running for a California Senate seat. She was the former CEO of HP. Neither candidate has any political experience.

Besides being wealthy, many of the GOP political candidates are female. The token minority candidates the GOP has run in the past have not been successful in political races.

The GOP has also had big problems with female voters. This may be why some many GOP political candidates are running and why Sarah Palin is endorsing them.

Palin's endorsements don't seem to be beneficial in the Blue  States. In New Hampshire, Kelly Ayotte ratings dropped after a Palin endorsement. Palin does not rate highly with either Democrats or Independents.

In addition to an unusual number of rich candidates who this year decided on their own to jump into politics, the swollen ranks of the self-financers is the direct result of the recruitment strategies of both political parties.

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