In 2012 the Republican party took quite a beating,
And ever since from their ranks voters are retreating.
While they used to go off half-cocked,
These days they’re so shell-shocked,
That GOP lawmakers won’t even hold a town hall meeting.
They are totally insulated from public opinion on this because of redistricting. Republicans are gonna continue to hold the House. But then we’ll head into the 2016 presidential election where the electorate is likely to be 2 percent less white than it was in 2012 and 4 percent less white than it was in 2008. This is a simple math equation.
— GOP strategist Steve Schmidt, in an interview with the New York Times, on the harm House Republicans will do to the GOP’s national ambitions by not supporting immigration reform.
But there’s another alternative worth considering: What if House members are trying to act in their self-interest; they’re just exceptionally bad at figuring out what that is? What if they’re, you know, kinda dumb? For example, if you’re a House Republican, presumably you have some policy preferences: You’d like to massively cut taxes for the wealthy, you’d like to slash spending for the poor, you’d like to privatize Social Security and voucherize Medicare. In short, you’d like to enact the Ryan plan in its full, Randian glory. But, of course, there’s no way to do that as long as there’s a Democrat in the White House. And, unfortunately, as long as you’re committed to acting crazy — threatening needless government shutdowns; insisting that Obamacare is the greatest assault on freedom since the Nazi march across Europe; failing to fix massive electoral liabilities, like your perceived hostility to Latinos —you may preserve your House majority. But it’s going to be damn-near impossible for a Republican to win the presidency.
— Noam Scheiber, writing in the New Republic, considers whether the threat by House Republicans to shut the government down over Obamacare is rational, albeit with perverse incentives.
Of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents think the GOP leadership is taking the party in the wrong direction while just 37% think it’s headed in the right direction, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds. “That disaffection is apparent in another measure: Just 21% of Americans in this survey identify themselves as Republicans, matching the fewest since November 2009. GOP allegiance has dropped from an annual average of 31% in 2003 to annual averages of 23 or 24% the past five years straight.”
There are a lot of Republicans that I know are not proud of this period that they’re going through. I predict the end of the Republican Party, maybe not in my lifetime, but soon.
— Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY), quoted by Politicker.
I think they ought to put a sign on the national committee doors that says ‘closed for repairs’ until New Year’s Day next year and spend that time going over ideas and positive agendas.
— Former Sen. Bob Dole, quoted by CBS News, on the Republican party’s problems.
The Republican Party is undergoing some, you know, significant and serious changes and they are going to have to rethink their approach as a political party and how they are going to regroup and become a governing majority party that appeals to a broader group of Americans than they do today.
— Former Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), in an interview on MSNBC.
The GOP finds itself in a sorry state of affairs,
Unable to govern and obsessed with Obamacare.
You know you’re in the hole
When former Senator Bob Dole
Says the Republican Party should be “closed for repairs.”
They know they have a political problem–that’s obvious. But I don’t think they’ve come to grips with the fundamental issue, which is their governing philosophy. I think they’re going to have to lose one more.
— Will Marshall of the Progressive Policy Institute, quoted by The Atlantic, on whether the Republican Party learned lessons from its defeat in 2012.
After U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice met today with her most vocal critics, GOP Sens. John McCain, Lindsay Graham and Kelly Ayotte, to discuss events after the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, the three senators rushed to the microphones to double down on their insistence that Rice had played a role in a conspiracy by the Obama White House to cover up the fact that the attack was a terrorist plot — this in spite of the fact that the president himself labeled it a terror attack within 24 hours after it occurred.
“When Ronald Reagan stood up for workers of Gdansk in Poland, when he stood up for the people of Czechoslovakia in Prague Spring, and America did” – John McCain, incorrectly ascribing actions to Pres. Reagan, who was governor of California during the Prague Spring
On one of the Sunday shows, Graham compared the conspiracy to the Iran-Contra affair, the Reagan-era scandal in which top Reagan official, including his secretary of defense, only escaped serving time in prison because they were pardoned by their alleged co-conspirator, Reagan’s vice president, George H.W. Bush, after he was elected president. A more realistic assessment came from the Washington Post editorial board, which referred to the Benghazi non-scandal as “bizarre.”
Perhaps the most bizarre aspect — and certainly the most hypocritical part of it — is that it is McCain who is leading the charge against Rice simply because she went on the Sunday shows and said something that proved to be incorrect. No senator has appeared on more Sunday shows than John McCain, and few politicians (who were not currently on the payroll of Fox News) have made as many statements that proved to be wrong.
To hear Trump talk, he’s the only one
Who’s ever stood trial for crimes he’s done.
But instead of courtroom drama,
We get Trump in his pajamas,
That’s how he earned his new nickname: Don Snoreleone.
“In America today‚ 2024, women have fewer rights than their mothers or their grandmothers had, because of Donald Trump. I don’t think we’re going to let him get away with it, do you?”
— President Biden at a campaign stop in Tampa, reported by Tampa Bay Times.
“Some of the 49 migrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard by the state of Florida are now able to legally work in the United States and have temporary protections from deportation — because they are considered victims of a potential crime. … The migrants are eligible for these protections because they applied for a special kind of visa meant for crime victims who are helping law enforcement, after they said they were tricked into taking charter flights from San Antonio to Massachusetts with false promises of jobs and other aid.”
“We care more about the safety of our staff than a name attached to an article.”
In its panning of Taylor Swift’s new album (3.6/10 rating), Paste Magazine chose to put “Paste Staff” as the piece’s author instead of the individual who wrote it. That’s because following Paste’s negative review of Swift’s Lover album in 2019, the reviewer received threats of violence from fans who disagreed. As for its critique of The Tortured Poets Department, Paste Staff said its “mid-ness” was the result of “when the artist making it no longer feels challenged, where she strikes out looking.”
“The House is a rough and rowdy place, but Mike Johnson is gonna be just fine. I served 20 years in the military, it’s my absolute honor to be in Congress. But I serve with some real scumbags. Matt Gaetz, he paid minors to have sex with him at drug parties. Bob Good endorsed my opponent, a known neo-Nazi. These people used to walk around with white hoods at night. Now they’re walking around with white hoods in the daytime.”
“Joe Biden will land a major union endorsement Wednesday from North America’s Building Trades Unions, whose leaders say the president has his infrastructure bill largely to thank for it,” CNN reports. “In making one of their earliest ever presidential endorsements, NABTU leaders are kickstarting an eight-figure organizing program to try to deliver their 250,000 members in the battlegrounds of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin for Biden.”
A new Siena poll finds that by a 54% to 30% margin, New Yorkers say Donald Trump’s “hush money” trial is “legitimate” — the view of 77% of Democrats and 44% of independents — rather than a “witch hunt,” the view of 66% of Republicans.
A new Marist poll finds Joe Biden leading Donald Trump nationally among registered voters, 51% to 48%. In a multi-candidate field, Biden is up by five percentage points against Trump, 43% to 38% among registered voters, followed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at 14%, Cornel West at 2%, and Jill Stein at 2%.Among those who definitely plan to vote, Biden leads Trump 46% to 39% in this same multi-candidate field.
NBC News poll: “‘Protecting democracy’ is a salient issue for voters. There’s a difference between what voters identify as the ‘most important issue facing the country’ (on that, “inflation and the cost of living’ registers 23%, followed by immigration/the border, at 22%) and what they identify as the issue most important in determining their own vote (on that, ‘protecting democracy or constitutional rights’ was on top with 28%, followed by immigration/the border at 20% and abortion at 19%).”