After three straight losses in special elections, including the loss of the seat held by former Speaker Denny Hastert and two seats in the Deep South, the House GOP is in a panic.
“When you’re losing, people are suspicious if you change. Republicans have defined themselves on these issues for three decades.”
— Congressional scholar
Based on the new “American Families Agenda” House Republicans released this week, the results from their polling and focus groups were scorchingly clear: Normal Americans are concerned with kitchen table issues like jobs, healthcare and gas prices — as well as George Bush’s botched occupation of Iraq — not with rightwing obsessions like oppressing gay people and transferring control of women’s reproductive organs to government bureaucrats. These and other red-meat issues for the GOP base are completely absent from the new agenda:

There’s not a single mention in the 47-point program of such red-meat GOP issues as banning abortion, outlawing same-sex marriage, allowing prayer in the public schools, banning flag burning and protecting the Pledge of Allegiance.

Instead, the plan focuses on such GOP-introduced ideas as allowing private sector workers to take compensatory time instead of premium pay for overtime worked (HR 6025) or permitting full tax deductibility for most medical expenses (HR 636).

In an effort to appeal to moderates in their uphill push to retake the House, Republicans have pushed divisive social issues off center stage and replaced them with a host of pocketbook items they hope will appeal to working women, moderates and even some Democrats.

Julian Zletzer, a congressional scholar based at Princenton University, said the Republicans retreat from issues favored by its base is risky because it sends a signal that they are losers. “When you’re losing, people are suspicious if you change,” he said. “Republicans have defined themselves on these issues for three decades. It’s much harder to divorce yourselves from them.’’

The risk here, of course, is that the GOP base will feel abandoned. Who needs two Democratic Parties, they might ask.

I am not an expert on the internal politics of Iran, by any means. But even I — merely an interested news consumer — knew that Iran is a theocracy, and that its real rulers are not elected officials like Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but rather the unelected mullahs, whose head guy is Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Based on this story from Joe Klein, either John McCain is lying to give political cover to his attacks on Barack Obama — or he is as ignorant about our adversaries as the current president:

KLEIN: I’ve done some research, and um –

MCCAIN: I have too.

KLEIN: Also checked, also checked with the Obama campaign and he never, he’s never sai — mentioned Ahmadinejad directly by name. He did say he would negotiate with the leaders, but as you know – Ayatollah,

MCCAIN: (Laughing) Ahmadinejad is, was the leader.

KLEIN: But if –

MCCAIN: Maybe I’m mistaken.

KLEIN: Maybe you are, because –

MCCAIN: Maybe. I don’t think so though.

KLEIN: The Supreme, you know, according to most diplomatic experts, the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is the guy who’s in charge of Iranian foreign policy and also in charge of the nuclear program, but you never mention him. Do you, you know, um, why do you always keep talking about Ahmadinejad since he doesn’t have power in that, in that realm?

MCCAIN: Oh I thin-Again, I respectfully disagree. When he’s the person that comes to the United Nations and declares his country’s policy is the extermination of the state of Israel, quote, in his words, wipe them off of the map, then I know that he is speaking for the Iranian government and articulating their policy and he was elected and is running for reelection as the leader of that country. Yes sir, go ahead.

NEW REPORTER: One more quest-

MCCAIN: I mean, the fact is he’s the acknowledged leader of that country and you may disagree, but that’s a uh, that’s your right to do so, but I think if you asked any average American who the leader of Iran is, I think they’d know. Go ahead. Or anyone who’s well-versed in the issue.

Earlier this year, McCain confused Sunnis and Shia five times — once even suggesting that the Shiite government of Iran was giving aid and comfort to al Qaeda, which is a Sunni terror group.

I’d drink too if I said some of the stuff you do, Hillary.

Hillary Clinton and her supporters have finally done it. They’ve really, really, really pissed me off.

Their newest excuse for why Clinton’s campaign — one of the poorest run in my memory, with the possible exception of Gary Hart’s — failed is because people like me, who now favor Obama, are sexists.

Clinton launched one lowbrow tactic after another, each a little smarmier. Remember after Bill took to the trail in full attack mode, and Obama said he wasn’t sure which Clinton he was running against? That was probably a highpoint for Hillary’s campaign.

First there was a string of Clinton surrogates claiming to play devil’s advocate for Republicans by bringing up Obama’s admitted drug use in college, and the fact that his Kenyan father was Muslim. After that we were subjected to Geraldine Ferraro saying the only reason Obama got where he was, is because he’s black. Next Clinton morphed herself into a gun nut and knocked back a beer and a bump while calling Obama elitist.

Then she jumped on the rightwing bandwagon that went from asking early in Obama’s campaign if he was black enough to, in the wake of the brouhaha manufactured over past sermons from Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whether he wasn’t way too black. “Hardworking Americans, white Americans” could never vote him, according to Clinton.

As a Floridian, one of the most ridiculous assertions by a candidate who supported 100 percent Howard Dean’s censure of our state during the primaries, is that now Clinton finds it imperative that our votes be counted. She questioned the party not at all last January when it might have mattered. Now she says she is battling for us. Actually, Clinton is just battling.

And today we are being told that none of Clinton’s own malfeasance or hypocrisy, or her policy that nothing is too low or ridiculous to claim if it gets even one vote is the problem. No, the sole trouble is: her critics are sexist.

Clinton told the Washington Post that sexism has played a larger role in the campaign than racism and that it has cost her and her supporters.

“It’s been deeply offensive to millions of women. I believe this campaign has been a groundbreaker in a lot of ways,” Clinton said. “But it certainly has been challenging given some of the attitudes in the press.”

Clinton, the first woman to make a serious bid for a major party’s presidential nomination, said she did not think that racism was a factor in her bruising battle with Sen. Barack Obama…

She added, “It does seem as though the press at least is not as bothered by the incredible vitriol that has been engendered by the comments by people who are nothing but misogynists.”

Vitriol is a subject of which Clinton evinces a working knowledge. But if she honestly thinks the reason that women like me went from having a fairly positive view of her early on to losing all respect for her now is because we are misogynists, then it’s time for some training in the mechanics of personal responsibility.

What you get when you try to access Thomas Loeffler’s page on his firm’s web site

When John McCain’s national finance co-chair resigned over the senator’s newly-minted no-lobbyists policy, the wrong guy quit. It should have been McCain stepping down for making deals.

Among Loeffler’s clients is the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co., the parent company of plane manufacturer Airbus. Northrop Grumman Corp. and EADS won a lucrative contract to provide air refueling tankers for the Air Force. McCain helped scuttle an earlier contract in 2004 that would have gone to a competitor, Boeing Co.

Loeffler’s firm also has lobbied for other foreign interests and foreign governments. Newsweek reported over the weekend that Loeffler’s firm was paid $15 million by Saudi Arabia. The news magazine also said Loeffler listed meeting McCain along with the Saudi ambassador to “discuss US-Kingdom of Saudi Arabia relations,” even though Loeffler told a reporter last month that he had not discussed his clients with McCain.

With this resignation, is McCain seriously trying to convince us that he was not influenced by lobbyists, and in any case, is now lobby-free?

McCain’s new policy prohibits any staffer on the campaign from being a registered lobbyist or foreign agent. Part-time volunteers for the campaigns, such as Loeffler, have to disclose whether they are registered lobbyists or lobbying on behalf of foreign entities.

Under the policy, dated May 15, such volunteer advisers cannot lobby McCain or his legislative staffs during the period they serve on the campaign.

Except for one little clause: lobbyists need only take a leave of absence from their day jobs in order to work on the McCain campaign. Once the campaign is over or they step down, it’s back to business as usual, if it ever really ceased.

So who is Thomas G. Loeffler? The short answer is, a piece of work. The longer answer shows a history of Texas and Bush connections that puts him in the center of the Bush inner circle.

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