All Posts Tagged With: "Republicans"

As a follow up to my post from earlier today, here’s more post mortem analysis of the recent election by Guardian writer David Wiegel in which he states, “the Republican party can no longer fool itself into thinking that the US electorate is naturally slanted towards it.”

The map is breaking down, and Republicans – outside of the south and a few areas of Appalachia – can no longer count on the old red/blue district lines.

What this means in the short term is that Republicans have to give up the rosy predictions of Barone and Fund. They can no longer go after “red” districts with Democratic incumbents and hope to win a majority. In just the preliminary numbers put together by Swing State Project, there are 24 Republicans whose districts voted for Bush in 2004 and Obama in 2008. Lee Terry, a Nebraska Republican, now represents a “blue” district. So does Mary Bono Mack, whose Palm Springs, California district has not been at risk since her late husband, Sonny Bono, won it 14 years ago.

And Obama’s victory turned many swing seats into safer Democratic strongholds. In 2006, liberal newspaper publisher John Yarmuth scored an upset victory in Kentucky’s 2nd district, which contains the city of Louisville and had voted only 51-49 for Kerry. This year Yarmuth won a rematch with his 2006 opponent as Obama carried the district by 13 points. Freshman Democrat Chris Murphy represents a Connecticut district that split 49-49 between Kerry and Bush but went by 14 points for Obama. Seats like these fall off of Republican target lists – strategists from both parties mark them “safe” and move on.

What does it mean in the long term? After all, can’t the pendulum swing right back? Of course it can. But it doesn’t swing by itself. It needs to be pushed by something – by a crisis of faith in the ruling party, by reforms in the opposition party, by demographic shifts that give one party a leg up.

Republicans can no longer fool themselves into thinking the country is naturally slanted toward them, or that they have a built-in majority. If the Democrats can win Hastertland, the Republicans need to figure out how to take it back, or how to win somewhere else.

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Fill in the blank…

The ____________ uses crises, real or manufactured, to expand the power of government at the expense of the individual and private property. He has spent, in earnest, 70 years evading the Constitution’s limits on governmental power. If ________________ don’t stand up to this, who will? If they don’t offer serious alternatives that address the current circumstances AND defend the founding principles, who will?

And the correct answers (as intended by the original author) are Continued

“I wonder how many times you have to be hit on the head before you find out who’s hitting you? It’s about time that the people of America realized what the Republicans have been doing to them.”

Who said it?

Just when I thought I couldn’t be shocked more, along comes something like this:

Think Progress reports that the site has since be scrubbed of the graphic:

After local Democrats “alleged racist campaign tactics,” the Republican Club in Pemberton, NJ removed a banner yesterday from its website that compared Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) to O.J. Simpson. “Obama loves America like O.J. loved Nicole,” the banner read. Though the image has now been removed, Blue Jersey saved a screen shot of the offensive banner.

Ed Kuck, the Republican County committeeman who placed the image on the website, told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he had put it up while adding pictures from a local rally for Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). Simpson was effectively found liable in a 1996 civil trial for the death of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson.