2. this is my biggest fear. It's why I have big caliber weaponry.

cute

so much for peace and harmony on the Board. Thanks Hank. Nice going.

Even a governent not big enough is big enough to take it all away. Even guns.

What pax penske isn't a viable approach?

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

David Ignatius of WaPo makes the argument that events of recent months have revealed that the GOP simply wasn't ready for majority rule.

• The bickering over the Miers nomination epitomizes the right's refusal to assume the role of a majoritarian governing party. The awkward fact for conservatives is that the American public doesn't agree with them on abortion rights. A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll in late August found 54 percent describing themselves as pro-choice and only 38 percent as pro-life, roughly the same percentages as a decade ago.
  
  That's the political reality that Bush has been trying to finesse with his nominations of John Roberts and Miers.
  
  ****
  
  Bush and the Republicans had a chance after 2004 to become the country's natural governing party. They controlled the White House and both houses of Congress. The Democrats were in utter disarray, leaderless and idea-less. When Bush took the podium in January to deliver his soaring second inaugural address, the future seemed to belong to the Republicans.
  
  Bush squandered this opportunity by falling into the trap that has snared the modern GOP -- of playing to the base rather than to the nation. The Republicans behave as if the country agrees with them on issues, when that demonstrably isn't so. The country doesn't agree about Social Security, doesn't agree about the ethical issues that were dramatized by the torment of Terri Schiavo, doesn't agree about abortion. Yet, in a spirit of blind partisanship, House Speaker Dennis Hastert announced last year that bills would reach the floor only if "the majority of the majority" supported them. That notion of governing from the hard right was a recipe for failure.
  
  What you sense now, as conservative and moderate Republicans alike take potshots at their president, is that the GOP is entering the post-Bush era. A war of succession has begun, cloaked in a war of principles. The cruelest aspect of Bush's predicament is that the conservatives are treating him with the same disdain they showed his father. What a denouement to the West Wing Oedipal drama: A son who did everything he could to avoid his father's humiliation by the conservative wing of the party is now under attack by the right himself.
  
  Principles are a fine thing, but a narrow, partisan definition of principle has led the Republicans to a dead end. Their inability to transcend their base and speak to the country as a whole is now painfully obvious. Like the Democrats in their years of decline, they are screaming at each other -- not realizing how far they have drifted from the mid-channel markers that have always led to open waters and defined success in American politics.

I've been critical of Rove's strategy of campaigning to and governing for the base (instead of the center) since GWB did it so plainly 2004, largely because I (among others) worried that it inevitably created a more corrosive, nastier political environment than was necessary. I hadn't figured, though, that Rove's master plan for a Generational Majority would tumble into infighting over succession in just a couple of years. Go figure.

Gattigap

Thought This Was Interesting . . .
 

This is a WaPo opinion piece by David Ignatius, entitled

"How the Republicans Let It Slip Away."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?nav=hcmodule

Here's the closing paragraph:

"Principles are a fine thing, but a narrow, partisan definition of principle has led the Republicans to a dead end. Their inability to transcend their base and speak to the country as a whole is now painfully obvious. Like the Democrats in their years of decline, they are screaming at each other -- not realizing how far they have drifted from the mid-channel markers that have always led to open waters and defined success in American politics."

Interesting piece, rather critical of the political sense of the GOP hard right. While I agree that the GOP seems to have let "it" slip away -- whatever it is -- that doesn't mean that the Democratic Party is ready to take it.

[ETA -- Damn Gatti -- what are you doing in CA reading my paper so early?]

S_A_M

Thought This Was Interesting . . .
 

What can I say? Old habits die hard. And the LA Times isn't really helping.

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

He makes some fair points, but a poll on abortion views hardly represents the full spectrum of views on a variety of political issues. If in fact it did, the democrats should have run away with the election. Obviously something that Bush was promoting appealed to a majority of the voting population.

Overall, however, the article points out that Bush's claim of "having political capital" after the election even more laughable than it was at the time.*


*FWIW, I never understood one to acquire political capital through being elected. One acquires it through being in a position where one can do political favors for others, and they are obligated to return those favors (i.e., "calling in chips"). An election either gives a mandate or does not. Two close elections are not a mandate.

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

People complaining about 1 Court choice and an Op piece in WaPo saying so, equals the President's entire support is crumbling?

Wow.

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

What was the question in that Poll? I have a feeling it was not "Do you believe that there should be regulation of abortion? Or do you believe in wholly unrelegated retail abortion (NARAL and NOW's efffective position)?

I bet those polls show different percentages, with the majority skewing towards life rather than killing.

I tried, notwithstanding the bias (including your post of earlier today, ykwim).

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

If you think that's all it is, you haven't been paying attention. (Which you have)

If that was all it was, it would not be an issue.

I don't think he's saying what you say ("the President's entire support is crumbling"). He is saying that the GOP has started to tear itself apart at the seams. That doesn't mean the Dems can take it back, though. We'll see.

S_A_M

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

You're right. Like Penske's 1.5 day defection, this'll blow over in a day or two. Onward, ho!

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

Hunh? This was pretty common knowledge.

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

It's amasing that I get accused of low value posts and yet everyday you and several of yoiur comrades fire unprovoked shots at me that consist solely of personal invective.

Burger, can you explain the value of that post?

And the substantive answer is, I retracted my defection, not my dissent on the nomination.

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

so if its common knowledge, recite it.

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

OK.

Sounds like the question was:

"With respect to the abortion issue, would you consider yourself to be pro-choice or pro-life?"




Now, your turn.

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

Are chips more or less valuable than chits? What is a chit, anyway?

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

The fact that others occasionally have low-value jokey posts doesn't give value to page after page of pics cross-posted from anti-Hilary websites.

Hank has been scolded for his unfunny fringe picture. At least he's limited it.

A parable. Not infrequenly, Lyndon LaRouche drives around the streets of downtown DC in a parade of cars. They have old-fashioned megaphones on top. They have people to distribute flyers to pedestrians. They are loud. Their rhetoric is filled with invective. I've long since learned to turn up the volume on my iPod.

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

What some people call chips?

You?

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

Are you available to follow me around and settle bets? We could clean up, you know.

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

"The base" is a misnomer, as applied to R's. We're a loose coalition of incredibly disparate, even contradictory, groups, who have realized that it's only by subsuming some (most?) desires can we, at least, pull power to our general side of the dance floor. It's better to bicker from strength than to scream from impotence - a realization that I fear the D's will arrive at someday. On the day that Kos quietly avoids comment on a Lieberman proposal, I will sigh and take a back seat once again.

Thought This Was Interesting . . .
 

Board. Motto.

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

I don't really disagree, but stop to observe that by this measure, it's a misnomer as applied to D's as well.

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

Lots of truth to this, but by "the base" I think they mean the mobilized core of party activists and primary voters -- who do tend disproportionately towards the hard social conservatives.

Part of what Ignatius is saying is that the cooperation may be breaking down.

That is true. The problem is realizing when/if one is approaching the tipping point from one to the other. It may yet take another term or two for the Dems to learn this principle.

S_A_M

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

The interesting thing is, a new "base" is forming. There has been widespread dissatisfaction with Bush's spending and lack of vetoing, his lack of border controls or concern, and, in essence, his deviation from what econ-conservatives truly are. The Miers controversy seems to be a straw breaking a back. All of a sudden, people who were mostly along for the ride, but waiting for the ONE TRUE DUTY of Bush's that would finally give THEM a payoff, have seen him perform that duty and leave them cold. That's been a galvanizing event for them, and, when everybody started bitching, and they saw everbody ELSE start bitching, they realized that they were legion, and could well lay claim to the "base" mantle.

In any event, I think it's now almost guaranteed that Bush won't be our next prez.

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

If so, I'll probably like the new GOP base better than the old -- easier to talk to if nothing else. Still, I'm pretty sure that Bush wasn't going to be the next President anyhow.

S_A_M

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

C'mon, I was waiting for someone else to make some snarky comment on this. You're blowing my setup lines.

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

I can't figure out what is going on in Jeb's camp. They are putting out a lot of signals that he ain't going to run. I just can't figure out why. Maybe they think Hillary is unbeatable.

btw. The only issue is whether the Republicans can beat Hillary. I don't think there is any question she is going to be the nominee. I have seen focus groups. She is similar to W (or at least W. before Miers) in that the base loves her, the opposition loathes her and the middle does not mind her. The fact the far right hates her is a problem because it will motivate the base. However, the Dem base loves her which will motivate them and the middle America is willing to vote for her. In addition, she can move to the center without angering the base too much because their loyalty is not based on her position on the issue. A very strong asset. That is a winning combination.

I think McCain, Giuliani and Condi are the only ones that can give her a run for her money.

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

This is basically right. But to expand, the left leaning court has been one of the prime motivating factors of the conservative revolution for the last 40 years. Since Nixon, the revolution has slowly been chipping away at the liberal establishment. It really accelerated in 1994 with the takeover of Congress and has been on a steady march since, including, taking the Senate, controlling all 3 branches, and breaking up the left leaning (to be kind) media monopoly, first through talk radio, and now through the internet and Fox news.

A solidified conservative court was going to be the crowning achievement for 40 plus years of struggle. The right wanted someone who was part of that fight, who stood on principle, and was not afraid to voice his or her beliefs in writing - a Scalia type person. This was to the coming out party - loud and proud. Instead, what they got was someone who, the president apparently believes, needs to cover up her beliefs. Instead of the proud acclamation, they are getting something more seemingly sheepish, as if those beliefs are something to be embarassed about.

And that is why the they are PISSED.

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

Jeb's not running???

What the fuck am I gonna do with 10,000 "Lick Bush in '08" bumperstickers now?

aV

The SF Chronicle sees the light......
 

Its too bad people don't care about newspaper endorsements anymore.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE CHRONICLE RECOMMENDS: PROP. 77
A fairer way to draw lines
-
Wednesday, October 12, 2005

A SYSTEM THAT allows politicians to draw their own legislative and congressional districts is worse than absurd.

It's undemocratic.

The notion of allowing elected officials to artfully design their district boundaries was unfair back in 1812, when Gov. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts signed off on a redistricting plan that was so skewed to keep his party in power that one of the districts resembled the shape of a salamander.

Today, computer programs that can use party registration and a slew of other data to show voters' predisposition with stunning precision -- even within city blocks -- have elevated "gerrymandering" from an art to a science.

California politicians used data from the 2000 census to protect their respective flanks in impressive fashion. In November 2004, 153 legislative and congressional seats were on the ballot. Not a single one changed party hands.

The system is a godsend for the legislators in power. It is not so helpful for candidates who want to break into the club, or voters who want to have a real choice in an election.

One of the many outrageous contortions of the 2001 remap was the creation of a headphone-shaped congressional district to divide the San Fernando Valley's growing Latino population -- thus sparing two-decade incumbent Rep. Howard Berman the annoyance of a strong Latino challenger in the Democratic primary. Berman's brother, Michael, had been hired by the Legislature to help craft the lines.

Similar acts of shameless self-interest occurred up and down the state. A ribbon-thin district created to provide a safe Democratic seat for Rep. Lois Capps stretches 200 miles from the Monterey County line to south of Oxnard in Ventura County.

Rest assured, your elected "representatives" in Sacramento are not about to change a system that allows them to select their pool of voters, especially with one party in firm control of the state Senate and Assembly. It is no surprise that Democratic leaders in Sacramento and Washington are raising vast sums to defeat Proposition 77 in the Nov. 8 special election.

In recent months, we have expressed numerous concerns with Proposition 77, which would hand control of legislative and congressional redistricting to a panel of three retired judges. Despite its flaws, the system outlined in Proposition 77 is superior to the status quo.

Here's how it would work:

-- The independent Judicial Council would select a pool of 24 retired state and federal judges.

-- Four leaders of the state Senate and Assembly (two Democrats, two Republicans) would each nominate three judges from the pool. A leader could not select a judge from his or her own party. Each leader could then veto one of the other's nominees, reducing the pool to eight -- three of whom would be selected by random drawing.

-- The three judges would then assemble a staff and oversee the drawing of congressional and legislative boundaries. Their marching orders would be to keep the districts as compact as practicable and to follow city and county boundaries as much as possible -- as opposed to the find-your-voters games that produced the bizarre lines of 2001. The new map would take effect in the June 2006 primary, but would be subject to voter approval in November. If the voters reject the plan, the process would begin anew for the 2008 elections.

One of our concerns with 77 is its overly ambitious time line. Many local election officials are skeptical about whether the process could be completed in time to give would-be candidates a fair shot at knowing where they should be campaigning. Election officials also worry about whether they would have enough notice to get voter guides and absentee ballots to the electorate in a timely manner.

Supporters of 77 note that the initiative does not necessarily require the new boundaries for the 2006 primary election -- though that is their intention.

"If they can't get it done for 2006, they can't get it done," said Steve Poizner, the chairman of the Yes on 77 campaign, who saw the effects of redistricting when he ran as a Republican for a Democrat-tailored Assembly seat in 2004. "The only deadlines in there are for when the special masters are appointed, which will give them a fighting chance to get it done for 2006."

Our preference would have been for a redistricting plan that took effect after the 2010 census, when the lines could have been drawn with fresh demographic data. But we don't buy the argument that this mid-decade redistricting is some sort of Republican power grab, as some Democratic politicians suggest. One of the measure's strong points is the extent of its checks and balances against partisan meddling. A telling measure of its nonpartisan approach is the nervousness it has created at the Republican National Committee and among some Republicans in the state's congressional delegation, who are convinced their 20-member bloc could be imperiled under boundaries drawn without regard to incumbent protection.

Proposition 77 is not a referendum on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, though it is a component of his reform agenda. This is a vote about whether Californians have faith in their legislators to put aside their own self-interest to develop a new and fairer system of drawing district boundaries.

We don't have such faith.

The Legislature's most recent redistricting "reform" proposals amounted to laughably transparent attempts to assure they could hand-select their shills to control the process.

Both Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata and Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez have suggested that voters are not particularly interested in arcane redistricting issues. If Proposition 77 is rejected, legislators will interpret it as an affirmation of the status quo.

Incumbents, understandably, dread competitive elections and party leaders fear loss of control. Sorry, this is a democracy -- a democracy that is being subverted when politicians select their voters.

Vote "yes'' on Proposition 77.

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

Agree with the underlying thought, but we spent an awful lot of time explaining why Roberts was supposed to cover up his underlying beliefs, and so this one is a hard political sell. I hate being on this side of these form-over-substance debates.

Face it - we want to be able to know the answers to all of these questions before a nomination, and, in fact, we acknowledge that it's these answers that define for us a proper nominee, but then we persist in claiming that someone else not knowing these answers is not a proper basis for them blocking the nomination.

We should be allowing any and all questioning of nominees by anyone. It's relevant and important, and denying this is form over substance. We'd be in a more defensible position vis-a-vis Miers had we done so earlier.

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

I think I am finally starting to see what all the anger is about. It's not just that the right wants a conservative, rather, the right wants a conservative and a fight. The right wants to not just get their person on the SCOTUS, they want to nominate a person the left can't stand and shove it down the left's throat. Is this accurate?

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

For some, yeah. For most, it's like, we've been waiting for this chance for eons, it's THE most important change Bush can make, and the idea that we should take a chance that Bush (and Bush alone) "knows her heart" - that fries us. There's too much at stake to just trust him on this. This is The Big Chance, and the people who we thought of as being the best nominees would have, by definition, provoked a fight, but the fight ain't the thing - it's just a symptom.

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

Sounds like you would like to be the board's conscience. Before we can submit the application to our liberal friends, we need some info. What is the highest rank you've held in the KKK?

I'm willing to bet that you've never been to aklan meeting. How do you expect the Dems to be comfortable with you?

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

Um, no.

We want an intelligent conservative that is actually qualified for the job.

Why are all the people that harped on endlessly about Brown being unqualified to head up FEMA all of a sudden seem to support Bush's decision to tap an unqualified crony for SCOTUS?

Riddle me this - if Clinton had tapped Bernie Nussbaum instead of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, would the Left have been happy? Hell, he was a good friend of Bill and a White House counsel, roughly the same qualifications as Miers.

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

Exactly. And "pro-choice" and "pro-life" are loaded biased terms.


Scroll down a bit and look-I am not going to take the time to parse each and every poll there. There is little more than 30% support for abortion essentially on demand, which is the NARAL and NOW line. The leaders of the demo party align with these people, at least in the Court fights. So who is out touch?

Scroll further down and look at the numbers on parental notification/consent, 70-ish-20ish in favour of state laws for notification and consent, which is one of the major fights going on now. Those two numbers alone speak volumes on how out-of-touch the feminazi controlled dimwits are.

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

Fine as far as it goes, Penske, but that's several steps removed from what we were talking about. Don't let me stop you, though.

Oh, and if you have that poll handy for the Iraqis, that'd be great.