Re: Newsflash
 

This election cycle is going to put significant strain on the divisions within the GOP. The party ain't going anywhere, but it's looking like it's time to decide if it's the party of social conservative whackos (Palin, Bachmann, Santorum) or weirdo libertarian economic extremists (Paul, Ryan) or whether Romney (or I guess Pawlenty) can straddle the two in a successful coalition.

But look who's not in play at all: serious fiscal conservatives.

Re: Newsflash
 

Who would that be? Name someone who has at least run for a nomination to a statewide or national office as an R and is at least "serious" about fiscal conservatism.

I'll spot the list Coburn, tho I don't totally agree.

Christie is out, due to his associations with 'weed.

Re: Newsflash
 

Gov. Snyder of Michigan.

Re: Newsflash
 

Right. That was my point.

Re: Newsflash
 

Okay, so you know who else isn't in play for the Republican nomination?

Martians. Zombie Reagans. American Margaret Thatchers. Chupacabras

Hank has a decent suggestion, but at this point he (a) has less political experience than Palin, and (b) has to live thru his fiscal policy for at least a year without pulling a Christie. So maybe next cycle, if the budget is still a primary issue.

Re: Newsflash
 

Unlike those things, there are R voters who are, or at least profess to be, actual fiscal conservatives. You know, people like, say, Club, Hank and Sebby.

Thus my point was the current R candidates seem not to represent those "real" voters as one illustration of the strain within the party.

I don't know much about Snyder. If Christie and Daniels were in the race I might have to rethink my point.

Re: Newsflash
 

Jon Huntsman?

Re: Newsflash
 

Possible. But he said very nice things about the Ryan plan, so he has to step up with something real to separate from that.

Re: Newsflash
 

Voters, yes. Candidates, no. Just like there is a subset of D voters that support, or at least profess to support, each crazy DU idea that various posters trot out to scare small children, but no D candidate (apart from Kucinuch) who represents those real voters. The D voters turn to Nader or whoever when they feel disenfranchised, the Rs (appear to) vote on their secondary issues or the least worst alternative.

Re: Newsflash
 

Right. That was my point.

I don't think those groups are analogous as they are at the left edge of the D voter base.

What I was implying is that R voters in the middle should be quite unhappy with what's happening in that party. The R party is in the midst of the equivalent of a struggle for control between Bernie Sanders-types and Nader-types. Or something like that.

It's part of my ongoing quixotic crusade to convince Club that he's secretly a Clinton Democrat.

Re: Newsflash
 

Which was the same as the chupacabra point--neither exists.

Re: Newsflash
 

And thus chupacabra supporters should be asking themselves why they vote R and whether it's time to jump ship.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Rick Santorum Has Come to Terms with his Google Problem.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

doesn't this help him, like how Palin complains about "gotcha" questions, but even people with 3 digits in their IQ (hi Adder!) can at least consider RS's complaint?

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

That piece is very strangely timed.

Also, to argue that the key pro-growth policy is extending the Bush tax cuts is almost comical.

ETA: Look at that, a timely chart:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...n1-blog480.jpg

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Well, that's at least in part because the '01 cuts were about keeping a campaign promise, not about being a tax-cut stimulus. If we get past the politics of it, then maybe we can fairly assess the outcomes.

Of course, it's also not the point to compare the realized growth to any historic average, but rather to the **unknowable** growth rate that would have happened but for the tax-cut/spending stimulus.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

I'm not sure what you mean. They were certainly sold as a stimulus (which differed from the give the surplus back justification of the campaign).

But I'm not sure why you think that matters. Surely you aren't arguing that the politics drives the stimulus?

Of course, but given that the right comparison is unknowable, we have to make due with what we have.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

That's because Republicans can't use the word "stimulus" in anything other than a perjorative sense anymore - the memo is out. Years ago when everyone was getting their $100 checks in the mail from Smilin' George it was touted by all and sundry as a means to give tax money back to the ordinary folks who would certainly invest it more wisely than gubermint ever could, by going out and buying stuff (if you were a little guy like me - I think I spent it on drugs) or creating jobs if you were a big swinging dick like Hank, suddenly freed from a repressive tax burden to go forth and make a thousand flowers of employment bloom. So it was designed to promote consumer spending on the one hand and job creation on the other. But this is not "stimulus" -- oh no no no -- "stimulus" is what Democrats do when they are trying to make this country more like socialist wherever.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Well, *that* one was branded as stimulus at the time.

The $1T+ tax cut was not--the economy needed no stimulus, the government had surpluses as far as the eye could see, and it was one more strategy to "starve the beast" and return to 'murricans, what was rightfully theirs.

Sure, the messaging moved around a lot, but Stimulus wasn't the original sell, so judging it on how stimulative it was isn't the right test. And the result provides plenty of fodder for insult on direct bases.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

I still don't follow you. It was sold in part as stimulus ("The president said the refunds will give a boost to the economy, but economists have said that depends on how much consumers decide to spend.").

But regardless, the current contention is that keeping those cuts will be really stimulative. Whether they were the last time around is as good evidence as we can get as to whether that contention is likely to be true. It doesn't matter whether stimulus was the goal last time around.

ETA: Here's Greenspan saying the economy was slowing in January and tax cuts might help. Less reliably, wikipedia says Bush argued it would be stimulus.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

No, I think the current contention is that *eliminating* the cuts would lead to a significant contraction.

Of course, if you believe Bill Gross (who talks his book enough that it's reasonable to doubt any given thing) then we have a lot bigger worries than a 2% (or whatever) contraction in GDP if we don't get the federal house in order right soon.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Okay. Flip side of the same coin, no? (And actually Hank's link talked about continuing the cuts as stimulus, but again, flip side).

Weinergate
 

I'm with Josh Marshall on whether he should resign (no), but I don't agree with his assessment of the judgment of Pelosi, Wasserman-Sschultz and Israel to call for his resignation.

That move only helps relieve the distraction if he actually resigns. Calling for him to resign without knowing he will do it no benefit to the party. It only gives the story new legs. And despite their short term evaluations, it likely doesn't even benefit them personally.

Re: Weinergate
 

you can drunk driving drown a woman and be a grand kleagle and still be qualified to be a Dem congressman. I don't think flash your underwear passes either of those, do you?

Re: Weinergate
 

Senator, my friend. Senator. It's much harder to pressure a Senator into resigning.

Re: Weinergate
 

You forgot to mention have $90k in your freezer without Pelosi saying a peep.

Re: Weinergate
 

Everybody loves cold hard cash.

Re: Weinergate
 

by the way, my dentist suggests I get braces, and the orthodonist wants $6000 and Obama isn't returning my fucking phone calls.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

ignorant of history should be your new handle. I didn't get the check because i make too much, but let me tell you what we do with checks under $200 in my household. we save them up all year then hand them out to the kiddies on Halloween.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

just watched the last half hour of the debates. The GOP field is actually not as totally dismal as I previously thought.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Who caught your eye?

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Were you drinking each time someone said "Socialist"? Because the snippets I saw, quite sober, fleshed out a field I can only describe (save Paul, who isn't really running) as pathetic.

Rick Perry should jump into the race. He's got the jobs record, will have huge bona fides on cost-cutting when he guts TX's budget in the coming session, looks like Reagan, is a Southern Governor, and is well liked by Jesus Freaks. He's Romney, but with the appearance of a soul, a set of balls, and none of the baggage that comes with belonging to a cult religion, governing a notoriously liberal state, or creating a universal HC system.

Perry could beat Obama. The only problems I see with him are the fact that he's a governor of TX (the last one didn't go so well), and used to be a Democrat (ran Al Gore's TX machine in 1988). But I think the first can be played as a benefit to his base, and the second can be explained away, and if cagily pitched to moderates, offered to show he's possibly not as extremely right wing as he seems.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

It was on long enough for me to see Michelle Bachmann talking about the Tea Party/The Left/something something, but I couldn't really concentrate because the pure crazy radiating out of her eyes was pulsing right out of the screen and into the room and giving me a migraine headache, and so I changed the channel.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Logically, consistently, both dubious comparisons should be eschewed. "Sure, it's a meaningless, and possibly misleading, conclusion, but it's the only one we can make" isn't a particularly persuasive basis for anything.

Except advocacy, perhaps.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

I caught some soundbites later. We couldn't watch anything with "Santorum" in it as the child was still awake.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

No one in particular. But up until now, I viewed the entire field as a total utter and complete joke. As a group, they exceeded my expectations.

Re: Newsflash
 

Magic Underwear problem. In all sincerity, I could not vote for a Mormon. All religion is a bit far fetched, of course, and yes, I understand that many do not actually believe in their church's loony teachings, but instead use it as an "inside handshake" thing for business purposes (I've been told as much by Mormon friends). Still, anyone even professing to buy into a faith so comical on its face, and so unequivocally proven to have been a fraud, perpetrated by a historically acknowledged con man,* shows a capacity for suspension of disbelief and lack of judgment so deep as to disqualify him from office.

And I think most of the country agrees with me. Justifiably, and for good reason.

*Also an unabashed racist and misogynist.

Re: Newsflash
 

Didn't you see the Tonies? Mormonism is hot hot HOT!!!

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

We did it before and it didn't bring huge growth. That isn't meaningless.

But yeah, it's only a correlation. It could be that other factors undermined growth when we did it before, or that other factors will make it grow this time. But that doesn't make it not evidence (hi, Hank!).