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Politics : The Obama - Clinton Disaster -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: pompsander who wrote (2650)	12/5/2008 6:21:27 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 103300

The Republican Lockbox 05 Dec 2008 02:13 pm A Reported Blog on Politics Marc Ambinder marcambinder.theatlantic.com I'm going to spill just a bit more bytes on what I've taken to calling the Republican Lockbox dilemma, or why the structure of politics, even more than particular events like the economic collapse and Bush fatigue, reinforces the challenege of a nationwide Republican comeback. 1. The class inversion. As described by Ron Brownstein, it's the growing strengh of Democrats among a certain type of white, college-educated voter; Obama won 47% of these voters in 2008, the most ever for a Democrat, and the trend has been advancing. While Republicans typically do better among white, non-college voters, the share of these voters has been dropping fairly rapidly from election to election. They were a majority of the vote when Bill Clinton ran; they're 39% of the vote today. One reason why wealthier, knowledge/service workers are voting Democratic is because the Republicans have boxed themselves in on cultural issues, including the role and place of science in society. Since the mid-nineties, Democrats have been gaining in these knowledge/professional melting pot/white collar suburbs -- just check out four cycles worth of results from the ring counties around Philadelphia, Fairfield Co., CT, Oakland County, MI, Sillicon Valley.... (It was this trend that catalyzed R. Tiexiera and J. Judis's prescient book about the emerging Democratic majority). Even as these workers generally favor lower taxes and less spending, a larger and larger share of white voters with college degrees considers themselves to be moderates on social issues: generally pro-choice, pro-civil union or same-sex marriage. 2. Party structure. Conservatives hold more sway in the Republican Party than liberals do in the Democratic party. To put it another way, conservatives make up a larger portion of the Republican base than liberals do of the Democratic base -- a larger percentage, even of their national committee that liberals do in the DNC. Therefore, it's more difficult for Republican candidates to challenge orthodoxy and dogma; it's harder for a Bill Clinton figure to emerge. You cannot build a Republican Party without social conservatives. Another Brownstein point: the high water mark for the modern Republican coalition was 2004, when national security became the glue that held disparate strands together, when George Bush's popularity pulled just enough voters across the line. But even then, his majority was among the narrowest of the century. And in 2000, John McCain did George W. Bush a favor; the latter, by protesting so loudly against the Pat Robertsons of the world, allowed the former to avoid explicitly indentifying them. (Note well: Bush still lost the Philly suburbs.) You can't win elections without the strong support of social conservatives, and it seems as if, going forward, Republicans won't be able to win them without somehow convincing the denizens of Bucks, Delaware and Montgomery counties that social issues are simply less important to them. It used to be that Republicans won the culture wars and Democrats won the economy wars; ironically, the base of the Democratic Party isn't demographically wired to be responsive to economic populism and more and more responsive to post-material appeals about culture, America's role in the world, and government reform. 3. Writing off the country. Republicans can't write off everything outside the deep South and the interior rural West. The traditional Republican campaign blueprint has to be rewritten almost entirely. It's very upsetting, and worrying, to many Republicans operatives when they realize that millions of tax-sensitive voters knew that Obama would raise their taxes and still voted for him. 4. Minority voters. Black voters are pretty much locked up for eight years. Some Republicans argue that black middle class voters, having been empowered by the election of Barack Obama, will become less faithful to the Democratic Party. Well -- so long as the Republicans continue to field legitimate party chair candidates who were very recently members of exclusionist country clubs, that's not going to happen. Conservatives aren't going to step away from opposition to comprehensive immigration reform, even though many prominent GOP voices want them to; Democrats have strong majorities among every other minority group. What's the solution? It's hard to think of one Republicans can't win without social conservatives, and so they shouldn't try to. They can't win by "going back to their roots," in part because that phrase is tautological and has no agreed upon meaning. By roots, does one mean anti-communism? Lower taxes? Cultural traditionalism? Libertarianism? It took Bill Clinton to bring Democrats out of their wilderness, but he took the party from point A to point B. Adapting conservative principles to modern developments like globalization is an obvious avenue to reform, but that's easier said than done, and there are many in the party who believe that no change on policy is needed, just a new "tone." I throw the comments open for readers to weigh in.

To: pompsander who wrote (2650)	12/5/2008 6:23:29 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 103300

G.O.P. Paid Almost $55,000 for Palin Fashion Stylist December 5, 2008, 9:31 am By Michael Luo thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com Gov. Sarah Palin campaigning in Virginia in October. (Photo: Michael Appleton for The New York Times) Updated \| 1:17 p.m. A woman who appears from campaign finance records to have been Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s fashion stylist was paid $54,900 by the Republican National Committee, according to a new report filed with the Federal Election Commission. A charge for that amount to “Lisa Kline & Co.” for “Consulting-Campaign” appears on Oct. 17 in the R.N.C.’s latest campaign finance report. Ms. Kline is a New York stylist whose name had previously appeared alongside some of the much ballyhooed $150,000 in charges for clothing and other “campaign accessories” from luxury stores like Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. Repeated calls to her home and office in New York over the last month or so since her name first appeared in reports were not returned. The newest report appears to show about $23,000 in additional charges labeled as “campaign accessories” from a variety of stores, including Saks, Neiman’s, Nordstrom, Bloomingdales, Macy’s, Victoria’s Secret, Brooks Brothers, Ann Taylor and Target. Republican officials have said that all of the clothing is now in their possession and will be turned over to charity. In addition, the McCain campaign paid Ms. Palin’s traveling hair stylist and makeup artist more than $110,000 for roughly two months of work, according to campaign finance records. As in the previous shopping charges, it appears from campaign finance records that people who initially purchased the clothes, or at least footed the charges, were subsequently reimbursed by the R.N.C. Interestingly, in the newest charges on campaign finance records, many of the people who initially footed the charges were campaign staffers, including Andrew Smith, Ms. Palin’s chief of staff, Christopher Edwards, who was in charge of advance for Ms. Palin, and Kristi Pulsfort, a member of the traveling press staff. Mr. Smith apparently footed the bill for more than $3,000 in charges at Aldo (a shoe store chain), Bloomingdales and Macy’s, all in Orlando, as well as Home Optics, a glasses and contacts store in Chugiak, Alaska, about a half hour from Ms. Palin’s home in Wasilla. A woman named Jeannie Etchart, who appears on the McCain campaign’s payroll, picked up the most in charges, totaling more than $14,000 from places like Banana Republic, Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstrom. The appearance of the staffers’ names in the records matches up with an account in Newsweek’s book on the campaign that was the first to report that there were additional charges for clothing beyond the initial $150,000 and said Ms. Palin used low-level staffers to purchase some of the items and put them on their credit cards. Newsweek said the McCain campaign discovered this just before the election when they sought repayment.

To: pompsander who wrote (2650)	12/7/2008 11:27:57 AM
From: PROLIFE	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 103300

Judges got fired. Big frigging deal. Where's the indictments? I don't remember you bloviating about the worst AG ever, clinton's galpal, J. Reno. Meanwhile, Dingle, Franky, Dodd, and all the rest of your cohorts are stealing you blind, and lying so well, I suspect they will get a Pelosi raise.....er....all except Frank of course, I don't think he wants Pelosi raising him. Why are you not writing your congresscritter to get frank, dodd tossed out for their role in Fannie and Freddie?