November, 2009:

Re: Today’s GOP is both united and divided – washingtonpost.com, By Jon Cohen and Dan Balz, Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 30, 2009

The Republican rank and file is largely in sync with GOP lawmakers in their staunch opposition to efforts by President Obama and Democrats to enact major health-care legislation, but a new Washington Post poll also reveals deep dissatisfaction among GOP voters with the party’s leadership as well as ideological and generational differences that may prove big obstacles to the party’s plans for reclaiming power.

Republicans and GOP-leaning independents are overwhelmingly negative about Obama and the Democratic Party more broadly, with nearly all dissatisfied with the administration’s policies and almost half saying they are “angry” about them. About three-quarters have a more basic complaint, saying Obama does not stand for “traditional American values.” More than eight in 10 say there is no chance they would support his reelection.

My question is this, why do journalists and TV pundits talk about the Republican Party as if it were just as large and relevant as the Democratic Party? There is only one place in this entire article that mentions how small the GOP has become. It is in the middle of the second page (online) and surrounded by parentheses as if it were something injected as a side note or just for your information:

Almost three-quarters of Republicans and GOP-leaners identify themselves as “conservative” on most issues, up sharply from a couple of years ago. (In some part, the rise is attributable to fewer Americans calling themselves Republicans; with an average of just 22 percent in Post polls this year saying so, the lowest number in polls since 1981.)

Oh by the way, 78% of voting Americans are NOT Republicans.

But the right-wing journalists insist that what they do or what they say is just as relevant as the majority opinion without any disclaimer about just how many of them there are. The news media cover the small, but loud, tea-bag protests as if they were just springing up everywhere as a natural occurrence automatically because of the crazy hyperbole that Obama is a socialist or that their grandma has to die. The reporters proudly over-estimate the numbers of the crowd and unapologetically talk about the insane posters and signs as if they had something legitimate to say. And if you are thinking that, well, the squeaky wheel gets the grease, then just think back to when there were massive marches and demonstrations to end the war in Iraq. That particular loudly squeaking wheel got no grease at all.

Now, the Washington Post interviews a few right-wing freaks in Colorado and suddenly their opinion is supposed to be some sort of new, awesome truth, when if fact, it is the minority opinion.

In the Colorado focus groups, Republican voters expressed strong concerns about the first year of the Obama presidency. Pam Hyde, 53, who works at an elementary school, said new government spending worries her. “We’ll never recover from that,” she said. “I can’t imaging recouping the money that he’s proposing to spend. Unbelievable.”

As a matter of comparison, did the interviewer ask her if she was aware that the cost of war in Iraq and Afghanistan this year would almost double the price of the health care bill for one year? No. Did he ask her if she was aware that we spend ten times the amount of the health care reform on the Defense Department every year? No. The interviewer let her words just hang out there as if they meant something. Did the interviewer ask if she was aware that a third of the stimulus bill was in the form of tax cuts for the middle class? Sadly, no.

What the right wing discomfort boils down to is that there is a black Democrat in the White House. There is nothing more substantial being said or inferred. It is pure Bracknophobia, nothing else.

In the immortal words of The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart, “you lost, it’s supposed to taste like a sh*t taco”. (This quote is at the 3:31 mark.)

More and more conservatives are leaning toward the hard right-wing fringe, being upset about Obama, and they are floundering, desperately, to be heard. Of Republicans:

On fiscal issues, the percentage calling themselves conservative has soared to more than eight in 10. More striking is that a majority considers themselves to be “very conservative” on fiscal issues, up about 20 points in two years. On social issues, two-thirds of Republicans say they are conservative, and about a third of Republicans say they are very conservative. Overall, about two in 10 are both fiscally conservative and moderate-to-liberal on social issues.

Let them trend to the right. This is the best thing to ever happen to the Democratic Party, well, that and Sarah Palin.

Caricature of Sarah Palin