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.)
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Baracknophobia – Obey | ||||
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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.
![[Palin1.jpg]](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_HLgISw2byI4/SdQhUtqxcsI/AAAAAAAABAc/s2SPXGQm8AU/s1600/Palin1.jpg "Caricature of Sarah Palin")
Caricature of Sarah Palin
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Conservatives Own the Health Care Logjam – and the Consequences
Re: Reid set to unveil new public option, breaking Senate impasse on healthcare – TheHill.com
Yes. Let’s not forget how we got here. Without Republican obstruction, there would already be a health care bill passed. If there were no Republican filibuster of the cloture vote, we could tell conservatives like Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE), and all the Republicans to go skip a rope. Senate Majority Leader Reid could easily find 50 votes to pass health care reform that has been talked about for 60 years, but hasn’t had the political will behind it until now.
Don’t you wish there was a way to go ahead and pass the legislation over the Republican’s filibuster? Don’t you wish there was a way to override their obstructionism and move the bill forward? It would be great to have some countermeasure, some parliamentary maneuver that would not allow a filibuster.
Wait! There is! It’s called the Reconciliation Process! According to Wiki, “Reconciliation is a legislative process of the United States Senate intended to allow a contentious budget bill to be considered without being subject to filibuster.”
Don’t get your hopes up. Our fearless Senate leader, Reid, wants us to forget about the reconciliation process because… well, he just does. Also, the Republicans want the Democrats to forget this whole silly idea of a public option and just give more money to the health insurance industry, and never mind that 40 million Americans can’t afford it.
The logjam on health care reform is the conservative’s making. It’s their baby. They lovingly roll it and pat it and mark it with a C. They know that if they can send this bill back to committee, then that will be its death knell and Obama will suffer. Oh, how he will suffer!
Along with the logjam, they will own the death of the bill too. They will speak of it’s death as if it were the Democrats’ fault because the liberals were just too liberal, if they speak of it at all. Conservatives will kill our greatest chance at health care reform and then go around like little gods gloating about it on the talk shows. But, nevertheless, they will own the outcome of it’s failure as surely as they own the obstruction now. That outcome is the suffering and dying of thousands of Americans – way more than 9/11 – in the years to come. Through conservatism, insurance companies will be allowed to continue to pad their profits by denying treatments and low-balling payments to hospitals causing even more personal bankruptcies and foreclosures. They will own it all – all the pain and suffering unto death that could have been prevented if the people had public access to health care.
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