As I’ve obsessively watched the race for the GOP nomination, I have noticed that despite its vicissitudes and seeming volatility, one thing has remained constant: Republican voters have consistently underestimated their best (perhaps only) chance of retaining the White House in 2008.
John McCain is not someone I like, but he’s someone I can respect. It’s not just that he’s a bona fide war hero. It’s not just that he has more governing experience than Romney, Giuliani, and Thompson combined. He’s the only Republican in the race with any semblance of integrity.
McCain didn’t just come out of nowhere or invent an identity to run for president. Look at the rest of the Republican field. Fred Thompson was undistinguished as a US Senator, and seems to have been largely drafted into the race by deceptively optimistic poll numbers; a wealthy lobbyist and Washington insider, he’s now being marketed as the simple man’s pickup-truck-and-gun-show candidate. Giuliani and Romney have been tripping over themselves downplaying and apologizing for their past liberal positions. Despite the extensive repackaging they’ve gone through, the only reason they’re still contenders is because they’ve had the good fortune of being mayor on 9/11 and rich, respectively. Ron Paul is still a joke; and –though he’s run a fine campaign—who the hell is Mike Huckabee?
In the parlance of our times, McCain is legit. Unlike the rest of the field, he’s running as himself, not McCain 2.0 (New and Improved), McCain* (A True Conservative - Since April 2002), or John! (Now With Personality). He may be a warmonger and an idiot, but at least you know his belligerence and stupidity are genuine and not the highly-polished product of a skilled marketing campaign to appeal to the jingoistic and dim-witted Republican electorate.
I’ve heard Republicans say that the very fact that liberals like me can respect John McCain suggests that he is too much of a moderate to be nominated by the modern GOP. But if you look at his opponents, Giuliani is clearly the most socially liberal and Huckabee is much farther to the left on economic issues, while Ron Paul takes that honor in the realm of foreign policy.
Like Barack Obama, McCain has centrist appeal without actually being a centrist on policy. Despite his reputation as a ‘maverick’, for the most part McCain’s independent image is greatly exaggerated. He has taken a lot of very public, seemingly audacious stances, breaking GOP taboos by shunning the religious right, supporting campaign finance reform, opposing Bush on torture, and taking a moderate stance on illegal immigration. Although he ultimately caved to the right on all of these issues except campaign finance, he still gets a lot of the credit for it and to this day is mistakenly referred to as independent by the media.
Republican primary voters have rarely, if ever, had the opportunity to nominate somewhat as conservative as McCain who is simultaneously adored by the media and popular among independent voters.
Thank God they’re too stupid to realize it.
So you’re probably a relatively normal person, and as a result not nearly as excited as I am about the Republican CNN-YouTube debate on November 28th. But if you didn’t watch the Democratic counterpart in July, they actually asked some fairly original and even challenging questions that you’d never hear come out of Wolf Blitzer’s mouth.
That’s why I strongly encourage everyone with a video camera to submit your own questions for the Republican candidates by the November 25 deadline. This is your chance to call out Romney, bewilder Mike Huckabee, embarrass Rudy Giuliani, make Anderson Cooper blush, or simply make life awkward for everyone involved. Just imagine the possibilities. Are you imagining? Ok, fine, I’ll imagine for you:
This is for all the candidates who oppose embryonic stem cell research:
Imagine that a building is on fire- In one room is a dish containing three human embryos; in the other, a newborn baby. You only have time to save one. Which would you choose?
The genius of this question (which I sadly cannot claim credit for) is that for pro-life Republicans, there truly is no right answer. Since they purport that each embryo is a human life, the logical conclusion would be to save the embryos rather than the baby. But any politician who says they would save a Petri dish over a baby would come off as inhuman and unfeeling. On the other hand, if they say they would save the newborn they are essentially conceding that embryos aren’t the same value as human life, and by extension, the sort of ‘life’ that exists at conception is not equal to that of a living, breathing human. That’s why I love this question and suggest you use it to put Republicans on the spot whenever possible.
For Ron Paul:
On your website you warn Americans of a plan to build a NAFTA superhighway from Mexico to Canada, as part of a larger plot by powerful special interest groups to unite The United States, Mexico, and Canada into one nation by the North American Union. Why haven’t we heard more about this grave threat to US sovereignty in the main stream media?
This is actually the least condescending version of this question I could come up with. It also works in regards to the 17th Amendment, the gold standard, the United Nations- or any other radical position that he generally avoids talking about. Essentially, I would love to make the coalition of pseudo-anarchists, misguided stoners, and naïve college students aware that their man is a legitimate nut job.
For Mitt Romney:
In 1994, you claimed that you would be a better advocate for gay rights than Ted Kennedy. Now? Not so much. What has changed since ’94 to account for this shift: your principles, your target audience, or the gays?
You get the idea.
Sadly, I am stranded in the barrens of Western New York without a video camera; but for all of you with the technological means, this is your chance to give your favorite Republican candidate a proverbial bitch slap --phrased in the form of a question, of course. Good luck!
http://www.youtube.com/contest/RepublicanDebate
On Wednesday, when the House Education Committee considers reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, it will have an opportunity to abolish one of the most illogical and unjust pieces of legislation from the GOP’s 12 year reign of error. I’m referring to the Aid Elimination Provision, a 1998 addition to the HEA which makes students with drug convictions ineligible for federal aid.
This provision effectively denied reformed criminals and recovering addicts access to higher education, which was both coldhearted and irrational, since improving individuals’ economic status is the most effective way to reduce drug use and other types of crime in the long run. The Aid Elimination Provision took away financial aid for students with misdemeanor marijuana offenses, yet students with alcohol violations were unaffected. In fact, the restriction applied only to drug offenses –even rapists and murderers do not lose eligibility.
Between 1998 and 2006, over 200,000 students were denied financial aid. The provision was finally revised in 2006 to apply only to students who commit violations while receiving federal aid, but there are still a number of problems with this.
The Higher Education Act, part of Johnson’s Great Society agenda, was passed in 1965 in part to expand access to college by offering loans and scholarships to poor students. However, the Aid Elimination Provision primarily punishes lower and middle-income students who cannot afford college without financial aid. Furthermore, it disproportionately affects minority students because of the discriminatory way that drug laws are enforced in this country.
The presumption behind this provision is that students who are using drugs while receiving aid are wasting taxpayers’ money. Yet the law only punishes successful students since they already need to get good grades to continue receiving aid. Furthermore, the Government Accountability Office found no evidence that this penalty even helps to reduce drug use. It is simply counterproductive to kick successful, poor students out of college for drug use, increasing the likelihood that they will become a burden on the criminal justice system rather than productive, tax-paying citizens.
The Aid Elimination Provision is just another example of how the personal moral judgments of members of Congress have created an unjust and ineffective criminal justice system. Once again, the need to look ‘tough on crime’ makes for good politics and bad policy.
Still riding the wave of publicity he received after reporting a surprising $5 million dollar haul in the 3rd quarter, Ron Paul is now the beneficiary of a daylong fundraising blitz which the NYT reports netted $4.07 million.
This figure is astonishing for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that Ron Paul had almost nothing to do with this particular drive. The idea of staging a fundraising drive on Guy Fawkes Day (which commemorates the day when its namesake tried to blow up Parliament) actually arose independently from ThisNovember5th.com, and the campaign spread virally.
Thanks to this grassroots triumph, Paul has now raised $7.2 million in just 5 weeks, putting the campaign’s $12 million goal within reach. It also raises the possibility that he could conceivably lead the entire Republican field for the 4th quarter, assuming Romney doesn’t inflate his numbers with another $6 million of his own money (he will). Given the importance the media places on fundraising, how long could the GOP fundraising leader remain in 6th place in the polls?
Paul’s grassroots power may actually spell trouble for the GOP, however. He has not promised to endorse the eventual GOP nominee, and his fundraising power and internet support may encourage him to continue his campaign as a third party candidate, particularly if Giuliani is nominated. Is it worthwhile to note that Paul already made one 3rd party run for the White House as the Libertarian Party nominee in 1988.
This historic haul also suggests that the race for the Republican nomination is still wide-open, with six viable candidates if one counts Paul, as the national media will increasingly do. This dynamism is driven both by discontent within the Republican ranks and unresolved conflict between the merits of ideological purity and electability. While in other election years pro-choice or anti-war views would be a deal breaker for any potential GOP nominee, the sense that a tradition conservative can’t win following the Bush fiasco has created an opening for a Giuliani or Ron Paul.
While I still maintain that Ron Paul is too far outside the mainstream to ultimate have a significant electoral impact, his grassroots support and fundraising power are shaking up the campaign and ensuring that the Republican race will continue to be more exciting and unpredictable than its Democratic counterpart.
Texas Republican Ron Paul’s quixotic quest for the White House has received a surprising amount of sympathetic coverage in the main stream press lately. A recent St. Anselm poll showing Paul polling 7% in New Hampshire, ahead of Thompson and Huckabee, raised a lot of eyebrows (yet the 5 other polls taken within the last month showing him in 6th place are generally ignored). Despite rarely registering above 1% in national polls, Paul raised $5 million in the 3rd quarter, almost matching the $6 million raised by the man who nearly won the GOP nomination in 2000. His campaign is driven by an internet-based cult following composed largely of young people. Even more startling is the attention and support he’s drawing from liberals.
On the surface, this following makes perfect sense. He’s against the war, favors abolishing the Patriot Act and restoring civil liberties, supports legalizing medical marijuana, funding stem cell research, while opposing torture and capital punishment. Yet this is all the main stream media seems to focus on when discussing Ron Paul, which might help to explain why so many people still take him semi-seriously.
Here’s what news stories on Paul generally neglect to mention:
Ron Paul wants to abolish Federal Reserve Bank and the income tax, which as the Politico notes are “issues widely viewed as settled since their creation in 1913”. Similarly antiquated is his support for abandoning the fiat currency system in favor of tying the value of currency to gold and silver and repealing the 17th Amendment. Yes, you read that right: Ron Paul wants to take away the right to vote for Senators directly, one of the landmark democratic achievements of the progressive era, and give it back to state legislatures.
Oh, and by the way, he also would like to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Education, the Food and Drug Administration, Medicare, Veterans Administration hospitals, and welfare, while pulling out of NAFTA, the WTO, and the United Nations. But who’s going to miss any of those things?
Other parts of his platform read like they were authored by a conspiracy theorist:
“H.R. 1146 would end our membership in the United Nations, protecting us from their attempts to tax our guns or disarm us entirely.”
“NAFTA’s superhighway is just one part of a plan to erase the borders between the U.S. and Mexico, called the North American Union. This spawn of powerful special interests, would create a single nation out of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, with a new unelected bureaucracy and money system. Forget about controlling immigration under this scheme.”
“Both the WTO and CAFTA could force Americans to get a doctor’s prescription to take herbs and vitamins.”
“The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in order to comply with standards dictated by supra-national organizations such as the UN‘s World Food Code (CODEX), NAFTA, and CAFTA, has been assuming greater control over nutrients, vitamins and natural health care providers to restrict your right to choose the manner in which you manage your health and nutritional needs.”
It’s not that I’m seriously worried about a President Ron Paul. True libertarians cannot win national elections because Americans are inspired by candidates who promise to DO things, not restrain, cut back, and downsize. While Paul can continue to delude himself saying “the majority of Americans are with me”, the bloated federal government that he is so appalled by came about for a reason – the people demanded federal action to solve problems.
The Ron Paul ‘movement’ is based largely on ignorance of his true extremism.
If Newt Gingrich is indeed going to run for President, as many Republicans hope and predict, he is doing a hell of a job of marketing himself to the American electorate. First, he went public in March with the less-than-stunning revelation that he was cheating on his second wife with a 33-year old congressional staffer while publicly criticizing President Clinton for his own affair during the impeachment hearings of the late 90s.
Now, this week he gave a speech to the National Federation of Republican Women blasting bilingualism in American culture, arguing that we should teach only English in American schools so that people “learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto”. In the past he has voiced support for making English the official language of the United States and only printing ballots in the majority language, saying that bilingualism presents "long-term dangers to the fabric of our nation" and that "allowing bilingualism to continue to grow is very dangerous."
While this sort of rhetoric may appeal to the paranoid xenophobes among the Republican base who still feel that whites are becoming a disadvantaged minority in America, it insults a significant portion of the American electorate, particularly the millions of Hispanics were educated in bilingual schools and yet strangely do not live in a ghetto.
Newt also demonstrates a profound ignorance about the nature of bilingual education. It does not discourage immersion, as he seems to suggest (since there are still significant financial incentives to learn English), but rather allows children to learn basic skills such as math in their native language so that they do not fall behind other students while learning English. Gingrich’s claim that Spanish is a ghetto language would actually become more accurate if he got his way and Hispanics were denied equal educational opportunities and the right to vote.
The first issue of The Georgetown Progressive, the Dems very own political publication, is up on the website. It includes a cover story on how College Dems are getting involved in the 2008 Presidential Campaign, a secular assault on the Pledge of Allegiance, Sparknotes on Terry McCauliffe's What a Party, a thinly veiled reference to oral sex, and more. Enjoy.
read more...According to the Post, Mark Warner is considering challenging John Warner in a run for the VA Senate in 2008. The popular former governor and one-time presidential prospect is easily the Democrats’ best chance at ousting the admired 5-term incumbent. If this electoral wet dream materializes (and the 80 year old Republican decides he has one more term in him) the race would be a rematch of the 1996 campaign, when John defeated Mark by 5 points. The VA political environment has changed markedly in the past decade, however. By the end of his term as governor, Warner had an approval rating of over 80%, and was succeeded by another Democrat, Tim Kaine. The state continued its steady leftward shift in 2006 when Jim Webb beat Sen. George Allen in one of the closest races in the nation. The prospect of a Warner-Warner match-up presents the Dems with an exciting an unexpected pickup opportunity; without Mark, however, the race won’t even be competitive.
read more...It is practically a truism to note that Georgetown students are busy people. In fact, between the time spent on classes, jobs, internships, pre-gaming, post-gaming, gaming, and facebook, we run the risk of missing out on the important things in life.
Of course, I’m talking about reading the Federalist. Some of you may not have even noticed that their 1 year anniversary edition is out on newstands (actually, the ground) this week. But have no fear! To help counteract the fact that “reality has a well-known liberal bias”, I’ve decided to offer some highlights from this month’s issue, to ensure that you don’t miss out on your recommended dose of Grade-A conservative bullshit:
Page 4
Lest you mistakenly think that Take Back Georgetown Day was a failure this year:
“The TBGD board decided to shift the focus of the event a bit, away from the big name speakers and toward a smaller, more personal, event ...Hopefully, this smaller event will provide a more comfortable setting to allow students and outsiders the opportunity to express their views and collaborate together.” That makes perfect sense, and in no way sounds like an excuse for the failure to attract big name speakers, respectable attendance levels, or at least rename a bench in honor of Ronald Reagan.
Page 5
Muslims are taking over Europe!
“We must channel the unity, charity, and strength the American people showed in the aftermath [of 9/11], rather than the virulent partisan hackery that has become the norm.” They certainly have a point here: I, too, long for that halcyon age after 9/11 when President Bush brought the nation together, overcoming partisan divisions by working in a conciliatory manner and engaging in a civilized discourse that respected all points of view. But then the Democrats got elected....
Page 6
On this page (entitled ‘Opinion’ in order to differentiate it from the fine objective journalism displayed in the rest of the issue) they argue that it is hypocritical of liberals to call for humanitarian intervention to stop the genocide in Darfur while at the same time criticizing Bush for sending troops into Iraq. Apparently the situations are indistinguishable...if you ignore the fact that Iraq was not a humanitarian crisis expected to claim from 200,000 to 500,000 lives, and that Saddam Hussein’s genocidal actions, such as the chemicals weapons attack that killed 5,000 Kurds, were performed in the 80s, when his regime had the support of the Reagan and Bush administrations. I for one, find no inconsistency in the conviction that our soldiers lives are valuable, and should only be put in harms way to preserve human life and address grave threats to national security, and even then only after carefully planning the operation and examining the situation to avoid carelessly wasting human life based on false intelligence. But thats why I’m a liberal hypocrite.
Stayed tuned for part 2, when the Federalist will try to exploit the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.
You may have noticed a somewhat peculiar advertising supplement in the latest edition of the Hoya emblazoned with the title “Stop the Madness”. Though it is impossible to discern it from its rather ambiguous cover, this ad amounts to 12 pages of propaganda financed by the Human Life Alliance, published in conjunction with scores of other pro-life events taking place over the weekend, including the Cardinal O’Connor Conference on Life at Georgetown on Sunday. In case you missed it, here are a few highlights from this manipulative, sensationalist, fact-distorting document:
“Women are breaking through glass ceilings everywhere...Projections show that by 2014 women will surpass men in earning degrees at every educational level including doctoral. We have come too far to reduce women’s “rights” to mean the “right to kill our own children”.
“We might as well be ‘pro-choice’ on rape, child pornography, and prostitution.”
“As traumatic as rape is, abortion does not un-rape the mother. The baby doesn’t deserve to die for the crime of his or her father. Pat, a victim of rape, said, “In choosing to abort, to kill the innocent child growing within me, I lowered myself to the level of the rapist”
In response to the pro-choice objection, “I’m personally opposed, but I can’t tell others what to do”:
“What if US citizens had been willing to accept this justification for tolerating slavery?”
It also cites over 200 documented cases of women injured or killed by legal abortions (it does not specify over what period of time or the severity of the injuries), while failing to mention the thousands who died every year before Rowe v Wade when they were forced to seek illegal, unsafe methods.
It repeats the unsubstantiated claim that abortion increases the risk of breast cancer, a favorite argument of the pro-life movement. Though not an outright lie, it is a horrible distortion of the facts: nursing a child, particularly at a young age, has been shown to reduce women’s’ risk of breast cancer. Thus, by their logic, by not having a child they are failing to reduce their risk, thus increasing it relative to women who gave birth. Tricky little bastards aren’t they?
Perhaps the most scurrilous claim put forth by this pro-life propaganda is the accusation that Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, believed in eugenics and sought to eliminate the “negro population” of the United States. They even take a quote of hers out of context to solidify their claim: “We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population...” (when she was actually explaining the need to train more African American doctors because they would be better trusted, and would help to dispel such misconceptions).
In actuality, Sanger sough to bring birth control to an underprivileged population which was often denied adequate health services, believing that uncontrolled fertility presented the greatest burden on the poor. Rather than a genocidal conspiracy, her Negro Project improved the quality of life for thousands and was endorsed by W.E.B. Dubois and Eleanor Roosevelt.
· In a segment titled ‘The Overpopulation Myth’, they not only deny that the world is overpopulated (as if anyone seriously advocates abortion for the sake of population control) but actually claim that we are facing (gasp) an under population crisis: “In 64 countries around the world today, including the U.S., the birth rate is below replacement level...we need to start looking at the problem of under population and the economic disaster that will occur as our population rapidly ages”. First of all, their argument only takes into account the birth rate, ignoring the crucial factor of immigration; the reason the United States does not face an economic crisis due to a dwindling population. Furthermore, the marginal population decrease in these largely developed, Western nations are more than compensated for by burgeoning population growth in nations such as India and China where there is, in fact, an overpopulation problem lowering the standard of living for all.
Well, that was cathartic.
Obviously, I have many problems with this piece of propaganda, but perhaps I am most bothered by the fact that the Hoya irresponsibly took advertising money form an organization that would spread falsehoods to the Georgetown student body, all the while knowing that the university’s policies prohibit the other side from getting a fair say. Of course, pro-lifers should have the ability to advocate for their cause on campus, and advertise in publications if they wish, but when the opposition is silenced, the anti-abortion lobby is able to get away with spreading such outrageous claims. Because the university does not allow viewpoints besides the Catholic position to be voiced equally on campus, the debate is reduced to this sort of propaganda on one side, and coat hangers in trees on the other, and the student body is hardly left well-informed as a result.
If you’ve walked through Red Square recently, you may have noticed flyers promoting the Georgetown chapter of America’s newest third party campaign, Unity ’08. Founded by former advisors to the Ford and Carter administrations and Maine’s former Independent governor Angus King, intends to run a third ticket in the upcoming presidential campaign, featuring a split ticket, or possible independents
Unity 08 is based on the conviction that the two major parties are corrupt, slaves to special interest dollars, and driven to extremism by the influence of their respective bases. The result: American government is paralyzed by partisanship, essentially ignoring the beliefs and issues that matter to the moderate majority of the nation.
Encouraged by the immense potential of the internet for grassroots mobilization, the campaign intends to hold a nominating convention online in early 2008 to select its ticket. The ‘primary’ will be open to all American voters. Although no one has officially declared candidacy yet, some names being thrown around include Sen. Lieberman, Rudy Guliani, Chuck Hagel, Michael Bloomberg, Mark Warner, Wes Clark, and—implausibly enough—John McCain, whom the media still insists on calling a moderate.
If Unity 08 supporters think that the government is unproductive now, they should wait until they put a split ticket in office. The last time this happened, during the election of 1796, which resulted in a Federalist President (Adams) and a Democratic-Republican VP (Jefferson), strife within the executive branch was disastrous, resulting in the 12th Amendment which ensured that such a situation wouldn’t occur again. Furthermore, they assume that there is some sort of parity between the two positions, which is obviously part of the truth. Unless two independents are nominated, the Unity ticket will inevitably represent the moderate wing of one of the two major parties.
Despite their claim that they represent the centrist majority of Americans, like all third parties in America’s winner-take-all electoral system, the Unity 08 ticket will, at most, play the role of spoiler (Perot in ’92, Nader in ’00, etc). Given its reformist mentality, general idealism, and emphasis on corruption, climate change, and dependence on foreign oil, it’s a safe bet to say that Unity will siphon most of its votes from the Democrats.
This is particularly evident when you consider that the controversial social issues it avoids addressing—abortion, gay marriage, and gun control, for example—are powerful wedge issues which drive Republicans, more than Democrats, to the polls.
Loyal Democrats have no reason to fear, however—the Unity ticket is destined to play a minor role, if any at all, in 2008. Decrying the role that special interests play in electoral politics, Unity plans to run solely with private donations. The problem with this plan, though, is that moderates, lacking a strong ideological drive, are the least likely to donate.
Furthermore, while Americans and the media repeatedly disparage the politics of negativity and personal attacks, calling for a more substantive debate, they repeatedly reward these tactics at the voting booth.
Another problem with running an issue-based campaign is that Unity 08 doesn’t actually have concrete positions on them. Sure, they call for bipartisanship and attention to the ‘crucial issues’, but they don’t actually take a stand on any of them. Appealing to disillusioned, generally apathetic voters, Unity 08’s central platform seems to ask: Can’t we all just get along?
No.
We can’t.
Despite its trivial nature, politics deals with serious issues which many Americans passionately disagree on and cannot simply be ignored. It is a forum where people of different philosophies wage ideological warfare, and the means through which our nation comes to a consensus on its core values and priorities. Perhaps this is just the viewpoint of one bitter partisan, but I don’t see anything admirable about conciliatory centrism, particularly when the decisions of our government can mean the difference between life and death.
Our government is far from being truly democratic, and elections are often determined by the most superficial aspects of politics, a vague, warm-and-fuzzy call for harmony is no solution. Yet, while it is easy and fashionable to spout clichés criticizing partisanship, negative campaigns, the overwhelming advantage of incumbency, and the inevitable influence of money on government, it is much harder to come up with constructive policies to improve health care & education, reduce the budget deficit, and make our democracy more representative. It’s even more difficult to do so without disagreement.
One of the reasons that money, incumbency, and superficiality frequently carries the day in politics is because so many people buy into the ignorant maxim, spouted by naysayers such as the Unity 08 crowd, that there’s no difference between the two major parties. Instead of issuing fruitless calls for unity and adding to the unproductive chorus of discontent, they should help voters see past the mudslinging by showing apathetic Americans that despite the medium, the government matters.
As a fellow partisan once said, “Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
With just a week left in the campaign, and almost all experts predicting huge Democratic gains in Congress, the Republicans pounced on a misstatement yesterday by Sen. John Kerry in which he told an audience of college kids to study and work hard or else they could end up “stuck in Iraq”. As it turns out, this was actually just a mangled version of one of Kerry’s favorite lines from the campaign trail: “Do you know where you end up if you don't study, if you aren't smart, if you're intellectually lazy? You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq.”
True to form, critics from all reaches of the desperate GOP pounced on this bit of fresh meat, blasting Kerry for this seeming insult to the mental capacities of our troops and trying to discredit the entire party by association. House Majority Leader Boehner (R-OH) applied the usual Karl Rove attack formula:
These Americans who are risking their lives in the fight against terrorism in Iraq deserve better than to have their service demeaned by a United States senator. Our soldiers need John Kerry's support, yet John Kerry offers nothing more than disparaging commentary.
As if it wasn’t easy enough to see through this last-ditch election smear, Boehner went on to call on all Democratic candidates to denounce the comment. Amid a media firestorm and myriad calls for an apology, Kerry pulled an October surprise of his own. In an uncharacteristically bold and unapologetic response, Kerry went on the offensive:
If anyone thinks a veteran would criticize the more than 140,000 heroes serving in Iraq and not the president who got us stuck there, they're crazy. This is the classic G.O.P. playbook. I'm sick and tired of these despicable Republican attacks that always seem to come from those who never can be found to serve in war, but love to attack those who did.
I'm not going to be lectured by a stuffed suit White House mouthpiece standing behind a podium, or doughy Rush Limbaugh, who no doubt today will take a break from belittling Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's disease to start lying about me just as they have lied about Iraq. It disgusts me that these Republican hacks, who have never worn the uniform of our country lie and distort so blatantly and carelessly about those who have.
The people who owe our troops an apology are George W. Bush and Dick Cheney who misled America into war and have given us a Katrina foreign policy that has betrayed our ideals, killed and maimed our soldiers, and widened the terrorist threat instead of defeating it. These Republicans are afraid to debate veterans who live and breathe the concerns of our troops, not the empty slogans of an Administration that sent our brave troops to war without body armor.
Bottom line, these Republicans want to debate straw men because they're afraid to debate real men. And this time it won't work because we're going to stay in their face with the truth and deny them even a sliver of light for their distortions. No Democrat will be bullied by an administration that has a cut and run policy in Afghanistan and a stand still and lose strategy in Iraq.
YES!!! Where was this John Kerry in ’04?!
I was so excited I could’ve chest-bumped the junior senator from Massachusetts. While the incident will probably still do the Democrats more harm than good, Kerry’s resolute counter-attack signaled that he and the party have learned from past defeats; that the Republicans aren’t going to get away with attacking our patriotism or commitment to national security any more.
In perhaps the most impressive four-minute speech the Senator has ever given, he attacked the blatant hypocrisy of the Republican Party. Kerry showed Democrats how to fight back, even in the face of a glaring mistake, and inspired the party to stay on the offensive straight through Election Day. He also made a strong case for another run in ’08, inspiring the party faithful and going out of his way to demonstrate that he has learned his lesson from the ’04 campaign, claiming that he will not let the Republicans “swift boat” him again.
This episode will undoubtedly remind Democrats of our last presidential candidate, who, following a heartbreaking electoral defeat, similarly decided to grow a pair. Or perhaps, in the spirit of the holiday, Sen. Kerry was pretending to be someone else.
Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) resigned Friday after an ABC news report revealed that he had engaged in inappropriate internet conversations with several male pages, dating back at least as far as 2001. Foley, a 6-term Congressman who considered a bid for the Senate in 2004, at first vehemently denied allegations of wrongdoing when the creepy yet relatively ambiguous emails were first published on Friday. A spokesman for the Congressman initially argued that the emails were merely taken out of context by his Democratic opponent, Tim Mahoney, and were part of a “political smear campaign of the worst sort…to smear a good man”.
Though the initial emails were relatively tame, the disturbing instant message conversations published a short time later left no doubt as to Foley’s intentions. Following are a few excerpts of conversations between Foley, writing under the screen name Maf54 (note the birthday – making him 52 years old) and a page whose identity is being protected:
Xxxxxxxxx (7:41:57 PM): ugh tomorrow i have the first day of lacrosse practice
Maf54 (7:42:27 PM): love to watch that
Maf54 (7:42:33 PM): those great legs running
Maf54 (8:03:47 PM): what you wearing
Xxxxxxxxx (8:04:04 PM): normal clothes
Xxxxxxxxx (8:04:09 PM): tshirt and shorts
Maf54 (8:04:17 PM): um so a big buldge
Maf54 (8:04:58 PM): love to slip them off of you
Maf54 (8:08:31 PM): get a ruler and measure it for me
Xxxxxxxxx (8:08:38 PM): ive already told you that
Maf54 (8:08:47 PM): tell me again
Absolutely disgusting. But the fun doesn’t end there. As it turns out, Foley’s not only a pervert but also a hypocrite, having built a record in Congress around protecting children from sexual predators. He served as Co-chair of the Missing and Exploited Children Caucus, sponsored the Internet Stopping Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Today’s Youth (SAFETY) Act, and wrote the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006. Perhaps it was his in-depth research that allowed him to confidently warn, on Internet Safety Day in 2004, that the internet had become “a new medium for pedophiles to reach out to our most vulnerable citizens --America's children”. In a stroke of poetic justice, these same laws will likely now be used to put this internet predator in jail.
As if Foley hasn’t already done enough damage to the Republican Party by tarnishing its self-touted ‘family values’ image, his seat—which was considered a safe bet for Republicans—is now up for grabs. Since Election Day is only 5 weeks away, it is too late for Republicans to replace his name on the ballot. Sure, they can run another candidate, but in order to win that candidate will have to get 51% of his district to mark a spot with Foley’s name on it—an unlikely scenario. Furthermore, over the weekend reports surfaced that Republican leadership, including Speaker Dennis Hastert, House Majority Leader Jim Boehner, and RCCC Chairman Thomas Reynolds have known about a recent inappropriate relationship with a page since last spring.
It is too early to tell just how much damage this pervert is going to cause the Republican Party, but if you’ll allow me to conclude cynically, one thing is almost certain:
14 seats to go.
In the latest in a series of political blunders, the Republicans' push for immigration reform has backfired on the party. In December, when the GOP first called attention to illegal immigration, it was commonly viewed as a winning electoral strategy; it would fire up their increasingly apathetic conservative base in addition to giving congressional Republicans an accomplishment to tout in their re-election bids. By appealing to security fears and the xenophobia of groups like the Minutemen (for whom legitimate immigration ended the moment their anscestors arrived), they predicted that it would be the wedge issue of the midterm elections (think gay marriage in 2004). Furthermore, anything that would take media attention away from a disastrous war, unpoplar president, numerous criminal investigations, etc., was viewed as a blessing.
And so, House Republicans passed HR4437, a testament to the complexity and innovation of Republican thought: "I've got it...lets build a really big wall!" To be fair, the bill contains other equally horrible ideas. For example, it outlaws aid to those immigranting illegally (thus criminalizing numerous church groups and Amnesty which provide food and water to people crossing the harsh Southwestern desert) and most horrendously, makes illegal immigration a felony. Lets ponder that last one: so we're not going to let them stay here and work and pay taxes, nor are we going to send them back to Mexico; we're going to spend tax dollars to keep them in prison, then deport them. Fantastic.
However, the millions who have protested in recent weeks in 140 cities accross the country demonstrated the importance of this issue to the Latino community and their ability to unite and mobilize into a potent political force. By stressing their hard work, intense patriotism, and the central importance of immigration in the history of America, illegal immigrants and their supporters have elicted sympathy for their cause and gained support for a more lenient measure which includes a path to citizenship for those who pay their taxes and obey the law.
Not only are the Republicans now facing legislation that will likely be more lenient than if they never broached the topic of illegal immigration in the first place, but their strategy is likely to result in electoral gains for the Democrats as well. Hispanics are the fastest growing voting bloc in the country, and despite Bush's dream of making them a Republican constituency, vote blue two thirds of the time. An explosive issue like this has the potential to increase turnout among the Latino population (which is among the lowest in the country) and make it a solid Democratic constituency for a generation. Analysts predict that Hispanic voters will help swing the southwest to the Dems by the 2012 election.
Immigration has become a lose-lose issue for Republicans. On one hand, they face letting down their conservative base with too lenient a bill, while on the other they risk alienating an entire voting bloc, not to mention the fact that their financial base in the business isn't eager to see cheap labor get deported. Enjoy the show.
