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The ABCs of the GOP: M is for…

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Marginalization

This week’s 2012 Republican National Convention was meant to be a spectacle of all things GOP. It’s the one time of the year when the party’s best and brightest, young and old come together to celebrate what it means to be “Republican”. By all accounts, RNC 2012 was a success as they have now achieved the two most important tasks of a political party… nominate their candidate for President, and define themselves to the American people through the 2012 Republican Party Platform. Undoubtedly, Mitt Romney gave one of the best speeches of his political career, and the party did it’s duty to officially nominate he and Paul as their new leaders. Mission accomplished.

But there was another (if perhaps unwritten and unspoken) task for this year’s Republican Party as well… it’s to form the most important coalition in the history of the GOP. A coalition to marginalize the party’s moderates and Libertarians in favor of the Tea Party and Religious Right.

Last Sunday’s Ron Paul rally was ground zero for Republican marginalization. Drawing record crowds to the University of South Florida’s Sun Dome in Tampa, the Liberty movement’s “counterconvention” was aptly titled We Are The Future. The vast majority of the crowd was of college age and seemingly had enough enthusiasm to get anyone they wanted into the Whitehouse. Speakers sent grossly mixed messages of encouraging support to Republicans while simultaneously scorning the party for their (probably illegal) ouster of Liberty delegates. But amidst all of the excitement, an ugly contradiction was clear… Ron Paul and his supporters lost. Their dream to be the future was yet again a dream deferred. Just like 2008, the Liberty folks will again sit on the margins of the real GOP, and just be exploited for their youth and initiative.

As the GOP charges toward the Religious Right with most social issues, this is quickly isolating party Moderates. Sure, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and New Mexico Governor Susanna Martinez gave rousing speeches at the convention. This is not to be overlooked, but having a few representatives to show diversity within the party does not excuse the whole.

Take the Conservative LGBT group GOProud… so far the only LGBT Conservative group to fully endorse the Romney/Ryan ticket. Despite their continued attempts to play by the GOP’s constantly-changing rule book, GOProud was marginalized at this year’s RNC in favor of the Far-Right. Once again, the Republican Party committed to “traditional marriage” 100 percent by adopting it as the party platform. But according to GOProud founding member Christopher Barron, that doesn’t matter…

When asked if he could clarify GOProud’s position on the Republican Party platform, this was his response…

Then I asked if GOProud also supports DOMA like the rest of the GOP…

So apparently there’s a disconnect here. The party platform is supposed to be a statement of what that political party believes. It steers the ship towards legislative priorities of the party, and to select candidates for national, state and local offices. Despite Mr. Barron’s claims that “no one reads it”, the GOP 2012 platform will travel home with every delegate, and be given to every campaign chair across the country. The document certainly is important. After all, if the entirety of GOP did NOT support DOMA it wouldn’t be law today. Democrats are the ones fighting against it, NOT Republicans. GOProud can claim what they want, but their party is actively fighting against them. Just as Republicans are fighting against Ron Paul, Rand Paul, Sarah Palin and any other figure that threatens the delicate alliances holding the “big tent” party together. As more Conservatives and Moderates get left out in the cold, is the GOP really a “big tent” party at all? And how long are these growing Conservative forces willing to play a game at which they always lose? How long can sit on the party’s political outskirts before there’s a real revolt?

As RNC 2012 is now in the history books, Mitt Rommey and Reince Priebus can breathe a sigh of relief. But the tense forces within the GOP haven’t lessened… If anything they may be heightened. It’s going to take every bit of strategic intellect to make it through November 6th. And the margin of error couldn’t possibly be any thinner.

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The ABCs of the GOP: K is for

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Karma

When we take a moment to reflect on the past year in American Politics, it’s mostly been a time of focus on the GOP. After all, Democrats have had our 2012 Presidential candidate since the 2008 election. There’s not much of a need for controversy in that party. But relative quiet on one side of the political aisle does not mean we’ve been short of drama… the GOP has gotten VERY good at it all on it’s own. The drama of the Presidential Primaries was particularly intense. But you have to ask… After so many candidates, did the GOP really have to select Mitt Romney? How did this happen?

Sure most of the field was “weak”, and Mr. Romney was well organized and well funded. The few candidates that showed real promise at the start, like Jon Huntsman or Tim Pawlenty, were not able to get much traction out of the gate. Promising future prospects like Chris Christie decided to sit out the 2012 cycle (perhaps not wanting to be thrown to the wolf pack). But as the Republican Party continues to cleanse itself of moderates in favor of the Far-Right, why would they tolerate a “moderate” flip-flopper like Romney to be the leader of their party? The answer is simple: KARMA.

The GOP used to be a party that emphasized small government and fiscal responsibility. But today’s party doesn’t really have a central philosophy. Instead they are caught in a complex web of lies. How can you be for small government when you continue to overfund the Department of Defense… the world’s largest employer? How can you be for fiscal restraint, when you voted to fight two wars without raising even a penny of revenue to fund them? How can you be for further tax cuts for the wealthy, when their taxes are already at historic lows? This is the web that modern Republicans have woven for themselves. As opinion columnist Michael Tomasky of the Daily Beast writes, the GOP now has to lie in order to win a major election. If Republicans told the truth about their real intentions for government, they would be rejected by all for their hypocrisy.

That’s where the karma comes in. Mitt Romney is the closest thing to a sole embodiment of the GOP’s hypocritical history. Romney’s business experience (and his wealth) is basically built from the destruction of thousands of American workers. He became rich because other companies took the advice of Bain Capital, laid off much of their work force, then paid Bain in consulting fees. There’s a big contradiction there considering he’s running for President on his ability to “create American jobs”.

Mr. Romney of course has a public record as well… four years as Governor of Massachusetts. And during that time, his single greatest legislative achievement was the passage of mandatory health care for all Massachusetts residents. Make no mistake, this was Governor Romney’s signature achievement in the Bay State. Listen to him defend his universal health care plan with Fox News’ Neil Cavuto. I Had to transcribe my favorite part here…

Cavuto: “Let me step back from this Governor, if you don’t mind. When people are polled on this issue of universal healthcare coverage, a Fox Poll that we did… 2 out of 3 folks say ‘don’t want it, don’t see the need for it.’ What do you say about that?

Romney: “Well what they don’t recognize is they’ve already got it, and that’s the big surprise. Everybody in this country does get free health care. If people get sick… they go to the hospital and they get treated. And everybody else pays the cost of those individuals if they don’t have health insurance… So we have universal health care. For people that can afford to pay, it’s time for them to step up to the plate.”

The eloquence and conviction with which Mr. Romney defends his plan (to the Fox News audience, no less) is simply shocking. No wonder a symbol for health care is painted into Governor Romney’s official Massachusetts portrait.

Then there’s his time with the Salt Lake City Olympics. No one doubts that the games were a success, but Romney continues to forget HOW he funded those games… from over $1 Billion dollars in GOVERNMENT contracts. Yet today, he decries many public projects as “wasteful spending”. So it wasn’t a waste when he oversaw the funds?

Of course many Republicans are caught in this trap… the ones that publicly bashed the Obama Stimulus as wasteful, but then request portions of the funds for their district. Mr. Romney’s newly minted running mate Paul Ryan was caught red-handed lying about stimulus funds, saying that he never requested any of the money for his district, and even going so far to say “I’m not one who votes for something and then writes to the government to ask them to send us money,”. Actually, he did, so if it’s a test of character, Mr. Ryan would fail almost as quickly as Mr. Romney.

So as karma would have it, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have turned out to be quite the fitting match for their party’s national leadership. Romney is the embodiment of hypocrisy and convolution, While Ryan is the party’s ideology gone wrong. Karma is definitely at play in this year’s Republican Party.

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The ABCs of the GOP… J is for

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JADED

The Republican Party’s greatest asset is unquestionable… Loyalty. The way that the GOP can stay lock-step with it’s leader and deliver a unified assault is something Democrats have never been able to muster. They have mastered a fierce sense of discipline that is enviable even if you disagree with their political position.

But in 2012, that loyalty is now faces its greatest test in presumptive Presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Unlike John McCain, George W. Bush and many GOP leaders of the past, Mr. Romney has one big gaping character flaw… he’s a liar.

I know many people that aren’t paying attention to this race say that the blame is shared by both candidates. I get that… Mr. Obama has lied about some things too, and he’s certainly fallen short of many promises he made from the 2008 campaign. But even still, there is a marked distinction that must be made here. With Obama, he has to at least find explanations for most of the things he says to the American People. One example are the promises of how he was going to improve the economy. Many of those things were actually accomplished under the Democratic Congress, such as a Wall Street reform bill, and the credit card Bill of Rights. Oh yeah, and that little healthcare law that will have long-reaching economic impact. For many of the things he didn’t accomplish, the President can at least say that he tried. And I mean that in all seriousness… remember the American Jobs Act?? It was ripped to shreds by Congressional divisiveness. In my opinion, our nation’s record on jobs is far more a failure of Congress (like so many other issues of today) than it is the President, so it’s difficult to say that he “lied” about the jobs promises.

With Mitt Romney, lying is on a completely different level. I know the words are harsh, but we have to be candid. Clearly Mr. Romney seems to be a good man with a beautiful family, and he’s certainly successful. But even “good people” can be chronic liars. And the sad truth of his campaign is that every step of the way he has lied to suit his (and the party’s) rapidly changing interests. His method of lying goes far beyond campaign promises that are often shot into an uncertain future anyway. With Mitt Romney, we have to question every single aspect of his character as a man. Everything he says is shrouded in lies, and he does it so frequently that he won’t even apologize or explain them. As a result, he really has become this fictional character that was pieced together through hearsay and fable. Romney is something of a Frankenstein of lies, or as I have now deemed him, “FrankenMitt”. His fellow Republicans know this, as they are the ones who first called him out during the GOP Primaries. And as Rachel Maddow pointed out in this clip from March, they did not soften their accusations.

Here’s the problem this represents. Pretend as they may, Republicans know that Mitt Romney is one of the most prolific liars in American political history. We’ve all known this since the Primary race, but for some unexplained reason, this rouse continues. They try to make sense of the situation by saying “Obama lies too” or “all politicians do this” but at the same time they know deep down that Romney’s lies are on a grand scale for even the worst of the worst. For a party that relies so heavily on loyalty and conviction, GOP voters are being forced to take a pill of “anything but”, and hope that somehow it will carry them through election night. But as mounting pressure grows, they know that the days are numbered before Americans learn the truth. So the Pro-Romney folks are forced to go on, stripped of the dignity and pride that carried them through the massive red tide of 2010. The Ron Paul voters (the last few hold-outs against Romney) are now being beaten into submission, and what little enthusiasm they had is sure to go away as well. So what’s left is a jaded party that will never be the same, regardless of who takes the Whitehouse in November.

Make no mistake Republicans… Romney’s the one who jaded you.

Houston Politics

The ABCs of the GOP: D is for

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Distraction

The careful art of distraction has been a central tenet of the GOP campaign strategy. Modern Democrats aren’t as good at the “slight of hand” techniques, but Republicans have it down to a science. So let’s take a look at some of the more popular political distractions waged by the GOP.

Over the course of the Obama Presidency, this tactic has been used with tremendous success.

Believe it or not, Contraception used to be a widely supported issue among both parties. Many Republicans have been openly supportive of Planned Parenthood and family planning… including George H.W. and Barbara Bush, Richard Nixon, and yes, Ronald Reagan. We all know that Mr. Romney is a far cry from the days when he “sustained and supported” not only Contraception, but ABORTION(like the over-sized font there? Distracting, huh?). It wasn’t controversial at all, and candidates like Rick Santorum have always been considered “fringe” political forces. Mitt Romney was at one time in his life a Centrist, and occasionally he’s forgotten this. When asked about his views on a bill that would limit Contraception funding, this was his answer…

“I’m not for that bill, but look, the idea of presidential candidates getting into questions about contraception within a relationship between a man and a woman, a husband and wife—I’m not going there,”

Sounds like a pretty sane thing to say, right? Not anymore, at least by Republican Party standards. The GOP leaders decided that this year, despite decades of voting records to the contrary, Contraception was going to become a mainline distraction. Suddenly people are changing their positions and running to the Right. It leaves voters having to make a choice based on values, and not who would do a better job. They have been willing to sacrifice their own personal opinions or the dynamic views of their 21st century constituents in favor of that all-important directive… DEFEAT OBAMA.

Here’s why we just can’t get rid of Donald Trump. As Lawrence O’Donnell commented on his show, Trump is being used by Romney and the GOP to do the party’s “dirty work”. After all of the talk of birtherism in 2008, the GOP has revived it to be a distraction in 2012, knowing full well that Americans who voted for Obama last time think the whole thing is ridiculous. But the GOP needs racist and suspicious voters to stay on their side and be active. So instead of engaging on our nations most important issues, they continue to divide and distract by questioning the President’s legitimacy. Of course Mitt Romney’s father ran for President in the 60s and he was born in Mexico. Maybe Mr. Romney would like to explain why he thinks his father should have been President.

Wait, sorry, how did I drift over into that? What were we talking about again??

Perhaps the most controversial of distraction politics is the debt-ceiling debate… you remember right? The one where the GOP held the full faith and credit of the United States hostage unless Democrats agreed to near Draconian government cuts. It seemed ludicrous at the time, but the GOP fought hard and got much more of what they wanted than Democrats. Now this debate was and will be a distraction on a grand scale, but it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the American people. It’s actually about a debate within the Republican party itself. 20 years ago, there were too many level-headed people in Washington to be able to do something like this. Remember that most of the contention over the debt-ceiling in the final hours was between House Republicans. Boehner actually brought the bill up for several votes, only to have it fail by his own Caucus. When you have defeats on that large scale, it’s understandable that the party would rather wage massive distractions so that voters spend more time looking at the President’s faults, and maybe, hopefully forget how much of a mess the GOP has become.

But of course all of these distractions are much more than just insults lodged via Twitter or the latest fodder for Fox News. They are occurring among the 536 most powerful people in our country. If Congress doesn’t raise the debt ceiling, millions of people will lose money, some people will lose their job, and endangered seniors will have even harder choices to make as they near retirement. When you’re a nationally elected official, even the distractions could have major consequences. And in the case of the GOP, that is their intention. The debt ceiling distraction was designed to make our government operate at a continuous crisis point in order to weaken Obama’s ability to govern. It is MUCH more than ideological disagreements at play here. What the Republicans want us to believe is that the Democrats are unreasonable, but in reality they are the ones holding the government gun to our heads. Brilliant political strategist Dick Morris designed this playbook. He has experience on both sides of the political aisle, and back in 2011 he calculated the results of these fights with distinct accuracy. BTW, the BEST thing Liberals can do for themselves? Watch Newsmax TV…

There you have it… the exact motivations behind the debt-ceiling debacle, and why we’re about to fight it again. BRILLIANT.

So why do they even need all of these distractions in the first place? Do they really hate President Obama as much as they say they do??

The answer is coming up with letter “E”