The Risk Of GOP Obstructionism

GOP is addicted to the negativity that is killing its candidates

Hard as it is to believe, the political right is looking uglier (right-wing domestic terrorists) and uglier (rooting for Iranian nutcase Mahmoud Ahmadinejad). One of the Republican sociopaths is even screeching today in the party newspaper that Obama should cancel the minimum wage hike, long a GOP bugaboo. They love CEOs getting big bonuses but hate it when working families can afford to eat. And, of course, the entire Republican Senate caucus is opposing health care reform, the single most important issue facing American families today.

Republicans bitterly oppose the public insurance option, saying it would undermine the private insurance industry and lead to a national health insurance system. Some conservative Democrats also are skeptical of the public plan option, even as they and Baucus support Obama’s overall reform goals.

Senate Republicans under pressure are Charles Grassley (IA) the ranking Republican on the Finance Committee who has publicly denounced a government-run insurance plan (while taking over $2 million in so-called "donations" from the Medical-Industrial Complex and Big Insurance), Olympia Snowe (ME) the only Republican who withheld her name from a recent GOP letter blistering Obama’s support for the public plan, Pat Roberts (KS), a die-hard obstructionist, and Mike Enzi (WY), a Finance Committee member and the ranking Republican on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee who has signaled the potential for a deal despite his recent sharp criticism of the Democrats’ handling of the legislation. Also getting pressured are Susan Collins [ME], Mike Crapo [ID], Orrin Hatch [UT], Lisa Murkowski [AK] and Lamar Alexander [TN], who has taken immense sums-- over $2.5 million-- from Big Insurance and the Medical-Industrial Complex.

Meanwhile the Republican Senate Whip, John Kyl, is still putting his energy into attacking Sonia Sotomayor. Yesterday he "refused to rule out using procedural tactics to stall the confirmation." And KKK supporter Jeff Sessions (R-AL), the ranking member on the Judiciary Committee, specifically chose last month to obstruct the confirmation, "is unlikely to make any decision about trying to slow down the nomination for the next several weeks." Interestingly, all this Republican plotting and obstruction comes right on the heels of a new poll showing that many Americans, especially Hispanics, are building up huge resentments against the Republican Party for this kind of behavior. Even after weeks of vile, racist attacks by GOP spokespersons from Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly to Jim DeMint, Michael Steele and Mitt Romney, only 21% of Americans say they're not certain whether or not she should be confirmed. And the poll reveals a real danger for the GOP if they persist in their negative strategy:

37 percent of the general population and 42 percent of Hispanics said they'd feel less favorably toward the Republican Party if Senate Republicans "overwhelmingly oppose" Sotomayor, 54, a Latina federal appellate judge from New York.

The consistent attacks on Judge Sotomayor are likely to cause the Republicans serious damage in states where they had hoped to make inroads among Hispanics: Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado and New Jersey, each of which has important electoral races coming up next year the GOP is starting to realize they may be blowing.