Republican Ultra-Partisanship Turning Off Voters

In the backdrop of stunning new poll results showing the American people increasing their approval of President Obama and increasing disdain for Republican "leaders"-- which followed yesterday's polling about increased optimism on the economy since Bush left the White House and a renewed sense of pride in the U.S. on the heels of Obama's triumphant trip overseas trip (including today's surprise visit to American troops stationed in Iraq)-- Republicans can't come up with anything except narrow political strategies for bickering. And they're not just bickering with Democrats; they're bickering amongst themselves-- which pushes the party further and further off an ideological cliff to a place fewer and fewer Americans are willing to take seriously.

Virginia reactionary Eric Cantor is one member who is fighting other Republicans as he claws his way to the top of the shattered party and is trying to out-nasty even Gingrich in his tactics on the House floor. Cantor has recruited a team of the worst reactionary obstructionists-- knuckle-draggers like Virginia Foxx, Louie Gohmert, Mormon cultist Jason Chaffetz, KKK dragon Paul Broun, Kevin McCarthy, John Boozman and Patty McHenry-- he could find to try to embarrass freshman Democrats. The goal: creating Gotcha YouTubes. Cantor "has created a photo album to help identify the 42 most vulnerable Democrats. The aides send daily e-mails to the members of the attack team and alert lawmakers when these targeted members are speaking on the floor. They even draft quick scripts to help focus the questioning." Then they move in with their harassing tactics.

Of course, these attacks don’t always work out. Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly, a veteran of party politics, quickly turned a Chaffetz challenge against his attacker. The Utah freshman also appeared flustered when Kilroy left the floor recently as he launched another line of questioning about her AIG vote.

And Cantor isn't the only extremist Virginia pol mired in mud and political filth. Remember last week when we mentioned in passing how the lunatic fringe Virginia Republican Party chairman Jeff Frederick was ousted by his own party? Apparently Dracula refuses to die. In a battle against Cantor and the GOP's extremist gubernatorial nominee, Robert McDonnell, Frederick says he'll run again for the chair in May, even though he was kicked out of office by an overwhelming 57-18 vote.

Frederick said in an interview that he does not think the party's leaders, McDonnell among them, will be able to turn around years of Republican losses in Virginia.

"I'm very concerned about the party's ability to win in the fall," Frederick said. "The current track we are on will not provide the results that we need."

This year, Republicans hope not only to win back the governor's mansion but also to keep two other statewide seats and retain control of the House of Delegates.

Frederick, 33, a conservative delegate from Prince William County, acknowledged that his pursuit of the party chairmanship could distract from McDonnell's campaign. But Frederick blamed McDonnell and other Republican elected officials for intervening. "What they need to figure out is, they are not the party," Frederick said. "I'm sick of things being run from the top down."

Frederick is so angry that he may run as a third party candidate for governor. I guess he's counting on Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh being able to continue spreading Obama Derangement Syndrome. As Media Matters points out, "Since President Obama's inauguration, Rush Limbaugh has made numerous baseless and ominous claims warning of what will happen if the United States adopts either Obama's policies or those pushed by other progressives, often while invoking fears of rising socialism, communism, and tyranny." The public isn't only not buying into the meme, it's turning in increasing numbers against Republicans in office-- and not just devoted Limbaughites like Canter, Boehner, Ryan and Hensarling but even against Republicans who privately detest Limbaugh and Beck and Coulter and who, like Judy Biggert (R-IL), are now contemplating retirement from an increasingly unpleasant Republican congressional caucus.

But who knows what will happen by 2010. Maybe every precedent in history will reverse itself and obstructionist Republican incumbents like Jim Bunning (KY) will turn around their polling numbers. Generally this close to an election, an incumbent is judged as "walking dead" if the approval rating is just a few points under 50%. In recent elections not a single Republican Senate incumbent has won under those circumstances. So what do you make of Bunning's 28% favorable rating? Match-ups show that he would lose to any plausible Democratic candidate who's talked about jumping in-- Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo, Attorney General Jack Conway, state Auditor Crit Luallen or Rep. Ben Chandler. Mitch McConnell, who hates Bunning and is pressuring him to retire, was overheard telling John Cornyn that a gay black dwarf with a "D" on his chest could beat Bunning at this point.




UPDATE: Barney Frank Weighs In On Cantor's Divisive Tactics

In response to a question from John Amato at C&L's live blog session with the chairman today, Barney had this to say: "The effort to embarrass freshman Democrats is a major occupation of the House Republicans because it fills a vacuum – the vacuum created by their unwillingness and ideologically rooted inability to participate in making constructive policy. And it’s not just freshman Democrats they are trying to trap. I spoke at the Kennedy School at Harvard on Monday night and a conservative law student asked me a question, as if it was his spontaneous idea, which was in fact a right wing talking point – I had been asked exactly the same oddly worded question in exactly that form by Members of the Republican Congressional hit squad the week before. This was either a remarkable coincidence or part of an effort to get me to pull a George Allen. By the way, the question was, Am I responsible for the subprime crisis because it happened on my watch? I.E. after I became Chairman on January 31st, 2007. My response was that I did not feel responsible because once I was the Chairman the House passed tough legislation to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; to ban irresponsible subprime loans; to put restraints on runaway executive compensation; and to create a code of unfair and deceptive practices to be used in restraining banks. This part of my answer was generally omitted when the right wing propaganda machine ran excerpts. The entire interchange will soon be available and we will post the link at www.house.gov/frank."

Republicans Digging Their Political Graves With A Policy Of Obstructionism

It's no coincidence that job approval ratings for congressional Republicans are in single digits. Most Americans are furious that the concerted strategy of all obstructionism all the time, orchestrated by unsavory characters like Rush Limbaugh, John Boehner and Jim DeMint who would rather see America fail than Obama succeed, is hindering progress on the president's plans for digging the nation out from under the mess Bush and his GOP-- and Blue Dog-- allies in Congress dug for us. All the talk about violence and revolution probably isn't helping much either. Yesterday former Labor Secretary Robert Reich was one of the first to admit it: the Bush Recession is now the Bush Depression.

The March employment numbers, out this morning, are bleak: 8.5 percent of Americans officially unemployed, 663,000 more jobs lost. But if you include people who are out of work and have given up trying to find a job, the real unemployment rate is 9 percent. And if you include people working part time who'd rather be working full time, it's now up to 15.6 percent. One in every six workers in America is now either unemployed or underemployed.

Every lost job has a multiplier effect throughout the economy. For every person who no longer has a job and can't find another, or is trying to enter the job market and can't find one, there are at least three job holders who become more anxious that they may lose their job. Almost every American right now is within two degrees of separation of someone who is out of work. This broader anxiety expresses itself as less willingness to spend money on anything other than necessities. And this reluctance to spend further contracts the economy, leading to more job losses.

Capital markets may or may not unfreeze under the combined heat of the Treasury and the Fed, but what happens to Wall Street is becoming less and less relevant to Main Street. Anxious Americans will not borrow even if credit is available to them. And ever fewer Americans are good credit risks anyway... This is still not the Great Depression of the 1930s, but it is a Depression. And the only way out is government spending on a very large scale.

But all we get from GOP "leaders," whether Boehner, Cantor, Pence, Ryan, Miss McConnell, Kyl, Cornyn or "Bobby" Jindal, is blatant political game playing and destructive obstructionism. The newest GOP game is keeping large numbers of critical Obama appointments from being confirmed.

Yesterday the Republican Party of Virginia was savvy enough to fire its hapless state party chairman, twittering extremist Jeffrey Frederick, a die-hard and hysterical obstructionist-- in a state that Obama won, and where two Senate seats and three House seats went from red to blue in the last couple of cycles.

Virginia Republicans ousted their embattled chairman Jeffrey M. Frederick Saturday at a tense meeting that left the party bitterly divided as its leaders try to staunch years of election losses and head into the state's crucial November elections.

Frederick's dismissal came after he repeatedly refused to resign despite public requests from nearly every top-ranking Republican officeholder in Virginia. They accused him of incompetence and mismanagement.

But at the heart of the dispute is a struggle that is tormenting Republicans both in the state, and nationally -- whether to rigidly pursue an agenda dominated by conservative social issues or to reach out to more moderate voters with a pledge to focus on economic issues. The conflict has split the party and overshadowed Republican efforts to win back the governor's mansion in a campaign that is viewed by many to be a critical harbinger for the national elections in 2010.

Meanwhile the Democratic Party is starting to mobilize against the obstructionists-for-obstruction's sake in Congress. The DCCC has targeted 35 districts across the country represented by Republicans in the House of Representatives that were won by Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election.

The vulnerable California districts with Republican representatives that were won by Obama are those of Reps. Dan Lungren of Gold River (Sacramento County), Mary Bono-Mack of Palm Springs, David Dreier of San Dimas (Los Angeles County), Elton Gallegly of Thousand Oaks (Ventura County), Brian Bilbray of Solana Beach (San Diego County), John Campbell of Newport Beach (Orange County), Ken Calvert of Riverside and Howard "Buck" McKeon of Santa Clarita (Los Angeles County), the committee says.

But it's not just California. Around the country, these are the Republican obstructionists who are in trouble; the percentages are the final Obama/McCain scores in the CD:

Mike Castle (R-DE)- 62/37%
Bill Young (R-FL)- 51/47%
Ileana Ros-Letinen (R-FL)- 51/49%
Tom Latham (R-IA)- 53/45%
Peter Roskam (R-IL)- 56/43%
Mark Kirk (R-IL)- 61/38%
Judy Biggert (R-IL)- 54/45%
Donald Manzullo (R-IL)- 53/45%
Ahn Cao (R-LA)- 74/25%
Dave Camp (R-MI)- 50/48%
Fred Upton (R-MI)- 54/45%
Mike Rogers (R-MI)- 53/46%
Thaddeus McCotter (M-MI)- 54/45%
Erik Paulsen (R-MN)- 52/46%
Lee Terry (R-NE)- 50/49%
Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ)- 54/45%
Leonard Lance (R-NJ)- 51/48%
John McHugh (R-NY)- 52/47%
Pat Tiberi (R-OH)- 53/46%
Jim Gerlach (R-PA)- 58/41%
Charlie Dent (R-PA)- 56/43%
Randy Forbes (R-VA)- 50/49%
Frank Wolf (R-VA)- 53/46%
Dave Reichert (R-WA)- 57-42%
Paul Ryan (R-WI)- 51/48%
Tom Petri (R-WI)- 50-49%
Many of these incumbents-- as well as the ones representing districts where Obama and McCain were tied, like Vernon Ehlers (MI-03), Dean Heller (NV-02), and Steve LaTourette (OH-14)-- are telling themselves that without the burden of as terrible and backwards-looking as McCain, they'll be in better shape. But now the leaders of the GOP are looking even worse than McCain: Sarah Palin, Mark Sanford, Mitt Romney, the Louisiana exorcist, Mike Huckabee, Rush Limbaugh. Maybe they'll trot Fred Thompson or Bob Dole out again; and as unlikely as it seems, Michael Steele could still be considered a party leader in 2010.

The Republican problems are dramatized in areas like [California's CD-03], the Sacramento district Lungren represents, which is considered a stalwart of GOP conservatism.

In 2001, the district's voter registration was 54 percent Republican, 34 percent Democrat, and 13 percent "decline to state," [non-partisan political analyst Allan] Hoffenblum said.

His latest analysis shows that the same district has lost nearly 30 percent of its GOP base and is now 40 percent Republican, 38 percent Democrat and 18 percent decline-to-state.

There, as in other regions of California, "Republicans can no longer be elected by Republican alone-- they need crossovers," Hoffenblum said. "The decline-to-states will be a significant factor in the 2010 election cycle."

Those decline-to-state and moderate swing voters voted for Obama because they want change. The Republicans are offering more of what made the mess and, worse yet, obstruction to that change. If the Democrats don't beat arch-obstructionists like Lungren, Calvert and McKeon in California, McCotter, Upton and Rogers in Michigan, Gerlach and Dent in Pennsylvania and Ryan and Petri in Wisconsin, it's because they haven't done an effective job recruiting and financing viable candidates.

And the outlook for the Senate races is similar. Obama won North Carolina and Richard Burr's disapproval ratings are high and getting higher. Democrats are also likely to take red-held seats in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and Ohio, where Obama won, as well as Florida unless Charlie Crist runs, and probably Missouri, where McCain did edge Obama by a narrow margin.

Republicans Search For An Identity As Lunatic Fringe Factions And Ideas Come Under Scrutiny From Virginia To Utah

Battle to the death on the far right fringe of the GOP

With South Carolina's staunchly Republican state legislature abandoning the extreme right partisanship of their lunatic fringe governor to side with President Obama over the Stimulus money for the state's hard-pressed inhabitants, and with Michael Steele seemingly in the midst of a noisy and very public death spiral, what more could go wrong for the Grand Obstructionist Party? Well, forget for a moment that the public-- including most Republican voters-- hold their congressional leaders in low regard and that the "All Obstruction/All The Time" strategy promulgated by John Boehner, Miss McConnell, Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, and Jim DeMint is likely to acerbate Republican electoral losses in the midterms, and focus on the states.

Virginia and Utah have been two bastions of Republican strength. Utah still is but Virginia has been an absolute mess for the GOP in recent years and it's getting worse. After November Republicans had lost their one U.S. Senate seat (as well as the state Senate) and three more congressional seats. And not only had Obama won the state's electoral votes, he came out ahead in two congressional districts still held by Republicans, Frank Wolf's and Randy Forbes', both of whom could be looking at early (forced) retirement if the voters who helped elect Obama don't approve of the mindless obstructionism that Forbes and Wolf have pursued against Obama's plans to solve the nation's economic maladies-- maladies that voters understand were brought on because of Republican policies rubber-stamped by congressmen like Wolf and Forbes.

And just as Virginia gears up for an off-cycle gubernatorial race, the party's controversial and much-disliked state chairman, Jeffrey Frederick-- fresh off single-handedly guaranteeing that the Democrats would remain in control of the state Senate, has been told to get out of Dodge by the 5 remaining Republican congressman, led by the party's right wing enforcer, Eric Cantor, who has staked his own prestige on ousting Frederick. Today's Washington Post:

Virginia Republicans are engaged in an increasingly nasty battle over efforts to oust Del. Jeffrey M. Frederick as state party chairman, reopening long-standing divisions and underscoring the perils facing the GOP as it prepares for this year's governor's race.

The dispute has taken an unexpected turn into full public view as all five of the state's Republican members of Congress sent Frederick a letter Friday asking him to resign immediately instead of facing a no-confidence vote April 4.

"For the good of the Republican Party of Virginia, we write today asking that you step aside as chairman," the congressmen wrote. "Clearly it is the sentiment of the grassroots members of the party to move in another direction... No one will benefit from a protracted battle over the leadership of" the Republican Party of Virginia.

But Frederick, who is accused of mismanagement and incompetence, has continued to fight for his job. "I don't run campaigns to lose," said Frederick, who represents Prince William County in the House of Delegates. "Everyone always underestimates me, but that is fine with me."

The dispute is fast becoming a generational and ideological clash that threatens to destabilize the party when it can least afford it... Party leaders say Frederick is combative and contributed to the party's historic losses last year, when Democrats picked up three congressional seats and Obama carried the state's 13 electoral votes. He made headlines by comparing Obama to Osama bin Laden. And complaints about his management skills have including allegations that he steered party business to a company he owns.

"It is very clear that most of the party has lost confidence in Jeff's leadership and we have exhausted every other remedy," said Mike Thomas, the GOP vice chairman.

So what about Utah? Mormons, overwhelmingly, vote whichever way their cult leaders tell them to vote. The Mormons in the Utah theocracy delivered McCain his biggest victory of any state (tied with Wyoming, another state filled with Mormons). But today's NY Times reports trouble in Republicanville even in robotic Utah. The state's respected Republican governor, Jon Huntsman, have put the radical right kooks who control Utah politics on the defensive.

In addition to leading the fight to change the liquor law, he has embraced President Obama’s stimulus plan, restated his support for a cap-and-trade system of carbon emissions and announced support for legislation that would provide civil unions for gay couples.

...The new Republican direction is not going to come out of Congress, he said, or “empty rhetoric,” but from a handful of Republican governors who must compete in a “meritocracy of ideas” that voters will sort out for themselves.

“The party will be well served by looking at some of these examples of success,” Mr. Huntsman said, “whether it’s Louisiana or Minnesota or Vermont or California, where things are being done.”

...In February, for example, when the governor announced that he would support civil unions for gay couples, many politicians here braced for a backlash.

Utah voters had approved an amendment to the State Constitution in 2004 banning same-sex marriage or anything that might approximate it, and one opinion poll by Mason-Dixon Polling and Research in January said 70 percent of Utahans still opposed civil unions.

But the backlash never developed. Indeed, after his announcement, a poll by Deseret News/KSL-TV found that two-thirds of respondents said their opinion of the governor had not changed or had become more positive because of his position on civil unions. Over all, the governor’s approval rating had barely budged, with 80 percent of residents saying they thought he was doing a good job.
Numbers like that could bolster Mr. Huntsman’s position in the next legislative fight with his party’s most conservative elements.

“I do not think the base of the Republican Party of Utah has traveled with the governor-- at least not yet,” said State Representative David Clark, a Republican from Santa Clara and the speaker of the House. “He’s clearly on a new frontier.”

Virginia kook Frederick got one thing right-- in summing up the struggle the Republicans are going through to find an identity: "Anytime a party spends its time and energy battling its own, it's losing."

Today's Funniest News Story Comes From Virginia-- How Twitter In The Hands Of Imbecile Jeff Frederick Foiled The Idiotic Repugs

That whacky Ralph Northam beat incumbent loon Nick Rerras and then almost tossed the state Senate back to the Repugs

Virginia has gotten bluer and bluer in the last few years, accelerating as the consequences of the Bush Republican Economic Miracle has unfolded. In 2006 Jim Webb ousted incumbent wingnut Senator George "Macaca" Allen 1,172,671 to 1,165,440. This past November, though, Virginia delivered beautifully for the Democrats, with Obama winning the state's 13 electoral votes-- 1,958,370 to 1,726,053 (a six percent spread)-- and Virginians electing a second Democratic senator-- this one, ex-Governor Mark Warner by a landslide over Republican ex-Governor James Gillmore, 2,367,716 to 1,232,480. At the same time, Virginians dumped two far right lunatic fringe incumbents, Virgil Goode and Thelma Drake, for Tom Perriello and Glenn Nye and replaced retiring Republican Tom Davis with Gerry Connolly.

But even with a Democratic governor, Virginia is by no means a safe blue bastion-- not by a long shot. The Republicans control the House of Delegates 53-44 and the 2007 Democratic win in the state Senate, which replaced the GOP 23-17 advantage with a 21-19 advantage for the Democrats, nearly got overturned today. Overturned? Well, sort of. Here's what happened-- and what didn't.

Keep in mind there's a Republican Lt. Governor who would be the tiebreaker. The Minority Leader Tommy Norment persuaded an iffy Democrat, Ralph Northam to vote with the GOP and allow them to take over the chamber. Fortunately pyscho wingnut, eager beaver techofile Republican Party chairman Jeff Frederick ran to Twitter and tweeted away before it happened. Seeing what was coming thanks to Frederick, the Democratic Majority Leader, Dick Saslaw, adjourned the Senate. Democrats then sat down and worked out their differences with Northam and he changed his mind, costing the Republicans control of the state Senate. Hard to believe the GOP kept Frederick after his bizarre antics and extremist rhetoric lost Virginia for McCain. Now people are wondering if his caricature of a bumbling lunatic fringe Republican is just a put-on and he's really a Democratic plant! Shaun Kenney has a great roundup on this story.

This just proves you've got to watch Republicans closely when they're playing with new technologies that they don't understand. At least Frederick's boo-boo actually benefitted Americans. Michigan wingnut Pete Hoekstra's run in with Twitter last week could have had catastrophic consequences.

Virginia Republican Party At The Crossroads-- Lunatic Fringe Or Mainstream Americans?

Virginia Democrats' best year in over 2 generations

2008 will be remembered as a spectacular year for Virginia Democrats, the year Virginia went blue. Obama beat McCain 53-47%. Virginians handed former Democratic governor Mark Warner a mammoth landslide victory over former Republican governor James Gillmore, 65-34%. And freshmen Democratic Congressmen Nye, Perriello, and Connolly have replaced 3 Republican congressmen, giving Virginia's congressional delegation a decidedly blue tinge-- 8-5, including both U.S. Senators.

Virginia Republicans are starting to sift through the ashes and trying to figure out why. The far right base is still in total denial, of course, but pragmatists whose actual job is dealing with getting real people elected to real positions seem certain of one thing: making radical right, lunatic fringe state legislator Jeffrey Frederick state party chairman six months ago was a major mistake. Today's Washington Post points out that many prominent GOP activists want to turn a new page asap-- starting with firing Frederick before he can do any more damage.

The state party's governing body might try to remove Frederick at its meeting at the Homestead Resort in Hot Springs, Va., on Friday or at an unscheduled emergency meeting in the next couple of months, several party sources said.

"He's not the right face for our party," said James Rich, chairman of the 10th Congressional District Republican Committee and a member of the State Central Committee. "There's no credibility there. He's a joke, like something you would see on Jay Leno."

...Longtime Northern Virginia GOP strategist J. Kenneth Klinge, who has been helping elect Republicans in Virginia for more than four decades, sent an e-mail to thousands of activists blaming Frederick for the outcome and calling on him to resign.

"I know a bad chairman when I see one," wrote Klinge, who has also donated to Democrats. "Frederick ranks as the worst state chairman in the history of the Republican Party of Virginia."

Most of the 86 members of the Republican State Central Committee seem inclined to replace Frederick, whose image redo of the Virginia state party made it look like some kind of a backward, racist, homophobic chapter of the KKK. Although some members are more concerned that Frederick was a dismal failure as a fundraiser or that he ignored new technology, most are just embarrassed at his consistent blatant appeals to the hatred and bigotry segment of the base. At one point Frederick compared Obama to bin Laden, saying "both have friends that bombed the Pentagon," a remark he still defends-- and a remark that lost McCain enough support from independents and moderates to guarantee Virginia's 13 electoral votes would go to Obama, the first time a Republican didn't get them in 44 years.