If The GOP Gives Up Its "Get Off My Lawn" Attitude, Will It Still Be The GOP?

Republican

There's a mirror image in the GOP to the ConservaDems who embrace Choice and equality and other social issues but are nearly as conservative and anti-working family as Republicans. We've talked a lot lately, for example, about gay Democrats who get into Congress and are great on LGBT issues but vote with the GOP on their destructive economic agenda. New Dem freshmen Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) and Sean Patrick Maloney (NY) are both gay and each has a breathtakingly horrible voting record on issues important to ordinary working families. They're among the most consistent supporters of Boehner and Cantor among House Democrats. Having totally alienated their own electoral bases, both are likely to lose their seats next year.

The national Young Republicans just had a convention. There were no cross burnings and if they were cheering for Steve King's anti-Hispanic jihad, it was behind closed doors. Many in the organization consider themselves Libertarians and eschew the racism, hatred and bigotry that have crowded out the traditional Greed and Selfishness wing of the Republican Party. Many... but not all. CNN spotlighted a confused gay Republican who fled homophobic Alabama for more tolerant New Hampshire, 27 year old Tyler Deaton. He's clearly from the Greed and Selfishness wing-- but he wants the GOP to accept his and his compatriots' homosexuality. Some do; many don't. They may be Young Republicans... but they are still Republicans.

This evening, Deaton is helping host a reception to raise interest in same-sex marriage issues among Young Republicans, who are gathered in Mobile for their national convention. Deaton is campaign manager for the young conservatives' arm of Freedom to Marry, a national gay rights group.

On Deaton's side of the doorway, things are going well. Deaton and his colleagues have collected more than 50 e-mail addresses-- about a sixth of the total number of conventioneers, he says.

Even among the visitors there are those who do not seem completely comfortable; one man, after exclaiming how great the party is and his hopes for more approval of same-sex marriage, declined to give his name and hustled away at the sign of a reporter's notebook.

It hasn't been much different at the convention as a whole. Despite Freedom to Marry statistics that indicate most Republicans under 50 approve of same-sex marriage, the group hit some roadblocks with convention organizers.

Deaton's group wanted a panel discussion of LGBT issues on the official convention agenda. That request was turned down. It wanted to be a sponsor of the convention. That was also rejected. After deciding to have a reception and booking a slot, the scheduling ended up clashing with gatherings of various state groups.

It's OK, says Deaton, neatly dressed in suit and tie, in a voice that hints of his Southern upbringing.

"We're not in this to make enemies or to fight," he said. Progress, he admits, will take time.

It's a lesson he hopes the GOP is learning.

"The GOP has become too much of a club that defines itself by who it's leaving out," he says. "And I think the GOP has to do a better job of defining itself by its ideas, and letting anybody who shares those ideas come in and be a part of it."

The Republican Party is in a race with the future.

Though it holds power in the House of Representatives and a majority of statehouses, its demographics, for now, are going the wrong direction.

The country is becoming more urban and diverse, two details that favor Democrats. In 2012, blacks and Hispanics overwhelmingly went for the president; Obama also got 55% of the women's vote, 60% of voters under 30 and almost 70% of the vote in cities with 500,000 people or more.

Worse than the numbers is the impression they make. In a recent study, another young GOP group, the College Republicans, put it bluntly: the GOP is seen as "closed-minded, racist, rigid, (and) old-fashioned."

The Young Republicans cut a somewhat different figure than today's national GOP. They're not just younger-- members range from college age to 40-- but less doctrinaire as well, preferring to focus on economics and civic involvement.

..."Social issues should not be the main focus over fiscal issues," says Head, nattily dressed for the convention in a seersucker suit and brown-and-white saddle shoes. "We have a debt problem, we have a health care problem whether you agree or disagree with what's coming, and those are things we should focus on."

He sums it up succinctly: "I'm very involved on the fiscal side, and I'm 'get off my lawn' on the social side."

It's a small-government attitude shared by many youthful conservatives, says Arizona State University professor Donald Critchlow, a historian of the conservative movement.

"There's a very, very strong libertarian voice among the young," he says. "They're very liberal-- if you want to use that term-- on social issues: gay rights, abortion, marijuana and war, those kinds of social issues that would put them on the left side of the spectrum. But they're coming from a libertarian perspective."

These are folks who backed Ron Paul for president, or ended up voting for Obama because they disliked the GOP's stand on social issues, he says.

...There was also plenty of classic conservative red meat to be chewed. Of the handful of vendors' tables, one was sponsored by former Sen. Rick Santorum's organization, Patriot Voices. Another featured flyers from the libertarian Cato Institute for an e-book called "Replacing Obamacare." One man hawked copies of his book, A Time to Kill: The Myth of Christian Pacifism.

Large meetings opened with prayers, some of them in Jesus' name, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. In speeches, there were invocations of Obamacare and the 2009 bailouts, pointed mentions of the IRS, the use of "Democrat" (instead of "Democratic") as an adjective, and proud defenses of states' rights and tax cuts.

For many, the convention was also an opportunity to talk about ways of moving the party forward after the losses of the 2012 election campaign.

The lack of diversity was obvious at the convention's general gatherings. The majority of the 300-plus attendees were men; just a handful were Hispanic or African-American.

The YR's outreach committee has been trying to find ways of expanding the tent. At a discussion, the group suggested appealing to minorities by stressing the GOP's economic message of entrepreneurship and fiscal responsibility.

Outgoing YR Chair Lisa Stickan, an attorney and former prosecutor from Cleveland, believes this is a winning strategy.

"I think there's this misconception that younger people are only looking at social issues," Stickan said. "You have a lot of people graduating college who are in serious debt and are having trouble finding a job, and if you asked them about social issues, they would say, 'I'm having trouble surviving here.'"

...Stickan adds, the GOP has to keep up with the times. That means using Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to stay in touch with voters. The Democrats have been making good use of online media since at least the Howard Dean days; the Republicans are doing better but need to do more, she says.

"The social media, particularly for some low-information voters or younger voters, is important, just to keep up with the trends," Stickan says... Deaton, the gay Young Republican from New Hampshire, hopes that's true. He wants action, not just talk. The concept some national leaders have pushed-- "better messaging"-- drives him up a wall.

"What they're saying is there's actually nothing wrong with the Republican Party. We just don't talk about it the right way," he says. "But the problem is that some of the beliefs are also wrong. I think Americans are hungry for fiscal conservatism. I think, though, that they want a bit of a more humble foreign policy than what the GOP has been offering for the last decade, and they do want the Republican Party to take a new approach on social issues.

"It doesn't just mean repackaging or putting a new label on it," he says. "You have to change the recipe."

...Many of the Latino Young Republicans -- a small but notable group at the convention -- talk about their membership with mixed feelings. On the one hand, they believe in the party's small-government, faith-and-family principles. On the other, they bristle at some of the anti-immigrant talk within the party.

Texas YR official Chris Carmona made the point explicitly at one breakout session. Thanks to party members' harsh words, Republicans are thought of in the Hispanic community as anti-immigrant, anti-family and anti-religious, he observes. "We have an anti-, anti-, anti- image of everything possible in the Hispanic community."

Texas delegate Artemio Muniz expands on that point. Muniz, a 32-year-old from Houston, is the son of illegal immigrants. His family was on welfare, sold chips at the ballpark and took items from trash bins to sell.

"We started at the bottom," he says. "We know what bootstrapping means." His parents were given amnesty as part of a 1986 immigration reform bill signed by Ronald Reagan.

He grimaces when he thinks about how some Republicans treat Latinos.

"I've been at Tea Party meetings where the lady is saying, 'Let's deport them all,' and the lady that's serving her is an illegal immigrant bringing her nacho chips."

There Are Young Republicans... Really

A few days ago Chris Hayes interviewed (above) Alex Smith, national Chair of the College Republican National Committee, an arm of the NRC. He found it interesting that her group spent a great deal of money on an indepth survey and analysis that basically proves her party is alienating young voters at a faster and faster rate. Not just alienating them-- but making them positively loath the party. "Our focus on taxation and business issues," warns the report, "has left many young voters thinking they will only reap the benefits of Republican policies if they become wealthy or rise to the top of a big business. We've become the party that will pat you on your back when you make it, but won't offer a hand to help you get there." When asked for the best way to describe the Republican Party the most common phrases young voters came up with were "close-minded." racist," "rigid," "old-fashioned." Igor Volsky at Think Progress analyzed he analysis. Short version: the College Republicans could have saved there money and spent more effectively on paying college students to not vote.

[A] close reading of the 90-page report finds that young people have strong disagreements with Republican policies-- including large parts of former candidate’s Mitt Romney’s platform-- and are far more likely to support progressive positions. Here are 11 examples:

1. GOP economic polices are to blame for the recession. “Although ‘Republican economic policies’ is the factor least likely to be viewed as playing a major role in causing the crisis, this is mostly due to young Republicans in the sample hesitating to pin blame directly on their own party, and an outright majority of young people still think those Republican policies are to blame-- hardly an encouraging finding.”

2. Lower taxes will not create jobs. "In the August 2012 XG survey, there was not a strong consensus around the virtues of lowering taxes and regulations on business. Only 34% of respondents in that survey thought they’d be better off if the corporate tax rate were lowered, and only 36% thought such a move would make it easier for young people to get jobs."

3. Increase taxes on the wealthy. “Perhaps most troubling for Republicans is the finding from the March 2013 CRNC survey that showed 54% of young voters saying ‘taxes should go up on the wealthy,’ versus 31% who say “taxes should be cut for everyone.”

4. End the attacks on women’s reproductive health. “[T]he issue of protecting life has been conflated with issues around the definition of rape, funding for Planned Parenthood, and even contraception. In the words of one female participant in our Hispanic voter focus group in Orlando, “I think Romney wanted to cut Planned Parenthood. And he supports policies where it would make it harder for a woman to get an abortion should she choose, even if it were medically necessary. That goes head in hand with redefining rape.”

5. Expand universal health care coverage. “Many of the young people in our focus groups noted that they thought everyone in America should have access to health coverage. In the Spring 2012 Harvard Institute of Politics survey of young voters, 44% said that “basic health insurance is a right for all people, and if someone has no means of paying for it, the government should provide it.” … As one participant in our focus group of young men in Columbus put it, “at least Obama was making strides to start the process of reforming health care.”

6. Provide comprehensive immigration reform. “The position taken most frequently by young voters was that “illegal immigrants should have a path to earn citizenship,” chosen by 35% of respondents… Some 19% chose “illegal immigrants should be deported or put in jail for breaking the law,” while another 17% took the position that “illegal immigrants should have a path to legal status but not citizenship.”

7. Cut the defense budget first. “Indeed, a large number of respondents pointed to the defense budget as the place where cuts should start. In the survey, 35% of respondents thought that “we should have a smaller defense budget and leaner military,” including 49% of young independents.”

8. Democrats are more responsive on student loans. “Many focus group members did think that Democrats were responding to the student loan crisis. “I think they’re more in tune to what we need right now with student loans, getting a job, fixing the housing market and the environment,” observed one participant from Orlando, with another adding that he had “heard Obama once say, oh, he has student loans, he went to school, he knows what we’re going through.”

9. Climate change is real. “Ultimately, while voters may say they are concerned about climate change, they rarely list it among the issues on the top of their minds.”

10. Bush’s wars blew up the deficit. “The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan themselves, however, were largely viewed as having been a net negative for the U.S. In fact, during focus group discussions about the recession, one respondent said she felt that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had contributed in part to the economic crisis.”

11. Marriage equality for all. “Surveys have consistently shown that gay marriage is not as important an issue as jobs and the economy to young voters. Yet it was unmistakable in the focus groups that gay marriage was a reason many of these young voters disliked the GOP.”

Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson also went through the analysis with a fine tooth comb. Hos most notable conclusion: "It is not that young voters are enamored of the Democratic Party. They simply dislike the Republican Party more."

And when younger voters-- not counting young neo-Nazis or young racists-- wind up liking a Republican-- invariably a libertarian type-- the Republican Establishment can't figure out how to deal with that person. Justin Amash (R-MI)-- often dubbed "the new Ron Paul"-- has a following among young conservatives. So Boehner kicked him off all his committees to teach him a lesson about being more of the kind of a Republican zombie that young people despise. Only 8 Republicans bucked Boehner and Cantor to vote against the Republican plan to double the interest rate on student loans-- and most of them are far right fanatics (like Louie Gohmert, Tom Cotton, Tom Graves and Marlin Stutzman) voted no because they thought the Republican policy wasn't harsh enough!

Most young voters see this is a typical Republican

Charlie Dent Staffer, College Young Republican President Caught Inciting Racial Hatred

Yesterday, a young Democratic friend of mine from Pennsylvania was talking with me about his plans to run for Congress in a few years. Although he's currently working for the federal government in Washington, DC, his roots in his district are strong and deep. In fact, one of the biggest towns in the district, Kutztown, gets its name from his family. That town is also the home of a university and it is conceivable that my friend will one day be running for Congress against, Adam LaDuca the current fired president of that school's College Republicans (who is also the just fired Executive Director of the PA Federation of College Republicans).

The Pennsylvania Progressive has done yeoman's work in helping LaDuca get his Republican message out to everyone in Pennsylvania so that no one is in doubt as to what the College Republicans, both at Kutztown University and throughout the commonwealth, are all about. Let's take a look at some of this year's Facebook postings on the young Republican's site:

From Facebook:  Sunday, July 27, 2008 at 6:41pm
Obama and McCain, what a wonderful matchup for this November, right? Wrong. On the contrary, it features one man of honor and intellect, someone who doesn't care WHAT people think of him (that would be McCain) against a man with nothing more than a dumbass with a pair of lips so large he could float half of Cuba to the shores of Miami (and probably would.)

4:25pm on August 1st, 2008
I'm sure his penis is bigger than mine too? Want to discredit the biological fact that blacks have larger lips than a white boy like me, might as well discredit all of them! :) See, now watch. You will say I am discussing such obscene things (blah blah blah)...it's all in humor

August 1st, 2008
Biologially speaking, the larger set of lips can be traced to a few different areas. First of all, it is to be noted that not ALL blacks have larger lips than whites (just like there are some white who actually have quite large lips.)

So here goes: one is that poorer Africans generally have been found to breastfeed. The placement of the lips on the mother's breast creates a larger lip that separates from the gum more clearly than a white's.

Another thought is that, since thick lips are a dominant phenotype to thin lips and that this genetic trait is found more often in blacks/African Americans.

A third still, is that lips are a type of air conditioning for the body. As warm air passes over the moist lips, the air is cooled before going into the lungs. This helps keep the body cool in general. People with ancestors who had come from warmer climates (such as Africa, Cuba, Central America, and the like) generally have larger lips.

I don't remember the source of number 2. I had learned that in a high school biology class. Number 3 I had read in a Western Kentucky Univ. biology lab.

11:42pm on August 1st, 2008
And man, if sayin someone has large lips is a racial slur, then we're ALL in trouble.

Friday, August 1, 2008 at 3:54pm
I made the comment in a prior note "Juuust the Two of Us..." that Obama had "lips so large he could float half of Cuba to the shores of Miami..."

I have had two people now get cranky at me for it, and while I will not flat out retract the story, let me explain this comment. First, a little history on lips and poking fun at people.

While supposedly seen as an insult, it is biologically, physically obvious that blacks/African Americans have lips, of which are larger than a white cracka's like mine.

How this is taken to be offensive, I would not know. Everyone makes fun of McCain for his age and point that he's as shiny as a queball. That would seem like age discrimination to me. Or what about George Bush's ears being so large he looks like Dumbo (and many times takes on the persona of the name itself.)

That is like saying "that man must be Jewish because of his schnoz." I have friends who are Jewish and poke fun all the time. Who cares? So ya have a big nose, it's who you are. And I wore blocks in my shoes when I was little because I had club feet.

Much like I poked fun at a fellow employee for HIS lips (because he was black.) The gal and guy (respectively) couldn't have cared less. Perhaps it's because we are friends and have a mutual understanding we're just bustin' eachother's chops.

6:23pm Monday, Jan 21
There's a lot that many don't see for MLK Jr's hypocrisy. This is why I listed him as a pariah, a fraud, on my facebook status. He supported affirmative action (which does NOT provide equality), he was an adulterous man (as opposed to his Rev. status!)...and the like...see the next few notes (including this one) for more ideas. He stood for a lot, but he also stood for very little.....

6:31pm Monday, Jan 21
MLK had some interesting ideas, but he promoted themin all the wrong ways, for all the wrong reasons, and while being perhaps one of the largest pariahs in American history.

And all of America has fallen for it. Just like those who believe Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson will finally bring together the racial divide in the country. Last time I checked, the reason the racial divide exists is BECAUSE of these two men, the ACLU, and their followers. Just about all of America is not racist. And in human nature, we are all apt to be wary of things (and people) that are different. But to call it, at this point in time, racist, would be a gross misnomer. So if Al and Jesse, the ACLU, and their followers want to change HUMAN NATURE AND PSYCHOLOGICAL INCLINATION, they better look a lot farther ahead than raising millions of dollars for their own sick pleasure

Rather than go on with this-- although you can read more of the sexist, homophobic and racist Republican rantings at The Progressive Pennsylvania site-- I'd like the small handful of anti-Obama racists from West Palm Beach to take a look at what they're joining as they march firmly over to the McCain camp. (LaDuca, by the way, is the Kutztown University campaign coordinator for McCain's Pennsylvania campaign... big surprise. It's where racism lives.)


UPDATE: DENT DENIES ANY KNOWLEDGE OF LaDUCA

I called Sean Millan, Charlie Dent's campaign manager, and he categorically denies that Adam LaDuca is a paid staffer and says he's never heard of him. I can't get a comment out of anyone in Dent's DC office.


UPDATE TWO: WHERE DO YOUNG REPUBLICANS GET THIS SICK RACIST MINDSET?

Well... from old Republicans, their mentors and role models, of course. WorldNetDaily is a Republican Party propaganda operation and Craig Smith's feature, "The Hip-Hop President," is one of the most racist Republican tropes of the season.

I can see it now. Air Force One decked out with "22s" and spinners. Maybe even a set of hydraulics. Watching the hip-hop president in the Oval Office with his baseball cap on backward coping a gansta lean in the big chair. Should be really pimp, don't you think? Cool man, real cool. Instead of giving away presidential cuff links to guests, as is the custom, he will offer "bling bling."

I imagine a whole group of special advisers to the president sitting around the Oval Office discussing policy. Kanye West, 50 Cent and maybe even Eminem (to keep the diversity thing going), all sharing their life experiences with the prez to assist him in understanding his "peeps."

No more press conferences or State of the Union addresses will be necessary. He will text message any comments he has to his public and his pals in the media. When it comes time for the State of the Union, he can just post it on his blog and cc the Daily Kos and the Huffington Post. The first interactive, full-bandwidth prez. How 21st century.

After a few months on the job, he can refer to his cabinet members as his "bitches." Hey don't get angry at me. Take a listen to any hip-hop song, and that is the type of endearing language you will hear. A group of playas that have no respect for the country. The same country that affords them a lifestyle most people only dream of, and all they can do is endlessly complain about it. Barack is very good at putting America down. Just like his hipster homeboys. Remember that hip-hop is a culture, not a color. It's a mind set and a way of life – one that is chosen not inherited. It has been slowly infiltrating every class and race in America for years. A culture that has led people to believe they deserve more. That America somehow owes them something. And because they think they have been ripped off in some fashion, they are angry.

This morning the phone rang at 6:30 AM-- not 3 AM, but still...-- and it was George McElwee, Charlie Dent's chief of staff. He was reading DWT and wanted to let me know that, despite his claims, young Adam LaDuca, doesn't work for the campaign. "I've never heard of him," he claimed. There was no discussion of the racism, homophobia and sexism LaDuca, the Executive Director of the PA Federation of College Republicans, has spent the last year publicly propagating on a Republican website or why Republicans feel that virulent racism is a legitimate part of the political discourse. Maybe that's above his pay-grade and Lehigh Valley residents should ask Charlie Dent about it when they see him.

Young People Fleeing The Republican Party In Droves

Dawn Gibbons hosts a fashion show for Nevada Young Republicans

Yesterday we ran a post about how quite a few males over 50 who still like the same songs they were listening to 30 or more years ago would vote for McCain. Of course the ones who die between now and November won't be voting for McCain. And I bet a lot of the Bill O'Reilly Depends crowd will go vote for McCain too... if they remember. Today's Washington Post, on the other hand, has a story on the woes of Republicans in their 20s. They are the "few and the frustrated."

All the Reagan-worship goes over their head and makes them think their candidates are out-of-it "old fogies." The president of the Young Republicans moaned to the Post that "The Republicans are sort of talking down to Gen-Nexters, not bringing them in... You don't hear Barack Obama going around saying, 'I'm John F. Kennedy.' He's saying, 'I'm Barack Obama.' There's a reason for that. He's inspiring an entire generation, and it's a generation that's trying to change the world in 160 characters or less through text messages."

My friend's aunt is in her 90s and lives in a retirement hope. Like plenty of senior citizens, she's an Internet whiz. She's also an iTunes fanatic and gets great pleasure in turning the other residents on to new music and leading discussion groups. She literally goes on line to find good deals on walkers for her friends. John McCain, on the other hand, seems to think that a computer is some kind of new fangled typewriter he plans to learn sometime after he learns economics. His Internet policies simply don't exist. It's not part of his life, although he's heard about it. He also heard that people are paying a lot for gas nowadays.

The Republican brand, as Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA), said recently, "is in the trash can. I've often observed that if we were a dog food, they would take us off the shelf." And it's even worse among people under 30.

Voters under 30 are more than twice as likely to identify themselves as Democrats, according to the most recent Washington Post-ABC News poll.

...Republicans haven't always been so disconnected. A quarter-century ago, Reagan charmed young voters and won 59 percent of their vote in 1984. In 1992, on the heels of the Reagan Revolution, voters under 30 split their allegiance about evenly between the two major parties. But every presidential cycle since then, Democrats have gained ground. This year, according to the Post-ABC poll, 44 percent of those under 30 call themselves Democrats, and only 18 percent identify as Republicans.

Today's Post also has a fashion story about tattoos. Oh, they must be all those Democrats, you think? Well, they may not be a certain kind of young (Young) Republican but I remember meeting a young man once and getting intimate with him only to discover a huge Nazi eagle and swastika tattoo. We got to discussing it and it turned out that his family had taught him to hate Jews. Asking him if he had ever met any led to the discovery that he had mixed up African-Americans and Jews. This was well before Republican propagandists started claiming Obama is a Jew but my young friend just absolutely knew that every single person of color he ever saw was Jewish. He had inherited his family's bigotry but I'm happy to report that after a summer of friendship he lasered off the swastika. I haven't been in touch with him in a number of decades so I don't know if he's still voting Republican or not; my guess is that he still is.

ANOTHER REPUBLICAN PERVERT CARTED OFF TO PRISON

Earlier today we posted about how Mark Foley (R-FL) is getting off scott free on a legalistic technicality. Nor does it look like any law enforcement agencies are looking into the connection to Patrick McHenry (R-NC) and all the Republican gay porno/escort murders that have been happening all around him. Another Republican rising star ex-rising star, isn't getting off the hook quite as easily, though.

The last we checked in with Michael Flory a Republican lawyer and activist who formerly headed the Michigan Federation of Young Republicans, he had just reversed his earlier claims of innocence and pleaded guilty to raping another Young Republican. When he faced the judged yesterday, Flory emulated one of his heroes, Irving Libby (AKA- "Scooter"), claiming he had already suffered enough and that this kind of justice isn't for people like him. Like every Republican who gets caught doing anything wrong, he blamed alcohol. He also told the judge that "his humiliation and self-destruction should be punishment enough for his guilty plea to a sexual-battery charge."

The judge, Peter Corrigan, must have been one of those law and order judges the Republicans are always so gung-ho about-- until they stand and face them on the wrong side of the bench. Corrigan exploded: "I'm sickened that he is an attorney." And then he threw the book at him, sentencing him to 5 years in prison, the maximum term after the plea-bargain. He whined that his political career has been ruined. Why is it ruined? He's a Republican and his behavior will probably enhance his chances to go all the way. I mean just look at David Diapers Vitter; he's still the highest ranking Republican in the state of Louisiana and apparetly in no trouble with anyone.

Flory, who has a reputation of sexually assaulting other young women in his capacity of head of the Young Republicans, has had his law license suspended and will in all likelihood be disbarred.

UPDATE: WILL THE WOMEN FLORY MOLESTED TALK ABOUT HIS DICK?

Wendy Cortez, the woman Dave Diapers Vitter (R-LA) was seeing for years, tells all, including about how small he is. I guess he could prove her wrong in court.

YOUNG REPUBLICANS LEARNING HOW TO BE OLD REPUBLICANS-- WITH MITT ROMNEY'S MORMON MONEY

Lobbyist/actor Freddy Thompson knew how to use his well-honed dramatic skills to wow the desperate audience of Young Republicans. After all, as one of his own supporters told a reporter, "Whatever choice do we have?" Sure Thompson took money from whatever interest groups paid him and his sons/funnels and then shilled for them-- even for pro-choice groups that were pushing the kinds of abortion positions he now declares he opposes. "Mitt Romney," whines the Freddy supporter, "has been on both sides of the issue. Rudy Giuliani is 100 percent pro-choice. John McCain, at least for the first four years of the Bush term, was against whatever the president was for. Everybody has their flaws." Thompson's speech was heavy on emotive and sugary little treats for the yapping GOP pups-- but there was no substance at all. He's tired of apologizing for America. Hillary Clinton is evil and so is the New York Times. The Democrats are the "party of despair." Fred Thompson is, clearly a low grade hack. And the delegates ate it up. But it doesn't matter. Romney already bought the convention management.

The little boys like to play just like the big boys and in Republican Party politics that means more than follow the money... it means kiss its ass and lick its boots. Tonight is the Young Republican annual straw poll. Romney will be the winner. How do I know? He bought and paid for it and the Young Republican junior fuehrers will deliver what was promised. Romney is like the Republican Putin. Romney's the keynote speaker at the dinner tonight and Romney's the sponsor of the event. Mormon millions have been poured into the campaign and, as far right blog Red State points out, Romney doesn't need grassroots-- he has none outside of Utah-- if he can purchase astroturf. And that he's doing. But first he purchased the Young Republicans' Executive Committee and rules committee. In fact, the Executive Director of the Young Republicans, Jon Woodard-- and I'm sure this is just a coincidence-- just happens to be the Chairman of Romney's campaign in St John's County, Florida.

Gone is the rule that said only accredited delegates get to vote. Now anyone who shows up-- anyone any rich candidate can bus in-- is allowed to vote. I guess that's the right-wing's version of opening things up. But it's Willard Romney who's hired the phone bankers tasked with filling up tonight's dinner/straw poll. And Romney, caught in the ultimate battle of the empty suits, has a goal: hold down the vote for a surging Freddy Thompson.

And with the approach of the release of September Dawn, a movie expected to help Americans understand the threat of the secretive Mormon cult, Republicans like Thompson and his allies are getting the word out about Romney's ties to the cult. Last week, Republican Andrew Sullivan gave us a glimpse into how Republicans talk among themselves about Mormonism.

The question is not whether, as president, Mr. Romney would take orders from Salt Lake City. I doubt whether many people think he would. The questions are: Would a Mormon as president of the United States give greater credibility and prestige to Mormonism? The answer is almost certainly yes. Would it therefore help advance the missionary goals of what many view as a false religion? The answer is almost certainly yes. Is it legitimate for those Americans to take these questions into account in voting for a presidential nominee or candidate? The answer is certainly yes.