Showing posts with label Karl Rove. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Karl Rove. Show all posts
Monday, November 14, 2016
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Does The Republican Party Really Exist?
Talk radio loves to bash the GOP. "Rockefeller Republicans," "the donor class," "the political class," "RINO's" "Country Club Republicans." Beck, Limbaugh and Levin rarely, if ever say anything good about the Republican Party. Even the ever-predictable Sean Hannity loves to point out that he is not a registered Republican.
Supposedly, the Grand Old Party has been infiltrated by unwashed Tea Party types. If the Tea Party is so damn influential why did all the cyber-beggars refuse to return David Brat's phone calls prior to his primary victory over Eric Cantor? What exactly do those Tea Party groups do besides rattle their begging cups?
The question, "Does The Republican Party Really Exist?" is of course a rhetorical one. We know they have a building and Reince Priebus is their chairman. Perhaps a better question is "what do they do?" Do they have phones and desktops at their headquarters? It seems that the most influential Republican is Karl Rove whose Crossroads America has no official ties to the Republican Party (as far as I know.)
The Republican Party seems to have faded away on the national level and they seem to have lost even more influence on the local level. The Massachusetts Republican Party was viable and competitive a decade ago. They are so dysfunctional that carpetbagger Scott Brown fled the state to better advance his career. New Hampshire still hosts a Republican Party but they are woefully disorganized and lose clout every election cycle. 2010 looks like a fluke now.
Of course, Republicans lack vision. What is needed is ten or so popular ideas the whole party can support. Think Contract With America. They can agree with repealing the ACA but after that it gets murky. What is needed is a unifying purpose promoted by a great unifier. A leader. Reince Priebus is not that man.
Supposedly, the Grand Old Party has been infiltrated by unwashed Tea Party types. If the Tea Party is so damn influential why did all the cyber-beggars refuse to return David Brat's phone calls prior to his primary victory over Eric Cantor? What exactly do those Tea Party groups do besides rattle their begging cups?
The question, "Does The Republican Party Really Exist?" is of course a rhetorical one. We know they have a building and Reince Priebus is their chairman. Perhaps a better question is "what do they do?" Do they have phones and desktops at their headquarters? It seems that the most influential Republican is Karl Rove whose Crossroads America has no official ties to the Republican Party (as far as I know.)
The Republican Party seems to have faded away on the national level and they seem to have lost even more influence on the local level. The Massachusetts Republican Party was viable and competitive a decade ago. They are so dysfunctional that carpetbagger Scott Brown fled the state to better advance his career. New Hampshire still hosts a Republican Party but they are woefully disorganized and lose clout every election cycle. 2010 looks like a fluke now.
Of course, Republicans lack vision. What is needed is ten or so popular ideas the whole party can support. Think Contract With America. They can agree with repealing the ACA but after that it gets murky. What is needed is a unifying purpose promoted by a great unifier. A leader. Reince Priebus is not that man.
Sunday, March 16, 2014
Will Impeachment Be A Primary Issue?
First, we need to distinguish between the impeachment of Eric Holder and Barack Obama. Eric Holder is in contempt of Congress. He is a lawless man who should have been impeached long ago.
The president is a separate matter. There are those who believe he has already established grounds for impeachment. When I did a search I was surprised at how worn this well-trod path happened to be. Tom Tancredo called for the 44th president's impeachment in 2010. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jul/22/the-case-for-impeachment/
Congressman Steve Stockman advocated impeachment in 2013.
And this from an Esquire portrait of Chuck Hagel.
The conversation beaches itself for a moment on that word — impeachment— spoken by a conservative Republican from a safe Senate seat in a reddish state. It's barely even whispered among the serious set in Washington, and it rings like a gong in the middle of the sentence, even though it flowed quite naturally out of the conversation he was having about how everybody had abandoned their responsibility to the country, and now there was a war going bad because of it.
http://www.esquire.com/features/chuckhagel0407
Did you catch that? "It's barely even whispered among the serious set in Washington." Is that how the insiders now refer to themselves? The political class uses the same term that Vito Corleone uses to refer to the Turk? "Solazzo is a serious man..." But the I word now appears on the Beltway radar.
We have to respect "the serious set." Impeachment is not like marriage. You don't want to enter into this institution lightly. In the words of Joe Biden, oh let's just skip JB's most memorable quote.
Impeachment is not a frivolous matter. We are not one of those countries defined by its regimes. In those places, former leaders do not gracefully retire to the lecture circuit. They are imprisoned or tortured or killed. There was a lot of chatter about impeaching George Bush but even "the serious set" rejected that nonsense. But George Bush did not use the IRS to crush political opposition or use DOJ to intimidate donors or NSA to spy on reporter's families and on and on and on.
Attempting to use the IRS as a political weapon helped get Nixon impeached. Someone--quite possibly the White House--succeeded and succeeded big in using the IRS to stifle and silence Tea Party/Conservative/Religious groups. Nixon was an amateur compared to these tyrants.
Nixon was also impeached for obstructing justice. If it can be demonstrated that the White House obstructed/impeded/mislead investigators in Fast and Furious, Benghazi, MF Global, and of course, the IRS conspiracy, the I word would infiltrate serious set cocktail hours.
How does this become a campaign issue? I am not sure if Cantor or Ryan or Boehner would impeach even if the trails all lead back to you know who. They might look to the opinion polls that tell us that any rebuke of the pampered one is perceived as racist in nature. It would be good to hear from their own lips that they are committed to judging others based on "...the content of their character."
Karl Rove says the GOP has to find an issue beyond Obamacare. The serious set might not find that cause. The conservative power base on the other hand? They might have already found it.
The president is a separate matter. There are those who believe he has already established grounds for impeachment. When I did a search I was surprised at how worn this well-trod path happened to be. Tom Tancredo called for the 44th president's impeachment in 2010. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jul/22/the-case-for-impeachment/
Congressman Steve Stockman advocated impeachment in 2013.
And this from an Esquire portrait of Chuck Hagel.
The conversation beaches itself for a moment on that word — impeachment— spoken by a conservative Republican from a safe Senate seat in a reddish state. It's barely even whispered among the serious set in Washington, and it rings like a gong in the middle of the sentence, even though it flowed quite naturally out of the conversation he was having about how everybody had abandoned their responsibility to the country, and now there was a war going bad because of it.
http://www.esquire.com/features/chuckhagel0407
Did you catch that? "It's barely even whispered among the serious set in Washington." Is that how the insiders now refer to themselves? The political class uses the same term that Vito Corleone uses to refer to the Turk? "Solazzo is a serious man..." But the I word now appears on the Beltway radar.
We have to respect "the serious set." Impeachment is not like marriage. You don't want to enter into this institution lightly. In the words of Joe Biden, oh let's just skip JB's most memorable quote.
Impeachment is not a frivolous matter. We are not one of those countries defined by its regimes. In those places, former leaders do not gracefully retire to the lecture circuit. They are imprisoned or tortured or killed. There was a lot of chatter about impeaching George Bush but even "the serious set" rejected that nonsense. But George Bush did not use the IRS to crush political opposition or use DOJ to intimidate donors or NSA to spy on reporter's families and on and on and on.
Attempting to use the IRS as a political weapon helped get Nixon impeached. Someone--quite possibly the White House--succeeded and succeeded big in using the IRS to stifle and silence Tea Party/Conservative/Religious groups. Nixon was an amateur compared to these tyrants.
Nixon was also impeached for obstructing justice. If it can be demonstrated that the White House obstructed/impeded/mislead investigators in Fast and Furious, Benghazi, MF Global, and of course, the IRS conspiracy, the I word would infiltrate serious set cocktail hours.
How does this become a campaign issue? I am not sure if Cantor or Ryan or Boehner would impeach even if the trails all lead back to you know who. They might look to the opinion polls that tell us that any rebuke of the pampered one is perceived as racist in nature. It would be good to hear from their own lips that they are committed to judging others based on "...the content of their character."
Karl Rove says the GOP has to find an issue beyond Obamacare. The serious set might not find that cause. The conservative power base on the other hand? They might have already found it.
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