Grassroots Republican operatives and Movement conservatives are quickly turning against the GOP Establishment in the wake of the party's expensive defeat this election cycle. Republicans we spoke to this week voiced a near-universal disgust with the national Republican Party leaders and Washington political class, who are seen as having put their personal financial interest above winning the election.
As this internecine struggle gathers steam, the first target appears to be Karl Rove, the former Bush campaign mastermind who has dictated much of the GOP's strategy over the past decade.
GOP strategist Karl Rove went on Fox News today to argue that President Barack Obama "succeeded by suppressing the vote" -- an argument that directly contradicts the conventional wisdom that Romney failed to appeal to non-white and female voters.
[I'm starting to wonder about this man's sanity... If you put him next to Sarah Palin, it's starting to look like she'd be the intelligent one... MC]
Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) easily held on to his seat in Congress on Friday despite a challenge from… Charles Darwin.
Darwin, who was the original proponent of the theory of evolution and died in 1882, got nearly 4,000 write-in votes against the incumbent Broun, according to the Athens Banner-Herald. Broun, a physician, is a creationist who in September said evolution was based on “lies straight from the pit of hell.”
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) – Carolyn Campbell lamented that she didn’t court enough voters in northeast Kansas in seeking her second term on the State Board of Education.
Her opponent, Jack Wu, was outspoken on teaching evolution and has ties to an anti-gay Topeka church notorious for picketing military members’ funerals. Campbell, a Democrat, worried GOP voters would simply follow Wu’s Republican party affiliation.
In the end, Campbell, a Topeka Democrat, received more than enough votes in Tuesday’s election, easily defeating Wu, according to unofficial results.
“I’m happy I have four more years to work for our children. That’s all I wanted to do,” Campbell said.
…
Wu, a Topeka computer programmer, made opposition to teaching evolution the centerpiece of his campaign. He described evolution as “Satanic lies” and said on a website that public schools were preparing students to be “liars, crooks, thieves, murderers, and perverts.”
Wu also raised eyebrows by saying that he was lured to Kansas from California in 2008 by Westboro Baptist. The Topeka church, led by the Rev. Fred Phelps Sr., is known internationally for picketing with anti-gay slogans and proclaiming that American soldiers’ deaths are God’s punishment for the nation’s tolerance of homosexuality. Wu is not formally a member, but he’s attended services regularly.
Ryan, whose selection as Romney’s running mate was once considered key to carrying Wisconsin for the Republicans, turned out to be a miserable addition to the ticket. Not only didn’t he help win the state, he couldn’t even win his hometown of Janesville, which went overwhelmingly for the Democratic ticket of Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and surrounding Rock County, which gave the Romney/Ryan ticket just 39 percent of the vote.
It was even worse in Ryan's “safety” race for his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. The seven-term congressman kept his seat, thanks to partisan redistricting that grabbed off a chunk of Republican Waukesha County and attached it to Ryan’s southeastern Wisconsin district. Yet, despite the machinations that made his 1st District decidedly more Republican, prevailed by the narrowest margin of his career -- over Democratic challenger Rob Zerban. [MORE]
In an election this close, many factors helped President Obama win this historic victory. But I want to highlight two major factors that were at work, which contain the signals for the tasks we still have ahead of us. The first was President Obama's decision, over a year ago in his Labor Day speech, to heed the call from advocates to put the fight for economic fairness and the needs of working people (including those in the automobile industry) at the center of his agenda and campaign.
The second is the change and broadening of the electorate, which is beginning to reflect the true face of America in its age, racial makeup, and increasing tolerance for diversity.
Independently minded conservatives may have no obvious candidate in this election, which pits two major-party exponents of the welfare-warfare state against one another, as well as a handful of minor-party contenders. Obamacare or Romneycare? Guantanamo or double Guantanamo? In this symposium, 29 of our writers confront the choice and explain their reasoning.
Governor Romney is promising that if we deregulate business and reduce their tax burden, they'll create tons of jobs. President Obama is saying that the recovery has been successful and that we just need to stay the course. President Obama helped big business and the rich recover from the Crash of '08 while Romney helped himself to a great deal of the recovery wealth. Do either actually care about the rest of us? Spoiler alert, the answer is NO.
A word used to describe anything that is incredibly offensive, personal, rude, and derogatory; generally aimed at making people look and feel stupid; often accompanied by bluster and spittle. (see also, Limbreiching)
Limbawfulness is commonly used to bulldoze an audience by simultaneously making them angry and bamboozling them, but doing so in such a convoluted way that it’s difficult to detect. Here’s an example:
One day while driving home from work (this was back in the mid-90s), I came across Rush Limbaugh blow-hardily pontificating on the evils of sex.... [MORE]
Following the completion of three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate, a nationwide Gallup tracking poll conducted this morning has found that all registered voters in the United States now consider themselves undecided in the upcoming election.
According to the polling data, 100 percent of women, men, African-Americans, Hispanics, small business owners, LGBT voters, seniors, Tea Party activists, and members of every other category surveyed fall into the undecided camp after witnessing the candidates from both the Democratic and Republican tickets face off on national television for a total of six hours.
“Watching how these men conduct themselves in simple one-on-one exchanges made me completely unsure of what I’m going to do when I receive my ballot and have to put a check next to one of their names,” undecided Florida voter Colleen Moynihan said. “In the first debate, Obama was either being timid or arrogant or both, so I had my doubts about him. And while Romney was more confident and engaged, I honestly felt like I couldn’t trust much of anything he said.”
“Really the only thing I can say for certain is that I don’t want to hear anything else from either one of them ever again,” Moynihan added.
In addition to not knowing whether they will support President Obama or Republican challenger Mitt Romney in November, U.S. voters also could not say who they believe is stronger on any given issue, with 0 percent of those polled stating that they could tell a difference between the two candidates on foreign policy following last night’s debate.
“Of that 100 percent who are now undecided, not even one person we surveyed said they were leaning even slightly toward Obama or Romney,” said Gallup editor-in-chief Frank Newport, himself an undecided voter residing in Princeton, NJ. “And that held true across all 50 states. So this election is really anyone’s to win. Or no one’s, I guess.”
Moreover, Newport added that the more political pundits dissect the debate performances, revealing excruciating and generally unpleasant details about the “personal style” of each candidate, the more entrenched voter indecision becomes....
I was trying to think of something funny to write about this post, but realized that I couldn't possibly come up with anything funnier than the headline....
Conservative columnist David Frum had some choice words on Morning Joe for the industry that has swelled to basically steal money from republican voters. Republicans have been fleeced, exploited and lied to by a conservative entertainment complex...there are too many to name. Because the followers, the donors and the activists are so mistaken about the nature of the problems the country faces...just a simple question, and I went to Tea Party rallies and asked this question, have taxes gone up or down in recent years? They can't answer this question.
Frum declined to name names but he's more forthright in his ebook, Why Romney Lost. Frum is scathing in his criticism of the usual suspects (Fox News, Rush Limbaugh & talk radio, and many many more charlatans).
If you swivel your head hard to the left you’ll notice excited liberals batting about party balloons and wearing paper hats, glasses of champagne held high. Swivel an equal number of degrees rightward and you’ll find the conspiracists batting about crazy narratives and wearing tinfoil hats, angry signs held high. Already I’ve heard stories about Democratic-led voter fraud in Ohio (where else?), and FOX is talking about the ways the mainstream media stole this election for Obama. (Spoiler alert: one of them has to do with all that pesky fact-checking.)
Though the night didn’t turn out quite the way I’d hoped, I’m not at all bitter. Quite the contrary: as a moderate Republican, I’m cautiously optimistic.
In looking forward (and because I truly want the country—our country—to succeed and grow), I offer these three reasons for why moderate Republicans should be cautiously optimistic about last night’s results:
1-The Tea Party got spanked pretty good last night.
For all three reasons why (and one why not), click HERE.
The Republican Party is starting to crumble before our very eyes, including Rush Limbaugh saying that they "are outnumbered and are losing ground," Herman Cain calling for a third party, and Glenn Beck totally losing it, suggesting people buy farmland and guns and move away from people they disagree with politically.
Mark Levin passionately defends conservatism and analyzes last night's election in the opening monologue of the Wednesday broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio program.
...and effectively demonstrates the principles of Electile Dysfunction.... -MC
U.S. Presidential candidate Mitt Romney would lack the legal power to label China a currency manipulator on his first day in office should he win Tuesday's election, offering him a way out of what experts say is the weakest claim on the issue for years.
[Apparently, he's not even got the job and we're already counting the broken promises??!? - MC]
Pick your term; the only thing certain is that someone has used it to describe the importance of this election. Messaging swirls around our heads while wires hum with robocalls, eddied ads all looking to convince us of the one reason to vote for or against him or her. It’s difficult to sift through, even for those of us who want to pay attention to it all... [MORE]
Once again, Tea Party extremism is going to hurt Republicans in key legislative races.
by DAVID FRUM, National Post
The Obama-Romney contest will get the eyeballs, but the more important battle Tuesday night will be the battle for control of Congress.
Today, Republicans control the House of Representatives 242-193. Democrats hold the Senate, 53-47 (including two independents who caucus with the Democrats, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont).
Most House-watchers expect the Republicans to lose seats, but not enough to forfeit control. The mid-range scenario projects losses of between seven and 11 for the GOP. Losses on that scale would not jeopardize Republican control. They would, however, imply the defeat of almost all the more moderate conservatives in the Republican caucus. If Barack Obama wins re-election, he’ll meet a House even more hostile and intransigent than the House that nearly pushed the United States into default on its obligations in the summer of 2011.
The Senate outlook is even grimmer for Republicans. Earlier in the year, Republicans hoped they might win both the presidency and the Senate, restoring their post-9/11 united control of all three elected branches of government. Now it seems more probable that the Democrats will expand their Senate majority, most likely by picking up Republican held Senate seats in Massachusetts and Indiana, and holding once seemingly vulnerable Democratic seats in Virginia and Missouri.
How? Why?
The short answer is: The Tea Party struck again. [MORE]
As of October 18, 2012, when I reported in my story Graham's Romney Endorsement Accidentally Spreads "Mormonism is a cult" Meme to Millions - about superstar evangelist Billy Graham's disastrous effort to woo Protestant evangelical voters to vote for Mormon Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in the 2012 election, I was unaware that the meme might, by then, already have spread to over a million disgruntled evangelicals who had reportedly pledged to vent their anti-Mormon (and anti-Obama) ire at the ballot box this November 6th.
Candidate "A" is clearly a tool of Satan. But candidate "B" is a tool of Satan too and, if elected president, he'll suspend the Constitution and implement a theocracy to be run by his satanically-inspired cult.
"Stop!", cries out evangelist Bill Keller, founder of the Internet ministry liveprayer.com; "CHRISTIANS MUST TAKE A STAND AND SAY "NO" TO SATAN THIS NOVEMBER!!!", he declares, "Vote for Jesus!"
I have long since studied the various arguments both for and against the Electoral College, including its effect on voter behavior and turnout, representation of smaller states, and the way presidential candidates design campaigns.
It’s well known that in recent years, this country has seen its electoral politics polarized to an extent that has only rarely been paralleled in American history. But that polarization in many cases goes far beyond anything resembling mainstream discourse, extending to men and women who are linked to hate groups and racial, ethnic, religious, anti-gay and antigovernment extremism, or who promote extremist propaganda. Their baseless claims typically include demonizing propaganda about certain minority groups, or conspiracy theories that have the same demonizing subtext. What follows is a look at 15 political candidates, including Democrats, Republicans, independents and members of extremist political parties, who are running for office this fall or ran earlier in the year. Research on these candidates was carried out by the SPLC Task Force on Hate in the Public Sphere.
Following the completion of three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate, a nationwide Gallup tracking poll conducted this morning has found that all registered voters in the United States now consider themselves undecided in the upcoming election.
According to the polling data, 100 percent of women, men, African-Americans, Hispanics, small business owners, LGBT voters, seniors, Tea Party activists, and members of every other category surveyed fall into the undecided camp after witnessing the candidates from both the Democratic and Republican tickets face off on national television for a total of six hours.
“Watching how these men conduct themselves in simple one-on-one exchanges made me completely unsure of what I’m going to do when I receive my ballot and have to put a check next to one of their names,” undecided Florida voter Colleen Moynihan said. “In the first debate, Obama was either being timid or arrogant or both, so I had my doubts about him. And while Romney was more confident and engaged, I honestly felt like I couldn’t trust much of anything he said.”
“Really the only thing I can say for certain is that I don’t want to hear anything else from either one of them ever again,” Moynihan added.
In addition to not knowing whether they will support President Obama or Republican challenger Mitt Romney in November, U.S. voters also could not say who they believe is stronger on any given issue, with 0 percent of those polled stating that they could tell a difference between the two candidates on foreign policy following last night’s debate.
“Of that 100 percent who are now undecided, not even one person we surveyed said they were leaning even slightly toward Obama or Romney,” said Gallup editor-in-chief Frank Newport, himself an undecided voter residing in Princeton, NJ. “And that held true across all 50 states. So this election is really anyone’s to win. Or no one’s, I guess.”
Moreover, Newport added that the more political pundits dissect the debate performances, revealing excruciating and generally unpleasant details about the “personal style” of each candidate, the more entrenched voter indecision becomes....
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