Republican Strategy 2008

As soon as the Republicans can get Mike Huckabee out of the race the sooner they can begin to institute the new/old strategies for 2008. The Republican strategies will rely on two main points for the general election. The first will be the nation at war narrative that will require a national hero and security hawk to navigate this dangerous world we now find ourselves in. The country will need his experience and understanding of war to succeed in the global struggle against the Islamo-fascist terrorists that hate us for our freedoms. The second will be a large cash give-away in an effort to buy the election. I am not talking about the tax rebate or stimulus package, no I am referring to the recently unveiled budget of George W. Let’s look at both of these strategies and their appeal to voters in November.

The first is the same strategy George W. used to beat John Kerry in 2004. The narrative was that a real war hero was not qualified to lead the country as well as a National Guard deserter and a chicken-hawk, only George W. could lead the country during these dangerous times. Well, now they have their own war hero to continue the disastrous war in Iraq. I guess because an ex-POW says we should stay in Iraq then that concludes anymore discussion on the subject. The Rovian model of the Republican majority is based in this nation at war scenario, as long as the Republicans can continue to use the scare and fear tactics that they have refined in the two past elections they can maintain a majority. As the election approaches the threat level is already being elevated in the MSM and the Defense Department. During the summer and into the fall there will be report after report of the growing capabilities of al Qaeda and their ongoing plans to attack America. Of course these reports will be attributed to unnamed administration and defense spokespeople so they can never be checked out. The MSM will report and give them the weight of confirmed intelligence. I would not be surprised if the threat level is not elevated to its highest state in say four years.

Beginning with Mitt Romney, who withdrew from the race on Thursday, warning that he would not abet “the surrender to terror,” Republicans, including Mr. McCain and Vice President Dick Cheney, have warned darkly that the Democrats were ill-suited and ill-equipped to protect the nation, the same theme that Mr. Bush struck in his successful 2004 re-election campaign.

“I guarantee you this: If we had announced a date for withdrawal from Iraq and withdrawn troops the way that Senator Obama and Senator Clinton want to do, Al Qaeda would be celebrating that they had defeated the United States of America and that we surrendered,” Mr. McCain said at a rally in Wichita. “I will never surrender.”[1]

The war supporters are all lining up to chime in with their predictions of an all-out al Qaeda invasion if we do not stay the course and elect John McCain. Flush from their victory in Iraq we will have embolden them to once again attack America sending in waves of terrorist from across the Mexican border. They may look like Mexicans, but don’t be fooled they are terrorists in disguise. This will also help to sell the much needed security fence along the Mexican border. Brilliant

The second leg of their strategy will be the government give-a-ways that are stuffed into the 3.1 trillion dollar budget submitted by Bush. The President, a staunch critic of Congressional earmarks has sent a budget to Capitol Hill that is teeming with them. However in Bush speak an earmark is not an earmark if the President submits them. In many cases expenditures that Bush once called earmarks have turned up in his budget. Bush is once again showing us that budget constraints mean nothing to him and his fellow “fiscal conservatives”, they will continue to spend money in spite of any recession or depression the economy may be experiencing. The Republicans can now promote McCain as a true fiscal conservative who will put an end to the waste in Washington, of course they will fail to mention that much of that waste occurred during a two-term Republican administration.

Thus, for example, the president requested $330 million to deal with plant pests like the emerald ash borer, the light brown apple moth and the sirex woodwasp. He sought $800,000 for the Neosho National Fish Hatchery in Missouri and $1.5 million for a waterway named in honor of former Senator J. Bennett Johnston, a Louisiana Democrat.

At the same time, Mr. Bush requested $894,000 for an air traffic control tower in Kalamazoo, Mich.; $12 million for a parachute repair shop at the American air base in Aviano, Italy; and $6.5 million for research in Wyoming on the “fundamental properties of asphalt.”

He sought $3 million for a forest conservation project in Minnesota, $2.1 million for a neutrino detector at the South Pole and $28 million for General Electric and Siemens to do research on hydrogen-fuel turbines.[2]

Along with the built-in earmarks, the budget also includes 500 billion for defense along with an additional 200 billion to continue the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. This translates to a 62% increase in defense spending under Bush. With this increased defense spending is America any safer Are our military forces stronger? According to the Pentagon they are just the opposite, our forces are over-spent and in terrible need of repair. But this will not stop the war mongers from pressing the case for more war and more spending. Who says a nation has to sacrifice during war times? Obviously not anyone familiar with the today’s Republicans.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/09/us/politics/09bush.html?hp
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/washington/10earmark.html?scp=1&sq=bush+earmarks&st=nyt

Read more!

Extreme Makeover: John McCain Edition 2008?

With his nomination all but inevitable, the Republican machine is ready to begin the process of selling John McCain as a maverick and a different kind of Republican. He will be presented as someone who appeals to Democrats and Independents, a unity candidate of the first order. The problem is that John McCain is not a mainstream candidate, he is a war-mongerer and has no intention of letting the American people decide what to do about Iraq. He will be another “decider” who knows better than the American public what is best for us. The MSM has already begun the John McCain make-over, the same folks who had pronounced his campaign all but dead in December are now trumpeting his “straight talk”, independent candidacy as right for America.

It has always amazed me how John McCain has been given this independent moniker by the MSM. To be sure John McCain has split with the Republican Party on some issues, but a look at his record reveals the true nature of McCain. A review of his voting record shows a troubling trend, Mr. McCain in a number of controversial votes has chosen to not vote. He has missed 56.6% of the votes during this Congress alone. How Senator McCain can be labeled an independent and a maverick while still voting with the Republicans 87.8% of the time is a mystery to me. I guess it is the same logic used to proclaim Senator Lieberman an independent, I guess that is why they have been inseparable during the later stages of this campaign; birds of a feather.

The same strategy that was used to get George W. Bush into the White House will be deployed again. Remember in 2000, Bush was going to be the great uniter, an independent Republican. How did that work out? For anyone who thought the Republican brand was DOA, I have news for you with McCain there will be the talk of change without any change. His nomination will allow the Republicans to spin his candidacy as a new direction for the country when in reality it will be the same old story. The Republicans will go for the best of both worlds, they have already begun to have George W. try to coalesces the Party faithful but I guarantee you once the primaries are over McCain’s campaign will dissociate itself from George W so fast heads will spin. The only policy that they will cling to is the most dangerous one, the Iraq War. With the Bush administration already laying the groundwork for freezing current troop levels and backing away from troop reductions promised at the last General Petraeus meet and greet, McCain will argue to stay the course.

If staying the course was bad policy last year, what has occurred since then to make it a good strategy this year? Oh yeah, the surge is working. This has to be the biggest crock of BS ever sold to the American public. And as the general election approaches make no mistake the chorus will become louder singing the praises of this false narrative. The problem is simply this, even if we keep troops there for a hundred years and the violence is reduced if the Iraqi’s do not make the tough decisions to reconcile their country we will still be in no better position than we were at the beginning of this fiasco. What these conservative clowns don’t understand is that this will never be resolved militarily and as long as we provide cover for the Iraqi government to drag their feet and solidify their gains we are only prolonging the inevitable and keeping our troops in harm’s way.

I find it almost comical that the McCain camp has stolen the “Day One” slogan from the Clinton campaign, he will be “commander and chief from day one” and will be able to escalate our involvement in both wars and if we are lucky will be able to start another one. As long as these fools can continue the nation at war scenario in need of a strong military President, this nation will be ill prepared for the reality that the rest of the world has no problem seeing. As we are seeing with the cracks in our NATO alliances, the rest of the world is not buying the Islamo-fascist war of our generation mind-f**k the warmongers are perpetrating. The closer the empire is to decay the harder the colonial task masters fight to cling to the myth. The decay begins long before the rust appears on the armor, it begins when the Empire forgets the principles that made it great in the first place. Is there any doubt that we no longer stand for those principles?

The social conservatives are already lining up to sell their principles to the highest bidder. There are a few of the rank and file who are clinging to their skewed principles and still supporting Mike Huckabee, but the leadership has already surrendered. We will now witness the transformation of John McCain into a social conservative standard bearer, “ a true conservative” if you will. We will watch as his record is whitewashed and purged of any votes that are not in keeping with a true conservative. Bush says McCain has some convincing to do, I can only interpret this to mean that he has some flip-flopping to do. The question then becomes does McCain lose his independent image in his effort to woo his social conservative base which without he can not win in November? The tight-rope act begins for McCain and I am not so sure he is nimble enough to pull it off, but with the MSM holding the net anything is possible.

Read more!

The Huckabee Yelp

As the Baptist preacher, turned governor, turned Presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee continues to rise in the polls, it will be very interesting the imaginative ways the Republican establishment will use to derail his candidacy and still maintain its strangle hold on the evangelicals who are flocking to him. In just two short weeks we have been treated to new revelations concerning the “man who would be king”. There was the “pardoned rapists” story, the unelectable story, and now the release of private letters written by Mr. Huckabee while in Arkansas. The Republican dirty tricks department is in full-throttle mode and as his numbers continue to increase the tricks will get dirtier and the tone is going to get meaner.

As Mike Huckabee gains ground on his rivals for the Republican nomination, opponents have quietly begun highlighting the slew of ethics issues the social conservative faced during his political career in Arkansas.

A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found Huckabee trailing only Mitt Romney — and by less than the margin of error — in Iowa, where the primary season kicks off with Jan. 3 caucuses.

But opposition research files on Huckabee’s ethics stand at the ready, and their contents have begun seeping into press releases.[1]

The only way for the Republican establishment to discredit Mr. Huckabee and retain the evangelicals they will need is to attack him on two fronts. The first will be to question his ethics and try to expose him as a hypocrite (as if in the Republican Party that would be a deal breaker); using this method it would appear that the candidate self-destructed, he really wasn’t a “true believer”. The second front will be to attack him as being “too liberal” on social issues, this would include immigration, taxes, and social spending. By using either of these two weapons against him the Republicans can smear the candidate, but still maintain the “moral” high ground.

What the Huckabee candidacy has exposed is the lie that has been the lynchpin of Republican politics since Nixon’s campaign, the lie is that social conservatives and fiscal conservatives share commonality of views and issues. The truth is that they don’t and the destruction of the Huckabee campaign will expose it for all to see. While the fiscal conservatives have always needed the social conservatives, it has always been a one way relationship. The fiscal conservative candidate would pay lip service to the social conservative agenda and they would be allowed to speak at the nominating convention, but then after the election the fiscal conservatives would go back to business as usual. That business of course is to turn on the public faucet for the wealthy to fill their pails at the public’s expense. This game has been played out in election after election.

What no one counted on was that a “true” social conservative would ever get the nomination; this is the fly in the ointment. It is ok for Republican candidates to pander to the social conservatives to get their votes so long as the social conservatives remain on the fringes. The problem with pandering to the lowest common denominator is that every cycle requires you to offer more, so if you are pandering to bigots, racists, and intolerant people the line keeps getting lower and lower. The rhetoric has to get nastier to satisfy the mob. Up until now, the fiscal conservatives have been able to feed the “monster” and still remain viable in a national election. Sure there have been the occasional social conservative candidates, Pat Robertson, Gary Bauer, and of course Pat Buchanan; but they have always polled low enough to not raise any alarm. Usually, the fiscal conservatives could present a candidate who could project himself as a “true believer”, but this year is different.

This year you have a pro-life Mayor who committed adultery, a Mormon Governor from a liberal state, and a secular Senator with no ties to the social conservatives; it couldn’t get worse for the fiscal conservatives. The rise of Mike Huckabee should have been predictable for the Republican strategists, but of course due to their arrogance of intelligence they believed that they could continue to roll out the “perpetrators” and continue to keep the social conservatives inline. You keep stoking these fires and someone is bound to get burnt. The Republicans, using the Karl Rove play book, have stoked the fires of the social conservatives with their phony “value” issues until now there is a flame that is threatening to consume the rest of the Party. The social conservatives are now ready to exert a larger influence over the Party than ever before, now they want one of their own, a true believer.

The previous social conservative movements have all been orchestrated by the fiscal conservatives to imitate a real movement, but it was always under the guidance of a fiscal conservative masquerading as a social conservative. Mike Huckabee represents the day of reckoning for the fiscal conservatives. He has recognized the “frailty” of the current crop of wannabes and has rushed in to fill the void. To the chagrin of the Party establishment his message is playing better than the “anointed” candidates and it scares the hell out of them. They know that on the national stage Mr. Huckabee will be vulnerable to all types of attacks and would probably lose in a landslide. The thing about the message of hate and intolerance is that it may play well to the Party base, but it doesn’t play so well to the nation as a whole.

So, as the deconstruction of Mike Huckabee plays out it will be interesting to note the role of the media in his downfall. The Republicans will use their trusty friends in the fourth estate to write the stories that they have leaked. All of this will be done of course in the interest of the public’s right to know, if only they were as forthcoming with all of their candidates.

[1] http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1107/7000.html

Read more!

If You Run On Religious Issues

If you run on religious issues, then your religion is fair game. I am a secularist Orthodox Christian and I believe that a candidate for public office religious background is private, unless that candidate interjects it into the campaign. The problem I have with the Republican presidential candidates who are running on moral issues is that on the one hand they parade their religious convictions when it is convenient and when it causes uneasiness it is all of a sudden out of bounds. It reminds me of the Dick Cheney lesbian daughter deal, it is ok for Mr. Cheney to discuss the evils of homosexuality as long as it is someone else’s homosexuality, it is an invasion of privacy for someone to discuss his daughter’s sexual orientation.

Today, in the closing weeks before the Iowa caucus, Mr. Huckabee is energetically selling his religious credentials, saying voters should pick a candidate who speaks “the language of Zion” as a “mother tongue,” and running television commercials flashing the words “Christian Leader.” He talks eagerly about theology issues in political debates (displaying his TV-trained ability to speak in exact 45-second segments) and cites Scripture on the trail.

In Iowa, where he and Mr. Romney are locked in a tight race, Mr. Huckabee has capitalized on conservative Christian animosity toward Mormons, pointedly refusing to dispute the common evangelical characterization of Mormonism as a cult.[1]

I placed this quote in the diary because to me it highlights this principle in two ways. First it shows how when it is convenient these candidates will seek to be the “great shepherd” of the flock as in Mr. Huckabee’s case, but then when that religion is questioned as in Mr. Romney’s case then it is off-limits. The other interesting part of this quote is how it depicts the heart of the modern evangelical movement in America, Mr. Huckabee is willing to cannibalize another “so-called” Christian for his own political gain. The old my God is bigger than your God mentality. Instead of using his soapbox to promote tolerance and unity of the Church, he is accepting of intolerance and bigotry within the body. If Mr. Huckabee is so willing to sacrifice a fellow Christian in the primaries what will he do in the Oval Office?

For better or for worse, we live in a secular society. The founders of this nation insured that it would be, so technically what an individual candidate’s religious affiliation is should be private. I believe that it is important to know what a candidate does or does not believe, but that belief should not qualify nor disqualify anyone for office. The problem is when you make religion and moral values campaign issues you do more to divide the country than to unite it. We do not have a state Church, nor do we have a monolithic religious body. Instead we have more different denominations and religious orders than any country in the world, so when one group comes along and claims supreme truth it tends to alienate the other groups. This may be fine for the individual group, but when you are running to lead all the groups it can be problematic.

If we have learned anything from the “compassionate conservatism” of George Bush, it should be that what a person says in public is irrelevant in comparison to what he does in private. Too often those who espouse their religious convictions publically are having a difficult time adhering to them privately. We all want to be judged on what we say and not on what we do. It is easy for candidates to espouse certain values publically (Larry Craig) and yet live a completely different way. I don’t really care what you say, I do care what you do. There seems to be this disconnect between speech and actions and it is not just confined to Republicans, they just seem to be better at it.

In his “Kennedy moment” Mr. Romney made the following quote, which I find terribly misleading and self-serving.

“I do not define my candidacy by my religion. A person should not be elected because of his faith, nor should he be rejected because of his faith,” Mr. Romney told the invited audience at the at the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum in College Station, Tex.[2]

The truth of the matter is Mr. Romney, yes you do define your campaign in religious terms and so to come out now that your religion is being questioned and say otherwise is a lie. When you campaign as a religious conservative and court that voting block then you are casting your campaign in a religious light. It’s funny how when he was leading in the polls he did not find it necessary to divorce his religion from his candidacy, but as soon as he begins to fade now he wants to be treated as a secular politician. I’m sorry sir, you can’t have it both ways.

It seems that once again Mr. Romney wants to reinvent and recast himself to gain political traction. Mr. Romney has no trouble creating himself into whatever he thinks will get him elected. I would have more respect for him if he remained true to his core beliefs, but with these guys they have no core beliefs to remain true to. It is all about getting elected at whatever cost.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/06/us/politics/06huckabee.html?pagewanted=3&hp&adxnnlx=1196957159-AFoWMyxhWPk2m6xuRuNh7A
[2] http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/06/romneys-speech-on-faith/index.html?hp

Read more!