Over and over again at the GOP convention and on the campaign trail: government regulation bad, deregulation good. Did the entire GOP not see the banking crisis coming?
Tag Archive for 'Republican party'
With the threat of Gustav pummeling New Orleans a 2nd time in just 3 years, McCain and Palin headed to New Orleans to look Presidential. In an Time interview, McCain shared what changes would be made in this convention to show the proper respect for those battening down the hatches before Gustav’s arrival.
“There’s very little doubt that we have to go from a party event to a call to the nation for action, action to help our fellow citizens in this time of tragedy and disaster, action in the form of volunteering, donations, reaching out our hands and our hearts and our wallets to the people who are under such great threat from this great natural disaster.
One would expect the Republican delegation and other convention attendees would follow in McCain’s lead. Instead, ABC News’ Charlie Gibson reports on the hard partying being done Saturday night while New Orleans residents evacuated the area.
The most offensive quote, when asked about the appropriateness of a party in light of people fleeing New Orleans, one attendee said, “everybody goes through hard times,” dismissing the reporter.
Note to McCain, it sounds a bit more sincere, if people actual make the effort to act subdued and concerned.
Also, In addressing the RNC, Cindy McCain said, “As John has been saying for the last several days, this is the time when we take off our republican hat and put on our American hat.”
Arianna Huffington makes a great point. . . “Why did we ever take off our American hats? Why do we need to put them on only when there’s a natural disaster facing us?” McCain has essentially been pushing the who’s more patriotic game with Obama for months. . . now we find out Republicans are only patriotic during natural disasters?
Last night the pundits were left either completely speechless or spilling praise after Obama’s nomination acceptance speech. Everyone asked how McCain could possibly respond to such a speech that laid out populist policy plans, attacked McCain’s political experience, and rebutted a number smears.
But he did manage to steal some of Obama’s thunder this morning with the announcement of Sarah Palin for VP.
A few considerations. . .
To some degree, it’s impossible to deny McCain is reaching out to the remaining disgruntled Hillary voters who aren’t yet convinced by Obama. But the question is why Palin when Kay Hutchinson and Elizabeth Dole would be far more recognizable female Republican running mates? Palin has even less experience than Obama — and experience has been a focal issue for McCain this campaign season.
That we know little to nothing about her is actually to the advantage of McCain. Right now, it looks entirely possible that the Republican National Convention will be postponed and scaled down, if not cancelled entirely due to Gustav’s impending arrival on our shores. No RNC this year means Americans won’t have a direct line of vision into the policies supported by the GOP going into this election. Plenty of Americans still think of McCain as a party maverick and/or pro-choice and/or a moderate. His record shows that he is none of the above.
Now we have the addition of Sarah Palin who has zero nation or foreign policy experience. Frankly, given her limited local government roles, we know little of her positions on a number of key issues for Americans: health insurance, education, Social Security, etc. And the Average American isn’t going to necessarily be exposed to what little is known about her.
As Huffington Post columnist Linda Bergthold points out, here’s what we do know:
She is NOT pro-choice. She has NO national experience. She has never been under the intense scrutiny of a national campaign. She is under investigation for some incident in Alaska that is messy and personal. She has no international experience. Her experience governing is in a very small state, famous for its “Bridge to Nowhere” kind of political graft. Her Republican colleague in that state, Senator Ted Stevens has been indicted for corruption.
Does that sound like a candidate ready to lead on Day 2, should Sen. McCain die during his first term in office?
While she acknowledges the Republican Party in raising the profile of women in this election, Ann at Feministing notes she is pro-life and on the wrong side of progressive social issues.
First up, she’s super anti-choice. The forced-pregnancy crowd is thrilled today! (She recently had her fifth child, who has Down’s syndrome.) She’s against marriage equality and supports a federal gay-marriage ban, but has made sure to note that she “has gay friends.” Though she has signed on to same-sex partner benefits. She believes schools should teach creationism. She’s also pretty terrible on environmental issues, and is a huge advocate of drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge.
The upside to this election, women’s issues will now be front and center going into the fall. The downside, if they can keep Palin off the center stage, fueling low key events that get less coverage, the maverick might be able to keep his image intact, and possibly make this a closer election than anticipated.
And the parade of user generated election content continues. Here’s a parody/sad state of affairs, titled “I’m Voting Republican.”
I’m still amazed that GWB landed a 2nd term. But given his record lows, I’m hoping McCain will have a major uphill battle since he’s already been dubbed McSame and Bush 2.0. Fifty-six percent of his own party is unhappy with the general direction the nation is headed in, so embracing Bush policy might not be best come November. Overall, 76% of voters are ready for a new direction.
Despite the fact that this recession has been coming since at least the (Bill) Clinton administration, Bush is taking the beating. And McCain whole heartedly embraces Bush economics.
Republicans are not upbeat in regards to the economy. When those stimulus checks arrive in mailboxes this summer, and the economy doesn’t see a major upswing, McCain’s going to have a tough time going into the fall campaign.
McCain’s other major platform is the Iraq war. Come hell or highwater, we’re going to stay until we win (even if the government can’t figure out what winning would be). Unfortunately for McCain, Americans want out of Iraq, while he prefers to retain the right to spread our troops even thinner by refusing to preclude another pre-emptive war. (And if you only need the rumor of weapons of mass destruction in your country to earn an attack with Bush, I can only imagine the reasons McCain will provide when sending out the troops.)
In fact, in a recent poll of Americans, getting out of Iraq was the number one proposal to remedy the recession. The last thing McCain needs is to have a permanent stay in Iraq tied to the economic crisis here.
I’d like to believe it would darn near impossible for McCain to win in November, but Bush is wrapping up a second term, and I rejected the notion of that win 4 years ago.
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