¶ Now the Republicans find their divisions newly revealed in the raw. By exposing the party’s vulnerability to potent demographic shifts, the 2012 results have set the stage for a struggle between those determined to rebrand the Republicans in a softer light and those yearning instead for ideological purity.

But before acceptance comes denial. And the party’s first challenge, it seems in the immediate aftermath, is to find common ground simply in diagnosing the problem. Though some leaders argued that basic mathematics dictates that the party must find new ways to talk about issues like immigration, abortion and same-sex marriage, others attributed Republican losses to poor candidate choice, messaging missteps and President Obama’s superior political operation.

“We continually crank out moderate loser after moderate loser,” said Joshua S. Treviño, a speechwriter in George W. Bush’s administration who now works for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative group. He said Mitt Romney was part of a “pattern” of Republican nominees, preceded by John McCain, Bob Dole and George H. W. Bush, who were rejected by voters because of “perceived inauthenticity.”

By contrast, Ralph Reed, the longtime Republican strategist and chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, said he would redouble efforts over the next four years to recruit women, Latinos and young people as grass-roots organizers.

“I certainly get the fact that your daddy’s Republican Party cannot win relying singularly on white voters and evangelicals alone — as critical as I believe those voters are to a majority coalition,” Mr. Reed said. “The good news for conservatives is there are many of those who have not always felt welcome in our ranks who share our values.”

Labels: And You Want To Give Power Back To These People?, hypocrisy, It's a big club and you ain't in it, rant, Republican Confederate Party

GOP launches 'Obama Isn't Working' message at DNC

he Republican National Committee debuted a new Web video and launched a website, with the theme of "Obama Isn't Working." The website will be updated frequently while Democrats gather here this week to formally nominate Obama to a second White House term.

Labels: disgust, racism, Republican Confederate Party, right-wing hatemongers

Labels: assholes, dogwhistling, institutionalized racism, Mitt Romney, Republican Confederate Party

This is the monster in the Conservative basement that Liberals have been sounding the alarm about for the last four decades.

This is the monster in the Conservative basement that America's leading Conservative public intellectuals have spent virtually their entire professional lives pretending did not exist.

The entire focus of the modern American Conservative Movement has been to give goon like these enough political power to completely fuck up my country.

The last time these goons were given a free hand to fuck up my country, it took over two million Union soldiers and four years of bloody civil war to convince them it was a bad idea.

Maybe someone could ask leading America's Conservative intellectuals like Andrew Sullivan, David Frum and David Brooks to quantify the level of effort it took to hold themselves, year after year, willfully ignorant of fact that these goons are the bedrock on which their Movement was built.

Labels: American Idiots, Republican Confederate Party, Teh Stoopid

NBC 4’s reporter-anchor Craig Melvin is a tall African-American. Which apparently led to this exchange with former Sen. George Allen, according to Melvin’s Twitter account Tuesday night:

“For the 2nd time in 5 months, fmr. gov. and sen candidate George Allen asks me,”what position did you play?” I did not a play a sport.”

Labels: American Idiots, morons, racism, Republican Confederate Party, Teabag America

In his interview with The Weekly Standard, Barbour heaps praise on the pro-segregation Citizens Council, which he credits with integrating the Yazoo City public schools without any violence.

"Because the business community wouldn't stand for it," he said. "You heard of the Citizens Councils? Up north they think it was like the KKK. Where I come from it was an organization of town leaders. In Yazoo City they passed a resolution that said anybody who started a chapter of the Klan would get their ass run out of town. If you had a job, you'd lose it. If you had a store, they'd see nobody shopped there. We didn't have a problem with the Klan in Yazoo City."

"In fact, if you look at Yazoo City, their approach to integration was very similar to other communities across the state, where the parents pulled their children out of the public school system so white children would not have to attend an integrated school system," responded Johnson. "They established a private segregated academy which still exists today. The majority of the white citizens of Yazoo County and Yazoo City still do not allow their children to attend public education today. That trend happened as a result of the civil rights movement and full integration, and that the struggle that blacks had across the state was the same in Yazoo City as it was across the state."

Robert Mickey, an associate political science professor at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, said that Barbour is correct in asserting that the Citizens Councils were often against Klan organizations forming in their communities. It wasn't, however, to promote racial integration; instead, they were concerned that such groups would spoil the economic environment, and in turn, Citizens Councils used economic intimidation to further segregation.

"This was an organization that spread very quickly across the South, directly in response to Brown v. Board of Education," said Mickey in an interview with The Huffington Post Monday. "Usually they were against violence because of its harm to economic development; firms wouldn't want to relocate to places that had a lot of violence. So their tools of slowing down the South's democratization was to use economic intimidation. ... They intimidated black parents from signing petitions demanding that school districts be desegregated, sometimes by printing the signatories in local newspapers, which oftentimes led to the signatures being recanted because the parents understood and feared the consequences of being publicly outed like that. So Barbour's right -- on one hand, they often helped out on the Klan, and a lot of times they were interested in deterring white mob violence. But Northerners are right that it's like the Klan."

Labels: racism, Republican Confederate Party

The Sons of Confederate Veterans plan to hold a $100-per-person Secession Ball on Dec. 20 in Gaillard Municipal Auditorium. It will feature a play highlighting key moments from the signing of South Carolina’s Ordinance of Secession 150 years ago, an act that severed the state’s ties to the Union and put the nation on the path to the Civil War.

Jeff Antley, who is organizing the event, said the Secession Ball honors the men who stood up for their rights.

“To say that we are commemorating and celebrating the signers of the ordinance and the act of South Carolina going that route is an accurate statement,” Antley said. “The secession movement in South Carolina was a demonstration of freedom.”

Labels: just another outrage, racism, Republican Confederate Party

Federal officials are investigating a fire that started overnight at the site of a new Islamic center in a Nashville suburb.

Ben Goodwin of the Rutherford County Sheriff's Department confirmed to CBS Affiliate WTVF that the fire, which burned construction equipment at the future site of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, is being ruled as arson.

Special Agent Andy Anderson of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives told CBS News that the fire destroyed one piece of construction equipment and damaged three others. Gas was poured over the equipment to start the fire, Anderson said.

[snip]

Opponents of a new Islamic center say they believe the mosque will be more than a place of prayer; they are afraid the 15-acre site that was once farmland will be turned into a terrorist training ground for Muslim militants bent on overthrowing the U.S. government.

"They are not a religion. They are a political, militaristic group," Bob Shelton, a 76-year-old retiree who lives in the area, told The Associated Press.

Shelton was among several hundred demonstrators who recently wore "Vote for Jesus" T-shirts and carried signs that said "No Sharia law for USA!," referring to the Islamic code of law.

Others took their opposition further, spray painting a sign announcing the "Future site of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro" and tearing it up.

Earlier this summer opponents criticized the planned mosque at hearings held by the Rutherford County Commission, as supporters held prayer vigils.

At one such prayer vigil, WTVF reported opponents speaking out against construction.

"No mosque in Murfreesboro. I don't want it. I don't want them here," Evy Summers said to WTVF. "Go start their own country overseas somewhere. This is a Christian country. It was based on Christianity."

Labels: bigotry, Religious Intolerance, Republican Confederate Party, wingnuttia

"Is it wrong to love another man?" Limbaugh asked. "Because I love Chris Christie."

On Thursday, George Will described Christie, New Jersey's new chief executive, as "the nation's most interesting governor." Fred Barnes, in the latest Weekly Standard, devoted 1,741 words to him. And in the Wall Street Journal last week, columnist William McGurn praised Christie for "offering the voters a dose of Reagan Republicanism -- with a Jersey twist." And then there's Rush Limbaugh, who recently treated his listeners to a dramatic reading of Christie's budget address to the state Legislature.

[snip]

Christie's war on Trenton's status quo comes as the national GOP is faced with an unusual leadership void. Sure, the party is positioned to do well -- maybe very well -- in November's election, but they will owe those gains to the rotten economy, the abundance of low-hanging fruit (Democrats who sneaked into office in the tidal waves of 2006 and 2008), and the buyer's remorse nature of midterm elections. Those variables will be either absent or muted by 2012. To have any hopes of winning then -- and into the future -- the GOP will need what it now lacks: a leader who can give it direction.

Right now, the party has three "front-runners" for its '12 presidential nomination: Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin. As Ed Kilgore noted here last week, they all come with serious liabilities -- both in terms of the GOP primary campaign and the general election. More depressing for the GOP, though, is the stable of potential dark horses. That Haley Barbour is now attracting serious presidential buzz tells you about all you need to know.

Viewed in this context, the conservative press' adulation of Christie takes on new significance. The GOP  is essentially holding an open casting call for a new leader right now. The 2012 field really is wide open. Could Christie be the dark horse the right has been looking for?

On the surface, it's a far-fetched notion. He's only been on the job for a few months. He's practically unknown nationally and hasn't been hitting the rubber chicken circuit in Iowa and South Carolina. Nor does he have a substantial donor network. And he's a bit ... um ... corpulent -- not exactly the president out of central casting. 

But it's also not impossible to see an opening for him. Just consider his dark horse competition. In the last few months, the names of Marco Rubio, Scott Brown and Mitch Daniels have been floated -- would Christie really be any more of a long shot than any of them? As his recent media coverage shows, his story is a compelling one for conservatives: a "real" Republican who won in a deeply blue state and didn't back down after taking office.

His stint as U.S. attorney, a post he held for seven years before running for governor, could be an asset too. Christie, who won the job by raising massive sums for George W. Bush's 2000 campaign, milked the post for all of its P.R. worth, targeting political corruption and stinging one crooked pol after another. There are some serious questions about the degree to which politics intruded on his work as U.S. attorney, but New Jersey's electorate didn't really care. His boasts of putting more than 100 corrupt politicians behind bars were good enough for them. A national GOP audience wouldn't be much different.

Plus, unlike most Republicans who win in blue states, he hasn't saddled himself with cultural views that are at odds with the GOP base. Kean, who governed New Jersey from 1982 to 1990, could have been George H.W. Bush's running mate in 1988, but his abortion views disqualified him. Whitman might have claimed the No. 2 slot on Bob Dole's 1996 ticket (whatever that was worth) had she been antiabortion. At least on paper, Chris Christie's profile is quite appealing to the national GOP base.

And if it's a question of ambition, Christie, a one-time student body president at the University of Delaware, probably has it. He's been eyeing the political big-time for years, something I learned all the way back in November 2002, when I was covering politics in New Jersey and writing about potential candidates for the 2005 gubernatorial race. Christie, then finishing his first year as U.S. attorney, was an unknown commodity. But as I was preparing the story, I got a call from one of his friends, politely (but insistently) pointing me to a recent article in another publication that had listed Christie as a future gubernatorial contender. The wheels were already in motion.

Is it likely Christie will seek the GOP nod in '12? Not at all. He'd have to start traveling and raising money almost immediately if he wants to, but he's just months into his first term as governor. The timing just doesn’t work right now. So he'll probably content himself with staying put and attracting more national attention, hoping instead for a spot on the ultimate nominee's V.P. list. And if '12 brings another GOP defeat, he'd then have the option of running for president in 2016. But who knows?

Labels: assholes, Chris Christie, Republican Confederate Party

Virginia's slide toward extreme conservative governance under Gov. Bob McDonnell continues.

McDonnell wants to change the process by which non-violent felons apply to have their voting rights restored, the Washington Post reported over the weekend. Whereas before, applicants had had to fill out a one-page form, making the process almost automatic, they now will have to submit an essay outlining their contributions to society since their release.

Advocates for the poor say this will result in far fewer people having their rights restored. Kent Willis, an ACLU official in Virginia called the essay requirement "a nearly insurmountable obstacle'' for people with a limited education. And he added that many felons would be intimidated, reducing the number of applicants.

The Secretary of the Commonwealth, Janet Polarek, whose office handles the applications, told the Washington Post that the new system "gives all applicants the opportunity to have their cases heard and have their full stories told,"

But the move has provoked an outcry. The Virginia Black Legislative Caucus called the move "a horrific step back towards the era of Jim Crow." One member of the caucus told the Post: "This is designed to suppress the rights of poor people."

Democratic state legislators charged that McDonnell "is returning to a 'blank sheet' voter registration system that in the past disenfranchised many African American voters." The state Democratic Party also condemned the move, though it didn't dare make a moral case on behalf of felons, instead arguing that the new system would "bury the Secretary of the Commonwealth's office in unnecessary paperwork."

About 300,000 felons in the state have served their time, but still do not have the right to vote. Only Virginia and Kentucky make felons apply to the governor to restore their voting rights.

Labels: Jim Crow, racism, Republican Confederate Party, Teabaggers