Thread: Is Sarah Palin the Jesse Jackson of the Republican party?

Originally Posted by Kizmet

If I remember correctly this also happened during the Clinton administration.

Bill Clinton was a total moderate compared to Barack Obama. Clinton concerned me, while Obama terrifies me.

Originally Posted by John Bear

raristud: "Is Governor Arnold well liked in California?"

John: From the Sacramento Bee, a few weeks ago (http://tinyurl.com/ce6hxt), the answer would appear to be, "No."

"Voters were in a sour mood last year about their elected officials, but they are downright foul now. Schwarzenegger's approval rating has sunk to 33 percent, but even more importantly he has lost the confidence of Republicans, 53 percent of whom disapprove of his performance.... The approval rating for lawmakers has sunk from 21 percent to 11 percent since last September."

As a native Californian, I can safely say the Terminator is pretty well despised!

Abner :)

Originally Posted by Abner

As a native Californian, I can safely say the Terminator is pretty well despised!

Abner :)

You'll soon enough have an opportunity to vote for the comeback kid, Jerry Brown...

Originally Posted by Ian Anderson

As far as I can tell - my friends, republican, democrat, and non-affilliated never complain about him. He seems to be middle-of-the-road.

The problem in the state legislature is that a super majority is needed for fiscal bills (something like 60% or 2/3s) but the republican representatives/senators are dead set against any tax increase so the budget is always late and screwed up.

Interestingly, in Illinois, where I used to live (and the home of our President), Republicans have no power whatsoever in either the executive or legislative branches; however the budget is always late and screwed up.

Now that "W" is out of the political arena and McCain will surely not run again, it is important to neutralize any Republican who might emerge as a power player. Many see a political future for Palin, who appealed to a number of people by being a different kind of political figure than, say, Hillary Rodham Clinton. It will be necessary for those wishing to avoid Republican power to portray her as an unintelligent, power-mad, psycho-woman who wants to destroy all animals and the environment and force everyone to become an evangelical Christian.

We'll see how successfully the strategy plays out.

Personally, I am more interested in what President Obama and Speaker Pelosi ARE doing, than what some local leader might due in a few years.

Just my 1 1/2 cents...

Originally Posted by Ted Heiks

Because she's the best-looking governor in the nation.

Sorry, guys. You've approached this from a purely male/hetero perspective. There are many good looking Governors. Most of them are males. Don't get so caught up in this "boys club" stuff that you forget that we also have members who might be attracted to all those male governors.

Originally Posted by patmonahan

But wait, she can see Russia from her front porch,

If I recall correctly she didn't say that. A comedian that looked like her did.

Originally Posted by patmonahan

But wait, she can see Russia from her front porch, and Africa, what is that? She is that stupid. Wink, wink, ya betcha!

ABC News

"PALIN: They're our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska."

I guess you missed the exact quote. "Wink, wink, ya betcha!"

Originally Posted by BillDayson

I don't read political opinion pieces, especially ones posted with divisive partisan intent. I already have political opinions of my own and I don't need to pay attention to anyone else's. When it comes to politics, I'm less interested in naked partisan posturing (so what?) than in real issues and pragmatic alternatives.

One of my opinions is that the Left needs to wake up to the fact that the Left won the last election and that they run the country now. It's yours, John and Chip, to do with as you please. (God help us...) We are long past the point where the Left can play at being outsiders, addressing every issue and answering every question with an endlessly repeated "Bush sucks!"

A weak "Sarah Palin sucks!" won't disguise the fact that Barack Obama has replaced Bush in the White House. Responsibility, both for the nation and for the world, is the Left's now, whether they want to assume it or not. Responsible leadership calls for something a bit more intelligent and constructive than lamely continuing to trash potential political opponents.

Now's the time when the Left has to finally place its cards on the table. I'll kick back, pop open a beer or six, and watch, throwing out cynical and sarcastic comments from time to time as appropriate, along with the occasional empty beer can.

A particular candidate's prospects in any future primaries is going to depend on a lot of things, not least on their own plans and intentions, and on what other competitors emerge.

In a head-to-head general election with a Democrat, a Republican can count on getting Republican core support and can count on not getting Democrat core support. That's a given going in.

So elections are won and lost by swaying the 20 - 30% of swing voters in the middle of the spectrum. Most recently, Iraq war fatigue and the financial industry meltdown, added to a sense the the Right was long on hubris but short on creative new ideas, moved many centrists into the Democratic column and handed Obama his historic opportunity.

His task now is to do something constructive with it and not to squander it. But if he moves too vigorously to enact some bizarre agenda drawn from Bill Ayers, Acorn and the radical Berkeley-style campus Left, then moderate reaction will be swift indeed.

In other words, the prospects for the Republicans in four years down the road is going to largely be a function of the perceived success or failure of the Obama administration and of how significantly it's perceived to veer away from what centrists identify with as American mainstream tradition.

Criticism is always easier than leadership. And if things unfortunately don't go well, being out of power can become a tremendous virtue in and of itself. The Democrats played that game very effectively against Bush, but now it's Obama who's in the White House and the tables are turned.

We will have to wait and see what happens.

This captures the current conservative strategy beautifully. "It's your mess now, and the quicker we can pin all the problems on the left, the better." Forgive us, just a bit, if we linger for awhile and point out just what a heaping mess Bush foisted on us. After all, we had 8 years of it. Republicans want to now quickly transfer all problems to Obama after 120 days or so. So ironic that we now have Cheney - the most invisible VP ever, who now can't keep his mouth shut, and no one has heard a word from Bush.

Republicans scream (literally) about Obama's spending. When Bush was ponying up multiple billions per month on Iraq and multiplying the national debt umpteen times, Republicans were strangely silent. Now when spending is necessary to try and jump start this frozen engine of an economy, by actually investing in growth industries, the Republicans are whining endlessly about "tax and spend Democrats." Spending is fine when it's for wars, but not otherwise (education , health care, energy, infrastructure).

Thanks, by the way, for the non-partisan cooperation so effectively communicated (sarcasm intentional). The Republicans will just sit back now and remind us each and every day that the economy hasn't turned around yet. Why not give us an update every hour instead? No it's not the Democrats' country to do with as we please. It's everyone's country. Everyone should be interested in turning this dying hulk around. That's the problem. Thank you for elucidating it brilliantly.

It took Bush 8 years to completely ransack the economy. Let's give Obama at least as much time to try and turn it around - not 8 months.

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Originally Posted by Tom57

Republicans scream (literally) about Obama's spending. When Bush was ponying up multiple billions per month on Iraq and multiplying the national debt umpteen times, Republicans were strangely silent. Now when spending is necessary to try and jump start this frozen engine of an economy, by actually investing in growth industries, the Republicans are whining endlessly about "tax and spend Democrats." Spending is fine when it's for wars, but not otherwise (education, health care, energy, infrastructure).

I don't see any necessary spending that is happening... All that I know is that congress passed TRILLIONS of dollars in "bailout" money. There are several problems with this. First, the government should not be involved in the economy. This power is not included in the constitution and therefore violates the phrase where it says any power not in the constitution is not given to the government. Second, it encourages risky loans. If the government gives money to banks that made bad decissions will the bank have learned its lesson?

Not all the money even approved by congress is even for the recovery. (I always like to pull out the list of goofy spending in the bailout from World magazine that shows the government gave $100,000+ for doorbells in a small town) We had a recession in the 1940's that was this bad but didn't last this long. Economists say this is because the government did NOTHING to interfere with the market. In all the classes in economics I have taken no one has said that the government should do this.

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