U.S. Politics XL--Double Down it

[DanteGabriel]

And why was the 'Solid South' solidly Democratic? Because Republicans ended slavery and passed the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. So the Democrats' national coalition for nearly century relied on racists buttressed by Jim Crow, lynching, separate but equal, etc. When the Democrats as a national party finally got caught up to the nineteenth century, and eliminated anti black racism as a part of their official platform, the South realigned - not because the Republicans out bigoted them, but just because they had moved to the left on other issues.

What a whorishly convenient and intellectually dishonest way to put it.

Yes, the Democrats were the party of hidebound Southern racists for their first hundred years or so. That changed in the 1960s. Strom Thurmond, the racist arch-Dixiecrat of the party, switched to the Republicans in 1964. It was a Democratic President, Lyndon Johnson, and a Democratic Congress that passed the Civil Rights Act of 1965. And when that act passed, Johnson admitted he'd lost the South for his party. And that's when the Republicans decided that all these racist fuckers needed a new political party, and they welcomed them with open arms and code words.

The GOP has not been the party of equal rights for black people for half a century. They are no longer the party of Lincoln. Please stop trying to insult our intelligence as you make transparently lame attempts to whitewash the GOP's half-century of appealing to the worst instincts of man.

[Demonic Weasel]

Alright. I generally do not post in these threads, seeing that I think there are plenty of other people who share my general sentiments and who can structure them much more eloquently than I. Nonetheless, with FLOW stumping for Daniels so much recently, and the interest there, I feel that I need to say something.

I've been an Indianan for over 10 years now, and while I am admittedly very much a leftist pinko commie, I have to say that Daniels is absolutely what we should not want in the White House. The man's a step up from a lot of Republicans inasmuch that he's not a complete idealogue about things; he only commits to actions that he thinks he can get away with, and he's fast to back off of anything that backfires. But he is all about privitization, and I'm not just talking about Social Security (which he backed off of, and I'd give him more credit for if he hadn't dropped it solely out of political reasons), I'm talking about leasing roads to foreign companies for about 100 years. Additionally, he's strangling education in the state, insisting on scaled back funding.

As for whether or not he'll run, I'm pretty certain that he will. He went through this same pattern when he first ran for govenor- claimed that he had no desire to do so, and allowed himself to be persuaded to run to save Indiana from its dire fiscal straits. He has a Napolean complex and he'll be happy to run for president so long as a white horse is involved. Daniels looks reasonable enough from a distance, especially in this current political climate, but his best policies are short term fixes.

Anyway. Just thought I'd chip in, since he keeps coming up these days.

[lokisnow]

One of the things I hate about this country is compulsory education. We could balance the budget with ease if we stopped paying for the education of all the freeloaders. Since 47% of the population pay zero tax, withholdings, garnishments whatsoever and take home 100% of their pay (I heard it on Limbaugh and CNN reported it today too!) every week I think we should stop educating their young. Apple doesn't fall far from the tree and their young will only grow up to be freeloaders too.

And we should stop letting these 47% freeloaders using the roads. The police and firefighters shouldn't protect their homes, and we should cut down any government funded utility connections to their houses such as sewers, electricity, running water etc. They can get a septic tank and buy a gas generator. As for transportation they can pay to use the street roads in their towns, but only AFTER we give the roads to a Chinese company (we couldn't sell it or lease it to China, that wouldn't be in the interests of being good capitalists, we have to give away roads built with public funds for companies to operate as they like). I suspect 10$ per road is reasonable per trip. Hopefully many of them won't have to make four or five turns to navigate around their town. The chamber of commerce has endorsed the idea of allowing Wal-Mart and a conglomeration of Mall Stores to subsidize the tolls on the feeder roads to those bastions of the township, only 5$ to take a road if you exit at the mall or at Wal-Mart, and Wal-Mart is lobbying hard for a tax break that will allow it to make the feeder roads to the Wal-Mart-plex only $2 per trip. It's almost zen to imagine such a paradise actually occuring in America. It's so sad we've been so corrupted by socialism that this isn't possible as of now.

We're currently working on a program to whitewash all public murals and sell all public statuary and artwork to France (the imbeciles) as it's an offense against America to have any public Art. The collections of museums are going to go on auction at regularly scheduled intervals to keep from flooding the market too much. Public Park land should all be auctioned and those nasty, awful, heinous National and State park abominations are all going to be sold at $0.01 per acre to good capitalists that will develop the land and put it to good use for once instead of wasting it.

If we can get rid of our education system, our roads system, our public arts, our parkland, our police and firefighters we will finally make Excellent Progress towards eradicating the evils of socialism from this country.

And we should start with education--what a vile pox it is.

But don't touch medicare, we need to keep the government out of that!

[Annelise]

Anyway. Just thought I'd chip in, since he keeps coming up these days.

I don't know much about him, other than the highlights. A discussion with those more informed taking point would be a nice break from the Tea Party, IMHO. :)

Additionally, he's strangling education in the state, insisting on scaled back funding.

Is it that you don't think the funds need to be scaled back or that you think that it would be better taken from elsewhere?

As for whether or not he'll run, I'm pretty certain that he will. He went through this same pattern when he first ran for govenor- claimed that he had no desire to do so, and allowed himself to be persuaded to run to save Indiana from its dire fiscal straits.

Persuaded by whom?

[Commodore]

.

He's my pick for 2012, doubt he'll run or win though, he's too subdued.

[Demonic Weasel]

I don't know much about him, other than the highlights. A discussion with those more informed taking point would be a nice break from the Tea Party, IMHO. :)

Is it that you don't think the funds need to be scaled back or that you think that it would be better taken from elsewhere?

It's the fact that most of the schools are economically depressed right now, and the money that's coming into them hasn't been enough, comprehensively for some time. There' the additional fact that far too many schools are bolstered by private sponsors now, and I would prefer to see that the money that they have is public. But of course, one of Daniels main points has always been about lowering taxes to boost a 'business friendly' economy.

Persuaded by whom?

Hmmm. Yeah, I forgot I was being vague. Party insiders and political advisors who saw a chance to take Indiana back with Obanon gone. Kernan, the Lt. Gov at the time, didn't run a very good campaign either, and Daniels's last opponent was a complete joke.

The point mostly, of course, was that Daniels disavowed have any personal ambitions for a political office out of the Bush Admin, but he allowed himself to be convinced by party operatives that Indiana absolutely needed his fiscal genius.

[Elrick]

That's the funny thing right now. There's a lot of anti-Obama momentum, but there is absolutely no clear cut candidate for the GOP (and of course 2012 is a long ways off). Everyone you mentioned seems to have some fatal flaws. I personally think Romney could be a good president, but I think Romneycare and Mormonism could keep him from the GOP nomination. Paul Ryan should send some people to Iowa just to see what happens.

Their's also a lot of people that like Obama, it's just the nut cases and their anti-Obama koolaid that are getting more press. Personally I see Obama's approval ratings going up rather down overtime. We got two years to go and a lot can happen in this time.

[AndyP]

What a whorishly convenient and intellectually dishonest way to put it.

Yes, the Democrats were the party of hidebound Southern racists for their first hundred years or so. That changed in the 1960s. Strom Thurmond, the racist arch-Dixiecrat of the party, switched to the Republicans in 1964. It was a Democratic President, Lyndon Johnson, and a Democratic Congress that passed the Civil Rights Act of 1965.

To bad it's not true. First of all the acts in question are the Civil Rights acts of 1964 and the voting rights act of 1965 both of which wouldn't have passed without key Republican support.

Here for the Civil Rights act of 1964.

The civil-rights bill of 1964 was enacted with strong bipartisan and bi-ideological (conservative and liberal) support. But, the credit for the civil-rights victory has gone almost exclusively to liberals and Democrats, particularly to Senator Hubert Humphrey (D, Minn.) in Congress, and to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. However, much of the hard work of advancing the legislation was done by congressional Republicans — conservative stalwarts including Everett McKinley Dirksen of Illinois, Charles Halleck of Indiana, William McCulloch of Ohio, Robert Griffin of Michigan, Robert Taft Jr. of Ohio, Clarence Brown of Ohio, Roman Hruska of Nebraska, and moderates such as Thomas Kuchel of California, Kenneth Keating of New York, and Clark MacGregor of Minnesota. All of these Republicans served as major leaders of the pro-civil-rights coalition either as floor managers or captains for different sections of the bill.

Although the Democrats controlled both houses of the Congress at the time, a much-higher percentage of Republicans than Democrats supported the civil-rights bill. For example, in the House, Republicans voted for civil rights by a margin of 79 percent to 21 percent, 136-35. The Democrats' margin was 153-91 or 63 percent to 37 percent.

However, the single-most-important vote for the legislation was the attempt to cut off the anti-civil-rights filibuster in the Senate. In order for the bill to pass, civil-rights supporters needed two thirds of the Senate to break a filibuster by the opposition. Republicans voted overwhelmingly to break the filibuster by 81.8 percent (27-6), but only 65.7 percent of the Democrats voted to end the filibuster (44-23). Thus, if only Republicans in the Congress had voted, any potential filibuster would easily have been overridden. But, if only Democrats had voted, the pro-civil-rights forces would not have been able to obtain the necessary two/thirds vote to break the filibuster and the civil-rights bill would have died. No Republicans in Congress, no civil-rights bill — it is as simple as that.

Here

The two numbers in each line of this list refer to the number of representatives voting in favor and against the act, respectively.

Senate: 77–19

Democrats: 47–17 (73%-27%)

Republicans: 30–2 (94%-6%)

House: 333–85

Democrats: 221–61 (78%-22%)

Republicans: 112–24 (82%-18%)

Conference Report:

Senate: 79–18

Democrats: 49–17 (four Southern Democrats voted in favor: Albert Gore, Sr., Ross Bass, George Smathers and Ralph Yarborough).

Republicans: 30–1 (the lone nay was Strom Thurmond; John Tower who did not vote was paired as a nay vote with Eugene McCarthy who would have voted in favor.)

House: 328–74

Democrats: 217–54

Republicans: 111–20

What in those Congressional votes tells a racist living in the South think, hey the Republicans are for me?

Your other issue is that your argument isn't supported by southern voting patterns below the Presidential level. As Democrats continued to dominate in congressional elections and in state houses thru the 1980s with no real across the board switch until 1994. The effects of the so-called "southern strategy" were rather shallow at best. You can point to a handful of individuals such as Strom Thurmond all you want, but your still talking about a handful. You also have to look at other factors such as, the rise of the evangelical movement, fervent anti-communist and pro defense sentiment, and people moving into the South from other regions thus making the region move diverse politically . The typical liberal narrative of racist southerner flees the Democratic party for the Republicans is tired and lazy.

[lokisnow]

1994 is interesting as the switch year as its the year that a lot of redistricting took place that had a big effect on minority candidates throughout the south.

[ThinkerX]

Ok...since there are no clear cut conventional republican candidates for the oval office, how about we take a step back (maybe two, given his size) and see if Rush Limbaugh could climb into the ring for 2012. Instant massive name recognition (and probably support), real deep campaign chest, and apparently holding more influence over the republican party than its own chairman.

[AndyP]

1994 is interesting as the switch year as its the year that a lot of redistricting took place that had a big effect on minority candidates throughout the south.

Yes there were a series of deals between minority members of the Democratic party and Republican party to create minority majority districts at the expense of Democrats in general. All of which couldn't have happened without increased Republican presence in state legislatures as well as on the ground. Of course none of that was possible until 1990.

[AndyP]

Ok...since there are no clear cut conventional republican candidates for the oval office, how about we take a step back (maybe two, given his size) and see if Rush Limbaugh could climb into the ring for 2012. Instant massive name recognition (and probably support), real deep campaign chest, and apparently holding more influence over the republican party than its own chairman.

Hell No

Round up all of the Republican congressmen who voted against TARP and start there. The tea partiers are going to insist on that as a litmus test.

[NoSpeakEnglish]

Mitch Daniels of Indiana is an Arab, the scariest thing to TeaBaggers, he has so much baggage being part of the Bush administration and he is too sensible and not fiery enough for the base to rally around him. Republicans want an arch conservative in 2012, they want a smarter version of Sarah Palin that can inspire conservative and be as charismatic as Obama.

[ThinkerX]

Hell No

Round up all of the Republican congressmen who voted against TARP and start there. The tea partiers are going to insist on that as a litmus test.

Rush it is then. Just think - huge influence over the republican party, probably huge influence with the Tea Party crowd, never having served in elected office mean that he can claim to be a 'real' outsider - yet he probably has lots of connections as well. Wonder who he'd choose for veep?...

[Galactus]

"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are...[a] few other Texas oil millionaries, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."

-Dwight D. Eisenhower

You know. I *like* Ike.

[Shryke]

He also, rather presciently, coined the term Military Industrial Complex.

[sToNED_CAT]

The GOP has not been the party of equal rights for black people for half a century. They are no longer the party of Lincoln. Please stop trying to insult our intelligence as you make transparently lame attempts to whitewash the GOP's half-century of appealing to the worst instincts of man.

Just show me some mainstream Republican politician that is against equal rights for blacks. Republican offcial political ideology is in fact remarkably consistent on this matter - equal rights for everyone. I don't recall any prominent todays Republican advocating return to Jim Crow laws. They opposed affirmative action, forced busing etc. You should replace "GOP" with Democrats, because Democrats moved so far to the left, that they are against equal rights today. They support special rights, special treatment of minority groups (blacks and now also hispanics) at the expense of everyone else in order to obtain their votes. So just because more (white} racist people vote for GOP, doesn't mean GOP is racist. In fact they never needed to change their ideology to appeal to anyone's worst instincts. Spouthern whites simply fell into their lap by default.

[sToNED_CAT]

It's the fact that most of the schools are economically depressed right now, and the money that's coming into them hasn't been enough, comprehensively for some time. There' the additional fact that far too many schools are bolstered by private sponsors now, and I would prefer to see that the money that they have is public. But of course, one of Daniels main points has always been about lowering taxes to boost a 'business friendly' economy.

That the American schools lack adequate funding is just a myth. In fact US schools rank 1st in the world in per pupil spending while delivering shitty product. The problem is that it's not spent wisely (just 50% of schools payrolls goes to teachers) and the system as whole sucks. But money was never really a problem, not even for "ghetto" schools. American states should cut school spending by 20% and use the money saved to give every child under 18 health insurance without tax increase.

[mcbigski]

To bad it's not true. First of all the acts in question are the Civil Rights acts of 1964 and the voting rights act of 1965 both of which wouldn't have passed without key Republican support.

Here for the Civil Rights act of 1964.

True but irrelevant - it doesn't fit the narrative. Which is why David Gregory can spout off on Meet the Press that Civil Rights legislation was passed in the 60s only over strenuous Republican opposition. It's fake but accurate, which is apparently the Democrat standard for truth when it comes to slandering Republicans.

Jesus Cocksucing Christ man, learn some fucking history.

The Dixiecrats dropped the Democratic Party like a hot potato the minute they stopped being totally anti-black. They jumped ship to the GOP, who were more then willing to be racist enough to pick up their votes.

Put really, why trust me, let's talk to Atwater:

Your fucking view of history is so hopelessly slanted by your political leanings. What did Atwater say there? He said, in your quote, that when the Democrats played anti black politics, it was 'nigger, nigger.' When the Republicans appeal to white Southerners, its because they want a smaller federal government with respect to social services (though not so much a smaller military) and fiscal conservatism. He said every thing you would actually do that would appeal to Southerners would be substantive and policy based and color blind, instead of tried and true Democrat methods like poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses. Oh the horror of those evil Republicans.

The Republicans did nothing racist to pick up votes in the South. There just happened to be more good old boys that preferred Republican policies to Democrat policies, once the Democrats moved into the 19th century on race relations, and neither party any longer supported legislation to treat blacks unequally.

The Dixiecrats didn't jump ship to the GOP, they jumped ship to the Dixiecrats. Jesus Cocksucking Christ, how obvious is that and you're ignorant of it? Then they got spanked in the polls and gave up and got absorbed back into the two major parties - more joined the Republicans, but that was because it was a better fit for more of them based on the issues in play, since segregation was finally a dead issue in both major parties.

What a whorishly convenient and intellectually dishonest way to put it.

Yes, the Democrats were the party of hidebound Southern racists for their first hundred years or so. That changed in the 1960s. Strom Thurmond, the racist arch-Dixiecrat of the party, switched to the Republicans in 1964. It was a Democratic President, Lyndon Johnson, and a Democratic Congress that passed the Civil Rights Act of 1965. And when that act passed, Johnson admitted he'd lost the South for his party. And that's when the Republicans decided that all these racist fuckers needed a new political party, and they welcomed them with open arms and code words.

The GOP has not been the party of equal rights for black people for half a century. They are no longer the party of Lincoln. Please stop trying to insult our intelligence as you make transparently lame attempts to whitewash the GOP's half-century of appealing to the worst instincts of man.

I'll see your Strom Thurmond and raise your Robert Byrd. Who also ran on segregation and opposing Civil Rights in the 50s and stayed a Democrat. It's whorishly convenient to mention the one and not the other.

It's also the height of intellectual dishonesty to imply that when Johnson admitted he'd lost the south, it was because of Republican opposition to Civil Rights. Andy already reviewed the percentages there.

All this talk of code words is just a convenient way to smear. Where's the beef? Where's the legislative record of the Republicans taking away rights from blacks? I know it's fashionable in lefty enclaves to see Southerners as ignorant and stupid, but are they really seen as so stupid that they'd keep voting for a party that never delivered on its supposed promises?

And as far as the 'worst instincts of man' - what is the GOP doing to appeal to whatever instinct made reality TV such a smash anyways?

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

But thinking about this a bit, I may have to walk back my agreement with your earlier post, and here's why.

If the 2012 election is going to have at least Romney, Huckabee, and Santorum, with perhaps Ron Paul and undoubtedly some sort of drama featuring Sarah Palin whether she chooses to run or not, I wonder what fund-raising opportunities and airtime will be available for an unspectacular second-tier candidate. All of the most prominent Republican candidates have prominent flaws that individually should probably keep them from winning the nomination. But together they could easily suffice to crowd out a more qualified but lesser known second-tier candidate. In that situation, I think it's hard to say which candidate who doesn't have a shot will get the nomination.

How enthusiastic are the RNC folks who support Romney?

I ask that because the current frontrunners are essentially retreads from 2008 for whom there was a rather startling lack of enthusiasm. Most Republicans I know are dissatisfied with the current crop and are waiting for someone else to emerge. The money won't start committing until late next year, so I think the door is still open.

McCain, by all accounts, was out of it in the summer of 2007, polling in the single digits. He surged because nobody was really in love with anyone else, so there were still votes to be had. The GOP primary was like political "Survivor". McCain didn't win because he was beloved by GOP voters. He won because they disliked everyone else more, and he was the last one standing after everyone else was. voted off first. Heck, people were trying to drag Fred Thompson into the race because they were so unexcited by everyone else.

I'll stick by saying it won't be Romney, Palin, Pawlenty, or Huckabee. But I'd agree that their candidacies would only leave room for perhaps two other people, who will need to catch on within the next 18 months or so to have a shot. But I don't think its anything close to too late yet, expecially given the lack of enthusiasm for the unemployed politicians with their hats already in the ring.

I wouldn't put money on Daniels in particular, but I'd put money on "the field" versus the retreads.