When protesters take an image so clearly tied to anarchy and label it socialism, it exhibits an intellectual laziness that typifies the central flaw that will soon collapse the birther/deather movement. [...]
|
||||||||
|
 A party without a vision and carrying out a stupid strategy. I wish I could be in the room for some of the GOP leadership’s strategy sessions these days, because, in all honesty, I haven’t got a clue what they think is going on. The latest economic numbers have unemployment down slightly for the first time since April of ‘08, GDP fell less than expected, the stock market has climbed to levels we haven’t seen since last November and the dollar rose against both the Yen and the Euro. Sure, there’s a lot more to these numbers the further into them you delve, but, as has become abundantly clear over the course of this recession, emotional responses matter just as much as salient details. The Republicans, fresh off their effort to sell this as Obama’s economy, now face the problem of convincing the public of the exact opposite, that improvements in a number of indicators have, in fact, nothing to do with the President’s efforts. No one saw that possibility coming? Is their ideology so blinding that they never even considered that the stimulus could, in fact, have a beneficial effect on the economy? And here I was thinking the planning sessions for the Iraq War were a fluke. Continue reading…  The fate of the GOP now rests securely in President Obama's hands. With Al Franken finally being certified as the winner in Minnesota’s 2008 senatorial race, we have suddenly arrived at the first test of my theory concerning Nate Silver’s Republican Death Spiral. Franken’s arrival gives the Democrats a 60-seat majority in the Senate. No one should get terribly excited about this, both for the reasons outlined in virtually every major news outlet as well as the fact that 60 shouldn’t be the big number we make it. Virtually all of Obama’s agenda now depends on how well he can hold together his party’s much-expanded coalition. A Tipping PointIn my initial post on this topic, one of the major determinants was how quickly internal bickering began to actually cause a rift in the Democratic Party. With steady, competent leadership, the Democrats may hold their coalition together long enough for the Republicans to bleed out. However, if the bickering becomes damaging very quickly, and voters believe the party to be ineffectual, those who recently left the Republican Party may run back. If the Democratic coalition holds out longer, the Republicans may have hemorrhaged too many voters to recover. If, for instance, the Libertarian Party manages to gain parity with their Republican cousins, then that party, and not the GOP could be the beneficiary of a Democratic split. Continue reading… |
||||||||
|
Copyright © 2010 Radical Rationalist - All Rights Reserved
|
||||||||