Republican renewal

Why the GOP’s indulgence of its lunatic fringe could be its undoing

In recent days, Democrats have charged that the Republicans are behind an organized faux-grassroots movement aimed at derailing the healthcare initiatives of the Obama Administration. Some evidence, disputed by the GOP, has surfaced supporting this claim. The meetings are well-attended, but individuals are often seen shouting down supporters of healthcare reform. Some have been arrested, others have been assaulted, and there have even been cases of people showing up with firearms. The television pictures have occasionally been downright alarming, leading House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer to write a devastating Op-Ed charging that those shouting shown proponents of the Obama plan are acting in an “un-American” fashion.

Barack Obama is returning from the ‘Three Amigos’ summit in Mexico to conduct the first of a series of town hall meetings (starting in New Hampshire today) aimed at building support for his plans to reform healthcare. With the polls showing a decided decrease in support for the president’s efforts on this issue, any outreach effort becomes crucial and will probably determine the degree of reform. Despite the boisterous and somewhat staged opposition in the town hall meetings to date, most observers concede that Obama has the numbers in Congress to pass some kind of reform package. The question now is whether it will amount to a transformational change or whether it will it be the result of a transactional or brokered agreement hammered out among legislators which addresses only some of the issues at stake.

It is becoming obvious that Sarah Palin is leaving the Alaska governorship in order to become the face of Republican politics. In that role, she will have to respond to Democratic initiatives with criticism and, hopefully, alternative policies. This will have her opposing healthcare reform, environmental policies designed to reduce carbon emissions, and any overtures aimed at jump-starting the peace process in the Middle East. She will fight for lower taxes, less government and a return to a strong national security policy. Sound familiar? It should.

What the governor of Alaska needs to do to be ready for 2012

Republicans are still searching for their voice eight months after losing the presidency. It is not unique that a party still be in search of itself after such a decisive loss. What is strange is the fact that personality politics and not policy debates are dominating the discussion. After all, we are still a long way from 2012 and it is too early to project a nominee. Yet, in recent days, it seems the attention has shifted from the Dick Cheney/Rush Limbaugh sideshow to the Sarah Palin/Newt Gingrich roadshow.

It has been said that the announcement of a Supreme Court nominee goes a long way in determining the outcome of the nomination. By all indications, Appeals Court Judge Sonya Sotomajor stands a good chance of being confirmed before Labour Day. Unless some indiscretion in her past is uncovered, Sotomajor appears to have the qualifications and the votes to make it to the highest court.

The impression that is emerging in the minds of voters is that Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh are running the Republican party—not in terms of electoral politics, but in leadership terms. Nothing could please the Obama people more than being attacked in the media by a former vice president adamantly defending “enhanced interrogation methods” or being castigated daily on the radio by Rush Limbaugh. Such a hypothetical Republican ticket represents at best 25% of the electorate. If you are Democratic National Committee president Tim Kaine, with less than two years to go before the mid-term elections, you cannot ask for a better portrait of the current Republican leadership than Cheney-Limbaugh.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=He_r0GLPZpw