Recommended reading: John Weaver on the future of the GOP
This article appeared in RealClearPolitics last week. Scott Conroy writes about Texas Republican consultant John Weaver’s concern about extremism in the Republican party:
For Republican operatives who believe their party’s core has taken a self-destructive turn to the far right — and that the GOP must recalibrate significantly in order to regain an electoral foothold — the immediate future holds little cause for optimism.
On issues ranging from gun control to the debt ceiling, the behind-the-scenes advocates of moderation see a GOP Congress that remains as unyielding in its hard-line positions as it was before President Obama’s re-election.
And lacking an influential, centrist standard-bearer to promote effectively a new tack from inside the Beltway, GOP strategists like John Weaver have taken to social media to voice their frustrations.
Weaver’s Twitter handle — @JWGOP — pays homage to the Republican Party, under the banner of which he has served as chief strategist for two presidential candidates.
But in his online interactions, the former senior adviser to John McCain and Jon Huntsman often purposely veers far from party talking points, doling out frank and cutting criticism of what he views as the extremist elements that have taken over the GOP in Washington.
“In our party, intolerance can no longer be tolerated,” Weaver tweeted shortly after Mitt Romney went down to defeat on Election Day.
“How do some of these gun advocates get out of the asylum to do cable shows?” he asked on Wednesday.
This is the key passage in Weaver’s argument:
“We’re kidding ourselves if we think we’re actually going to see a significant effort to change the way the party looks at issues in Washington,” Weaver said in an interview with RCP. “The first thing you have to do is accept the reality demographically of where the country is, and I don’t think our party yet has done that. And unfortunately, the votes on gun safety or immigration or anything else are not going to be indicative of how the whole party feels.”
What Weaver, whom I wrote about in September 2008, says is on target. Republicans are still trying to digest the message of the election, which, reduced to its essentials, is, “the country has changed but the Republican party has not.” This is especially true in Texas, where Republican leaders continue to wallow in self-satisfaction.
I think there are Republicans, and Weaver is one, who “get it.” They are few and far between in Texas, though. Perry brags about embracing tea party values and so does Cruz. They are wagering that the future of the Republican party rests with the tea party, and–at least in Texas–they may turn out to be right. (I don’t buy it. The tea party is a creature of the rise of Barack Obama. When Obama leaves the White House, the tea party will be out of business.) There is nothing left of the Republican party that George W. Bush built; it vanished the day Rick Perry became governor and the owner’s box made its appearance in Texas politics. Even George P. isn’t a natural heir to W.’s Republican party. As a politician, he appears to be closer to Perry philosophically than he is to his uncle.
The Texas politician under the most pressure is John Cornyn. The newly elected minority whip is getting pushed to the right by, among others, Cruz. Michael Quinn Sullivan called Cornyn (and other Republicans) a “weasel” for his vote on the fiscal cliff. Cornyn probably won’t get a credible primary challenger in 2014, but he will be looking over his shoulder at would-be wannabes, and he will have to move to the right if he wants to keep his job. The comparison of the modern Republican party with the Democrats who wrecked their party with the McGovern rules in the early seventies is frequently cited these days.
I’m not sure how apt it is. The Democratic party that nominated Hubert Humphrey in 1968 had all but disappeared four years later. The old bulls (labor leaders, key senators, and big-city mayors) who had run the party for years had had their last hurrah in 1968. The ’72 convention was disorganized; labor had little impact on the course of the convention; feminism was the dominant force; the party was balkanized into caucuses. George McGovern did not get to make his acceptance speech until well after midnight, with the result that no one on the East Coast heard it. Not that it mattered. Richard Nixon won reelection by a landslide, only to be brought down by Watergate two years later.
(A bit of trivia: McGovern wanted Ted Kennedy–among others–as his running mate, but he had to settle for Thomas Eagleton, a senator from Missouri. When the news leaked out that Eagleton had received treatment for depression and exhaustion, including electric-shock therapy, McGovern dumped Eagleton and replaced him with Sargent Shriver. Eagleton still finished first in the balloting for veep but had to withdraw from the contest. So who finished second in the vice-presidential balloting after Eagleton withdrew? Frances “Sissy” Farenthold, who finished second to Dolph Briscoe in the Democratic primary for governor in 1972.)
Bill Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council saved the party. It moved the party back toward the center. The liberal craziness wasn’t entirely gone, but it did have to moderate in the face of DLC calls for welfare reform and other centrist issues. The rest is history. Democrats were still on shaky ground through the nineties, but the unpopularity of George W. Bush helped save them in the 2000s. Now you have to ask yourself: Who in the Republican leadership today can bring the party back toward the center and sanity? Not Rick Perry. He has never moved toward the center during his entire career. Not Ted Cruz. He has aligned himself with the tea party. Maybe Chris Christie could do it, but Republicans may try to punish him for getting close to Obama during the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. In any case, there are no loud Republican voices advocating for a move to the center. The GOP has doubled down on extremism.
Tim says:
In debating gun control I’ve frequently come up against Republicans who do not understand that in about 8 years their party will start, quite literally, dying in massive numbers.
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Anon says:
So true, Paul. The GOP of my fathers is gone, replaced by the most extreme and self serving. Seen as nasty now, they will be seen as foolish soon.
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Fiftycal Reply:
January 26th, 2013 at 7:53 pm
Yah, there is nothing “extreme” in obamas nationalizing health care, giving amnesty and citizenship to illegal aliens, banning guns, registering guns and then confiscating guns, 15% unemployment forever. Yah. That’s the new “normal” and if you oppose it, the media/state brotherhood will crush you.
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Johnny Comment says:
The GOP’s uninformed and sheeplike voters of today are scared, white and losing. They are not convincing anyone but themselves with shrill ideological rants. It is embarassing to see.
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roadgeek says:
So let me see if I understand this: to survive as a party the GOP must become more like the Democratic Party.
Got it.
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Anonnymoose Reply:
January 21st, 2013 at 1:04 pm
That’s what the demographics say.
I think the best choice is to just let the party die.
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Jed Reply:
January 21st, 2013 at 4:25 pm
here in texas, the GOP should just sit tight & keep pushing legislation & redistricting as fast as it can. i actually agree with their strategy (as much as i loathe their ideology).
the texas democratic party is moving to the right so fast – trying to stay relevant today with basically no plan for tomorrow other than to keep promising that we’ll be “blue” soon – we won’t even be able to tell the difference if the state ever does turn blue.
so, no reason for repubs to worry about it now. when it happens, all those one-generation republicans can just go back to being “blue dog democrats,” keep pushing that party back to the right as it wants to do anyway, and they’ll still get to stay conservative and crazy.
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voter says:
My guess is it will be Chris Christie. His statemanship after Hurricane Sandy infuriated the very people who are killing the GOP and impressed the moderates and independents. His outburst on Faux News, “If you think I am thinking of presidential politics right now (aftermath of Sandy) you don’t know me!” could be a rallying cry for the majority of voters who put America first, then politics second.
He didn’t hesitate to criticize the GOP when they refused to vote on Sandy relief. Maybe Sandy will start a rejection of the GOP’s rejection of science, including climate change, which will also kill the GOP with younger/educated voters.
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Anonymous Reply:
January 22nd, 2013 at 8:19 am
Plus, he can campaign against Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” approach.
(Sorry, I lost the plot for a moment. She is properly termed MOOCHELLE by conservatives.)
Chris Christie to MOOCHELLE: “Let’s Sit” and by all means “Let’s Eat!”
With the majority being overweight in this country, this just might be the winning ticket in 2016.
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Fiftycal Reply:
January 26th, 2013 at 7:57 pm
Er, “low information voter”, how bout dis?
Global warming is likely to be less extreme than claimed, researchers said yesterday. The most likely temperature rise will be 1.9C (3.4F) compared with the 3.5C predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The Norwegian study says earlier predictions were based on rapid warming in the Nineties. But Oslo University’s department of geosciences included data since 2000 when temperature rises “levelled off nearly completely”.—John Ingham, Daily Express, 26 January 2013.
The Earth’s mean temperature rose sharply during the Nineties. This may have caused us to overestimate climate sensitivity. We are most likely witnessing natural fluctuations in the climate system – changes that can occur over several decades – and which are coming on top of a long-term warming.——Professor Terje Berntsen,University of Oslo, 24 January 2013.
These results are truly sensational. If confirmed by other studies, this could have far-reaching impacts on efforts to achieve the political targets for climate.—Caroline Leck,Stockholm University, 25 January 2013.
Too bad leftys, now you’ll have to find another sacred cow since the globull warming bullshit has left the barn.
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Christian Gehman Reply:
January 31st, 2013 at 5:54 pm
Yah! Time for the Fimbulwinter … bring it on, bring it on.
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Brown Bess says:
Well, you could look at this way: to survive, the GOP must get the county to look more like it. Good luck with that.
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Anonymous Reply:
January 21st, 2013 at 12:25 pm
No person in the history of politics in the United States has received as many votes as Barack Obama in 2012, except … Barack Obama in 2008. No editorial argument is necessary.
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Bill says:
I don’t think the extremism will go away so long as Fox News is on the air.
These GOP problems can be traced back to George H.W. Bush’s 1988 convention statement, meant to convince the Norquist-esque right that he was one of them, “Read my lips, no new taxes.”
When GHWB, in an attempt to govern, compromised on the budget in 1990 and agreed to raise taxes, the party faithful rewarded him with a primary challenger and a third-party candidate. It has been all downhill since then.
Now, Fox News wasn’t on the air in 1992, but Rush Limbaugh was. The crazy-right-wing media is now entrenched and holds enormous sway over the opinions of the base of the party.
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Jorge says:
AMEN ! I just can’t believe what’s happening ; they (the GOP)don’t seem to understand. The simple explanation, it seems to me: no leadership.
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WUSRPH says:
I think if you check, Eagleton DID NOT WITHDRAW AT THE CONVENTION. The news of his problems did not leak out until after the convention. He then resigned the nomination and was replaced by Shriver who was officially named by action of the National Democratic Convention. I recognize–from my own experience–how things get confused the farther away from the events we are, but I believe my account is the correct one….I think I will always remember how McGovern said he supported Eagleton 1,000 percent just before dumping him.
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paulburka Reply:
January 21st, 2013 at 4:22 pm
Like an athletic director just before he fires the football coach.
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Dan C says:
Whoever is going to lead the GOP back to sanity is probably someone very few, if any of us, have even heard of. Who outside of Arkansas knew who Bill Clinton was in 1988? Nobody had heard of Barack Obama until he gave that speech at the Boston convention in 2004. The GOP will hit bottom in 2014 or 2016, at the about the same time its most reliable voters will start dying off. And, as time marches on, more and more people will realize that after 8 years of an African-American Democrat as President, 6 years of “Obamacare,” and increasing acceptance of gays and other minorities, the sky didn’t fall and the sun still rises in the east. That will provide an opportunity for someone new to appear on the scene.
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WUSRPH says:
That’s National Democratic Committee, not the Convention which was already over.
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Dan C Reply:
January 21st, 2013 at 1:42 pm
No, it was the keynote speech at the 2004 convention. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Obam
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Patriotone says:
It is a straw man to say that people want the GOP to be like the Democrats. That isn’t what anyone is saying. What people would like to see is a GOP that wants children to be well educated and able to get out of college without crushing debt. We’d like to see a GOP that believes that streets, highways, police and fire departments should be kept up and paid for with public funds. We’d like to see a GOP that believes education is critical to the future or a nation and if that includes charter schools, then figure out a way to pay for in a fashion that doesn’t destroy public education in places where charter schools are not a real option. We’d like to see a GOP that believes, really believes in equality of opportunity. No one is demanding or expecting equality of outcome. There are lots of ways to get there. Texas needs the GOP input on those issues. We do not need people who want to pull up the ladder because I’ve got mine.
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Beerman Reply:
January 21st, 2013 at 1:58 pm
Amen!
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austin dissident Reply:
January 21st, 2013 at 2:09 pm
Speaking of straw men, do you really believe Republicans oppose insuring that our youth are well educated? Why have they been the ones who have imposed standards and consequences for failure on the schools? Why is Perry pushing for a $10,000 Bachelor degree? How does it help us to fund police and fire departments when their retirement plans are structured to allow them to retire at 40 and receive 80-100% of their highest salary as a pension for the next 40?
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voter Reply:
January 21st, 2013 at 2:25 pm
Yes, many GOP officeholders do not value public education. Notice it is Republicans who make the false claim that school funding was increased (Dewhurst, Perry, Stefani Carter). Their anti-public ed motivations include: Not believing in a secular public school system and perferring religious education instead. Not wanting to fund an increasingly minority student population. Helping hedge funds make money through charter school facilities. Worrying tea party/Midland groups will give them a bad grade on a mail piece. Filing ALEC written bills which call for tax abatements and vouchers to drain money from public ed. Please notice not one Republican is calling for restoring the $5.4 billion that was cut in the last legislative session. That session was the first time since WWII that the money schools receive per student was cut.
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Jed Reply:
January 22nd, 2013 at 1:29 pm
well educated and $10000 degree are mutually exclusive, austin dissident.
so, yes, i for one believe that.
in fact, i would go so far as to call it an electoral strategy. the longer the poor and minorities in texa salso remain uneducated, the longer the gop CAN KEEP WINNING.
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Anonymous says:
The same dynamics which will slow the national Republican party’s realignment to electoral victory is the exact same problem the state Democratic party has in Texas. There are certain interest groups who control the money, which controls who runs, and what message is used. Without money, a Republican cannot hope to win the almost two year presidential primary season. And as long as talk radio Republican Icons and Fox News control the flow of information, and its tone, you won’t see a shift. Because people in power in a party’s structure would rather lose election after election than lose their power. And replacing their power players is the only way a party shifts its center of gravity.
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paulburka Reply:
January 22nd, 2013 at 8:54 am
Anonymous is correct about the dynamics. When a party splits into two factions, as the GOP has done, the bitterness of the fight increases geometrically. If your faction isn’t dominant, you can never control the party. It is much more important to control your faction than to control the party. The liberal Democrats found this out in the fifties, when Texas was a one-party state and the fight was between liberal and conservative Democrats. The liberals never won (until Ann Richards came along, by which time the Democrats had repaired their factionalism), and so they never controlled the party.
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JohnBernardBooks says:
“The liberal craziness wasn’t entirely gone”
I see it here everyday it hasn’t gone anywhere.
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Beerman Reply:
January 21st, 2013 at 2:01 pm
I don’t believe that is the official talking point that was sent out today………check your notes.
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JohnBernardBooks Reply:
January 21st, 2013 at 4:45 pm
damn what time do you start beering?
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Anonymous says:
One place the Rs might start at the federal level is the recognition that in a democracy, elections matter, and the duly elected members of the other party are legitimate. The next step could be to work with the Ds to begin accomplishing the Republican goal of reduced federal spending using methods agreeable to center and center left Democrats.
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Anonymous says:
Paul, the Tea Party is not a creation of Barack Obama, but rather, a creation of George W. Bush. The Tea Party is a reaction to the abandonment of fiscal conservativism by one of those they considered to be “one of their own.”
Tea Partiers had to enforce their will on their own Party by becoming even more rigid and dogmatic. Barack Obama simply gave them an even better target to rail against because he was black and had a Muslim-sounding name. John Kerry or Hilary Clinton would have served the same purpose, just with fewer opportunities to play to the inherent prejudices and bigotry of the Tea Party constituency.
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John Johnson says:
I’m reading Coming Apart: The state of white America 1960-2010, by Charles Murray. No b.s. here; just the facts. It is a “…and all the King’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again” book. Scary.
My old party, the Republicans are loath to criticize a leader for changing their mind. John Maynard Keynes, the economist, accused of changing his mind on monetary policy, once famously replied, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” I suggest that it is time for the Republicans to examine the facts and make adjustments accordingly.
Mr. Murray examines all sorts of correlations between the decline in religion, integrety, marriage, morality, child rearing, industriousness, civic envolvement,etc., and the growing divide between the “Have’s and the Have Not’s” in the U.S. today. This is based solely on whites between the ages of 30 and 49 years of age. The book starts with a comprehensive look at the role education plays in which direction we trend.
The Republican party will not be able to survive in its current state, even if you throw out all considerations involving the growing ethnic population the Repub’s just make cursory moves to attract.
After reading, I dont’ think it is possible to alter the direction we are taking. How does one garner a religious sense and morality without parents’ involvement? How about learning that it is important to help our your neighbors, to get involved civically, and to work hard if your parents do not possess the same values? If you don’t have but one parent, and they care more about getting their kids to like them, and stay close to them, than they care about properly disciplining them?
Read the book and weap. We have been hellbent to make this world homogeneous. All we have done is lower ourselves to the rest of the world’ standards in doing so. The personal traits that set us apart have all but disappeared. Woe is us!
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Anonymous Reply:
January 21st, 2013 at 3:16 pm
I mean to be conversational and not argumentative here.
What you say is very interesting to me. I’ve heard about this book and its themes and there is a lot of, well, virtue in the virtues Mr. Murray discusses. I’ve not read the book but as I understand it, the book is about white America considered as a more or less self-contained group – there is no suggestion that white America suffers because other groups are prospering, if I understand correctly.
I’m 59 years old and since I was a child I’ve been thinking about how quickly and dramatically the world has been changing since the late 19th century. Trains, telegraphy, electric lighting and widespread electrification, automobiles and a rich network of roads, major wars, the end of colonialism, the end of slavery in America, the end of segregation in America, women’s sufferage, women’s liberation, the information technology revolution, the decline of organized religion in the West, the changes to family and education and health care that I think correlate in important ways with redefining the role of women and men in society, the decline of homophobia, the threats the modern world pose for the equilibrium of the environment – these changes have been immense and extremely rapid.
I think about the fact that I can’t tell my kids that they need to get married and be faithful to their spouse and believe in Jesus and go to church and go to work for a large company and be a loyal employee and things will work out for them. It’s a different world today.
I haven’t figured out the answer as to how people born after 1980 need to live their lives. I’m pretty sure they’re going to have to figure out a lot of this stuff for themselves with insufficient guidance from the likes of you or me.
One thing I think about is that the women of my generation changed the world when they were sophomores, so to speak. In this modern, greatly changed world the roles of men and women surely needed to change and many if not most of the changes that happened needed to happen. But I’m also convinced that changes in marriage and family were not wisely considered as they were happening. It seems highly unlikely to me that marriage and family structures that evolved over long period of time were primarily meant to serve as tools through which men oppressed women. It seems much more likely to me that there are practical reasons I can understand and maybe deeper reasons I don’t understand involved with the marriage and family structures that were created or that evolved. For just one example, it seems relevant to me that women and men have greater or lesser bargaining power vis a vis each other during different periods of their lives, and that among many other things that traditional marriage addressed, these changes in bargaining power over the course of a lifetime were addressed.
As to organized religion in the context of the roles of men and women, it seems highly unlikely to me that there are very few things we can know about God but one of the things we do know is that God is a guy. I’m a guy, but why should I believe that?
As to organized religion generally, I’m certainly leery of throwing out the baby with the bath water, so to speak, but I’m not so sure that the decline of traditional religious hierarchies and structures means the decline of religious life in the medium and long term. To take one example, I’m skeptical that the power of Catholic prayer depends on the continued power of the Catholic hierarchy.
We live in changing times. I wish I could offer more guidance to the next generations. The old order had its virtues and the partial collapse of the old order has not always been pretty and has had human costs. The changes have not
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Anonymous Reply:
January 21st, 2013 at 3:19 pm
To continue and end this, the changes have not been considered and implemented by a council of the wise. But future generations, perhaps with guidance from above, may well figure things out.
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John Johnson Reply:
January 21st, 2013 at 3:42 pm
Thoughtful comments, Anny. You are right on the mark. Read the book. Murray is not even suggesting that a particular religion sets us apart, but more the sense of being in a cohesive group that holds certain standards of self, and right vs wrong dear.
This book is not written with a finger of blame pointing at anyone. It is more a chronological list of what all has transpired to cause the decline.
Anonymous Reply:
January 21st, 2013 at 3:59 pm
And why can’t you tell your kids that Gramps? Is it because you no longer believe in Jesus or marriage. Or are you afraid of being sent to a re-education camp by Obama?
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Anonymous Reply:
January 21st, 2013 at 4:15 pm
Neither. It is because I’ve seen how so many people who lived their lives by those lights had their lives blighted or even wrecked when they ran aground on an unhappy marriage or divorce or a job loss. It is because I’m skeptical about what it means to “believe in” a creed that strays too far beyond what can be verified through reason and experience.
And most importantly it is because living your life based on those expectations only works, I think, if there exists a critical mass of people around you who subscribe to the same expectations. Marriage and work have changed, and if you don’t take that into account you’re in fr a lot of disappointment and heartache.
BTW, you wrote three sentences. The first sentence contained name-calling. The third sentence was a sarcasm. The second sentence was better, though it tends towards being a “when did you stop beating your wife” sort of question. Just what do you think you’re accomplishing with that sort of nonsense?
John Johnson Reply:
January 21st, 2013 at 10:05 pm
Both of you read the book. It is not judgemental. It is just a statement of how it is…how where we are came to pass. There used to be stigmas attached to divorce, bearing a child out of wedlock, commiting petty crimes, being disruptive in a classroom, etc. All are addressed without appointing blame. It is more about “just the way it is”….and where we are.
Indiana Pearl Reply:
January 22nd, 2013 at 8:00 pm
A great bit about the status of women vis-a-vis hunter gathers vs. agrarian cultures on Studs Terkel many years ago: in hunter gather societies, men and women had equal power because no one owned land. Once agrarian cultures came into existence and with it ownership of land and its disposition to subsequent generations, women became chattel property. Grampa didn’t want to leave his lands to his sons unless he was sure his grandchildren were really his grandchildren. Patriarchy began and women have been pawns in the game ever since.
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Another Wilco Voter Reply:
January 22nd, 2013 at 12:48 pm
Let me start by saying I haven’t read the book you reference. However, the fear of one generation upon seeing the next take their place in society is not new.
“The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise,” often sourced to Socrates but actually from the Cambridge dissertation of Kenneth John Freeman, published in 1907.
Regardless, it is no less representative of an older generation’s feelings about the next.
I’m much more optomistic than some about the younger generations. They may be different in how they support their communities – indeed, they often define community differently – but I find them no less engaged than my own boomer generation.
I believe they will do a better job of caretaking this world than we have.
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John Johnson Reply:
January 22nd, 2013 at 1:34 pm
Read the book…I promise you will have a new perspective. No biases shown. All perceived ones addressed. Facts, figures and graphs to back up conclusions. Thought provoking.
I always felt that it was the introduction of the credit card back in the 60′s that started the downward spiral. People started trying to “one up” their neighbors in the car and home categories. Snobiness and envy levels rose accordingly. Neighborhoods kinda fell apart.
The debt burdens soared.
Murry never even touches on this aspect. Read he book. Everyone should.
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Another Wilco Voter Reply:
January 22nd, 2013 at 2:04 pm
John Johnson says, “Read the book…I promise you will have a new perspective.”
A new perspecive?? Meaning what, I’ll be just as depressed and pessimistic about the future, and by extension that of my children and grandchildren, as you seem to be?
No thank you.
Alan Reply:
January 22nd, 2013 at 7:58 pm
JJ, the economic divide in this country is between people who went to college and people who did not. The second group have no real prospects in America in the 21st century, no matter what party is in charge.
A 50 year old factory worker who gets laid off is never going to work again. His son won’t stand to make more than $10 or $15 an hour. Even if he works a standard 40 hour week, he will still need help from the government to pay his healthcare and retirement expenses. If he does lift himself out of poverty, it will be because the government made it possible for him to go to college or gave him a small business loan (because no bank would give a loan to someone like that).
He can either vote for Barack Obama, who will let him have these things but will mock him for bitterly clinging to guns and religion. Or he can vote for Mitt Romney, who will praise him as a “real American” while offering him absolutely no mechanisms for upward mobility.
Yellow Page Lawyer says:
There’s a lot of rhetoric about education funding out there but you have to look at each district. True our student population is increasing but there are school district like Austin ISD that has hardly grown at all in the past decade but their budget has swelled enormously.
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JohnBernardBooks says:
You have to be more than a low information voter to believe all republicans are racist, anti education, anti envirnment, anti women and angry, in fact you have to be just plain stupid.
Dems have ammassed more than low information voters they have the stuck on stupid voter too.
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vietvet3 Reply:
January 22nd, 2013 at 10:10 pm
I have always believed that the majority of people are in the center-right center-left spread, as in the bell curve, y’know? So, no, most Republicans do not share the above animosities. However, to be a media star or win a primary in this intense political climate, the great middle tends to let the extremists set the agenda.
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Jim Sirbasku says:
JBB, I guess your point is that we should not judge all Republicans solely by using you as an example.
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JohnBernardBooks Reply:
January 21st, 2013 at 5:57 pm
sorry you missed my point again, how does it feel to be stuck on stupid?
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Jim Sirbasku Reply:
January 21st, 2013 at 8:11 pm
Yes, stuck on stupid. Please keep believing that while you are further marginalized into a pile of total irrelevance.
I am going to enjoy getting both your guns AND your Medicare.
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JohnBernardBooks Reply:
January 22nd, 2013 at 7:13 am
as I observed “stuck on stupid.”
Anonymous says:
Paul, speaking of the future Republican party, how an article about other current Republicans who might run for down-ballot statewide offices in 2014. Todd Hunter has almost $1 million in the bank and he is looking to run.
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Blue Dogs Reply:
January 22nd, 2013 at 11:22 am
Which of the down-ballot statewide offices is Hunter planning on running for in 2014 ?
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Francine Reply:
January 22nd, 2013 at 11:45 am
Interesting. If Texas decides to let the Insurance Commissioner be elected as opposed to appointed I could easily see him making a run at that.
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Blue Dogs Reply:
January 23rd, 2013 at 2:44 pm
Any chance he’ll go for Comptroller ?
Burka Buy a Clue says:
Hmmm…as I recall John Weaver once left the Republican Party with a “You won’t have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore” type exit. And I think Tom Daschle even said to him ‘welcome aboard’ as he announced his allegiance to the Democrats.
Weaver’s exit from the GOP was shorter than Nixon’s retirement from press conferences.
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Alan says:
It’s hard to win elections when your party is on the wrong side of the issues. A majority of Americans agree with the president’s gun control proposals; the percentage of Americans who own guns isn’t getting any bigger. Gay marriage today is where interracial marriage was by the 1970s – if you oppose it, you must be a fundamentalist rube.
Alex Jones’s histrionic rant on Piers Morgan summed up the Democratic Party’s conception of the Republican base: an overweight, middle aged white man who rails incessantly about fictitious attacks on his “freedoms” even when his arguments fly in the face of logic and reason. Republicans used to keep independents in their camp by trotting out the image of the Democrat “Welfare Queen” – a loud, obnoxious black woman with a baby on her hip demanding to know where her check is. Alex Jones and the archetypal Old Angry White Man may very well be the Democrats’ own welfare queen. It’s an image and a mentality that repulses mainstream Americans. The Democrats’ message will be “Vote for us unless you want the inmates running the asylum.”
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John Johnson Reply:
January 22nd, 2013 at 9:00 am
Alan…do you have selective blinders on? The majority of people who voted for O are union members, work for the federal government, have tenured jobs, are single mothers, draw unemployment benefits, dependent benefits, housing subsidies, and disability benefits. He won because the number of people in this group has grown larger and larger since the 60′s. Why would those in this group ever vote for those promising to cut off the tap? Throw in those with money who make their money by pandering to this group and you have critical mass.
The Repub’s are never going to win this group over. Never, ever. Centrists from both parties are going to have to try and cobble together a gameplan after throwing gay and abortion issues out of the discussion. If this doesn’t happen, it is game, set, match. We become just another fallen super society like our older European friends.
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Anonymous Reply:
January 22nd, 2013 at 9:35 am
JJ, I don’t see where the Rs have yet tried negotiating with the Ds on ways to cut spending that the Ds might find acceptable. We should give that a try before throwing I’m the towel.
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John Johnson Reply:
January 22nd, 2013 at 10:01 am
Anny, the way I see it, the Repub’s are just offering lip service to cutting spending. They have their Sacred Cows just like the Dem’s. The “cut out all pork except that going into my district” is alive and well within the R ranks.
Everyone needs to be listen to Tom Coburn…they need to dig out the Simpson-Bowles Report, bite down on a large stick, and allow the cutting to begin.
Alan Reply:
January 22nd, 2013 at 2:35 pm
“The majority of people who voted for O…are single mothers, draw unemployment benefits, dependent benefits, housing subsidies, and disability benefits.”
You inadvertently proved my point, JJ.
But last I checked, members of the military are federal employees. They lean Republican. So do police and firefighter unions. And everyone over the age of 65, no matter who they vote for, is getting way more from SS and Medicare than they “paid in.” So please stop acting as if all the “makers” voted for Romney and all the “takers” voted for Obama.
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Indiana Pearl Reply:
January 22nd, 2013 at 3:26 pm
The Mitt Romney school of political analysis is well- represented by John Johnson. Romney lost, not because of the 47% who he assumed were takers, but because he was desparately dishonest and was supported by a cadre of misogynistic cronies who PISSED OFF WOMEN!
When the GOP realizes that they can cannot win the next election simply by hiring a mariachi band, there will be much weeping and gnashing of Republican teeth. Perhaps then they will do some serious self analysis. Until then they will continue to twist in the wind.
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John Johnson Reply:
January 22nd, 2013 at 5:03 pm
Don’t argue with me, Alan… read the damn book. It might enlighten you. It did me.
It has nothing in it about who voted for Obama. Murray doesn’t even address the issue.
That is just the way I see it. Those on the dole, including many of the old folks, voted for him because they were afraid of being kicked off the tit. The number of people feeding at the government trough has grown leaps and bounds. Allowing those that just drop out and draw benefits when they could be working is addressed. Having babies out of wedlock is addressed. A decline in morality is addressed.
John Johnson Reply:
January 22nd, 2013 at 5:10 pm
Pearl…you’re just a pissed off woman. Everyone knows that you can’t reason with a pissed off woman. Throw in a radical, liberal streak and you have one, big, obnoxious, immovaable object. I’m not going to waste my time. Someone else will have to point out the error of your ways.
buy a clue Reply:
January 22nd, 2013 at 5:55 pm
Get of the ledge gramps it’s not as hopeless as you fear. The last book Murray published with “facts and figures” was complete bullshit. Surely you remember the Bell Curve. Remember, Murray, like all authors has an agenda. Take what he says with a large dose of salt.
John Johnson Reply:
January 22nd, 2013 at 7:51 pm
Clueless, have someone read the book to you.
JohnBernardBooks says:
“It’s hard to win elections when your party is on the wrong side of the issues”
SA Mayor Castro correctly observed democrats are 0-29 in statewide offices in Texas.
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Blue Dogs Reply:
January 22nd, 2013 at 9:19 am
JBB,the GOP has several star power to get the White House back in 2016 once Obama leaves:
1. Bobby Jindal
2. Marco Rubio: IF Jeb Bush is not interested
3. Jeb Bush: assuming Rubio stays in the Senate
4. Chris Christie-likely running at this point.
5. Scott Walker-unless a Senate seat comes around in 2018
and many many more.
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Indiana Pearl Reply:
January 22nd, 2013 at 3:29 pm
Oh god! What a collection of losers! Christie is the onlynone with cross-party Ppeal and that’s onlymif he has lap band surgery. Although any Americans are obese, they really don’t like fat people.
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Blue Dogs Reply:
January 23rd, 2013 at 2:44 pm
The GOP can’t afford to lose 3 consecutive elections in a row for the White House.
John Johnson Reply:
January 27th, 2013 at 8:15 pm
What about Hillary?
paulburka says:
I think JBB is arguing against himself. The election results (nationally) suggest that the Republicans are on the wrong side of the issues, not the Democrats. Texas will be slow to change because the Democratic party lacks the infrastructure to mount a comeback in the short term. In the long term, Democrats have to flip Harris County. Easier said than done, but once done, it is done forever.
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JohnBernardBooks Reply:
January 22nd, 2013 at 10:58 am
I think Paul has been wrong before. I learned along time ago when someone is digging themselves in a deep hole to stand back and politely ax, “do you want more kool aid?”
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texun Reply:
January 23rd, 2013 at 5:39 pm
Just one quibble, Paul: the Democratic party in Texas lacks the will to create the necessary infrastructure.
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wayne thorburn says:
I can’t believe how interested your Democratic readers are in telling the Republican party what it needs to do. While many valid points have been made, John Weaver is not the source to cite if you want credibility in GOP circles. To believe that flipping Harris county will change the dynamics of state politics is a misreading of what has happened in suburbia, the mid-sized urban counties and rural Texas. Other than the Castro twins, who is there to lead the Democratic party in Texas?
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JohnBernardBooks Reply:
January 22nd, 2013 at 11:01 am
You have to remember the great democrat LBJ like to say “if you tell a lie enough most democrats will believe you.”
Doesn’t make it true and with dems there are no truths. They simply choose what they wish to believe is true today.
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Anonymous says:
Phil Gramm and Rick Perry have made me despise TAMU, so I’ll pass on advise from Aggie John Weaver.
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JohnBernardBooks says:
Here’s some cold hard truth, republicans run Texas and democrats run California.
“DeVore points out that while overall wages in Texas are in fact ‘slightly’ lower than in California, the cost of living is significantly lower, from the cost of a home to the cost of bread in California’s unionized supermarkets.”
Read more: http://radio.woai.com/cc-common/news/sections/newsarticle.html?feed=119078&article=10715726#ixzz2IjuUGmNw
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Indiana Pearl Reply:
January 22nd, 2013 at 3:33 pm
Right wing zealots- pay no attention to the man behind the microphone.
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Anonymous Reply:
January 22nd, 2013 at 5:20 pm
I’d like to know just what “slightly lower” means. In any event the facts are what they are.
I do believe Texas has a much lower cost of living and I certainly like that. A big part of that is surely the cost of housing.
California has a lot of highly desirable land hemmed in by oceans and mountains and deserts. That’s going to drive up the cost of housing.
But here’s one thing about the Texas and California approach to government that I find interesting. Texas got lucky in picking the correct left-leaning populist provision to put in the state constitution as a defining state government characteristic.
In Texas you can’t really use your house as a piggy bank because the Texas Constitution severely restricts what kind of debt can be secured by your homestead. If I understand the economics correctly, that works out to be a factor in keeping housing costs lower, along with the lack of natural geographical barriers to expanding Texas cities and the releative lack of onerous building and zoning restricts.
In California they have initiative and referendum as a defining constitutional left leaning populist provision. That allows Californians to demand a lot of public goods by initiative and to severely restrict the ability to pay for them by initiative.
There are of course a bunch of other really important factors affecting the Texas and California economies, but I sure think we got lucky when our respective forefathers picked which defining populist provision to load into the state constitution.
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donuthin says:
And lucky to have a lot of natural resources, especially oil and gas, which have been important economic boosters both directly and indirectly. As a result, and also because we are lucky enough to have ports, we have a huge petro-chemical industry. Lucky trumps smart in Texas, at least for the last 10 years.
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Anonymous Reply:
January 22nd, 2013 at 6:16 pm
I’m sure you agree we should all remember that public money and public policy, as well as private initiative, built the infrastructure in and around and to those ports.
And that public money invested in ports, like public money invested in creating Lake Travis or Interstate 10, has a whopping economic economic multiplier effect.
Vernon notwithstanding a few posts back, I think this is an area where the left and right can agree and act in Texas. Paying public money to a dentist under Medicaid does some good and has an economic multiplier effect. We can argue about that kind of spending. But needed roads and needed water projects surely have a vastly greater economic multiplier effect. We’ve been underspending in those areas; surely the left and the right by their own lights can agree that this is good government spending.
Maybe in Texas we can start from there.
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donuthin says:
Agree anon 6:16. You cite some good examples.
The measure of a real conservative. one that takes care of maintenance and building infrastructure, research and education and doing it efficiently The so-called conservatives that we hear from so much today, are not about investing prudently for the future. The formula 1 racetrack is an example more in line with their thinking.
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Anonymous Reply:
January 22nd, 2013 at 8:38 pm
The racetrack example reminds me of something.
It’s not that I’m adamantly against that sort of thing so long as you can demonstrate that the extra tax money the govt receives because of such a project exceeds the govt expenditures used to help build the project. I understand the arguments on both sides.
What I don’t understand is willingness to spend public money on projects like that while underfunding traditional needed infrastructure projects that I would think have much greater positive effects on the economy.
Take Gov Christie in New Jersey. I like a lot of what the guy does, but I think he once supported using public money to help build a casino while at the same time opposing federal stimulus money to build a needed new transportation link between New Jersey and the Isle of Manhattan. It boggles the mind.
I can’t read minds of course but I wonder if that viewpoint is connected to the whole makers vs takers, the private sector is always good the public sector is always bad, Ayn Randian type of thinking? Why spend public money to build an evil public transportation link to one of the world’s largest hubs for high paying jobs when you can help build a lovely privately owned casino? It boggles …. Wait, I already said that.
I’m betting that most conservative Texans in public office have not drunk that particular brand of Kool Aid. Maybe we can spend some public money for water and transportation projects if their backers can demonstrate the real need ad benefit.
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Indiana Pearl says:
“Pearl…you’re just a pissed off woman. Everyone knows that you can’t reason with a pissed off woman. Throw in a radical, liberal streak and you have one, big, obnoxious, immovaable object. I’m not going to waste my time. Someone else will have to point out the error of your ways.:
JJ, I’m no longer pissed off. My guy won, not because a lot of “takers” voted for him, but in part because he won a significant majority of women voters. Until you and your right-wing cohorts get that through your thick heads, the GOP will continue to lose elections. Good for me, bad for you.
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John Johnson Reply:
January 23rd, 2013 at 7:44 am
I don’t hate women, Pearl, but young single ones having babies and raising them without fathers is part of the problem. The men who father them and do not offer either financial or physical support in their upbringing also get blame. To say that someone hates females because they are critical of young women who become single, uneducated mothers and on government assistance is a stretch…but one you often like to take. Does anyone think this is not a problem? Do they deny that the number of young women in this position has skyrocketed in the recent past? Do you not think this subject is worthy of comment? Is seeing children conceived and born out of wedlock, raised by one parent and supported by our tax dollars something you believe we should view as a “positive”?
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Jim Sirbasku says:
JJ- don’t let Wendy Davis hear your crazy misogynist rants, you’ll never get into her pants that way.
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Marie says:
It depends. The picture is too complex to say how things will play out.
First off, the debt will sooner or later rear its ugly head. Unless the world doesn’t mind the US being over 20 trillion in debt by 2016 (since it looks like any real cuts are unlikely) then sure the democrats can stick to power.
If China and Japan are okay continue to buy much of US debt to keep the world economy going like it is and in turn keep their economies running then no problem.
If people don’t mind Social Security going bankrupt or other entitlement programs then yeah no problem for the democrats.
The democrats are going to have to make a choice as well that may put a rift between them and the environmentalists. Do they allow fracking?
With fracking, it could be an easier way to climb out of debt and balance their budgets without significant cuts, but to do so will offend most environmentalists.
Gun control is not a winning issue at all for them. Here’s why I say so:
If we look at a lot of issues like abortion, entitlements, ect. we see the democrats positioned on the side that keeps the choice present while the GOP is on the side that takes it away.
Like myself there are many women who think abortion is wrong, but do not want first-term abortions taken away.. I think most Americans hate choice being removed. On gun control, the GOP is the defender of the right to own guns, while the democrats are the ones wanting to take it away.
Americans don’t like choices being stripped away even if they don’t agree with those things. Plus I see lots of libertarians (most of friends my age and in high school are libertarians) are opposed to gun control. They think gay marriage should be legalized, pot should be legalized, and the government should have no say over guns.
So the GOP and libertarians line up well on the gun issue.
I’ve been seeing more liberal groups saying they are going to target all democrats who are not staunchly for gun control. This means a lot of the red state democrats. They’re even angry at Cory Brooker.
So the GOP is not the only one with problems or being pulled to one direction. Leftists groups are going nuts.
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Anonymous Reply:
January 23rd, 2013 at 8:45 am
You may well be right that the left is going to form a circular firing squad. They’ve done it before.
The main thing that’s lacking in what you said, from my point of view, is any discussion about whether the Rs at the federal level have any responsibility to negotiate with and find common ground with the Ds.
It looked to me like President Obama was eager if not desperate to honestly negotiate with Rs during his first term to accomplish things for the common good., only to be met with utter stonewalling and undeserved contempt. This is America, not Yugoslavia.
It’s worthwhile to discuss what the Ds need to do and what the Rs need to do. But what about what the Rs and Ds need to do together? That said, we do need to watch them like a hawk to make sure they’re accomplishing things for the common good and not just trading favors.
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John Johnson says:
Well stated.
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Blue Dogs says:
If the US can survive 8 years of Obama, then Texas will survive 14 years of Perry.
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