Who was the last reasonable erudite Republican leader? Dole? I can't remember one since Gingrich and Delay stepped up the demogogary in the mid 90's
their biggest problem is the reagan ideology, he is all of theirs hero, and his message is anti government. all of them, moderate to extreme they are not interested in actual governing
100% agree the hypocrisy is overwhelming but yet no one seems to care. Logic and reason have no place in a society where people believe this: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/5-Overblow... "A recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, for example, found that 55 percent of Americans mistakenly believe the CBO has said the healthcare legislation will add to the deficit. Only 15 percent know that CBO has said the opposite. In the Kaiser poll, 41 percent of respondents said they believe the new law would require people who already get insurance through their employer to change their coverage. But most people who already have health coverage won't have to change anything, unless they want to. The new rules will have the most direct impact on people who don't have coverage, or who don't get it through an employer." How can you fight against such ignorance?
more from Mr Marshall -- Benchmark The Congressional generic ballot crossed into Republican territory a few days after the November election. And, according to our composite TPM Poll Average, it just crossed, albeit minutely, into Dem territory: Dem 43.8%, GOP 43.7%. I wouldn't invest too much in that minuscule margin. But as you can see from the graph, it's part of a trend. I'll be interested to see where those numbers go post-Health Care Reform vote. The most recent polls were taken on March 18th. So here's your pre-vote benchmark. (To see the full-size graph and data, click here .)
This is what is so unbelieveable. Not a SINGLE republican voted for it...not one. It's hard to believe that those d-bags couldn't see how good this was for the American public, yet they wanted so badly to vote for 'their team' they could give 2 sh!ts about that. This is what is so screwed up with politics...it doesn't matter what benefits the constituents...it's all partisanship.
What's worse than being completely clueless? The percentage of that 15% that think the CBO is lying or incorrect and prefer their gut feeling instead.
Ezra Klein documents the Republicans quickly evolving position on the new healthcare reform law- The question is will their mad dog base let them walk this back?
FWIW, Scott Brown's been pretty genuine in his opinions about things since taking office. He's voted on things that many other Republicans refused to (jobs bill) because he thought it was the right solution instead of against things because his party says not to vote for it. If only all the GOP would be like this, we could have bi-partisan bills more often and at least a little civil discourse between the two parties.
Execellent question, which kind of speaks to Sam's statement earlier in this thread: I guess now we know the answer: you backpedal like crazy. I certainly hope their "mad dog base" (good description, by the way) will join them in the backpedal, but I'm skeptical, to say the least. It doesn't help that the Rush/Beck/Bachman/Palin Overdrive is calling it Armageddon and, quite literally, drawing bullseye crosshairs on State Rep. names on a map. The bigger question is this: if the members of Congress continue to backpedal towards compromise while the talking heads on TV/radio call for scorched earth, who will the people listen to? I think we're about to find out who the REAL leaders of the Republican party are...
The Republicans in office are a joke imo. They will sit back and complain all day/night about something. They want to use every situation to their advantage and are just buying time thinking Americans will vote them back in power if they squabble enough about all the deficiencies the Democrats bring. They have a very short memory when it comes to how they played a major role in putting this nation in serious debt...and so now it's anytime Democrats pass a bill with spending in it...it's a huge problem. It's not a huge problem if they are the ones in control of the legislation, however. They had wasteful spending for years when they were in office. About the only good thing a Republican is good for these days is shouting some obscenity and getting noticed for it (e.g. "baby killer", "you lie") and then using that to raise money for their own agenda. I think history has shown that Dems are more willing to work with Reps when Reps control the majority. However, Reps have shown they are more than unwilling to work with Dems when the situation is reversed. Their whole agenda seems to be to make the Dems look bad regardless of the situation while biding their time until they regain the majority and get a Republican president back in office. Even when their ideas are listened to and incorporated by Dems, they still don't come on board. I think Reps have done everything they can to sabotage this current government. It's like they don't want anything to work. While what I said may not necessarily be true, it is the impression and opinion I have formed. We the people want to be under the impression that the two parties can and will work together. Instead, I get the impression that Republicans are against everything and are not willing to work with their counterparts. They stand by ready to critize every move, however. Yet, somehow this behavior is supposed to be rewarded in future elections...so they can regain the majority and screw this country up all over again. Their first order of business will probably be to repeal health care reform.
you know if it weren't for the vandalism and the racist name calling and the spitting and people's gas lines being cutoff at their house, i'd think this was pretty funny.
Well that didn't take long... Grassley: Look How Great This Health Care Bill Is Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has long been a vocal critic of the Democrat's health reform efforts, but today he started taking credit for some provisions of the bill, and talking up his own role in crafting the legislation.
Sorry Mr. Grassley How the hell can you take credit for crafting the legislation when you didn’t vote for it?
Isn't it obvious? The story will be that they fought hard to get Dems to put in things they liked, Dems agreed, but then the Dems blocked them out of the big picture, evil stuff was added, and the final bill could not be supported in good conscience because of all that evil. That line of justification is used by both sides all the time. This would just be a bigger version. The extra benefit is that by the time they need to worry about reelection many parts of the bill will be better understood by the public, certain things will be popular, and then they have instant "this is what I supported" bullet points.
