Eric Cantor (R-VA), incoming Republican Whip, gives the same tired and canned response on why republicans are failing to reach out to minorities, becoming more and more a homogeneous group of like-minded, mainly white conservatives. Cantor says they'll reach out by appealing to economic concerns like "the diminution of their 401-K's", lowering taxes, and all the other red herrings that don't answer why people of color, and whole regions of the country are moving away from the republicans in droves. It's doubtful chanting "Tax cuts! Tax cuts! Tax cuts!" will make the Republicans a more inclusive party.

According to exit polling, these groups voted for Obama:

• 95% of African Americans
• 67% of Hispanics
• 62% of Asians

Now if population and demographics were a static thing the republicans might have a reasonable and viable strategy with this approach. McCain did win the popular vote among White people, and did really well among White people over 65 (68%). Unfortunately for them time is not on their side. Those aged 18-29 voted for Obama by over thirty points, which is itself an ominous sign for the future, if you're a republican.

Consider the Hispanic vote alone. After all the anti-immigrant vitriol of the past couple of years the Republicans are pushing away a group which should be at least somewhat inclined to vote for them. And what happened this year? As conservative columnist Linda Chavez put it, Ask the 14 out of 16 hard-line, anti-immigration Republicans who lost their seats this time around to pro-comprehensive reform Democrats how well this worked at the polls. And then consider that by 2050 Hispanics will double in their share of the U.S. population, from 15% to 30%, or in raw numbers nearly tripling from 46.7 million to 132.8 million in 2050. Overall, minorities will become the majority.

None of this can be news for Republicans so they must see the hand-writing on the wall. What is amazing is that they seem incapable or unwilling to do anything about it. Sure, we might see Michael Steele head the RNC as some kind of figurehead African American, or Louisiana Governor Piyush "Bobby" Jindal gain some level of national prominence but what does it say about a national party that has no African American members in their caucus? Or that in the largest "minority" group of them all, women, the figures of most prominence among House Republicans are the likes of a Michele Bachmann, Marsha Blackburn, Jean Schmidt, and until recently Marilyn Musgrave. And even more potently the new face of the Republican Party herself, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

Or consider the regional shifts where there are now no Republican congressmen left in New England, their last holdout Chris Shays in Connecticut succumbing to the inevitable by his support of the Bush administration. In New York State there are only 3 of the 29 members.

None of this bodes well for the Republicans.

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From Face the Nation, Nov. 16, 2008: Newt Gingrich and Bobby Jindall discuss why the Republicans lost this year. As usual there were trying to fob it off on George Bush. Never mind that Bush went along with every single policy that is at the core of Republican ideology. And the fact they they defended him at every turn which led us down a path that has almost left the country completely bankrupt. Jindall tries to pump the "we're a center-right nation" line that is littering our airwaves, but the facts don't support it and neither did the election. And as usual, Newt wraps it up by saying Obama won because he was "Reaganite".

Gingrich: I think that's right and if you look at the [...] you look at Sen. Obama's campaign he's promising a middle class tax cut. That was a Reaganite position.

I seem to recall that what was being spewed by Conservatives and Newt was that Obama is a Socialist leading up to Obama's victory. Maybe the people want Socialism, Newt?

Full transcript to follow.

Continue reading »

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For his many faults, you gotta love the politician in California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger that admits that essentially, the majority of Americans want the government to focus on Democratic Party platforms, not the rigid ideology of the current Republican Party of cutting taxes above all else.

I think you can also make it very simple, and that is, you know, that Republicans have not provided for what the people need. And I think that's why Jindal is partially right on that, or he's right on that, because, you know, it is all about what the people of America need right now, and have we provided that as a party? [..]

Let me tell you something. When it comes to building roads and people driving on the roads -- it's Democrats, Republicans, independents, decline to state -- everyone wants to use those roads.
Everyone's kids -- Republicans' kids, Democrats' kids -- everyone is in the school. They want to have great education. When it comes to clean air and protecting our environment and fighting global warming, everyone in America wants to be part of that.

They absolutely do. Americans want to know that levees will not fail and force them out of their homes, bridges will not collapse during rush hour and that we're providing our children with the most opportunity to succeed for the future, not to mention a non-polluted world to live in. And as is patently obvious, that won't come from Republican governance. Even the Governator know that the Republican Party has lost their way:

Remember that so many times there's dialogue about, you know, we have to go back to our core values. What is that? What is core? How far does core go back in history in America, the word core? Does it go back 30 years? Does it go back 50 years? Because we know that Teddy Roosevelt talked about universal health care. So they're off the core for a long time ago already. He has talked about protecting our environment. So they've been off for a long time on that. I mean, let's be honest. Ronald Reagan -- let's go to Eisenhower, for instance. Eisenhower has built the highway system in America and he's poured billions of dollars into infrastructure. Where Republicans today say, well, that's spending. We shouldn't spend. That's not spending. That's investing in the future of America.

So there's a lot of things that they have been off on, if they want to go and talk about the core values. But maybe their definition of core values is maybe different. But I mean, so I think it's all nonsense talk. I think if they just talk about one thing, what do we need now? Now, America needs to be rebuilt, because we haven't really rebuilt America for decades. So we need to rebuild America, fix the bridges, fix the highways, fix the buildings, tunnels and all of those kind of things we need to do. And then we have to go and create great relationships with our partners overseas, with the world, and to build those relationships again. And we have to take care of health care. We have to take care of our environment. And we have to build an energy future. Those are the things that people want right now. And I know in the poll numbers in America -- I mean in California, that's what the people want.

See? Like Arnold says, the people don't want today's Republican Party.

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From Face the Nation Nov. 9, 2008. Following his interview with Raum Emanuel Bob Schieffer talks to David Brooks and John Harris about what Obama does once elected and Brooks says that he took away from Emanuel's interview that the Democrats are going to try to move too quickly and get everything done at once and that it will "freak people out" if he does that. Harris reminds him that would not happen even if he wanted it to with the make up of the Congress. So again we have more of this don't dare to possibly do what the people elected you to do, or at least don't try to do it too quickly or you'll be punished for it. I'm sure with Republicans determined to obstruct before Obama is even sworn in that won't be a problem.

What's really astounding about this segment though is that Brooks then goes on to say that the Republican party has no belief system, it's a circular firing squad and adds that the conservative movement has failed because it hasn't addressed the problems of today.

I got chills reading this brief, but very truthful op-ed from Paul Krugman at the New York Times. Barack Obama's win last night was just one step into the future, lets hope Krugman's words ring loud and clear for future generations - Beware the Monsters...

Last night wasn’t just a victory for tolerance; it wasn’t just a mandate for progressive change; it was also, I hope, the end of the monster years.

What I mean by that is that for the past 14 years America’s political life has been largely dominated by, well, monsters. Monsters like Tom DeLay, who suggested that the shootings at Columbine happened because schools teach students the theory of evolution. Monsters like Karl Rove, who declared that liberals wanted to offer “therapy and understanding” to terrorists. Monsters like Dick Cheney, who saw 9/11 as an opportunity to start torturing people.

And in our national discourse, we pretended that these monsters were reasonable, respectable people. To point out that the monsters were, in fact, monsters, was “shrill.”! Read on...

Although this segment of The Rachel Maddow Show aired before the election, it does bring up an important point about one aspect of the McCain campaign tactics we haven't discussed yet: as polls showed McCain dropping further and further out of contention, McCain--effectively, the head of the Republican Party--did nothing to help down ticket races, some of which were very, very tight (at the time of writing the Coleman/Franken race in Minnesota was heading to a recount).

Did McCain's refusal to campaign in any of these locations help or hurt the Republican brand? Tim Pawlenty tries to deflect the question by saying that Obama didn't come to Minnesota to stump for Franken, but I don't know that the comparison is apt. While Obama never did any appearances with Franken, the Obama campaign's ground forces did do an amazing job of canvassing and registering more Democratic voters, which would only help Franken.

By now most of you have seen or heard about Republican Elizabeth Dole's disgusting and desperate "Godless" commercial attacking her front-running opponent, Democrat Kay Hagan.

Not only has Hagan fired back with an ad of her own (posted above), her campaign has now filed a defamation lawsuit against Dole and fiercely punching back against what has to be the lowest of campaign smears in the 2008 campaign cycle. From The Hill:

Democratic challenger Kay Hagan has filed a defamation lawsuit against Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.) for questioning Hagan's faith in what is shaping up as the nastiest campaign of this cycle.

Hagan announced the lawsuit after Dole refused to remove the ad, which suggests Hagan is an atheist and has become the subject of tough criticism from several newspaper editorials in North Carolina. Several polls show Dole trailing Hagan, a state senator.

“Elizabeth Dole would love nothing more than to distract from the issues and her record for the last five days of the campaign,” Flanagan said. “In filing this suit, we’ve made clear that these kind of despicable tactics will not be tolerated, and our campaign is moving forward with the most important task at hand: defeating Elizabeth Dole, and giving North Carolina’s families a voice in the U.S. Senate that they’ve been sorely missing.” Read on...

From TampaBays10:

The head of the Hillsborough GOP, David Storck, distributed an email from a Republican Party volunteer saying the voters are a threat.

That's because, as the volunteer says in the email, he sees "car loads of black Obama supporters coming from the inner city to cast their votes for Obama."

It goes on to say, "This is their chance to get a black president and they seem to care little the he is at minimum a socialist and probably Marxist in his core beliefs." The Republican volunteer says that is because, "After all he is black- no experience or accomplishments but he is black." Read on...

If the McCain/Palin campaign has done anything, it has exposed the worst in our society. Couple that with the hate talk that infests the once-public airwaves from the likes of Rush Limbaugh and the xenophobic, racist rants of the right wing blogs and this is what you get.

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The panel on This Week discussing what McCain needs to do to pull out this election and apparently the last argument they feel he or any of the Republicans has left is fear of lack of a divided government. It amazes me that these talking heads in the media didn't have this mortal fear when the Republicans had control of everything. After admitting that the Republicans are losing the independents and the middle George Will makes this observation near the end of the discussion:

The need to Sen. McCain to rally the base and appeal to the base, first of all even though the base is as you said in the earlier segment much smaller than it was then, was implicit in the numbers from 2006, in 2006 Republican candidates in the off year elections got more votes from Evangelical Christians than Democratic got from African Americans and labor union members combined. Evangelical Christians by....(crosstalk)..I'm just telling you..that base is not just the base. It is almost the Republican party.

If the RNC is going to spend $150,000 on clothing for America's Wal-Mart Hockey Mom, they should at least try to dress her in GOP themed clothing -- not terrorist loving, socialist donkeys. Photo via Newsweek.

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Former Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared on Meet The Press today and as expected, he endorsed Democrat Barack Obama. Powell didn't just endorse Obama, he scolded John McCain for his scurrilous campaign tactics and his purely political choice of the highly unqualified Sarah Palin as his running mate.

“I don’t believe [Palin] is ready to be president of the United States,” Powell said flatly. By contrast, Obama’s running mate, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, “is ready to be president on day one.”

As with other Republicans this campaign season, Powell voiced great concern about the far right turn the Republican Party has taken which is leading to it's demise.

“I truly believe that at this point in America’s history we need a president who will not just continue ... basically the policies we have followed in recent years,” “We need a president with transformational qualities.” For that reason, he said, “I will be voting for Barack Obama.” Read on...

Powell's endorsement will have little effect on Democrats, but he is an icon of the Republican Party -- which is where the true impact of this endorsement lies.

Photo from Brett Marty, more from FiveThirtyEight:

Outside Obama's major economic policy speech in Toledo today. Feels like the End Times for somebody, I am forced to report.

[UPDATE] Just to be clear, we at FiveThirtyEight are against Muslim-murdering Presidential Christian babies !FOR! Ohio.

From Red State: (yes, it goes there)

Remember John Edwards? Who broke the Edwards story? The National Enquirer of course.

After that coup, the left, which patently refused to mention the Edwards scandal decided that anything the Enquirer wrote about Sarah Palin had to be the gospel truth. They could talk about her alleged affair. They could speculate that her baby was not really her baby. They could go after her kids. After all, the National Enquirer covered it.

The National Enquirer now suggests Barack Obama had an underage, gay affair with a pedophile. Yup. That Frank Marshall Davis guy Barry says was his good friend? Turns out he was a perv of the first order and liked young boys.

This post is not intended to spread that rumor...

[snip] What goes around, comes around.

You stay classy, Mr. Erickson. There isn't one shred of evidence that any such relationship or molestation occurred and you know it. A broken clock is always right twice a day, but that's enough for you to quote the Enquirer, right? Are you suggesting that this would have any effect on Obama's ability to lead our country? Would those effects be any different to say...being a POW for 5 years?

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FORTUNE Magazine's Nina Easton, a typically reliable GOP apologist, didn't like what she heard last night from John McCain on the mortgage meltdown -- a 180 degree flip from previous statements, as Jon Perr documented -- and sure didn't hold back her bewilderment when she said this:

"We're witnessing tonight something quite profound and that was the sinking ship of free-market Republicans keel over, groan, and fall to the bottom of the sea. John McCain, without much notice, proposed a $300 billion dollar plan to nationalize home mortgages. [...] This is on top of the $700 billion dollars already passed by Congress. And this is before he went on to attack Barack Obama on obscene spending. and government control of health care. I thought it was an amazing moment."

UPDATE: John Amato:

The FOX News post debate set was filled with depression last night. Nobody epitomized it more than Nina. Check out her expressions as she delivers this scathing indictment of John McCain's new bail out. Fred Barnes tries to rescue McCain by saying that he didn't explain it very well, but she wouldn't have any of it.

Nina: 300 Billion dollars is what it is. His campaign fact sheet says that.

What does is it say about John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin when David freaking Brooks of all people is saying this kind of stuff about her? Wow.

[Sarah Palin] represents a fatal cancer to the Republican party. When I first started in journalism, I worked at the National Review for Bill Buckley. And Buckley famously said he'd rather be ruled by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the Harvard faculty. But he didn't think those were the only two options. He thought it was important to have people on the conservative side who celebrated ideas, who celebrated learning. And his whole life was based on that, and that was also true for a lot of the other conservatives in the Reagan era. Reagan had an immense faith in the power of ideas. But there has been a counter, more populist tradition, which is not only to scorn liberal ideas but to scorn ideas entirely. And I'm afraid that Sarah Palin has those prejudices. I think President Bush has those prejudices.

(h/t HuffPo)