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THE MUSINGS OF A TRADITIONAL SOUTHERN DEMOCRAT

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Location: Douglas, Coffee Co., The Other Georgia, United States

Sid in his law office where he sits when meeting with clients. Observant eyes will notice the statuette of one of Sid's favorite Democrats.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

GOP Is Losing Grip -- Deficit Hawks Defect As Social Issues Prevail; 'The Party Left Me'

From The Wall Street Journal:

The Republican Party, known since the late 19th century as the party of business, is losing its lock on that title.

New evidence suggests a potentially historic shift in the Republican Party's identity -- what strategists call its "brand." The votes of many disgruntled fiscal conservatives and other lapsed Republicans are now up for grabs, which could alter U.S. politics in the 2008 elections and beyond.

Some business leaders are drifting away from the party because of the war in Iraq, the growing federal debt and a conservative social agenda they don't share. In manufacturing sectors such as the auto industry, some Republicans want direct government help with soaring health-care costs, which Republicans in Washington have been reluctant to provide. And some business people want more government action on global warming, arguing that a bolder plan is not only inevitable, but could spur new industries.

Already, economic conservatives who favor balanced federal budgets have become a much smaller part of the party's base. That's partly because other groups, especially social conservatives, have grown more dominant. But it's also the result of defections by other fiscal conservatives angered by the growth of government spending during the six years that Republicans controlled both the White House and Congress.

The most prominent sign of dissatisfaction has come from former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, long a pillar of Republican Party economic thinking. He blasted the party's fiscal record in a new book. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, he said: "The Republican Party, which ruled the House, the Senate and the presidency, I no longer recognize."

Some well-known business leaders have openly changed allegiances. Morgan Stanley Chairman and Chief Executive John Mack, formerly a big Bush backer, now supports Democratic front-runner Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York. John Canning Jr., chairman and chief executive of Madison Dearborn Partners, a large private-equity firm, now donates to Democrats after a lifetime as a Republican. Recently, he told one Democratic Party leader: "The Republican Party left me" -- a twist on a line Ronald Reagan and his followers used when they abandoned the Democratic Party decades ago to protest its '60s and '70s-era liberalism.

Concern for their fiscal reputation is reflected in the fights that President Bush and congressional Republicans now are picking with the new Democratic majority over annual appropriations and an expansion of a children's health program, in hopes of placating party conservatives.

For all the disillusionment among Republicans, the party retains strong support in many parts of the business community, in part because of fears about the taxing and regulating tendencies of Democrats.

For his part, Mr. Greenspan says he doubts he will vote for a Democrat for president next year, because the party is moving "in the wrong direction," becoming more populist and protectionist.

Overall, Democratic presidential candidates have raised more than $200 million this year, about 70% more than their Republican rivals.

The once-dominant "deficit hawks," who put balanced budgets ahead of tax cuts (think former Sen. Robert Dole, or Mr. Bush's father), are all but extinct. A quarter-century of infighting between those Republicans and others who seek lower taxes regardless of deficits has been decisively settled in the current Bush administration in favor of the tax cutters.

The result has been big tax cuts, and in the dozen years when the Congress was under Republican control, big spending increases as well.

One glue holding the party together is that social conservatives often share the goals of economic conservatives. Social conservatives supported the Bush tax cuts and wanted to make them permanent. But their priority, and what keeps them Republicans, is opposition to abortion, gay rights and the like.

Some intraparty tension is rooted in cultural differences. Social conservatives tend to be relatively lower-income, less educated, concentrated in the South and West, and newer to the party than many old-line Republicans of an economic or business bent. Each blames the other for the party's current state -- often employing pejoratives such as "Bible-thumpers" or "country-club Republicans."

In last fall's midterm elections, rebellious Republicans and Republican-leaning independents contributed to the Democrats' takeover of Congress and a raft of state and local offices. The Democratic Party had lured many newcomers through shifts of its own since the Reagan era. Particularly under President Clinton, the party became more centrist and fiscally conservative, espousing balanced budgets, targeted tax cuts and free trade. Party liberals and unionists never fully accepted those changes.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has lost some Republican Party support because of his socially liberal stands and his proposals on global warming and universal health care. But those stands have made him more popular generally in the state, while his party is less so.

Nationally, support for some Republican causes espoused by social conservatives and hawks has declined in the general population as Americans have grown more concerned about economic matters. Those were the conclusions last spring of the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, based on its latest surveys on Americans' political attitudes.

[T]he number of Americans who share some classic Democratic concerns has risen. Three-quarters of the population is worried about growing income inequality, Pew found, while two-thirds favor government-funded health care for all. Support for a government safety net for the poor is at its highest level since 1987, Pew said.

"More striking," Pew concluded, was the change in party identification since 2002. Five years ago, the population was evenly divided -- 43% for each party. This year, Democrats had a 50% to 35% advantage.

1 Comments:

Blogger BillGLS said...

Hillary, Hsu, Soros, Blythe, Kerry, Clinton; or is it a reincarnation of Hitler’s fifth column. Hsu, Chung, and Tides Foundation is turning up more than a out of work relative.
In my opinion, The wheels of Justice moves verrrrry slowly, and Ms. Clinton nee Blythe has bought votes by paying five grand for babies, and is recipient of money that no one seems to know the source, source is rumored to be National Republic of China. Never the less she is allowed to continue her vicious campaign without a slap on the palms of her hands. She and her confederates are America’s most dangerous foes. If she feels endangered after election and she has a puppet congress Ms. Rodham Clinton could very well declare Martial Law, disband Congress, fire the Justice Department as her husband did. then raid Fort Knox. Just the thought of such makes one tremble. We have a manifest duty to defeat her and her confederate democrats in government. Remember a few letters back Tides Foundation crept into the conversation now here it is from another source. Billgls

>><<
Inside Cover
Newsmax Staff

Hillary Clinton Behind Rush Limbaugh, Don Imus Attacks?
Wednesday, October 3, 2007 1:52 PM
Rush Limbaugh, under fire from a liberal group known as Media Matters for America, has unearthed surprising evidence tying Hillary Clinton closely to the group.
Media Matters was behind the controversy that Limbaugh called Iraqi war veterans “phony soldiers.”
Limbaugh has called that claim a “smear.” Media Matters and several leading Democrats have taken the comment out of context, the talk show host said.
Limbaugh was referring to Americans who falsely claim to have served in the military – specifically Jesse Macbeth, who said in a widely seen video that he had served in Iraq and Afghanistan and claimed that he and other U.S. soldiers had killed innocent civilians there.
In fact, Macbeth was discharged from the Army after several weeks of basic training, and never served in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Noting that the “origin” of the smear was Media Matters, Limbaugh on his show and website Tuesday played a sound bite from a speech given by Hillary Clinton this past August.
Hillary said:
“We are certainly better prepared and more focused on, you know, taking our arguments and making them effective and disseminating them widely and really putting together a network in the blogosphere, and a lot of the new progressive infrastructure, institutions that I helped to start and support, like Media Matters and Center for American Progress.”
Rush told his listeners: “There you have it – Media Matters for America has now been officially claimed as a Hillary Clinton startup . . . So, to that extent, anybody in media, on any side of the aisle, ought to now understand that anything coming out of Media Matters for America is designed to take issue, destroy, harm, whatever, anyone who gets in Mrs. Clinton’s way in her quest for the White House . . .
“The bottom line is, it’s Mrs. Clinton’s organization . . . Hence this smear of me.”
Limbaugh is not the first radio host Media Matters has taken aim at. Earlier this year Media Matters was also instrumental in the firing of talk show host Don Imus over his disparaging comments about the Rutgers University women’s basketball team.
Media Matters posted a video clip showing Imus making the comments and sent a mass e-mail to journalists around the country.
At the time of the Imus flap, some pundits noted that Imus was a target of Hillary Clinton and pointed out the Media Matters connection. Imus had been sharply critical of Hillary, referring to her as “satan” and the “devil.”
On his Tuesday show, Limbaugh also discussed left-wing financier George Soros’ connection to Media Matters, which has sparked a war of words between Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly and the group.
Back in April, O’Reilly told viewers of “The O’Reilly Factor” that Soros and several other wealthy radicals were helping to fund Media Matters by donating money to the Tides Foundation, and using it to funnel money to Media Matters.
Media Matters countered that while Soros’ Open Society Institute (OSI) did contribute to the Tides Foundation (Tides gave Media Matters more than $1 million in 2005), the OSI funds were specifically earmarked for two other beneficiaries.
“Soros has never given money to Media Matters, either directly or through another organization,” the Web site stated.
O’Reilly responded: “The vile Media Matters outfit is denying receiving funding from any of George Soros’ outfits. Well, that is a total lie. As we laid out for you, the smear Web site received more than a million dollars from the Tides Foundation alone in 2005, and just by coincidence, Soros’ Open Society Institute donated more than a million dollars to Tides in 2005. Figure it out.”
© 2007 NewsMax. All rights reserved.

The Rodham Clintons made a practice run in 2000 and may have carefully cultivated the McAulliffs, Soros, TV News and Press, over sixteen years. I wondered why he fired the entire Justice staff but it was a practice run to see if it could be done.

9:14 PM  

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