IPFS News Link • Political Parties
WTF, GOP?
• By Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery Pity the poor essayist, trolling around for the quintessential anecdote for how the GOP has needlessly alienated soccer/security/nom du jour moms in its quest to brand anyone who has ever used contraception with a scarlet S. Do you revisit Rush calling Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke a "slut" and a "prostitute" for daring to talk about the need for contraception, including for non-sex-related medical uses? Yes, perfect, though perhaps a better example of what happens when a Beckian blatherskite forgets that advertisers are a fickle lot. Maybe the time when Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) refused to have Fluke—or any woman—appear before his all-male subcommittee on the bishops-versus-birth control fight?
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1 Comments in Response to WTF, GOP?
Within a couple of months after the 2008 elections, I began writing a book.
The book lamented the Republican Party's obvious lack of vision and the oncoming disaster(s) represented by the Obama administration.
I had been aware for a long time that the two major parties provided two slightly different options in rhetoric and almost no difference in actual policies.
The slightly different rhetorical options consist largely of gun rights and religious rights. The DNC wants to take the guns and inhibit free exercise. The GOP wants to let people keep their guns while establishing a theocracy.
These descriptions of differences in rhetoric are caricatures of the differences. The differences in rhetoric are actually somewhat less than that.
The differences in policy are much less than that.
In my book, I advocated actually promoting the general welfare.
The two major parties seem bent on getting 50.0000001% of the vote. And such are the results. By doing this, the two major parties reveal an apparent strategy of promising as little as they can to acquire a seat. Once the seat is gained, nearly all candidates head to the trough and are never heard from except at election time.
I never expected the GOP to adopt the plan I wrote into my book. Neither did I expect them to be just as lost, if not moreso, in 2012 as they obviously were in 2008.
Here we are.
The pundits mentioned in the article seem bent on rallying a bloc of voters around a series of hot-button issues. Even if you get the 50.000001% of the vote the GOP appears to be aiming for (again, just like in 2008, & just like the DNC), your supporters will not act coherently. Maybe that's the plan. The only problem is the outcome is a coin-toss. In this contest, one is just as likely to win as the other.
Ron Paul's sound money, common sense spending and defense plan will actually promote the GENERAL welfare.
His Tax Day Moneybomb was a flop. As yet, I've seen no official announcement concerning his plans. Here's hoping he can keep going.
DC Treybil