Tom Hayes: Fiscal conservatives looking for new dance partners

During the latter part of the 1900s and the Bush years the GOP often seemed one solid, united front of like-minded folks. It's actually nearly as diverse a coalition as the Democratic party, built around a core of old-money, anti-regulation businessmen that, at times, has held its collective fiscally conservative nose to take advantage of voters that just don't feel comfortable with the Democrats (and liked the sound of lower taxes.)

To their great delight at the time, President Lyndon B. Johnson delivered any states that were bastions of white racism in the mid-1960s to the GOP for electoral purposes - largely what we call the "old south." The GOP wielded that sudden influx carefully, and with discipline over the following decades became deft at appealing to this constituency while carefully avoiding any overtly racist public statements.

As Melissa Harris-Lacewell, Professor of Politics and African-American Studies at Princeton University, noted regarding President Carter's recent observations about racism:

"There is something particularly compelling when Southern white men identify, name, and condemn racism. America can never forget what it sounded like..." to hear LBJ say something similar while he was President:

"What happened in Selma is part of a far larger movement which reaches into every section and state of America. It is the effort of American Negroes to secure for themselves the full blessings of American life. Their cause must be our cause too. Because it's not just Negroes, but really it's all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice.

And we shall overcome."

Nobody noticed more, or denied it more vehemently, than racists themselves. LBJ knowingly drove white racists to abandon the Democratic party en masse, and most turned to the GOP, where many have remained. While there are other factors that lead people to criticize President Obama and/or his initiatives, assuming racism is not a factor for some of Obama's detractors is either naive or self-delusional. For racists to think they've managed to conceal their beliefs from most of the rest of us, that we just plain don't realize what's going on, is hubris so blatant it beggars my descriptive powers.

Where will the GOP go now?

To the consternation of the fiscal conservatives in GOP, the Bush~Cheney administration's actions spending to fund their fruitless hunt for Osama bin Laden and the disingenuous hunt for Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq have driven many moderates out of the party while crippling the financial might of the country, and they are left with the "not ready for TV" tea-baggers and some barely disguised racists as key parts of their voting base in many areas. The various ratings-driven, faux-histrionic "conservative" pundits are not solidifying the GOP power in the coming election cycle any more than the hypocritical shenanigans of Mike "Spanky" Duvall, Larry "Wide Stance" Craig, or Mark "Don't cry for me, Argentina" Sanford, which have yet to fade from the public's memory.

Ironically, fiscal conservatives have to hope for a kindred spirit in President Obama, who is considerably more socially and economically moderate than he is painted by the media. For Obama has no choice but to spend given the state of the U.S. economy as he starts his first term: the impact of the unfunded military spending and the credit and financial crisis will reverberate for years, possibly decades. While Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner takes point in the media limelight, with the President intent on bringing fairness to the Health Insurance industry, the dances taking place off-camera in D.C. must be truly epic.

Senator Larry Craig's Public Sexual Insult To His Wife Continues

Yep. That's how I feel about the whole sorry deal. Senator Craig -- if all of these charges are true that he's had sexual encounters with eight men-- has not been kind to his wife. I feel sorry for her almost to to the point of tears.

Larry Craig Makes It Official, Resigns From The Senate

According to various news sources , Idaho Senator Larry Craig annouced that he would resign from the Senate, effective September 30th.

Republicans Ask Larry Craig To Step Down

He's got to give up his committee assignments, according to CNN, Huff Post, and other news outlets. But as this story unfolds, I predict he'll step down before the end of the year.

Larry Craig's become the poster child for hypocritical behavior. And his poor wife's being dragged through this. That's terrible to watch.

GOP Full OF Larry Craigs - Sex Scandals And Republicans

Craig just the latest politician to embarrass the GOP
Sheryl Gay Stolberg, New York Times
Wednesday, August 29, 2007

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(08-29) 04:00 PDT Washington --

Scott Reed, a Republican strategist, was at a dinner in Philadelphia Monday night when his cell phone and Internet pager began beeping like crazy. Only later did he learn why: His party was being rocked by a sex scandal involving a Republican U.S. senator - again.
Just when Republicans thought things couldn't get any worse, Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho confirmed that he had pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct after an undercover police officer accused him of soliciting sex in a Minneapolis airport bathroom in June.
On Tuesday, Craig held a press conference to defend himself, calling the guilty plea a mistake and declaring "I am not gay" - even as the Senate Republican leadership asked for an ethics committee review.
It was a bizarre spectacle, and only the latest in a string of alleged sexual foibles and alleged financial misdeeds that have landed Republicans in the political equivalent of purgatory: the realm of late-night comic TV.
Forget Mark Foley, who quit the House last year after exchanging sexually explicit e-mails with underage male pages, or Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist whose dealings with the old Republican Congress landed him in prison. They are old news, replaced by a fresh crop of scandal-plagued Republicans, men like Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana, whose phone number turned up on the list of the "D.C. Madam," or Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska and Rep. Rick Renzi of Arizona, both caught up in FBI corruption probes.
It's enough to make a self-respecting Republican want to tear his hair out in frustration.
"The real question for Republicans in Washington is how low can you go, because we are approaching a level of ridiculousness," Reed, sounding exasperated, said Tuesday. "You can't make this stuff up. And the impact this is having on the grass roots around the country is devastating. Republicans think the governing class in Washington are a bunch of buffoons who have total disregard for the principles of the party, the law of the land and the future of the country."
Then again, Washington does not have a monopoly on the latest trend among Republicans. Just ask Thomas Ravenel, the state treasurer of South Carolina, who had to step down as state chairman of Ru dy Giuliani's presidential campaign after he was indicted on cocaine charges in June.
Or Bob Allen, a state representative in Florida who was jettisoned from John McCain's campaign last month after he was arrested on charges of soliciting sex in a public restroom.
Republicans, of course, do not have an exclusive hold on scandal. As Democrats accused Republicans of engaging in a culture of corruption during the 2006 mid-term elections, Republicans eagerly put the spotlight on Rep. William Jefferson, the Louisiana Democrat who stashed $90,000 in his freezer - ill-gotten gains, the authorities said.
Still, there is sort of a "here we go again" sense among Republicans these days, especially since news of Craig's arrest broke Monday afternoon. It's tough enough being in the minority, weighed down by the burden of the war in Iraq. Now Republicans have an even more pressing task: keeping their party from being portrayed not just as hypocritical and out of touch with the values of people they represent, but also as a laughingstock - amid headlines like "Senator's Bathroom Bust," which ran all afternoon Tuesday on CNN.
Because President Bush is hobbled by his own political difficulties and the need to parry assaults on the White House by Democrats, the party can hardly look to him to lead them out of the morass.
John Feehery, who was press secretary to Rep. Dennis Hastert when Hastert was the House speaker, likened the situation to a football team having a run of bad luck during a rough game.
"If we had a coach," Feehery said, "the coach would take us in the locker room and scream at us."
Some Republicans are indeed screaming, particularly the party's social conservative wing, which places a high priority on ethics and family values.
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a conservative lobby in Washington, said the elections of November 2006, in which Republicans lost control of both the House and the Senate, proved that voters want politicians in Washington to clean up their act.
"Exit polls show that was the No. 1 factor in depressing Republican enthusiasm," Perkins said Tuesday. "There is an expectation that leaders who espouse family values will live by those values. And while the values voters don't demand perfection, I do believe they want leaders with integrity."

Larry Craig - Barney Frank Attacks Republicans For Being Hypocritical On Gays

This is a classic exchange I saw over at Wonkette, and will repeat here in the form of the YouTube video that caused the post. Here it is:



This was uploaded in October of 2006, proving how much of an impact YouTube itself is having on politics because its developing into a kind of cultural archive.

Here's the story of what Larry Craig supposedly did according to CNN.com:

WASHINGTON (CNN) – CNN has obtained the June 11, 2007 police report detailing Idaho Sen. Larry Craig's disorderly conduct arrest in an airport bathroom.

In the report, the arresting officer alleges that Craig lingered outside a restroom stall where the officer was sitting, then entered the stall next door and blocked the stall door with his luggage. (Read the report [PDF])

According to the report, Craig tapped his right foot, which the officer said he recognized "as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct."

"Craig tapped his toes several times and moved his foot closer to my foot," the report states. "I moved my foot up and down slowly. While this was occurring, the male in the stall to my right was still present. I could hear several unknown persons in the restroom that appeared to use the restroom for its intended use. The presence of others did not seem to deter Craig as he moved his right foot so that it touched the side of my left foot which was within my stall area."

At that point, the officer said he put his police identification down by the floor so Craig could see it, and informed the senator that he was under arrest, before any sexual contact took place.

Craig, who agreed to plead guilty to disorderly conduct, denied to the officer he was engaging in any inappropriate activity.

According to the report, Craig told the police that "he has a wide stance when going to the bathroom and that his foot may have touched mine [the officer's]."