From the Heart of the GOP

I decided to take a step back from candidate quotes today to look at the bigger picture. 

Most people now recognize that many of our problems in the U.S. stem from over a decade of extreme partisanship in Congress that has its roots in 1994′s so called  "Republican Revolution".  Two centuries of members of both parties sharing social events and the rest of the things that go with living with their families in the same communities in Washington D.C. for part of the year helped create the bonds across party lines that were needed to make congress work.   Over a decade of commuter representation with members of Congress flying home most weekends created an environment where those bonds and relationships atrophied and died.  

In our very wired world, candidates have to be extremely careful about what words come out of their mouths.   After the debunked accusations of Al Gore had to deal with when he was accused of telling lies or otherwise "padding his record", the current crop of candidates are being especially careful.  The Bush years and the implosion of the Republican House under Delay have also created a climate where people are sick of direct attacks.   The extreme partisanship that defined the last decade has no place on the campaign trail.  All the candidates seem to recognize this and are leaving partisan attacks in the hands of proxies or political pundits on both sides.

Now that step back…  Both the Republican and Democratic national parties have been playing an active, but less visible, role in the primary season.  The word "tone" has been mentioned a lot this campaign season for good reasons.  The candidates are doing everything they can not to alienate voters from the other party for fear that it will come back to bite them in the general election.  That has also been true to a large degree for the DNC.   The Republican’s, on the other hand, are featuring the kind of petty, sound bite driven content on their website  that the rest of the nation seems to be rejecting.

Hale Stewart, in a post featured on The Huffington Post today concludes that "Only the hard-core 30% Republican supporters are hanging on right now" to the brand of conservativism that the Republican party has embraced for the last decade.  His post has some good points, even if its overall tone is a bit shrill and divisive itself.  It has to be those 30% that are being catered to on the RNC site.  I went over to http://www.gop.com this morning to look for something, but what I saw there knocked that right out of my mind.  If you head over there now you can see it for yourself, but what you will see as of February 11, 2008 is this:

The Valentines featured seem more appropriate to issue oriented sites that have a stated purpose and a well defined ax to grind.  Finding them on the website for a national party that is trying to compete in the current political climate struck me as bizarre.  I’m sure they will not be around for long so I sent them ALL to myself and I will feature them here. 

I’ve already said that the Republicans do not actually want to win this election.  They do not want to lose even more ground by having a Republican President in office as the war in Iraq drags on longer the economic fallout from a decade of deregulation mania.  This RNC tactic seems to confirm that in my mind.  It’s all a joke to them now.  They do not want their party to win.  They want a democrat in the highest office so they can play Monday mornign quarterback and criticize any failures in cleaning up their mess.  It’s pretty smart of them really.

Here are the Valentines.  There are three each for Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama.

Ladies First… 

And Candidate Obama’s three: 

This one struck me and especially bizarre because the current head of the party, George W. Bush had exactly zero national experience when he ran for the Presidency.   Bush had been governor of a state with one of the nation’s weakest governorships.

On a side note, on the GOP Leadership page, I find it interesting what is not said:  "George W. Bush is the 43rd President of the United States. He was sworn into office January 20, 2001, after a campaign in which he outlined sweeping proposals to reform America’s public schools, transform our national defense, provide tax relief, modernize Social Security and Medicare, and encourage faith-based and community organizations to work with government to help Americans in need. "

Some how, I seem to remember his taking office having been a little more complicated than that.  I seem to remember some guy named Chad and the Supreme Court being involved.  Doesn’t matter, it could never happen again, right?

 

 The U.S. needs to unite behind a President and Congress that can work together to address the serious problems facing Americans.  Does anyone think that bullshit like this RNC Valentine e-card campaign will help that along?  If the head of the GOP says he’s a "uniter not a divider" where can we see that in action?