Now, if you were a Republican who opposed abortion and you donated money to the Republican National Commitee, wouldn’t you be OUTRAGED!!! if you found out that the RNC, in fact, offered its employees health insurance that included coverage for… abortion?
But wouldn’t you also want to know if any RNC employees - loyal Republicans! - […]

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Pretty amazing:
As everyone now knows, Bill Owens will be the first Democrat to represent New York’s 23rd since the mid-19th century, after defeating Doug Hoffman yesterday. This got me thinking about the representation of the region.
New York has 29 congressional districts. As of today, the state is represented by 27 Democrats. As recently as a […]

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Fight!
Last night on Fox News’ On the Record, host Greta Van Susteren asked Gingrich about the “heat” he’s been getting for endorsing Scozzafava, especially from Beck. Gingrich fired back, saying the right-wing support for Hoffman is based on “misinformation” and an abandonment of conservative values:
GINGRICH: I just find it fascinating that my many friends who […]

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Via Sullivan, David Weigel puts his finger on it:
The Democrats are in worse political shape than they were a year ago because unemployment is at 9.8 percent, the war in Afghanistan has grown less popular, and the bailouts of struggling banks are seen as wastes of money that haven’t worked. Republicans benefit when they talk […]

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Hilarious.

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Classy.

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Interesting:
From all indications, the face of the electorate will look very different in 2010 from the way it did in 2008. That prospect presents an immediate danger for Democrats. But it also represents a more subtle, long-term threat for Republicans. …
<snip>
In 2008, Obama assembled what I’ve called a “coalition of the ascendant” that revolved around […]

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I know: Ew.
But David Brooks makes some excellent points in how Democrats -but also and more importantly, Republicans - kowtow to Rush and Beck and O’Reilly:
They pay more attention to Rush’s imaginary millions than to the real voters down the street. The Republican Party is unpopular because it’s more interested in pleasing Rush’s ghosts than actual people. The party […]

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Oh, lookee, Karl Rove’s gonna lecture us all on patriotism - as Christopher Manion notes over at the Lew Rockwell blog, by using other people’s patriotism “to vindicate and glorify - themselves!”
Christine Krissoff’s husband and sons, wrapped in prayers and armed with swords and scalpels, have served our nation with valor. So has she. So long […]

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Zipper trouble for the GOP class of ‘94, “Contract With America”-types who rode into office on a wave of OUTRAGE:
In the 14 years since that star-crossed class arrived in Washington espousing an agenda that placed family values at its core, no less than a dozen of its members have been caught up in affairs, sex […]

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Amongst Republicans, thanks to Palin and a recent story in Vanity Fair.
Funny. Notes Sullivan:
What I make of it is that the selection of Sarah Palin was one of the most absurd, nutty, cynical and incompetent decisions in the modern history of American campaigning. And the Republican party, far from trying to understand how they made […]

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Via Sullivan: Nate Silver with a post on how simple demographics make the GOP’s uphill climb all the more steep:
Gallup has data out suggesting that 89 percent of self-identified Republicans are white; the comparable figure among Democrats is 65 percent. These numbers closely match those from last November’s Presidential election, when 89 percent of John […]

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Via Sullivan, Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal, of all places:
Some, and they are idiots, look at Judge Sotomayor and say: attack, attack, kill. A conservative activist told the New York Times, “We need to brand her.” Another told me a fight is needed to excite the base.
Excite the base? How about excite a […]

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Velly interesting:
Still, the implication of Mr Steele’s promise seemed to be that the party would stop being distracted with minor Democratic politicians and more directly criticise Barack Obama’s policies.
Jonathan Chait raises the right question: What if those policies succeed? What if Mr Obama presides over the sort of recovery that Ronald Reagan presided over, or […]

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Interesting. Richard Florida over at Sullivan’s place links to a Gallup poll finding that “The decline in Republican Party affiliation among Americans in recent years … has occurred among nearly every major demographic subgroup.”
Notes the poll:
the Republicans’ losses tend to be greater among groups that were not strong GOP supporters to begin with. These include […]

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Now Time’s writing about the waning of the Republican Party:
That’s the problem. The party’s ideas — about economic issues, social issues and just about everything else — are not popular ideas. They are extremely conservative ideas tarred by association with the extremely unpopular George W. Bush, who helped downsize the party to its extremely conservative […]

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The folks over at Daily Kos have dreamed up a new logo for the GOP:

And they’re voting on what to name the new GOPosaur, with the three finalists being “Grover,” “Gipper” and “NoNo.” Go vote!
Update: Quoth a colleague:
Nobody thought of Rushasaurus? It’s big, slow, lumbering, makes noise and has an enormous *ss…

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Colin Powell’s five cents:
Powell said the GOP is “getting smaller and smaller” and “that’s not good for the nation.” He also said he hopes that emerging GOP leaders, such as House Minority Whip Cantor, will not keep repeating mantras of the far right.
“The Republican Party is in deep trouble,” Powell told corporate security executives at […]

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Via Sullivan, I think this gets it exactly right:
The reason the Republican Party continues to bleed members has much more to do with the general attitude of the party’s political and intellectual leaders than anything else. Rather than admit to any mistakes or take even the slightest bit of responsibility for the state of the […]

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Via John Cole, Olympia Snowe sounding like she’s not too far from following Specter:
It is true that being a Republican moderate sometimes feels like being a cast member of “Survivor” — you are presented with multiple challenges, and you often get the distinct feeling that you’re no longer welcome in the tribe. But it is […]

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