Of the emerging pantheon of articles about why other nations lack their own Obamas, this article from Germany is particularly eye-opening. According to Werner A. Perger of Die Zeit, Germany’s political parties discourage charismatic figures who tend to take the initiative. And why is that? It seems that the road Adolph Hitler and his Nazi party took that nation down is the chief cause of this aversion.
“No wonder that in Old Europe, Obama’s electoral win was registered not only with relief but respect. One is downright fascinated at the way this young senator came out of nowhere, saw and conquered; how he transformed mistrust into confidence through a rhetorical laying on of hands, got young people off of their sofas and in no time at all, made them into campaign volunteers. And how week after week on the Internet, he set new fundraising records by collecting small contributions. Obama is a true fisher of men. It all seemed to happen just the way it was supposed to: Everyone seemed to agree that we [Germans] need and want someone like him. But where is he? ”
“At least for those who are sensitive to the past, even if they agree with the correctness of what is being said, the historical reminder of the eternal cipher’s speech at the Sport Palace is hard to shake. [This was a speech delivered by the Nazi Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels at the Berlin Sportpalast on February 18, 1943, calling for “total war,” as the tide of World War II was turning against Germany, see photo, left . The author calls Goebbels the ‘eternal cipher’].
Is former Republican ticket Veep candidate Gov. Sarah Palin getting a bum wrap? In this Guest Voice column, authors and speakers Floyd and Marth Beth Brown argue that Palin has been targeted by the party’s Old Guard. Guest Voice posts do not necessarily reflect the opinion of TMV or its writers.
Palin Saboteurs Want to Kill Her Career Now
By Floyd and Mary Beth Brown
Attacks on Gov. Sarah Palin by McCain campaign staff at first appear to be a case of making her a convenient scapegoat, but the attacks have a more devious motive. This post-election barrage is the first volley of the campaign to choose the Republican nominee in 2012. The Washington, D.C. based establishment that rules the GOP wants her career over now. She threatens them.
Firefighting 101 teaches it is easier to stomp out a wildfire when it is small. Don’t allow the fire to grow, spread and become an inferno. Sarah Palin was the spark of McCain’s reform campaign. She ignited the campaign and gave the reform message legitimacy.
Those knifing Palin are the old-guard Republicans who don’t want to see her as the nominee in 2012. The old-guard GOP candidates are likely Gov. Haley Barbour or former Gov. Mitt Romney.
Sarah Palin brought a vibrant, fresh face to the Republican Party. The GOP elitists saw how she easily connected with voters. Palin drew huge crowds of up to 30,000 people anxious to see and hear her. The crowds flocking to see Gov. Palin bond with her culturally. She has the potential to garner Obama- or Reagan-like devotion.
The Republican Party needs this grassroots energy and her reform agenda after a decade of broken promises and the disappointing Bush presidency. Read the rest of this entry »
November 13th, 2008 By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
Former Republican Vice Presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin almost requires her own cable channel due to her slew of recent interviews, press conferences and the overall media attention that she’s getting. Why the sudden flurry of Palin activity?
One factor is that Palin is now free of her McCain campaign handlers.
Some wonder if the other factor could be an effort to solidify her Republican support with an eye on the 2012 race. Actually, what’s more likely is because of polling data such as this new poll from Gallup:
Just 45% of Americans would like to see Sarah Palin become a major national political figure for many years to come, while a slight majority of 52% say they would not. These sentiments are sharply divided along partisan political lines.
Over three-quarters of Republicans would like to see the former vice-presidential nominee and current governor of Alaska become a major national political figure in the years ahead, in sharp contrast to the 43% of independents and 20% of Democrats who share that attitude.
That doesn’t bode well for Palin if she has ambitions beyond Governor or being elected to Congress.
Her support from independent voters is weak and she joins George Bush in the South Pole in terms of popularity among Democrats. As this election indicated, political parties will likely have to start taking into account candidates’ cross over appeal: the days when political parties can afford to hitch their futures to nominating nationally polarizing candidates may be — if not over — on the wane…particularly as younger voters not cemented to Baby Boomer-derived divisions begin to gain a greater foothold on the polity.
That may explain why Palin — perhaps the most partisan and polarizing of the four candidates on either of the two Presidential tickets — has now issued a call for something she was not noted to epitomize during the election season: bipartisanship:
The word progressive has an interesting and storied history, and according to this article, in Obama’s victory, the word and its meaning have been snatched back by the left, from the right - who had “stolen” it from them.
“The election of Barack Obama has another meaning just as decisive to our fate. Since the 1980s, the progressives of the planet have been on the defensive. The forces of individualism and money confiscated the very idea of progress. Business and finance, combined with technology and free trade, were the engines of a revolution that shook the planet, changed work habits and transformed the relationships between people. The exuberance of the markets and the energy of individual selfishness have pushed humanity forward without it knowing where it was going. Capitalism, according to Marx’ theory, revolutionized life. Suddenly, the words changed and reform, innovation, audacity and creativity moved to the right. Although the term doesn’t have the same meaning in the United States, and even if Barack Obama, somewhat like the Kennedys, is also a proven politician, centrist in many ways, a tough competitor and able to maneuver, these words have now come back to the left. By a huge margin, without question, Americans wanted to say that this society is too hard on people, that inequality is not the ideal for citizens of globalization, that the Earth is not infinite and indestructible, and that the rich must lose at least some of their arrogance. Progressives had the idea of progress stolen from them. Now they have taken it back.”
November 11th, 2008 By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
At a time when a fierce debate has begun within the Republican party about what Republicanism is and what it should be as the party heads into the 21st century seriously downsized after last week’s elections, the RNC has launched a new website called “Republicans For A Reason.”
WASHINGTON – The Republican National Committee (RNC) today launched a new Web site, “RepublicanForAReason.com.” The site offers users the opportunity to discuss their reasons for being a member of the Grand Old Party and what being a Republican means to them. The format is similar to that of the RNC’s ground-breaking Platform Web site, which was launched in the run-up to the 2008 Republican National Convention as a way for every Party member to offer their ideas and insight toward our Platform. In the same vein, Party members can offer their opinion of where the Party is headed and how we can be better prepared for the future.
“We are a party of principles and must regain our voice,” said RNC Chairman Robert M. “Mike” Duncan. “We need to hear what our volunteers, activists, elected leaders, and party members think about the Republican Party as we rebuild, re-focus, and renew our bond with the American people.”
It’s a smart move….if party bigwigs use it to help adapt the GOP to the new political circumstances. The “traditionalists” (whose highest profile members include Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh) insist the party shouldn’t change or adapt but remain wedded to the same approaches in terms of content (far right) and campaign practices (the use of characterization and demonization instead of positive arguments to convince voters they have the best and most practical policies). Some would argue that’s a recipe for continued electoral disaster.
No one expects any party to totally reshape itself based on opinions left on a website. But the GOP’s long range future can’t rely on waiting for the Democrats and Barack Obama to overreach. This will give the party some feedback on how to — at the very least — regain Republicans who either stayed home on election day or voted for Obama. And what it’ll take to start offering a more affirmative message.
November 11th, 2008 By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
When someone wins a Presidential election there’s no shortage of advice: everyone says they have the perfect advice on what chart to course, who will be just perfect for the cabinet and how tough they should be on the opposition.
But it’s even worse when a party loses big — as the Republicans did last week. Advice is coupled with finger pointing, recriminations and a lot of self-serving posturing. And if you look at American political history, no political party is in the “wilderness” forever and few politicians are never forgiven for their losses.
The advice is now pouring in — big time — for Republicans..and for the party’s losing candidate Senator John McCain. And here are two MUST READS:
November 10th, 2008 By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
The Republican party will have to change some of its positions on traditional conservative “hot button” issues — or it’s not going to win national elections for a long time, warns a Republican associated with a conservative think tank.
It’s yet one more voice in the re-thinking of what the Republican party must do to recover from the drubbing the party and its presidential candidate Sen. John McCain received at the polls on Tuesday when Democrat Barack Obama was elected to the White House. GOPers now seem split between those who insist the party must be more conservative, or it won’t win future elections — and those who say its unyielding positions on some key issues won’t work in a 21st century America more diverse with a younger population increasingly unimpressed by political polarization techniques.
Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald reports:
THE Republican Party must abandon its “stringently right wing” positions on gay marriage, abortion and immigration or it could be banished to the political wilderness by the American people for decades, says the deputy director of a conservative think tank.
As the recriminations over the Republicans’ defeat in last week’s elections continued, the deputy director of the Hoover Institution, David Brady, said the party had moved too far to the right, leaving behind a significant proportion of its supporter base, and that more would leave unless the party returned to the centre.
If you followed the GOPers jumping ship during the McCain campaign, it’s clear that some of the Republican segments that left their party — for now at least — included some ideological descendants of Barry Goldwater and former President Ronald Reagan, moderate Republicans, some Republicans associated with the first President George Bush, and even some libertarians. More from the article:
“In order for the Republicans to win again they have to drop the anti-gay, anti-immigrant, strict pro-life, no-abortion social positions they have taken,” said Professor Brady, who is in Australia as a visiting fellow at the United States Studies Centre at Sydney University.
“They have to drop those things and move to the centre where the American voters are. Look at gay marriage - support for gay marriage in America is going up; it’s not going down. It’s a similar situation if you’re pro-life. The majority in America has been pro-choice for a while, and it’s not moving anywhere.”
Brady bases part of his conclusions on a survey:
Using a series of internet surveys to determine voter preferences, the Hoover Institution found that 8 per cent of the Republican base had shifted towards the Democratic Party since 2004.
“America used to be roughly divided along the lines of a third Republican, a third independent, and a third Democrat,” Professor Brady said. “Now it’s 35 per cent Democrat, 28 per cent Republican and the rest independent.
This meant that the “base strategy” used in George Bush’s campaigns - mobilising the traditional Republican supporter base rather than winning over undecideds - was no longer a winning plan.
Similar comments have come from another prominent source: California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who argued in May for a “rebranding” of the Republican party.
The problem for those who argue for such changes: they themselves are branded RINOs (Republican In Name Only) by some staunchly partisan Republicans — but it’s admittedly a label hard to try and glue to anyone associated with the Hoover Institution.
Some Republicans in newspaper columns, on the Internet and talk radio now confidently predict that by 2010 the political pendulum will swing in the other direction due to traditional historic political see-saw shifts, political toe stubbing by Obama, and the likelihood that a lopsidedly Democratic Congress will invariably overreach and cause backlash.
November 10th, 2008 By MICHAEL STICKINGS, Assistant Editor
In addition to Frank Rich’s fine NYT column, about which I wrote here, there was a lot of good stuff to read yesterday — and reading was what I was doing to try to to take my mind off the Steelers’ loss to the Colts, a game they should have won but let slip away. (I’m looking at you, Big Ben. Thanks for the interceptions, the first two at terrible times in the game. And thanks also to Bruce Ariens, offensive coordinator, for those predictable and uninspired play calls when the Steelers had the ball at Indy’s one-yard line in the fourth quarter. This hasn’t been a great year for you, but come on. A little creativity might have worked better than pounding Mewelde into a stacked D-line again and again.) I’ve been bitter and deflated all day.
Anyway… here are a couple of recommendations:
1) Al Gore: “The Climate for Change” (The New York Times), which includes “a five-part plan to repower America with a commitment to producing 100 percent of our electricity from carbon-free sources within 10 years. It is a plan that would simultaneously move us toward solutions to the climate crisis and the economic crisis — and create millions of new jobs that cannot be outsourced.”
2) Ryan Lizza: “Battle Plans” (The New Yorker), a report on how “Obama’s strategy worked, with only minor alterations, throughout the campaign.”
Need more? Have a hankering for some right-wing nonsense? Well, check out P.J. O’Rourke’s “We Blew It” at The Weekly Standard. Read the rest of this entry »
November 10th, 2008 By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
Our political Quote of the Day comes from centrist writer and former adviser to then-President Bill Clinton and then-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani John Avlon, on how the GOP can get out of the political wilderness:
Obama ultimately won 60 percent of moderate voters, and independents favored him by 8 percentage points. Twenty percent of self-described conservative voters (presumably mostly Democrats) even pulled the lever for him. He became the first Democrat since 1964 to win Virginia and Indiana and swept swing states like Colorado, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. He won with a margin larger than George W. Bush ever achieved by reaching out beyond the Democratic base.
The problem for Republicans is compounded by the fact that their base — older white rural traditionalists —i s shrinking, almost by definition. Whole regions have been lost to the party over the past decade, like historically Republican New England, where not a single Republican representative remains. But still some social conservative activists like Tony Perkins believe that the problem can be solved by moving further to the right in the future — just as liberal activists in the 1980s believed that the reason Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis lost was that they were not liberal enough. But even the editor of the National Review, Rich Lowry, recognizes that Republicans need to reach the center as well as the right to win in our center-right nation.
So what do they need to do?
Republicans will emerge from the wilderness only when they reconnect with independent and centrist voters who are fiscally conservative but socially progressive and strong on national security. That means modernizing by embracing a big- tent philosophy on social issues that can credibly attract libertarians again. It means regaining credibility on fiscal issues with clear contrasts like a balanced budget and flat tax. It means becoming more diverse and more urban. It means looking to next -generation leaders like Michael Steele, Bobby Jindal, Mark Kirk and Paul Ryan.
Great parties grow — they reach out and win over new voters. Republicans will remain in the wilderness if they stubbornly deny their problems by preaching to the choir or becoming preoccupied with hunting down party heretics. They must remember that the essence of evangelism is winning converts.
Indeed: the GOP has many voices, but in 2008 it seemed like the GOP old guard joined by moderates and some libertarians on one side were lined up against the social conservatives and talk show hosts and their audiences. John McCain’s losing campaign at times seemed like one of the first in modern memory that was seemingly taking advice from blustery talk show hosts who get their ratings by carving out audience share by offering divisive rhetorical “red meat” and who thrive on verbal confrontation.
The GOP needs to put aside the “red meat” and opt for a healthier course — one that will be appealing to more people, particularly non-Baby Boomer, younger people, so they’ll also come to the table. And bigwigs running campaigns should not be unduly influenced by those who have the loudest voices - amplified by mega-watt microphones.
In my evolution from a would-be reformer of the GOP to a supporter of President-elect Obama, I have been asked the inevitable “why” and “how” questions — and I have answered those questions, indirectly. But I’ve never gone so far as to admit what I will admit now: I am no longer a Republican. I am no longer a conservative.
To be clear: I still believe in many of the principles that first led me to the Republican Party. I still have a number of conservative tendencies. But of this party and movement, as they are defined today, I am no more.
There are some, I’m sure, who will ask why, rather than leaving the fold at this darkest of moments, I don’t join the countless other voices who are now in various stages of bemoaning the shape of the party, offering opinions on what went wrong, re-assessing fundamentals, and suggesting steps to reform.
Two reasons. First, I’m not convinced any of it will do any good.
Though not entirely, the Republican party and conservative movement today are increasingly limited to an unseemly combination of non-thinkers, hardliners, and reactionaries — and I suspect both the party and movement will become more hardline before softening, grow less rational before wisening up.
Granted, Britain’s Tories eventually regrouped and identified a path to resurgence. But they never, as Andrew Sullivan reminds us, “went so far off the cliff as to nominate a Palin.” (And yes, there may be more substance to Gov. Palin than her caricature suggests, but for now, she seems all-too-willing to serve as a presumptive leader of the non-thinking hardline reac
