On Thu, 21 Feb 2008 10:37:45 -0800, "Gandalf Grey" <valinor20@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:
>The real GOP
>
>By Jack Lessenberry
>
>Created Feb 20 2008 - 9:49am
>
>
>Nobody is paying much attention to the Republicans anymore. They long ago
>(well, last week, anyway) settled on their candidate, the aged military
hero
>John McCain, pride of the Arizona Navy.
>
>Everyone is ru****ng to endorse him. P.J. O'Rourke, the only intentionally
>funny Republican since Abe Lincoln, came up with the perfect slogan for
Old
>Ironskull: "Strong and Wrong."
>
>Want to know where that came from?
>
>Well, during a town hall meeting in New Hamp****re, McCain was asked if
U.S.
>troops would have to stay in Iraq for 50 years.
>
>"Make it a hundred!" McCain shot back. Later he actually said we might
have
>to be there for a thousand or a million years, before they presumably got
>him back on his medication. Nevertheless, some think he could be a real
>threat to carry Michigan this year.
>
>And indeed, that may happen if the stone-faced bureaucrats of the
Michigan
>Democratic Politburo continue to insist on sticking with the delegation
the
>national party has ruled illegal. Remember, that's the one without a
single
>Obama delegate. If it proves to be the tipping point that steals the
>nomination from Barack Obama, the candidate most people now clearly
prefer,
>well, that would seem to give McCain a perfect opening. Especially if
black
>voters stay home.
>
>People think of McCain as a maverick and a moderate, and we in Michigan
tend
>to like those types. Yet there is little moderate about the party that
will
>nominate him. Last weekend Michigan Republicans held a convention and
picked
>delegates.
>
>That was covered in the press - but the other big part of what their
>convention did was pretty much ignored.
>
>They took positions on four major issues. Two were standard campaign
>boilerplate; one called for more educational choice, a veiled swipe at
>public schools. The other (yawn) advocated more efficient, cheaper and
>smaller government.
>
>But Republicans agreed on two other positions that made it clear that the
>party that once liked to call itself a big tent is now fast becoming a
>hardened little sect.
>
>If you are a union member or sympathizer, know that they adopted this
>language. "The Michigan Republican Party sup****ts Right-to-Work and
Paycheck
>Protection from personally unauthorized deductions."
>
>That means union-busting. That would mean outlawing a union shop and
would
>mean no automatic deduction of union dues. Practically speaking, it would
>mean all existing unions would be destroyed.
>
>Now try out this position:
>
>"The Michigan Republican Party believes that life begins at conception
and
>that the State of Michigan should always defend innocent human life from
>conception to natural death."
>
>Always. That means no abortion, period. No exception for rape or *****.
>Nor, so far as I can see, is there even an exception for the health of
the
>mother. As a matter of fact, this seems not even to allow an abortion to
>save the mother's life.
>
>That's the real face of the today's Republican Party - strong, wrong and
>controlled by religious fundamentalists.
>
>The only thing now protecting a woman's right to choose whether to end an
>unwanted early pregnancy is U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens,
>who will be 88 years old in a few weeks. You know he isn't going to last
>through the next president's term.
>
>If John McCain is elected president, he will name a justice committed to
>carrying out the agenda listed above. A Democratic president would name
>someone very different. Democrats, if they want to win this election,
need
>to make people understand that.
>
>And speaking of the Democrats: One of the major players I mentioned last
>week called up to give me hell about that column, "Stealing Obama's
votes."
>This particular honcho is perhaps the smartest of the inner-circle of the
>smoke-filled room.
>
>He or she knows very well that they have made a mess of things and have a
>major problem. That is, they know they'll have a major problem with
>African-Americans if they attempt to ram Hillary Clinton down the
>convention's throat without letting people in this state have any chance
to
>register sup****t for Barack Obama.
>
>However, so far as anyone can tell, Mark Brewer, the state party chair,
>couldn't care less. And even those members of the leader****p who are more
>enlightened are so out of touch with what is happening it is scary.
During a
>discussion with me last week, one of them repeatedly referred to Barack
>Obama as "the civil rights candidate."
>
>This was one day after he had won a majority of the white vote in
Virginia
>and had beaten Hillary Clinton by staggering landslides in eight contests
in
>a row. (This was written before Tuesday's votes in Wisconsin and Hawaii.)
>Yes, he's the civil rights candidate, all right.
>
>A number of readers wrote to Brewer after my last column on the sorry
state
>of the democracy. They indicated they were angry, felt disenfranchised,
and
>wanted another vote. Two of them sent me his replies, which could have
been
>crafted by an apparatchik in Konstantin Chernenko's Kremlin. (We had free
>and fair election, comrade. Obama's name not on ballot. Discussion
closed.)
>
>Ralph Loomis, a retired professor at the University of Michigan, sent me
a
>sensible idea: "Suggest to potential givers to the Michigan Democratic
Party
>that they send envelopes without money in them to party headquarters,
with a
>note that if they'll stop stealing votes from a major presidential
>candidate, contributions can resume.
>
>"If enough people did this, it could have the desired effect." Dr. Loomis
>suggested I improve his language and then share this idea with all of
you.
>But he put it better than I could have.
>_______
Americans have no votes. They have blackboxes.
They'll need to fight for representation in government all over again.
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