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[Euld]

Faux news has released an actual attack ad against Obama.  Not a news story, not an impartial "here's what he did right, here's what he did wrong," it's a full on attack ad with special effects, dramatic camera angles, dramatic camera filters and even dramatic music.

The Republican party is dead.

[Realmfighter]

That music. I loved how they worked in DUM DUM DUM every time the terrible effects started. The video has convinced me that Obama is the main villain in a summer superhero movie though.

Spoiler: He's not the hero we want. (click to show/hide)

I was going to photoshop Romney into batman, but then I tried it and it was terrible.

[Mego]

Faux news has released an actual attack ad against Obama.  Not a news story, not an impartial "here's what he did right, here's what he did wrong," it's a full on attack ad with special effects, dramatic camera angles, dramatic camera filters and even dramatic music.

The Republican party is dead.

Would you happen to be a certain Goldstarking68 that made that exact comment on the video?

Also this is just sad.

[Euld]

Indeed I am, it's my personal belief that the current Republican party needs to separate from the crazies like Fox News and form a different party altogether.  A different party full of reasonable people who use real facts to support their political leanings who don't rely on fear and hate to motivate their voters.

[Osmosis Jones]

Indeed I am, it's my personal belief that the current Republican party needs to separate from the crazies like Fox News and form a different party altogether.  A different party full of reasonable people who use real facts to support their political leanings who don't rely on fear and hate to motivate their voters.

Are there any people in politics at all (let alone the GOP) that actually do that in the first place though?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

No, but the Republican Party does have a realistic chance of facing internal fracturing now. The center-right and the far-right members of the party have less and less in common each passing year. Rick Santorum Republicans see Mitt Romney Republicans as compromised and not real conservatives, while Mitt Romney Republicans are starting to consider the possibility that their "friends" the Rick Santorum Republicans might actually be batshit insane and not the kind of conservatives they'd want to associate with.

The Democrats have an advantage on this issue, as their party has covered such a wide range of ideologies for so long that cooperation has become second nature.

[Osmosis Jones]

Oh, fracture, sure, I'll pay *fracture*. However it'll just fracture into crazy moral conservative people and deceitful financial conservative people, and the few sane, decent republicans will be left wondering what the hell just happened.

[RedKing]

The Democrats have an advantage on this issue, as their party has covered such a wide range of ideologies for so long that cooperation fumbling forward while squabbling like a bunch of grade-schoolers has become second nature.

ftfy; Seriously, if the Democrats had the kind of party discipline and ruthlessness that the GOP has, the Republican party would have been ground to dust by now.

[PTTG??]

I think that's unfair. Democratic politicians are by definition, the most driven, ambitious, cunning individuals in a very large group of ambitious, cunning people. To accuse them of being to naive, too willing to compromise, or else lacking in determination or strategic sense underestimates them.

[RedKing]

I think that's unfair. Democratic politicians are by definition, the most driven, ambitious, cunning individuals in a very large group of ambitious, cunning people. To accuse them of being to naive, to willing to compromise, or else lacking in determination or strategic sense underestimates them.

Just calling it like I see it. The Democratic Party has a distinct knack for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. They can turn what should be a 20-point drubbing into a tight race through things like lack of message discipline, infighting, and not knowing when to shut up.

Drive and ambition, I'll grant you. Cunning....not always.


I think it boils down to the fact that the GOP leadership is utterly unfettered by scruples. They will blatantly renege on promises made, blatantly lie, blatantly blame the victim and project their worse vices upon their enemies (such as ranting about "spendthrift, Big Government liberals" during a period where they balooned the deficit and enlarged the Federal government) and they do so without a trace of remorse. That means they pull off some things that are totally reprehensible but totally brilliant from the standpoint of pure politics. Like swaying public opinion about healthcare by using things like "death panels", or when Karl Rove killed John McCain's chances in South Carolina by insinuating via push polls that his adopted Bangladeshi daughter was *his* biracial baby, in a state known for its racism.

Democrats simply don't have that killer instinct. Which makes them better people, but worse politicians. I guess what I'm saying is that we need a party of people who are ruthlessly progressive. 

[mainiac]

Oh I disagree with that most strongly.  Democrat's don't do things like throw away easy wins on fringe candidates like Sharon Angle and Christine O'Donnell.  Democrat's haven't lost themselves control of the Senate not once but twice in a single decade like the republicans did in driving Jim Jeffords and Arlen Specter out of the party in 2001 and 2009.  I'd agree that they are less then stellar when it comes to advancing their agenda but when it comes to winning elections they are the more astute party.

Oh, fracture, sure, I'll pay *fracture*. However it'll just fracture into crazy moral conservative people and deceitful financial conservative people, and the few sane, decent republicans will be left wondering what the hell just happened.

All the sane republicans got drummed out of the party years ago.  If Romney is uncomfortable with the likes of Paul Ryan then he has a funny way of showing it by adopting his budget priorities.  If Romney is uncomfortable with hard right social conservatives then he has a funny way of showing it by adopting their stances on gay rights, abortion rights and immigration rights.

Even the few republicans who cast themselves as moderates don't actually push a moderate agenda.  They just push a hardline republican agenda trimmed back slightly.  Jonathan Chait put it very well when Olympia Snowe announced she wasn't running for re-election.

When George W. Bush proposed a huge, regressive tax cut in 2001, Snowe, sitting at the heart of a decisive block of centrists, used her leverage to support the passage of a modestly smaller and less regressive version. When Barack Obama proposed a large fiscal stimulus in 2009, Snowe (citing fears of deficits that she had helped create) decided to shave a nice round $100 billion off his figure and call it a day. If a Gingrich administration proposed spending a trillion dollars to erect a 100- foot-tall solid-gold Winston Churchill statue on Mars, Snowe would no doubt decide, after careful deliberation, that the wise course was to trim the height down to 90 feet and perhaps use a cheaper bronze alloy in the base.

There are no moderates left, just a few people who like to preen by calling themselves moderates like Snowe and Collins.  No amount of crazy will turn them off from the party, they'll just continue to do the same thing until they leave office.

[MaximumZero]

ruthlessly progressive. 

You rang? MZ for president! Rights or facepunches for everyone! You decide!

[RedKing]

@mainiac: Never thought I'd be defending a Republican, but I'm unimpressed by Chait strawmanning Snowe's position. She made the Bush tax cuts smaller. She made the Obama stimulus smaller. These are both fiscally conservative positions (less change from the status quo) and politically centrist (the first one was less than the GOP wanted, the second was less than the Dems wanted).

Snowe, Susan Collins, Lincoln Chaffee....they were moderate Republicans. Handwaving them off because they were still Republicans kind of misses the point.

A moderate Republican is still likely to be more conservative than a mainstream Democrat? *gasp* I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell you!

ruthlessly progressive. 

You rang? MZ for president! Rights or facepunches for everyone! You decide!

I have to admit, I'm lol'ing at the idea of a ruthlessly progressive President.

"GAY MARRIAGE FOR EVERYONE! YOU! MARRY THAT MAN!"
"But I'm not g-"
"I SAID EVERYONE!"

[mainiac]

@mainiac: Never thought I'd be defending a Republican, but I'm unimpressed by Chait strawmanning Snowe's position. She made the Bush tax cuts smaller. She made the Obama stimulus smaller. These are both fiscally conservative positions (less change from the status quo) and politically centrist (the first one was less than the GOP wanted, the second was less than the Dems wanted).

Sorry but you can't defend a position out of ideological consistancy unless you have consistant ideology.

In 2003 Snowe and Collins both signed on when their party wanted to create a huge entitlement give away to the drug companies in Medicare part D.  In 2003 they voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq.  In neither case did they extract a pound of flesh.  They didn't need to because these were seen as centrist positions at the time.  Well they ended up being the two largest spending increases of the decade.  So when it came to fiscal conservativism they were MIA.  When it came to triangulating to the middle ground however they were spot on.

As for Lincoln Chaffee, yes, what a great moderate.  What happened to him?  Oh well he left the party and endorsed Barack Obama for president.  How does this show that moderates still exist in the GOP?

[RedKing]

I didn't say they're still alive and well, I'm just saying that it's unfair to deride the few that exist as "not really moderates" just because they still...y'know, vote with their party more than 50% of the time.

There are plenty of conservative Democrats that vote with the party on a slew of issues, then break ranks on gay marriage or immigration or whatever. Are they still "hardcore liberals lite" because they vote with the Democrats a majority of the time?

In the 112th Congress, Snowe and Collins voted across party lines 32 and 30 percent of the time, respectively -- the most of any senators. Joe Lieberman only broke ranks 10% of the time, but would you say he's a hardcore liberal? Ben Nelson was the most "maverick" Dem Senator, voting across the aisle 16% of the time. So yeah...I'd say Snowe and Collins (and Scott Brown to some extent) deserve a little more credit for bucking their party, if guys like Lieberman and Nelson are going to come in for such excoriation within the Democratic Party.