The Republican base: who ARE these people?

With all the crises facing our country, the GOP-controlled Congress has announced without apology that it intends to fritter away the summer with re-runs of old legislative favorites like gay marriage and flag-burning, designed to excite their Republican base while positioning Democrats as unpatriotic wimps.

No sooner had the flag amendment lost by one vote in the Senate than the Republicans were angrily warning Democrats they would pay at election time—which was the whole purpose of this exercise in democracy. Then House Speaker Denny Hastert unveiled a GOP “values agenda” including measures on topics such as abortion, cloning and gun rights—issues that resonate with the “base”.

I’m not saying these tactics don’t work. They do. In 2004, the gay marriage issue sent millions of evangelicals to the polls and they swung the election for Bush despite his pathetic record. Now, with national magazines calling him the “worst President in our history” it is time to once again change the national conversation to gay marriage and flag burning.

During the Senate debate on the flag burning amendment, West Virginia’s Bob Byrd nailed it: “Burning the flag may be ugly and silly but it’s nonetheless a method of rebuking Washington politicians, especially those who start needless wars.”

The Republican base. Makes you wonder: Who ARE these people and aren’t they ashamed to be cited as the reason Congress is legislating political slogans rather than dealing with life-and-death issues? Don’t they know their own party sees them as petulant, spoiled children whose obsessions with tax cuts, regulatory baubles, patriotic symbols or religious moralizing must constantly be catered to or they’ll simply stay home on election day? I can understand how these emotional appeals work with the gun nuts and evangelicals, but what about the filthy rich who put up the millions to fund these divisive wedge campaigns? Don’t they include some fiscal conservatives who have a lot at stake if our country goes the way of Argentina?

Can the Republican base (TRB) really be as dumb as Bill Frist and Karl Rove considers them to be? Do TRBers consider themselves simply immune from critical world problems that can destroy us all?

Here are some things the rich, hard-headed, unemotional TRBers might want to think about:

While the super-wealthy enjoy many shelters ordinary folks do not, you share a planet where glaciers are melting and if nothing is done to stop the warming New York City will be under a foot of water. At least the evangelicals can pray.

Fiscal conservatives didn’t get to be corporate fat-cats by tolerating waste and inefficiencies, so why aren’t you demanding the ouster of Don Rumsfeld for his incompetence in conducting the Iraq war? After all, this was a war of our choosing, which meant Rumsfeld picked the time and place to fight it. So why is it, three years later, our troops still complain of lack of proper equipment, including body armor? Why is it that in 118 degree heat many of our soldiers complain about lack of water and de-hydration?

That’s criminal incompetence, and it continues domestically where not only was the Bush Administration response to Katrina botched and a great city destroyed but recovery efforts have resulted in a wondrous $2 billion boondoggle for the scam artists. TRBers would never run a successful company that way. With the deficit near $9 trillion don’t you feel it’s time to take the check book away from these guys and do something about restoring our nation’s fiscal health?

With the gap between rich and poor wider than it has ever been, don’t the actions of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet embarrass you just a little bit? Juxtapose the selfish way Republicans millionaires in Congress — in your name — feverishly pursue elimination of the estate tax, with Gates and Buffett giving their billions to fight disease and attack root causes of world poverty. Not pretty.

Perhaps Rove’s machinations will succeed in energizing both the Republican and Democratic bases this midterm. Now that I would like to see.

Minnesota Senate: A tip from Tip.

What is the basic strategy of congressional Republicans up for re-election in the midterms? To step as far away from the deep doo-doo in Washington as they possibly can. They’re clinging desperately to Tip O’Neill’s theory “all politics is local.” They sure hope he’s right. But how is it playing?

Well, Minnesota is supposed to offer Republicans one of their best chances to pick up a Senate seat this election cycle, and why not? This is a Democratic seat where Mark Dayton spent $12 million of his own money in 2000 to win the job, then botched it so badly he had to retire.

Seeking to replace Dayton are Republican Rep. Mark Kennedy and Democratic county prosecutor Amy Klubuchar.

Kennedy has spent the last half-dozen years in Washington as an integral part of the GOP-controlled Congress that in the same week this summer voted to repeal the estate tax for the very rich while voting down an increase in the minimum wage for the very poor. How will that play in Minnesota? About the same way its playing across the country: very badly.

So Mark urges voters to ignore all that. He’s running as an “outsider.” In the traditional political Muzak of GOP rhetoric, he promises to “promote and defend Minnesota values—from the special interests and the Washington insiders.” How is that for campaign chutzpah?

On the stump you would never know his party made the mess that is now featured on every late-nite comic’s highlight reel. His years in Washington coincide with such monumental horrors as the Iraq war and Katrina, but Minnesotans won’t hear that from “outsider” Kennedy. You can get away with that if your three terms in Washington were so forgettable that voters never knew you were there.

According to a recent issue of Congress Daily, Klubuchar hasn’t been setting the electorate on fire with her somewhat tepid and cautious statements on how she would deal with important issues like the war, that she “talks carefully and is wary of how Kennedy will portray her position.”

Wait a minute, Amy. This is Minnesota. This is the state that gave us Hubert Humphrey, Gene McCarthy and Paul Wellstone — fearless, table-pounding liberals.

Kennedy is the one who should worry about how Klubuchar portrays his position. Here is a guy who claims to be a “problem-solver.” Solver? For six years these guys have been problem creators. The war we won’t even go into, but what about soaring health care costs and high gas prices? Passing legislation against gay marriage or flag-burning doesn’t pay the rent or put food on the table.

Kennedy also prides himself as an “accountant and businessman.” Great. So how does he explain why the GOP fights the federal estate tax on multimillion dollar fortunes that will cost hundreds of billions of dollars when we already have an 8 trillion dollar debt? What accounting school did he go to anyway?

How is the Tip O’Neill strategy playing in Minnesota? Not well. Latest polls have Klubuchar in the lead, and that’s with much of the electorate still in the dark about the real credentials of her “outsider” opponent.

The evidence is piling up that in the 2006 midterm elections it doesn’t much matter how screwed up or unorganized the Democrats are. To win, all they need to be is on the ballot. They don’t even need a pulse, let alone a coherent position on the war. The public is so angry at Bush and the GOP that if Tip O’Neill were still around his new dictum would be “you can run but you can’t hide…from your record.” Stand by for the midterm Democratic tsunami.

Congress: Term limits? Never mind.

Nothing is more pathetic or tawdry than politicians explaining to voters why they lied. Congressional Republicans caught up in the term limits debacle compound an early lie (why I’ll serve only three terms) with a new one, claiming they must stay on “for the good of my constituents”, taking hypocrisy to a new subterreanean level.

At least seven House Republicans who were elected on the pledge they would be “citizen legislators” – not “career politicians” -- are now weaseling out and will be on the ballot this fall. Term limits grew out of decades of GOP frustration over Democratic party control of the Congress. In the Gingrich-led rebellion of 1994, Republicans wooed voters on the nonsensical notion that the House shouldn’t be a home but merely a Day’s Inn, a brief but invigorating public service stopover before returning to civilian life. Whether term limits had anything to do with the GOP election sweep in `94, no one can be sure, but it created a movement promoted not only by shrewd Republican strategists but by academics (who should know better) and radio talk show hosts (who don’t).

Once in office, these “citizen legislators” gerrymandered their districts into the shape of pretzels that housed only incumbent-friendly voters so that no future elections could even be contested. That worked so well that the only an inadvertent “yes” vote on a tax increase could derail a lifetime career – the House was home. Which made the term limit pledge a bit of a nag. Now that the Outs were In, the question becomes: “What were we thinking of in limiting terms in office?”

Who wants to leave? It’s a short work-week, the pay and perks are good. So if you have a job like that, why would you ever give it up simply because of a campaign gimmick your party used to win back the Congress a dozen years ago? You don’t. So you explain to voters why, for their own good, campaign promises must be broken. More often than not, the spin machine coughs up such hairballs as this one from Rep. Tim Johnson of Illinois: “I underestimated the value of seniority.” An aide added: “As a rookie going in, he didn’t understand what he could accomplish for his district by being there a longer period.” Is there a dry eye in the House?

Back in `94, Democratic House Speaker Tom Foley was defeated by Republican George Nethercutt after George promised voters he would serve only three terms. In 2000, after some very zany and surreal debate over his term limit pledge, voters re-elected him to a fourth term.

I’ve long believed that term limits is one of the silliest ideas ever to spawn a national movement. I even wrote a book about it: Giving Up on Democracy: Why Term Limits are Bad for America. All those academics and talk show motor-mouths who praised term limits as the salvation of American politics have been strangely silent as more and more GOP incumbents renege on their pledges to quit. Maybe they finally got around to reading my book.

Negative Ads: Bring Back the Talking Cows

News item: (From the Raleigh News & Observer) Congressman Brad Miller (D-NC) is facing one of the nastiest campaigns in the nation as supporters of challenger Vernon Robinson race-bait in black neighborhoods. One radio ad features mariachi band music playing in the background with this voice-over: “If Miller has his way, America would be nothing but one big fiesta for illegal aliens and homosexuals.”

Now that’s simply mean, crude, slimy, racist and sexist, the smarmy kind of negativity that demeans politics and reduces turnout at the polls. Some of us are old enough to remember when negative ads had wit and style. I would suggest that Robinson supporters first take a shower, then review this classic golden oldie:

Election night, 1982. At CBS, correspondent Bob Schieffer and anchorman Dan Rather are wrapping up the evening’s election results—and enjoying a light moment over one of the big surprises:

Schieffer: The incumbent, John Melcher, has won out there (Montana). This was one of the ones, Dan, that the Democrats were a little worried about. There was a strong, conservative, NCPAC outfit that went in out there against Melcher. It did not work. He ran a very effective campaign against them and he too stressed the economy, and he won tonight. And I must say, Dan, that Melcher ran my favorite commercial of the entire campaign…

Rather: The talking cows.

Schieffer: The one candidate who had cows on his side…Let’s take a look at it:

Opening Scene: Several men in dark suits walk down the steps of an airplane carrying suitcases labeled “N.C.P.A.C."

The announcer says: “For over a year, a pack of political East Coast politicos have been scurrying into Montana with briefcases full of money…”

Just then, one of the men bumps into the man in front; the briefcase flies open, and money blows all over the runway.

The announcer continues: “…trying to convince us our Senator Melcher is out of step.”

Cut to: Cows grazing on a feed lot.

Announcer: “Montana isn’t buying it. Especially those who know bull when they hear it.”

Cut to: A close-up of cud-chewing cow, who tells her mate, “Did ya hear about those city slickers out here bad-mouthin’ Doc Melcher?”

Close-up of mate: “One of `em been steppin’ in what they’ve been trying to sell. He kept calling me a steer!”

Shot of the cow and her young one: “That’ll all come as some surprise to Junior there.”

Cut to candidate Melcher, who is walking across the ranch, inspecting the land and everything on it, while the announcer says: “John Melcher has been solving Montana problems most of his life, as a veterinarian, a state legislator, a congressman, and as our U.S. Senator. He loves this land, and he knows its people…”

As Doc Melcher continues his walk across the land, a fan club of devoted cows follows directly behind him. One of the cows watching all this concludes by saying, “Now tell me…does that look like a man who’s out of step with Montana?”

Schieffer: There it is, Dan, moo cows for Melcher.
(Rather laughing;)
Schieffer: He is the only veterinarian in the Senate, too.
Rather (laughing harder): Well, you know, what can you say…the amazing thing is it seems to have worked. Melcher did seem to be in trouble before that particular commercial began working for him…

Get those cows down to North Carolina and have them trample Vern Robinson’s mariachi band.

Election 2006: Waiting for November

Recently there has been a spate of books attacking labor unions, helped along by loony Rick Berman’s anti-union ad campaign. With labor in a downward spiral, no threat to anyone but themselves, conservative right-wing Republicans have to be asking: why bother?

The answer can be summed up in two words: midterm elections.

Losing ground faster than unions: President Bush and the Republican Party. Both may soon join unions in single digits.

Labor’s decline was not of their making. Since 2000, unions have been decimated by the outsourcing of jobs and a Bush-appointed NLRB that is an arm of the Republican National Committee. Try to gain members when your best jobs are shipped overseas and employers have a green light to fire workers supporting organizing campaigns.

Midterms could change all that.

Democrats have finally wised-up to the fact that when unions decline, so does their base.

When Democrats win back the Congress this November, the Employee Free Choice Act (that levels the playing field for workers wanting to join unions) will become priority legislation. Even now with Denny Hastert and Bill Frist in charge, the bill at last count had 213 co-sponsors in the House and 42 in the Senate.

Corporate America is well aware what will happen when the Democrats take over, which is why there is such a frantic effort to flood bookshelves with tales of alleged union corruption and why companies are willing to pour millions of bucks into Berman’s sleazy anti-union ad campaign. They need a knockout blow now, hoping labor – even with a Democratic Congress – will be unable to recover.

Wal-Mart, the largest and most anti-union employer in the U.S., is working closely with Berman. He’s their kind of guy. In the past, Berman campaigns have stoutly defended defenders of mercury poisoning, drunk driving and Big Tobacco. For a successful con-man like Berman, no “cause” is too slimy if the bucks are right.

For Berman’s anti-union scam to work, he needed a Labor Department as smarmy as he is, and he found one in the Bush Administration. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao is a stranger to union leaders and rank & file workers, but the best friend unfair employers ever had. She cemented that relationship last year when she cut a deal with Wal-Mart to give the company advance notice any time DOL was planning a “surprise” inspection of their stores. Chao’s priorities are evident in her department budget – she increased staff to monitor union expenditures, while cutting back on Mine Safety at a time when coal mining deaths and accidents are on the upswing.

At a recent seminar at the AFL-CIO on the future of labor, participants agreed that the greatest obstacle to union growth is employer opposition that breaks every rule without fear of retribution. The Employee Free Choice Act will change all that. Then all labor has to do to excite and enroll millions of unorganized and underpaid workers is make Bentonville the new Detroit.

White House: The Trillion Dollar War

Not only in human lives, but in dollars as well, the costs of the Iraq war far exceed Administration forecasts (you might recall that Bush neo-cons said this war would pay for itself out of Iraqi oil revenues). Everyone is grateful that American casualties declined this year, but the amount of money spent to fight the war and rebuild the country has soared. According to ABC-TV News, poor planning could push war costs to $1 trillion.

Some retired generals who joined the Bush-bashing have been criticized, claiming their comments are “bad for the troops”. Retired Marine Corps General Tony Zinni responds by asking: “Like the troops don’t notice mistakes and incompetence?”

In a recent TV interview, General Zinni said it is a responsibility of those who have taken an oath to uphold the Constitution to speak out when they perceive threats to the nation. Like most career military officers, Zinni is a Republican, but he contrasts the management style of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with William Cohen, his Pentagon boss during the Clinton administration.

Zinni said Cohen made it clear that differences of opinion among the military leaders must be aired. He cited two occasions when he (Zinni) differed with the recommendation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and he was given a hearing clear up to the President so that his views could be given a hearing and consideration.

That exemplified the openness of the previous Secretary as contrasted with the treatment given by Rumsfeld and Bush neo-cons to Gen. Shinseki and other military officers who didn’t agree with them on military requirements.

Congress: Frist Priorities

When Senators voted against repealing the estate tax, Majority Leader Bill Frist was devastated.

"This tax is so unfair,” he wailed.

Unfair? At a time when 37 million Americans are living below the poverty line and programs from Medicaid to Head Start are being cut to reduce the budget, the estate tax that impacts only a wealthy few is unfair?

Let’s face it: Bill Frist should be the Republican Presidential nominee in 2008. He is their poster boy. He represents everything they stand for, and these guys will stand for a lot: reward the wealthy, penalize the poor, pander to the religious right, and every time the party is in trouble give America a “wedgie” to distract us.

A worsening war in Iraq, pain at the gas pump, a total breakdown of our health care system, a national debt in the trillions of dollars--that may be keeping you awake nights, but not Frist. Even before he led the charge to repeal the estate tax, Frist and his GOP “values” team was already on the move with legislation to curb broadcast “indecency.” (You might recall this is a Frist fall-out from a long ago Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction.) While making the boob-tube (no pun intended) safe for viewing might not be that important to millions of Americans struggling to pay the rent, it struck a symbolic blow for Frist’s Presidential ambitions.

After all, the Religious Right pretty much decides who wins GOP Presidential primaries. And nothing concerns them more than bosoms unbound at Super Bowl halftime shows. Frist is sure these good folks will cool John McCain’s jets and give him the nod, but he takes nothing for granted. He wormed his way into their hearts during the Terry Schaivo debacle, when he viewed a videotape and gave his opinion as a medical doctor that she showed every sign of recovering. Turned out they were both brain dead, but his pronouncement was widely admired by conservatives and the religious right, and that’s where the votes are.

Ever since he took over as Majority Leader, Frist has demonstrated an almost awesome ability to separate the wheat from the chaff, always bringing the chaff to the floor. High gas prices? Frist had a solution: a crisp 100 dollar bill to every taxpayer, telling the Knoxville News: “That’s big bucks for a lot of people”. And you thought he was out of touch.

The other day Roll Call had a photo of Frist looking particularly troubled and thoughtful, so I read the cut-line: “Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist speaks at a press conference on the definition of marriage.” Another loser in the Senate, another wedge-issue winner for the `08 primaries.

Congress: Save Walton's Mountain

The last time I looked there were six or eight Waltons topping the list of richest Americans. So I am not surprised to see the Wal-Mart Walton clan leading the fight to do away with the estate tax. I am even less surprised to see the GOP-controlled Congress taking up their cause. It is a significant moment in our country’s history. Should Congress somehow fail to repeal the estate tax, Walton heirs will be forced to pay their share financing a government that takes such good care of them and their world empire of box stores.

The “born on third base” crowd has a champion in Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. While the vast majority of his Tennessee constituents are more worried about paying 3 bucks for gasoline, Frist keeps his eye on the prize: those who can best fund his ’08 Presidential campaign. He warmed the hearts of the estate lobbyists when he said with a passion working families never hear: “Now is our time. Here is our moment. Let’s end the death tax forever!”

What will it cost the government to eliminate the estate tax? Don’t ask. Republicans never do. Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum declares airily: “Of course Democrats believe that cutting taxes is a huge mistake. That’s why they’re in the minority.”

Let’s face it: “tax and spend” Democrats are looking pretty good compared to “cut taxes and spend” Republicans. One balances the budget and leaves a surplus. The other rewards the super-wealthy and bankrupts our grandkids.

If you read the ads promoting estate tax repeal, they feature sorrowful scenes more reminiscent of Walton’s Mountain than Bentonville. They suggest the end of the family farm, though supporters of repeal can’t find a single example of a family that had to sell the old home place to pay estate taxes. (Maybe that’s because less than one percent of estates are even eligible for the tax).

All this GOP concern for the indescribably rich comes at a time when 37 million American live below the poverty line.

Admittedly, there are some moderate Republicans who are concerned about the rising deficit. Which helps explain why the House GOP has failed twice in recent weeks to pass a $2.7 trillion budget resolution. Perhaps they can hear the “national debt clock” that’s ticking away on 44th street in New York City. Reporters visit it regularly. Tick, 20,000 dollars, tock, another 20 grand. The problem is, with the national debt nearing 9 trillion and counting– the clock is running out of digits. When the debt breaks 10 trillion, the clock will be obsolete.

Sen. Frist and the family Walton now have a goal within their sights: eliminate the estate tax and break the clock as well as the bank. Say goodnight, Bill. Say goodnight, John boy.