Taylor Marsh – TaylorMarsh.com – News, Opinion and Weblog on Progressive Politics

The CHANGE THE SUBJECT Republicans

The Keystone Republicans

“If you are someone who favors small
government,” Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman said, “you're
going to have a clear choice between someone who has cut taxes every year in
office, who believes you ought to own your own health care . . . and who plans
to cut the deficit over five years versus people who have consistently supported
more spending, have opposed tax cuts and who oppose patients owning their own
health care. The question is, who's on your side for reducing the size of government?”
– Ken
Mehlman

The Republicans have a problem. Reading the line above from Mehlman
in today's Washington
Post, you get the feeling that old Kenny boy's train has completely come
off the track.

Who does favor small government? It sure isn't the Republicans.
The federal government is out of control on spending, with the Senate having
just raised the debt ceiling for the fourth time under Bush, to almost $9 TRILLION.
Republicans who control Congress have had a say in the spending but they didn't
stand up to Bush once. The president hasn't vetoed a single spending bill. They're
too weak to control the cash.

And about cutting taxes every year, just think what those taxes
might mean to our veterans, or the millions of children without health care.
President Bush plans to cut VA benefits so he can look like he's balancing the
budget, while fudging the numbers to make his case. They're too weak to deal
with the truth and come up with a solution.

Own our own health care? Mehlman's kidding, right? Private savings
accounts are for people who have the money and consider PSAs as an investment.
There are tens of millions of people without health care. What about insuring
them? PSAs won't do that. The Republicans don't believe in offering any kind
of safety net to the less fortunate. Tax cuts and private savings accounts are
their gift to their guys. What about everyone else?

Cut the deficit over five years? The kind of math Mehlman uses
to make that case I want to see. Let's face it, they're flailing and there isn't
any relief in sight.

… The Republicans are struggling, but
messages as contorted as Mehlman's sure isn't going to get them out of it.

A week ago, Republican speakers at a GOP
gathering in Memphis complained about the breakdown in fiscal discipline.
A few days later, lawmakers in Washington raised the federal debt ceiling
by an additional $781 billion and voted to authorize more than $100 billion
in new spending.

Republicans are engaged in a face-off in Congress over
two sharply different views of how to deal with illegal immigration — with
no compromise in sight. The split between the White House and congressional
Republicans over the Dubai port deal underscores cracks in the party's national
security consensus and has given Democrats an opening to challenge the GOP
on what has long been a core strength. Republicans do remain united behind
Bush's Iraq policy, albeit nervously, with widespread concern that a violent
and open-ended commitment in that nation will be a liability in November.

The president once clearly set the Republican agenda,
and when his approval ratings were higher, congressional Republicans followed
his lead. House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said that model hit a wall
last year when the president's centerpiece proposal to restructure Social
Security “turned out to be not doable.”

(snip)

In the absence of a positive national message, Republicans
also hope to use long-standing “wedge issues” to galvanize their
own base and try to put Democrats on record with unpopular votes. Congressional
leaders, for instance, plan to push a constitutional amendment banning same-sex
marriage.

GOP
Struggles To Define Its Message for 2006 Elections

Republicans are struggling and because they are so weak and incompetent,
they can't even sit down and discuss how to solve our most pressing problems,
starting with Iraq, so what are they planning to do? CHANGE
THE SUBJECT. I did a post on it yesterday.

Wedge issues here we come. Ho hum, do they think we're that dumb?

There's only one problem. It's a big one and it looms large and
is getting uglier every day: IRAQ.

The president is so weak he thinks by changing the subject and leaving out one word his
problems and ours will all go away. So, on the 3rd anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom, our
president refused to say the word WAR. Does that mean nobody got shot, maimed
or killed today?

“We are implementing a strategy that
will lead to victory in Iraq” … Bush did not mention the insurgent attacks,
the car bombs or the mounting Iraqi deaths in a two-minute statement to reporters
outside the White House after returning from a weekend at Camp David. Avoiding
the word “war,” he called the day “the third anniversary of the
beginning of the liberation of Iraq.”
Bush
Marks Anniversary, Never Says 'War'

Democrats led on Social Security and saved it from the Republican
privatization plan.

We fought against tax cuts for the top 1%, at the expense of everyone
else. We lost because the Republicans in Congress have their priorities and
they aren't you and me.

We are fighting private health savings accounts, which are good
for the rich, but don't help every American equally, because we need to insure
the uninsured.

And beginning with Jack Murtha, Democrats have pushed back hard
against the Iraq war. Some of us progressives were there from the start. But
Jack Murtha, a man who voted for the war, also had the STRENGTH OF CHARACTER
to admit he was wrong, but not only change course, but offer a plan to get us
on the right track in Iraq.

But again, some of us out here, regular Democrats and progressives,
were right about Iraq all along. The American people are now joining us in droves.

The new thing, the goal of Republicans, is to demonize progressive
bloggers. They love to come after Markos at DailyKos. But we shouldn't be surprised,
he's a veteran. We all know what Republicans think of veterans who speak out
and support our side. Chris Matthews called us “guerillas” on the
web this past weekend, then delivered a slam as he and Andrew Sullivan faced
off on our efficiency at getting people to the polls. The background and history
of my work isn't in blogging, but I can say that, from the outside looking in,
what progressive blogs have done has changed politics. Republicans have to demonize
what they can't control, because they can't rely on RedState, whose spinning is a mirror image of their own. So they're coming after us. The entitled don't like
a people powered movement. It threatens their comfy domain. So we, people like me, are now the villain. I've been around a very long time, for 10 years on the web (let me add, been interviewed on TV too). I've debated on radio for almost 8, so whatever they've got I can give back. But I won't let anyone tell me that I'm some “guerilla” on the web. I'm an American fighting for her country and I've got the majority of Americans watching my back.

Attacks don't change the truth: The American people are joining
us in droves. They don't like what's happening in Iraq. They don't want to be
there anymore. And the only one that is leading on that front is Jack Murtha, with help from Jack Reed, Russ Feingold and John Kerry. Senate Democrats
are finally saying what we out here on the web have been saying for years. Iraq was the wrong war, fought in the wrong way, without enough resources. We were right and people have awakened to that fact.

We are now the majority. So when you attack us, you attack the majority of Americans throughout this country. We may not agree on everything, but this is war and we are united.

Republicans can try to change the subject
to “wedge issues” like gay marriage, but Iraq will be sitting out
there spinning for years. We were right on Iraq, not “guerillas” on
the web, but average Americans sacrificing to start a new people powered movement where everyone has a voice. But not only were we right, but we're now the majority.

The American people are with us on Iraq, the most important issue
out there today, while on the 3rd anniversary of preemptive bombing President
Bush is so weak he won't even say the word WAR. Republicans can try to change the subject,
but it won't hide the fact that they're weak, incompetent and have lost Iraq.

The people have joined us on Iraq, where we have led from the beginning, amidst the slurs and slams. Changing the subject won't change the fact that we now also represent the majority.