Centrist Pundits

So the world is atwitter about Harry Reid recently revealing that he said something extremely stupid and, frankly, racist during the campaign. I’m actually more shocked that we’re finding out about it now (one would think it would have come out sooner) or, if it didn’t come out immediately, that it came out at all.

There must be something about white men of a certain age thinking that being complimentary while saying something racist isn’t racist. You’ll remember that Biden did something a little less obviously stupid but still fairly dumb, calling Obama “clean”.

Part of me agrees with the Republicans who are trying to equate Reid with Trent Lott. Whether or not the comments were equally offensive, I understand the impulse to say that if your stupid enough to make a racist comment like that, well, you deserve what happens. And what’s good for geese is good for ganders… or Democrats and Republicans.

On the other hand, part of me wants to take President Obama’s lead. He’s basically told Reid that it was all okay now. Given that the comments were about Obama, that seems that.

On the third hand, what do I know? I’m white. On the other hand, a lot of people who shouldn’t be piping up are. Normally, I wouldn’t take Michael Steele to task for commenting on it, even as much as I like pointing out how bad a Republican leader he is – but he’s in trouble of his own right now for using the phrase “honest injun” and the sheer weight of hypocrisy for criticizing one foolish, probably innocent racial comment while defending his own foolish, probably innocent racial comment may cause him to implode. I’m concerned for his safety!

On the fourth hand, I’m perfectly willing to let this be Reid’s waterloo. I have no love for Reid, not because he’s a racist – and I don’t know that he is or isn’t – but because he’s not an effective leader. If in a month he emulates Dodd and says he’s retiring, I’d be fine with that. Sure, it means Nevada will almost inevitably go back to the Republicans, but I think that’s likely anyway.

I guess what I’m saying is Reid just bugs me. Whether or not he’s doing something stupid right now.

JC Personalities, Society racism, Reid, senators, Steele

I’m having trouble focusing on any one thing today, so instead I’ll just say various things that are on my mind.  Probably most of it will be cheap shots at people.

Megan McCain was on Colbert the other night talking about being a Pro-Sex Republican Woman.  Rowr!  We’re all pro-Megan McCain talking about her sex life on national TV!  Except maybe her dad.  He’s probably against it.

Sarah Palin says that Obama is as predictable as snow in Alaska.  Of course, she forgot to mention that with global warming, snow in Alaska is less predictable than it used to be…  High-yo…

I’ve decided I’m perfectly willing to give up Nancy Pelosi as “guitly” of knowing about torture if it means we get a verdict of “guilty” on Bush, Cheney, and the rest as well.  Its a small sacrifice.

Michael Steele says that the age of GOP apologies is over.  Hey, Steele, are you sure it ever begun?  Ha ha.

Bill Clinton is the UN’s new special envoy the Haiti.  I hope Haiti is prepared for the sudden jump in chubby kids with great hair.  I predict the wave will start in about 9 months.

JC Uncategorized Clinton, culture, obama, Steele, torture

I am not an expert in Republican politics.  Well, to be fair, I’m not an expert on anything, just some guy mouthing off about stuff.  But I’m particularly not an expert on Republican politics.  So perhaps there are historical or insider reasons why the party does some of the things it does that I don’t know, being outside the party. 

For example, the rebranding effort, which takes all of the same party leaders that were there before, and has them saying pretty much the same things.  I’m not a marketing expert either, but I’m pretty sure that rebranding requires some sort of change, even if it’s a minor one.  Golden Crisp is the same cereal as Sugar Crisp, but they changed the name because Sugar is unhealthy these days.  KFC is still Kentucky Fried Chicken, just without the connotations of being fried (or is the connotations of being chicken?).  But saying “Sugar Crisp is rebranding to… Sugar Crisp!” sounds kind of crazy.  A new spokesperson, a new symbol, a new name.  Any of that would be better than what they are doing.  Drop the elephant for a lion or something.  (I said I’m not a marketing expert)  Take a lesson from the Democrats, who realized that the word liberal had been fairly effectively poisoned to mean “weak” and started touting the word Progressive instead. 

(All of that ignores the fact that some of the old guard who isn’t signed on to the rebranding effort… the Dick Cheneys and the Rush Limbaughs… need to be muzzled)

But at least the rebranding effort is a try.  I can give the party points for making the effort on that one.  But the news that the Republican National Committee is seeking to pass a resolution encouraging the Democratic Party to change its name to the Democratic Socialist Party… I don’t even get it.  I don’t.  It isn’t clever.  It isn’t funny.  It isn’t important.  It isn’t accurate.  It isn’t even effective, given that more and more people are looking towards things like some sort of national health care to be put in the mix.  In other words, socialism isn’t much liked, but it isn’t the poisonous well it used to be.  The are only two things such a resolution is: desperate, and news.  Desperate because they are hoping to get votes from people who will probably see through it, and news because, well, the news organizations have a lot of time to fill these days.

I’m not Michael Steele’s biggest fan, but he’s made the right call by pointing out that it is sorta pointless and ridiculous.  In fact, I’m pretty sure Steele doesn’t go far enough; this is the kind of thing that gets people so fed up with their party.  (Either party.  I’d be fed up with the Democrats passing a resolution to call Republicans names, too.)  Name calling doesn’t accomplish anything, and it isn’t what people are looking for.  People are looking for ways to move the nation forward to where they want the nation to be.  Economic recovery and the economic prosperity; safety in every sense of that word, and the rights guaranteed to us by our governing documents are just part of what every American is looking for ideas on how to implement in our modern, crazy world.  There is so much fertile soil for ideas.  Where are they?

Yes, I’m going to blatantly steal from Sorkin here; in “The American President”, it is said Americans are so thirsty for leadership we’ll walk through a desert seeking a drink of it, we’ll go to a mirage and then drink the sand.  But Americans are done drinking sand.  We drank the sand because we didn’t know any better.  We’ve learned.

JC Media, Political Parties, Society gop, language, Steele

So, I’m suffering a little bit of writer’s block and can’t come up with a good article for today, so instead, I’m asking you all a question:

Is the special election in NY-20 a make or break election for RNC chairman Michael Steele?  Its a slightly Republican leaning district, even though its had a (conservative) Democrat as its rep for a while.

In other words, if Tedisco loses (he’s now trailing by 4, when he was up by 12) will Steele be asked for his resignation?

Who will the Republicans pick next to run the RNC if he’s ousted?  If I recall correctly, something like 8 people ran when Steele won.

I’m really curious as to what you folks think of all this.

JC National Politics, Political Parties, State Politics elections, Steele

Tony Campbell over at TMV wrote a great article today called BumRUSHed – The Dismantling of Michael Steele. Great insights on a fued between the head of the RNC and the the right wing’s most popular voice.

Rush barely broke a sweat yesterday when he demolished Steele, and the RNC chair has wisely backed off today. It’s no surprise — to most Republicans, Steele is the new guy on the national stage, and Rush has been the voice of conservative talk radio for 20 years.

Steele called himself the de facto head of the Republican Party. Rush took issue with that characterization, saying that Steele heads the RNC, and not the party.

The point is well taken. The GOP will need to redefine itself if it’s to have a future. Rush thinks the party needs to move to the right; it’s no surprise that I’d prefer moves to the center.

But Obama has a real potential to be for the Democrats what Reagan was and is to the Republicans, and you can’t fight that in 2012 with your father’s GOP. You can’t even fight the legacy of that in 2016. The Republicans need to speak to issues that most Americans can get behind, and their cornerstone social issues of abortion and gay marriage are held by a population that is dying off.

In the meantime, if the GOP can remember that they used to be the party of fiscal conservatism, that’s the one angle they have left that America wants to hear.

Greg National Politics gop, rush, Steele

So, I have a request for the new leader of the RNC, Michael Steele.  Stop oversimplifying things, okay?

Now, there are real differences of opinion on the stimulus bill, even peeling out all the pork.  The major difference of opinion is in what drives the economy positively – tax cuts or government spending?  Both sides of the argument have plenty of support, evidence, anecdotal support, and economists speaking from positions of authority to back up their side of the case.

But no matter which side you support, the desired outcome is the same: more jobs.  This is pretty simple, more people working means more people spending, creating more jobs, etc.  If you believe in government spending, the government itself directly creates those jobs, by saying “build (or retrofit) this building!” and people go to work designing and building.  If you believe in tax cuts, you believe that when businesses owe less to the government, they’ll have more money for payroll, and hire more people, which is good, because the individuals who also owe less to the government have more money to spend, and they may well be coming in to spend it at your place of business.

I have no problem with either side of that case.  I do have a problem with Steele’s statements, however.  Steele has been quoted as saying that government jobs are not real jobs, and that construction jobs are not real jobs.

I work for the government, and I’d really like to know why I go to an office every day if not to my real job, and I’d also like to know why the government gives me money if I’m not doing work for them?  But more seriously, I think I know Steele’s point, I think he was trying to say that if the job doesn’t naturally exist in a market outside of government interference, perhaps it is unsustainable.  He may be right, although again, there are plenty of government jobs that do have to exist if the government is to exist.  Heck, to generalize a group, the military tends to vote Republican, and they have government jobs, and they have some really REAL jobs.

I’m pretty sure I know what he meant about construction jobs, too.  I’m sure my brother-in-law and thousands of steel workers and other construction workers would be surprised to learn their jobs aren’t real but only exist in dreamland… but what Steele meant is that a construction job isn’t permanent.  ”Build that building!” has an inevitable end date – the completion of the building.  There’s a bit of willful blindness there forgetting that in a good economy there’s always another building to build or old building to renovate.  But still, he might have a point if he’d just actually make his point.  Although I do wonder, in this day and age, even outside a bad economy, what is a “permanent” job?  Jobs come and go.

I don’t know enough about Steele yet to know if he’s going to be part of the solution or part of the problem, although I think “The Daily Show’s” take on him as a bad imitation of Obama may be somewhat on the money, so far.  Because he took what could be legitimate arguments and boiled them down so far they became nothing but mush.  The extremes of either side reduce things to talking points, and it does not improve political discourse.

One thing the center is good at, by its nature, is understanding that the world is complicated, and understanding that things have nuance.  Both sides, exemplified recently by Michael Steele (though there are surely left-side examples as well) could do well to assume Americans can handle the whole truth.

Is there any chance politicians will stop assuming we aren’t capable of understanding that there aren’t always simple answers?

JC Political Parties language, Steele