POLICIES - 3 On the Down-slide of the GOP

"The biggest threat to the GOP" by John Feehery, The Hill

The latest poll numbers don’t tell a very good story for the Republican Party. Their national approval ratings aren’t very good (in fact they are really bad). Their congressional approval ratings aren’t much better. But those approval ratings aren’t the thing that worries me the most.
I still believe that come next year, most Americans are going to want a check on the power of the Obama administration and congressional Democrats. That should give Republicans a clear shot at taking back the House and doing much better in the Senate than most believe.

And yet, Republicans have a huge problem that is playing out in two elections this fall. Chris Christie should be beating Jon Corzine handily. And in the race to replace now-Army Secretary John McHugh, Republican Dede Scozzafava should be beating Democrat Bill Owens in a solidly Republican district.

But in both races, conservative independent third-party candidates are running insurgent campaigns that just may give the election to the Democrats.

In fact, the Club for Growth, a nominally Republican-leaning but actually Republican-slaying organization, is pouring money into the third-party candidate in the New York race, attacking the Republican candidate. The third-party challenger has no chance of winning, so this seems like a conspiracy to give the Democrats another seat in a Republican district. Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) weighed in, endorsing Scozzafava, making that very point. The mysterious Dick Armey, once the House majority leader and now Tea Party provocateur, has weighed in on the side of the Democrats and the independent Club for Growth.

Part of this is caused by disenchantment with the particular Republican candidates (Christie and Scozzafava) by the hard right wing, and part of it is disenchantment with the Republican brand in general.

The hard-rock conservatives don’t seem to be in much of a mood to make accommodations to a broader base. And that could spell doom for Republicans as they try to take back the House and make inroads in the Senate.

It seems to me that Republicans have to get to work on a real reform agenda that will unite the hardcore conservative base and more moderate elements. Simply opposing Obama is not enough, because as of now, opposition to Obama has not yet made the Republicans somehow more palatable to those independent elements who feel the need to run third-party candidacies.

Republicans do better as reformers. They need to get to work soon on a reform agenda that can better unite those who oppose the radical agenda of congressional Democrats and the Obama administration.

"The GOP's Violence Problem" by Matt Finkelstein, Media Matters

In an interview out this morning, Rep. Gregg Harper (R-MS) joked that he "hunt[s] liberal, tree-hugging Democrats, although it's a waste of good ammunition." When asked about the remarks, a spokesman for Harper was unapologetic. "It's supposed to be fun...It's having a good time," he said.

Harper may have been making a "joke," but there's nothing funny about the GOP's increasing taste for violence. Over the last several months, Republican lawmakers, commentators, candidates, and activists have turned to violent rhetoric with alarming frequency. Media Matters Action has compiled some examples below:

• Rep. Gregg Harper (R-MS) said, "We hunt liberal, tree-hugging Democrats, although it's a waste of good ammunition."


• During a GOP event at a gun range, South Florida Republican Robert Lowry fired at a target with the initials of his opponent, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, written on it.


• Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) said that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) would "bludgeon" blue dogs "to death" to get their votes for health care reform.


• A columnist for Newsmax, which has rented its email list to the Republican National Committee, promoted the possibility of a military coup against President Obama.


• Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) told supporters, "We're almost reaching a revolution in this country."


• After a man brought an assault rifle to an Obama event, Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) said people "should" bring guns to public meetings.


• Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) joked about Democratic members who "almost got lynched" at town hall meetings.


• At an anti-health care reform event, protesters hung an effigy of Rep. Frank Kratovil (D-MD)


• Rep. Michele Bachmann said conservatives need to "slit our wrists, become blood brothers" to make sure health care reform doesn't pass.


• Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's (R-TX) former press secretary wrote a column favorably comparing the Tea Parties to "Project Mayhem" -- a fictional terrorist organization in the movie Fight Club that blew up banks.


• Rep. Michele Bachmann said she wanted the American people "armed and dangerous" to fight cap-and-trade legislation.

This is an incomplete list, to be sure. Even before factoring in the paranoid rantings of Glenn Beck, or the hateful rhetoric of far-right activists like Randall Terry, it's clear that the "mainstream" conservative movement has a violence problem. Unfortunately, the GOP doesn't seem to realize that violent words can have consequences.

"Rohrabacher: House GOP leadership 'constantly trying to play a political game'" by Michael O'Brien, The Hill

House GOP leaders are too interested in playing "political games" to score attention, one Republican congressman said this weekend.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) took shots at his own party's leaders in the House currently, and blasted fellow Republicans for having failed to have reform healthcare during the first six years of the Bush administration, when Republicans held Congress and the White House.

"Unfortunately, I see a lot of Republicans simply involved in political games," Rohrabacher said in an interview with conservative bloggers at this past weekend's Western Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), in videos posted by the conservative blog Hot Air.

"The Republican leadership in the House right now is constantly trying to play a political game every day to try and get a headline, and I don't think that's going to take us anywhere," he added.

The California lawmaker, who was elected in 1988 and most notably sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, pulled no punches when speaking about fellow Republicans, accusing them of only being interested in the "next couple days of headlines," and describing the GOP as facing a rift between populist and business interests.

"The American people rightfully think the Republicans are just complaining, because we had power -- we had both houses of Congress and we had the presidency," Rohrabacher explained. "What did we do with it? All of these changes that we could make to have improved our healthcare system we didn't do during the Bush years when we had both houses in Congress."

He described a battle within the Republican party as being between "regular Americans" and powerful business interests, as well.

"There is a rift between some very powerful forces within the Republican Party, who are very wealthy interests and powerful in the economic arena and business community and what's going on with regular Americans," Rohrabacher said. "And either we side with regular Americans -- the patriots -- or we won't win."