Huck Has Hissy...Yawn

Après moi,...

In the case of Mike Huckabee, the threat is le déluge. But far more realistically, it would be just sans moi.

It was big yucks from Huck last Tuesday on winger radio, American Family Radio's Today's Issues. He was on with a couple of other loonies, including Rick Santorum. Huckabee's false prophesy starts around 22:18.

The short of it is that he said that if Republicans accept same-sex marriage, the GOP will lose all elections going forward. Setting aside that the opposite has been the case and getting more so, bigotry and discrimination don't cut it.

Moreover, the Huck says obey him, GOP, or see a wholesale desertion.

I am utterly exasperated with Republicans and the so-called leadership of the Republicans, who have abdicated on this issue, If the Republicans want to lose guys like me and a whole bunch of still God-fearing and Bible-believing people just go ahead and abdicate on this issue. And while you are at it, go ahead and say abortion doesn't matter either because at that point you lose me.
I'll become an independent and I'll start finding people that have guts to stand," he said. "I am tired of this.

He's going to take his Bible and go away, but not go home. He seems to figure he'll call out, "Over here, y'all true Christians," and millions will do it.

Alas, his record of leading and harvesting voters suggests, very strongly, otherwise.

Vanity and ego, behold yourself in Mike Huckabee.

Mark Fisher Gets Shout Down Instead of Shout-Out

Like the old man in Moonstruck, "I'm confused." Not only did I get sucked into a winger radio show embedded in a RedMassGroup diary, but here I pass it along.

You can go to The Kuhner Report page for the audio show. You can catch it on Red Mass Group, replete with sniping comments from its readers. It is over 40 minutes of fast-paced accusations, counter-accusations, bluster, innuendo, and calumny.

H/T to RMG's Rob Eno. I had never heard Kuhner's show and would have been unaware of this high theater had Eno not featured it.

Guest for Jeff Kuhner's show yesterday was Mark Fisher, the Tea Party GOP candidate for MA governor. As he was when he joined Left Ahead, he started and remained calm and rational throughout the show. In stark contrast, a couple of caller- in said he was a liar, that he misrepresented him involvement in the GOP, and worse.

The gist of Fisher's contentions includes that a couple GOP Poobahs and moneyed types asked him to drop out of the gubernatorial race, giving nearly certain nominee Charlie Baker a clear field with no primary. In return, Fisher said, he would get a shot at a more winnable office, plus funding toward such a race.  He named the Grand Poobahs in the show.

There have been he-says/he-says disagreements on who offered whom what when. To us with clean hands, those seem like quibbles. Some Baker folk may imply Fisher tried to extort up to $1 million from the party bigs to get out. Fisher's competing implication is that they wanted to bribe him.

Regardless, the consensus among GOP functionaries seems to be avoiding the primary is essential for Baker's November victory. As an aside, I'm with various righties and lefties thinking a primary can only strengthen Baker's hand, particularly with unenrolled voters.

The lowest ring of his Kuhner-show hell featured Boston Herald columnist and GOP consultant Holly Robichaud. She is the show.

Robichaud plays the drama queen and is even worse than Chris Matthews and at least as bad as Bill O'Reilly in screaming, in shouting down other speakers, in raw, abrasive emotion in lieu of logic. She is unbelievable in multiple senses of that term.

Her basic refutation of Fisher relies entirely on ad hominem ploys. Again and again, she screams that she knows this or that person Fisher says was involved in proposing the deal. She knows, she just knows (without evidence) that what he said is impossible. She was as far as possible from demonstrating anything in her QED. She just knows, like a parent who just knows her son would never steal a car.

The show fascinates me. There's the circled-wagons aspect. There's the crazed shouting lady, bordering on sociopathy.  Mostly there's the raised curtain revealing the motley GOP crew backstage.

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Fully Baked Charlie Baker on Gay Folk

There's a disarming, charming big-lug quality to Charlie Baker, candidate for MA Gov. You see him, as well as his brother Alex mirroring him, in the new ad off his campaign site.

Click below for a worthwhile two minutes. It's not going to make you cry or touch you deeply. Both guys are stiff, but hell, they're from New England. Yet, regardless of what you think of Charlie, you are likely to feel more positive about him...unless you hate and disrespect gay folk.

The head on his site page featuring the video is Charlie Releases New Video, "Brothers" To Mark 10 Year Anniversary Of Marriage Equality. That shows at least a bit of guts for an otherwise personally timid Charlie. It has not been news to Charlie that Alex is gay for quite some time. Alex married a man 10 years ago when MA was just gearing up for same-sex marriage.

Nevertheless, even in blue MA where SSM has been the law of the land for a decade, being openly LGBT friendly takes a bit of courage for a Republican. After all, the official state GOP platform claims on the one hand to " reject all forms of discrimination, intolerance and exploitation" and right below that " We believe the institution of traditional marriage strengthens our society." That passive-aggressive crap is just barely shy of overt anti-gay lingo.

So Charlie lets the exchange with Alex humanize him, in a big-lug, fraternal way. The arch conservatives and anti-homosexual types weren't going to vote for him anyway. As a political ploy, this can only help, In particular, unenrolled voters and wishy-washy Dems, particularly those who buy into the fantasy that we just have to have a Republican governor to keep balance in our government, are likely to feel good about the socially liberal Baker. That puts him in the mold of his mentor and former boss, GOP Gov. Bill Weld. That's good company around here.

Many around here though also know that the state house is full of registered Democratic legislators who are fiscally conservative, may also be somewhat socially conservative, and really were they honest and not afraid of losing their seats would swap registration to Republican. I've long held that most Republican pols in MA are Dems.

This ad can only help Baker get more undecided voters liking him. Nicely done at low risk, Charlie.

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I Have a Wing to Pick With You

Ed. Ed. Ed, and some more Ed. Broom the vanity and ego aside to get to a vignette from MSNBC's The Ed Show. There, the former right-wing talker but a left-wing talker for the past 16 years, Ed (of course) Schultz did his usual short segment Ask Ed (of course) Live.

That evening, his tweeted query was why didn't more conservatives appear there. He answered simply and disdainfully that he asked them and would welcome them, but they didn't want to. He figured they figured doing so would not help them get elected.

While I nod to Occam's razor, I don't worship the idea that the simplest explanation according to the known facts settles everything. I muse on why so few Republicans and other self-identified conservatives will talk with me at the weekly Left Ahead show.

It's been running for seven years. From the beginning, some weeks the founders — Lynne Lupien, Ryan Adams and I (Mike Ball) — sometimes like to cover topics ourselves. We'll all highly opinionated. About every other week, there's a guest.

Lynne long ago dropped out, pleading business busyness. I generally arrange and book most guests. A few contact me, but typically I call, email or meet potential guests. Often it's a deal to dicker on a day and time, even though we long ago picked a default that works for many, Tuesday at 2:30 PM. Few pols in particularly are solidly committed then.

We also make it pretty painless. We use BlogTalkRadio, so guests don't have to travel or give us an office space to record the show. For what used to be an hour and is now a half hour, they just call in and I manage the connections by computer and the tubes.

Moreover, we're probably too nice. We don't book multiple guests, don't bring on tit-for-tat adversaries to sensationalize or conflict. We don't try to trick anyone or spring accusations. We like to get to the big ideas and help the guest develop them on air. A few listeners used to on-line bullies on winger radio, or the Bill O'Reilly and Chris Matthews shouters are disappointed that we don't badger guests.

Are Wingers Gutless?

Scan the Left Ahead archives to notice a few things. First, the topics and guests are mostly politics and politicians. Second, many big ideas are subjects. Third, many of the guests are hotshots and big shots — a current or former governor, a state or U.S. Senator, and many office seekers. Fourth, there are damned few conservatives.

That latter is not from my want of effort. Some smart, fun and provocative ones included the very conservative MA pol Karyn Polito and the now late economics and transit guru William Lind. My politics differed markedly from those two's. Yet I think we brought out good stuff. Lind in particular could not have been farther from my political views, all except for transit-oriented development and mass transit. We had met at the Rail-Volution 2009 conference in Boston and bonded over our overlaps.

In many ways, Polito was the outlier for me. She spoke with me, took my card, checked the site and said, sure, she'd talk with us in her run for MA Treasurer/Receiver General. That was not at all hard, but she is quite the exception.

Virtually all the other right-leaning potential guests I meet or contact seem terrified or at least disinterested. So, I ask myself, are they cowards or is it like Schultz said, that they don't see the upside?

This has been happening again in this election cycle, which includes MA Governor. Scan the archives again and see every gubernatorial candidate, except the presumptive GOP nominee, Charlie Baker. That includes all five Dems, the several independents or political affiliation candidates and and the other Republican, self-defined full-MA-GOP platform, Tea Party candidate Mark Fisher.

I can't quite figure out whether :

• Baker has no guts
• His campaign staff has no guts
• His staff's cost/benefit analysis doesn't see the ROI on an internet radio show
• He or his staff thinks he's too important to be bothered

Bad Manners

Having spent much of my childhood in more genteel parts of the country, I can still be surprised by the poor breeding of Bostonians and New Englanders. For example, when they do not return phone calls or emails, I have to wonder, who are their people? Were they raised by wolverines?

Baker's camp has been the worst, in both of his staggers toward the governorship. I have gotten fewer than one response to multiple voice and email requests to Baker and his campaign manager,

You can amuse yourself by calling the Baker campaign number, (617) 254-2014.There's no human and no option to speak to one...ever. You can dump your request into a voice box or punch in by last name. The communications director, Tim Buckley, does not communicate and is not even in the directory. The campaign manager, Jim Conroy, does not communicate but is in the directory. There's a slush email box, info@charliebaker2014.com and the other's is conroy@charliebaker2014.com.

Conroy has ignored 11 voice or email requests. Because Buckley hides from ordinary mortals, the closest I could get was Facebook and requests through that info box, where he ignored an FB friend request and two direct messages.

Again,who are their people? Didn't they have mothers or someone to act like a mother?

The gormless Baker-camp non-reactions are particularly noteworthy and amusing in light of Fisher's prompt and warm response. He and I could hardly differ more politically, but we had a good chat. Moreover, he clearly was raised well.

Fear of Lefties

A previous failure of booking seems to blend all the possible causes. I had Jennifer Nassour in hand, only to lose her. She chaired the MA GOP from Jan. 2009 through Sep. 2011.

I spoke with her at two political Rappaport presentations at Suffolk Law, in early 2009 and early 2011. At both, she pressed her card into my hand and told me how much she wanted to be a Left Ahead guest. She punked on both.

Most telling here is her mortal sin, in GOP eyes. She was candid.

In the April 1 (yes, that day), 2009 issue of Bay Windows, she spoke about the new Republican party here, particularly how they wouldn't be guilt tripping on marriage equality, gay rights and abortion. Honk. Wrong.

She got months of pitchfork poking from the most conservative party members and the nasty MassResistance guy, Brian Camenker pretending to be a real movement. The gist seems to be not only should she not have said the party would stop its hateful rhetoric to bring in unenrolled and socially liberal GOP voters, but she should never have even spoken with LGBT-friendly media.

Since her time, the newest MA GOP chair, Kirsten Hughes, won't respond to repeated contacts.

Well,our show hides nothing. It's there in the Left Ahead name. We're reasonable and nice but we don't pretend to be anything else.

I've lost count of the potential guests who have heard the name on a phone line or seen my card and stopped dead. "Left...Ahead...are you left wing?" is the typical shocked question.

Nothing that progressives and liberals speak with anyone, and that we are antithetical to right-wing talk radio's bullying tactics doesn't cut it. Far too many conservatives seem terrified at speaking with "left" anything. Pathetic.

Lefty Anomaly

To smooth the edges and risk being simple-mindedly even handed, I'll admit that there's one left winger's crew who is afraid of me.

Following the initial show with Elizabeth Warren, her handlers seem winger gutless. They won't return my calls or emails either. Once burned, 1000 times shy.

I was blessed or cursed with being early to the Warren extravaganza, in Oct. 2011, right after she announced for US Senate, she spoke with us. It was genial, particularly as she and I are the same age, and both born in OK.

We had a jolly time, including an exchange in which I noted that with my OK/WV background, I have heard repeatedlyfrom the provincials in Boston that I am a hick. Moreover, the local wingers had railed against her as a 17-year Harvard professor, a.k.a an elitist. She laughed, saying she was new class, an elite hick. She said something about going for the hick vote. We laughed.

Well, the plug nasties were loaded for her, just waiting. Our show was just the first Warren-hunting expedition.

The next morning, I got a call and email from her communications guy, asking if I knew of the s**t storm. Turns out, the forces of evil had tried to run with that innocuous bit of humor. Suddenly everyone from FoxNews to winger talk radio and even the likes of ABC TV and the NYTimes portrayed her as ridiculing rural America.

Of course, she didn't say anything like that. However, the imps had been lying in wait for something they could use.

In our show, she said maybe there should be a group hicks for Elizabeth. Again we laughed. I actually made some buttons (reproduced here). My wife and I, from hick backgrounds, wore them. People asked for them and I produced more. I showed her one at Boston Mayor Tom Menino's block party the next July She alleged to love it. I sent her one, but given the crap she got for moments of humor, she most assuredly tossed it.

At that party, one of her staffers, a ziftig woman actually pushed me. She muttered something about how I'd better not try to pull any tricks and insinuated that I and not the forces of right-wing evil has caused the early dust-up.

Meh.

The sad aspect is that Warren's people have not responded to several show requests since. I'll try again, likely by being at one of her public events and squirreling up with her. After all, she adores my yellow glasses.

Of course the hick-vote fad disappeared months later, to be replaced by the Native-American one. Those gunning for Warren picked up her listing herself in a faculty directory as having Cherokee roots. They manufactured a fantasy that she had only gotten jobs at Pennsylvania and Harvard as a result. They morphed that with calls for her to release every academic job application she has ever made, much in the mode of birthers demanding President Barack Obama's short-form, then long-form birth certificate, and subsequently his college applications and transcripts. Pathetic. As with the President, the crazies won't let go of their silly slanders.

Common Senselessness

So there it is, kiddies. There are many variations on guest-interview shows. You might:

• Be typical right-wing radio, badgering lefty guests and licking the hands of your own type
• Play grade-school magazine, bringing on a balance of left and right wingers for mush
• Let the guest shine, like Dave Leno or, dare I write, Left Ahead

There are others, but we are definitely in the latter category. So I still have to wonder why so many conservative sorts fear us.

Over the years, many right wingers have passed on coming on Left Ahead. Granted, we do not have prime-time TV or even cable reach. A small show for us gets hundreds of listeners and a big one 10,000. Those are far more than a pol talks to in a typical stump speech, plus anyone who listens live or clicks the archive play is committing to half an hour of dedicated ear time. If I were a candidate for any office, I'd chat with as many shows as would have me.

I note that the progressive and liberal pols have no problem going on hostile right-wing shows. Yet it seems rare that Republicans and self-described conservative types mirror that. Maybe I shouldn't advise them, but righties would be smart to go on pinko shows.

MA GOP niggling and wiggling

You'd think from experience the utter disingenuous John Boehner or R.M. Nixon or even hearing the testimony of a sneaky what-your-definition-of-is-is W.J. Clinton that even arrogant New Englanders would sense their limits. Instead the MA GOP spits in the faces of one of their candidates, their convention delegates, the larger party and voters.

The self-created disgrace continues. For the latest on the filthy deals at the convention, see today's Globe piece. I've also been one of many who's covered this, like here.

The point is this is not going away. The GOP functionaries can continue to wave their hands, but that changes nothing. This actually is simple.

• Certain GOP gubernatorial nominee Charlie Baker didn't blow out the convention.

• Also-ran Mark Fisher, the proud Tea Party, full-platform Republican, squeaked out a little over 15% of the convention delegate vote, as required to force a primary. 

• Done and done? Big no. See the Globe piece for details on how the party snuck behind everyone to deny reality. 

The punchline is my standard from my favorite philosopher/comic/junkie Lenny Bruce — There is only what is and that's it. What should be is a dirty lie.

The local GOPpers instead try the same crap you can hear at a country club bar or a Dorchester pub. Lie loudly and repeatedly, daring more honest and honorable folk to challenge you.

The Party doesn't want their party inconvenienced. They appear to have it in mind that an uncontested primary is their best bet for winning a statewide office in who can remember how long. To make that happen, they have fudged and cheated and scammed. Honk. Wrong!

Regular readers here know that Fisher and I differ vastly politically. I like him and trust him though. He's a straight-ahead, Boy Scout kind of guy, as am I. Understandably, he's suing to get what he earned — a shot at losing to Baker in a party primary...fair and square.

I remain to be convinced that uncontested primaries are an absolute good. A lot of research questions that as well. Moreover, it's wrong, really immoral, to clear the field against the party procedures and rules, just because. Some of the party insiders, notably Executive Director Rob Cunningham, are even denigrating Fisher's call to obey their own counting rules as irrelevant.

The MA GOP has long specialized in patronizing and insulting the majority of our voters, a.k.a. the unenrolled. This year, they seem intent on telling their own to buzz off. If enough party members are as delusional, that may well work. I'm betting though that Fisher's suit calling for obeying the rules will make that moot.

Alas, this was so simple. I think of the non-stop lunacy of the national GOP on the Affordable Care Act. All that was necessary was honesty; say thank God that the Dems came around to the Republican plan for health-care and implemented it; we win! Instead, they appear to be what they are, obstreperous asses.

Likewise, in Boston, the MA GOP need only have praised themselves for their open democracy and model convention. Instead, they reveal they are liars, sneaks and frauds.  How simple victory could have been.

By the bye, if you ever need confirmation of how sneaky they are, go to the party site. They don't cover anything meaningful. They never have controversial issues. They are months behind the times. They don't even post the approved party platform. They lack both courage and wisdom. You can thrive with only one of those but not without at least one.

Baker's Free Ride or Free Fall

It wasn't a clean and definitive win for Charlie Baker. Yet as far as the MA GOP bigs are concerned, he cleared the field of his single primary opponent, Mark Fisher.

A few more days may pass until we're positive that, unlike the Dems, the GOP'ers will have an uncontested race at the very top of the ticket. The debate includes how real the 14.765% of yesterday's convention ballot was. Fisher needs 15% to get on the primary ballot.

Complicating it is that the rules say blank ballots don't count. The party tabulators did instead tally 64 blanks, knocking Fisher down below 15% (as in Baker at 2,095 to Fisher at 394 and Fisher at 15.829 without blanks).

Fisher and I had a good chat at Left Ahead last week. I'll stick in his half-hour show below. He also graciously called me before the convention to thank me for being reasonable and respectful to him, as he was to me despite our political disparities. I can't run a Baker show; neither his campaign manager nor his communications director has responded to numerous requests.

Today, Fisher's FB feed includes:

Dear Friends,Thank you for your support over the last 5 months. I am currently speaking with lawyers about being jobbed out by Kirsten Hughes at the Massachusetts Republican Party "Kangaroo Convention". There were improprieties in the counting of the 'blank' vote that occurred which were not allowed to be challenged and no re-count was allowed. I will let you know our plans in the coming days.

He certainly has every right to feel cheated and to fight.

I don't know anyone who thinks Fisher would win a primary election against Baker. Yet we simple folk who took civics classes cling stubbornly to rudimentary concepts of democracy and fairness.

Conventional wisdom on this is that an uncontested primary is far better for the candidate than spending money and energy before a general election, all the while getting prodded and exposed by another party member.

Today's Globe has a pretty good piece on the convention results. They include a contrarian of moment, former Gov. Bill Weld, among the several saying how great it will be for Baker if he goes unprimaried. Weld says a Fisher challenge would help Baker interest unenrolled voters. As we all note here in MA, with 53% of voters unenrolled, that is where elections are won.

For analysis of uncontested MA primaries, you can try your own tabulation. Instead, look at the stats compiled and analyzed over at the Mass. Numbers blog. Over there in Nov. 2012, Bret Benson admitted the samples are small and Dems rarely have top seats without primaries. However, he concludes that most times, it works solidly in the GOP's advantage to clear the field for governor.

I note and admire the relentless optimism of the MA GOP leaders. I've heard the shouts of the party chairs from the carousel that seems to spin them off so quickly. This election will be different, like Weld or Mitt Romney and such. This is the right candidate at the right time. Then again, they insisted that when Baker went against Deval Patrick.

They would be foolish to turn down real or perceived advantages. Moreover, we have a long if irrational history here of the unenrolled claiming that voting for Republican governors to keep a check on the monolithic Dems. The wide disparity from one Dem legislator to another is plenty of restraint, more than a single chief executive could impose.

So it comes down to Baker. He's trimmed down and comes across a lot more human than in his last run. It may be long enough from his slash-and-burn at Harvard Pilgrim and his Big Dig associations that he can run pretty clean.

We in MA also are quite forgiving and don't burn an L for loser in the foreheads of unsuccessful politicians. Two or three goes at a high office are OK around here. Baker too has the plus of two full terms of a Dem governor. Those many voters who like that fairy tale of the magic of balance only a GOP can bring will certainly want a change on that alone.

Instead, I like the agon, when a governorship or presidency is the prize. Surprisingly, I find myself on Weld's side here. Whoever ends up as the Dem candidate will emerge well defined and with clear positions and personality traits for voters to see. For the other side, wouldn't it be swell to have the same?

Monday Followup: The Globe reports that Fisher remains unhappy at the appearance of a fix being in on the count and rules. MA GOP bigs deny both. I call with Baker the sure winner of a primary, the party should have let Fisher have a go, pretended they were honest and honorable, and not alienated unenrolled and GOP voters.


Update: Autoplay on Blogger started this regardless of settings. That's annoying. I removed the embedded player. Instead, click here to listen.

Baker Sticks With Familiar Tunes

Suffolk Law's lunch series with gubernatorial candidates is at once inconvenient and worth the trip. Yesterday's showcased almost-certain GOP nominee-to-be Charles Duane Baker Jr., known to all here as Charlie.

Check 'im out: Suffolk's Rappaport Center is very efficient about posting vids of these sessions. Yesterday's with Baker is here.

Pic note: Any photos I run in this blog are Creative Commons. You are welcome to them, just make one mention of Mike Ball if you use one.

I won't recap his show in detail. Use the like above to hear it all.

At these luncheon thingummies, some of the usual suspects are inevitable. The moderator will invariably call on the special-interest types to get their predictable questions in the air. The candidate format is 10 minutes to pitch and self-intro, then about an hour for Q&A (no speeches, thank you very much).

We who attend regularly know there'll be a tobacco tax/smoking cessation one from an anti-cancer advocate. Almost always, a land-conservation guy will tunnel down to an obscure law that needs enforcement or tweaking. Former AG Scott Harshbarger will try to get a commitment to hold a vote to overturn casino approval. These brief hazing incidents don't seem to bother the candidates, whom I suspect have been warned beforehand.

By the bye, Baker would be happy to have a plebiscite on repealing the casino approval. He doesn't see such gambling on top of the lottery as a wise or viable economic-development strategy.

The overwhelming impression Baker left yesterday is that he's not making promises of big changes. He's not giving other contenders targets. Likewise, his campaign site is sparse, asking for money and not providing any platform yet.

He returned repeatedly at lunch to the same few, neither controversial nor innovative, concepts. For example, his biggie, which he iterated three or four times, is that:

• He has visited many MA towns
• In each, everyone agrees on which public schools wew best
• Therefore, good education is not limited to a few wealthy communities
• Further, the conclusion is to analyze what a good school does and replicate in lesser schools

That's old and obvious stuff, but he loves it. He is clearly proud of his insight and you'll hear that repeatedly during his campaign.

Likewise, you'll hear repeatedly that his parents were on opposite political poles. He and siblings grew up hearing Dem/GOP debates at meals. He uses that as a metaphor suggesting he learned how to get workable compromise across political divides.

As close as he got to controversies or strong positions were:

1. The recent state budget should not have touched the rainy-day fund
2. Local municipalities need to streamline permitting and otherwise make starting or expanding businesses easier
3. A three-year college degree would lower costs
4. We somehow need to align health-procedure costs so the range is not huge among facilities
5. He doesn't want recreational pot
6. MA cities need to each stand on its own and not see itself as a satellite of another city, particularly Boston

Again, he offered no sweeping, inspiringly named program or set of planks. In this second go at governor, he still pushes himself as a pragmatist who rises above party affiliation to get stuff done. He admits to being in the Weld/Cellucci model, a social liberal and fiscal conservative. (Hey, that sounds like most MA Dem pols.)

In a shallower, yet obvious, note, he has been in training. He used to look too much like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters. As a fellow pasty-faced white guy, I empathize.

He's toned and trimmed. He looks healthy and pretty for 57. He has an unfortunate taste in shirts and ties (lose the pastels, which accent your sallowness, Chuck), but seems vital enough.

In 2010, Gov. Deval Patrick beat Baker, but only by six points. The new, improved contender seems to figure it's his time. Failing in a race for a major office never stamps LOSER on your forehead here.

I'll be intrigued to see whether he clings to his pragmatism/collaboration ideal. If the Dem candidate has big ideas and big promises, he may have to be less spongy.

Milhous or Millstone?

Let us lefty types praise Congressional Republicans, at last for their current stupidity. That is, their reanimation of the odious GOP disgrace Tricky Dick Nixon.

They seem to be oblivious to the low comedy nature of the likes of "I know you are, but what am I." When the Pee-wee Herman character responded that way to an insult, it was more evidence of his puerile foolishness. Now Congressional GOP type and their not so foxy media touts chant an unending Greek chorus of "Nixonian."

The knowledgeable and analytic know first that the evils of the lawless, ruthless Nixon are not at all like the events Obama haters are failing to turn into scandals. Moreover, winger media as well as Republicans push and push the comparisons with Nixon, first the same as and then even worse than Nixon.

I accept as so many pundit types of all political stripes have said or written, that Republicans won't rest, vindicated until they force a Democratic President from office. Nixon, of course, slithered away ahead of impeachment, indictment and jail and under a pardon from his replacement.

Alas, the unrelenting efforts to drive Bill Clinton from office surely were driven by the Nixon stain. The GOP did get him impeached for lying about and inducing others to lie about his being fellated by an intern. He did not leave office and if anything his personal and political stock climbed. (It's worth noting that several of those leading that impeachment effort were at the time involved in long-term adulterous relationships, and lying about those.)

Regardless, this full chorus singing for Obama's impeachment serves two purposes:

1. Highlighting governmental problems, while even in the short term having hearings that show the President to be innocent of the allegations.
2. Reminding all voters that Republicans have decades of nefarious association with the sleaziest of all Presidents. 

Yes, the GOP loves to claim being the Party of Lincoln. Really though, they have revivified that awful zombie to make us aware they are the Party of Nixon.

Younger voters who had only a vague historical reference to Nixon are learning more and more about his sordid administration. They now know that this is the Republican way. The GOP would have been far wiser to leave hid corpse undisturbed.

Boomers and older voters hear this dreadful belch from the past. We too re-associate Republicans with the sneaky, lawbreaking, Constitution abusing Nixon.

When Watergate became his Waterloo, Nixon tried to defend his criminal leadership and simultaneously shift the focus from this abuse of office to whether he had profited financially from his misdeeds. Among his remarks at the time were, "People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook. I've earned everything I've got."

Well, he seemed incapable of honesty, but truth be told, he was a crook, on many levels.

So, thanks GOP'ers. You have successfully and repeatedly reminded us how the Party of Nixon acts and speaks.

Wash, Reince, Repeat

Democrats are safe from RNC Chair Reince Preibus.

He released (or it escaped) the Growth & Opportunity Project report. The 100-pager is actually about 30 sheets of big, Mac-style sans serif type pages if you account for the repetition. It could accurately have the title Why We'll Never, Ever Fail Again or Click Your Heels Three Times.

I read the 100 pages, even the iterations and reiterations, verbatim, so you don't have to. Alas for bedraggled elephants, many sheets of, well, stuff don't make Priebus as smart, strategic or analytical as his predecessor Michael Steele. Facts include, Steele and his big candidates were winners, the GOP replaced him with loser Priebus, and the report G.O.P. or maybe GANDOP fails terribly at its two main purposes — 1) explicating how even in the worst of economic times with Republican Congressmen doing their damnedest to make sure our President could neither pass laws, nor appoint key officials, nor govern, the GOP lost the big race and seats in both houses, and 2) detailing corrections that will ensure big Republican wins in 2014 and the 2016 Presidential.

Instead GANDOP the gray:

• Does not deal with such core problems as voter disdain for GOP policies and distrust of arrogant candidates
• Pretends that changing voter demographics toward more people of color and a younger electorate are perfectly manageable if only they package their feces in a pretty box
• Uses a one-strategy-fits-all groups (except women) approach of puppet spokesmodels
• Deludes with gear-head fantasies such as if only they hire the right data collectors and analysts or the spiffiest new-media consultants they'll beat the Dems at their game

I can point to some telling pages in the report:

• P2: Contacts shown here and mentioned sporadically suggest hand-clasping, going to favorable or mildly critical, red-state folk and missing meaningful criticisms
• P4: "Republican governors are America's reformers in chief." if you equate regressive and reactionary policy with positive change. The question they should have asked is whether state-level regression contributed powerfully to the defeats in the last election.
• P5: "At our core, Republicans have comfortably remained the Party of Reagan.." Yet his policies differ dramatically from the current GOP platform and pols. 
• P5: However, this page has one of the keenest and most candid insights in the report — The Republican Party needs to stop talking to itself. We have become expert in how to provide ideological reinforcement to like-minded people, but devastatingly we have lost the ability to be persuasive with, or welcoming to, those who do not agree with us on every issue. I suspect this key judgment will disappear in the morass of jive.
• P5: There is a voter perception that the GOP does care about people, while Dems "tend to talk about people. Republicans tend to talk about policy." The report fails to note that Dem policy also tends to act to the benefit of the voters instead of moneyed classes.
• P6: A key conceit is that Republican policies that favor the corporations and wealthy individuals creates a healthy, growing middle class. Very few are so delusional as to believe that. If the GOP wants the White House, it needs to drop this.
• P8: The only mention of gay rights is that younger people favor them. Yet the report only calls "to make sure young people do not thee the Party as totally intolerant of alternative points of view." It's surely not like the GOP is out of step with the nation, eh?
• P8: "If we want ethnic minority voters to support Republicans, we have to enrage them, and show our sincerity." Of course, every conclusion and recommendation in the report is insincere and manipulative. Saying sincere and being sincere are not the same.
• P12: The dark people are coming, Latinos, Asians and others. The report concludes repeatedly that the canned GOP program is the best for everyone. Yet Barack Obama and the Dems convinced voters that Republicans did not have their economic interests at heart. That wasn't a hard sell.
• P14: Iterates over many pages in recommendations. Just get coached surrogates who look like the target voter groups and the GOP wins. For one, "This new organization should design a surrogate program to train and prepare ethnic conservatives for media presentations nationally and locally. Surrogates would speak on behalf of the Republican Party on issues of the day." The report has similar findings for each major group Romney lost in the last election, except for women. The puppet strategy is simple-minded and insulting. You just train the various looks-like-you folk. 
• P15: "It is imperative that the RNC changes how it engages with Hispanic communities to welcome in new members of our Party." This also repeats for each group it lost. It avoids personal responsibility for clumsy, insulting, mean policies by suggesting that if you only phrase the message properly, voters will buy in.
• P16: For each lost group, starting with Latinos, key concepts are that you train the surrogates (puppets), hire a few, suddenly visible representative members as party functionaries, and repeat to them "The Republican Party is one of tolerance and respect..."
• P17: For Asians and Pacific Islanders, no more fly-over campaigning. There is no mention to what party shock will ensue if the GOP actually asks what the various groups want and sees that none of it aligns with party policy.
• P19-21: Women get a slightly different treatment from the cut-and-past recommendations for the ethnic groups. Here instead of policy changes, the report looks to theater, manipulation and tricks. It calls for framing the wooing and training of surrogates with "unique concerns that female voters may have..." and  using "language that addresses concerns that are on women's minds in order to let them know we are fighting for them." It's all fluff for women, fluff and messaging —"Women need to hear what our motive is — why it is that we want to create a better future for our families and how our policies will affect the lives of their loved ones." This is the most patronizing and insulting part of the report.
• P21-22: Youth harks back to the Vietnam Era Young Americans For Freedom glory days. Somehow the RNC thinks it can get eager campus and young professional voters spontaneously organizing for them, all without changing their policies to be more inclusive for real.
• P26: Many of us remember when Republican were first with the internet and savviest with emerging social media. They've lost hat Now they've become gear-heads, thinking if only they have better data collection, they'll best Dems at the game of voter connection. The report does not see that Dems have both delivery AND content.
• P29-30: Dreams of monopolizing early and absentee voter ballots overlook a huge problem. Through gerrymandering and redistricting, they also thought that they had the Electoral College in hand. They overreached with voter suppression in many states. For sure last year and likely going forward, the GOP created new groups of angry, dedicated voters who won't forget the treachery and anti-democracy.
• P31: "The RNC should recruit and hire a chief technology and digital officer for the RNC by May 1, 2013." More gear-head stuff does not admit the problem. It's like a teen thinking if only he had that glove and bat, he'd be a star or an adult fantasizing that his $5,000 bike would make him a champion cyclist.
• P33: Calls for "recruiting the highest-quality candidates with the greatest potential for leadership" ignores the history of primaries that yield extreme and ultimately unelectable entries, chosen by the wingers who vote in these contests. It also avoids consideration of whether the RNC will try (surely unsuccessfully and maybe illegally) to dictate state parties' operations.
• P52: "Our friends and allies (third party groups) should significantly invest in voter registration and grassroots efforts." This assumes a buy-in by voters that has not existed in a long time.
• P54: Relying on ambush videos by "Well-funded conservative groups" tracking Dem candidates is a tactic, but one that many voters find both despicable and boring.
• P54: "Our friends and allies must realize that the Party is at its best as the Party of ideas, and healthy debate of those ideas is fundamentally good for the Republican Party." This is the most unintentionally amusing recommendation in the report. Throughout, it is heavy-handedly paternalistic in not bringing up self-criticism, not admitting failures, and calling for RNC edicts to state parties and the puppets, a.k.a. surrogates.
• P57: The report envies Obama's grassroots support there and here, and notably in "low-dollar fundraising." This follows a passing mention of the rich folk who bankroll the party. It avoids the obvious, that grassroots are millions of voters and million of contributors. Dems win them by offering platform planks that help them. The clear recommendation should be, but is not, to evaluate the party policies to see whether they help the target voters.
• P65-67: Citizens United was not enough. The report wants a total freedom for the RNC and state campaign financial system to raise and spend as it sees fit. The report phrases such anarchy as "making political speech more robust at the state and local level."
• P71: Cut the number of Presidential-candidate debates in half, with the aim of helping the GOP pick a single candidate and getting a head start on the national campaign. Forget that talk about robust speech.

The last third of the report cuts and pastes each section's already iterative recommendations. I suggest not just starting on page 74 for these. You'd miss the shameful and illogical rationalizations.

This report is a marvel of effete delusion. Academics will enjoy this for decades. Given the chance and lots of resources and what passes for brain power in the GOP, Priebus' pals could well have dealt with real causes and real solutions. Instead, it's the fantasy world again.

Yeah, the Dems did this or that better than us. All we need to do is buy the right staff and train some spokesmodels. All will be swell.

It is to laugh.

No No NOM

Splendid piece in the SF Chronicle yesterday details the unresolved angst and conflicts in the GOP over marriage equality.

Despite nearly 40 states having anti-same-sex marriage laws or amendments in place, GOP and independent voters have moved on. The paranoid, puerile panic was the ephemeral anomaly and not the new, permanent norm.

Writer Carolyn Lochhead compiles trends, including things many of us already know — such as Dick Cheney supporting SSM and President Obama not getting any measurable blow-back from announcing he favored it before the last election.

She brings in analysts who say that Latinos and African Americans are not the only groups the GOP is turning off. For one, Cato Institute Senior Fellow Walter Olson said bluntly, "Republicans have to be delusional to think they can take that position into a national campaign, that there ought to be a constitutional amendment against something that there is now majority support for."

She also offers a small taste from the bowl of nuts, notably National Organization for Marriage President Brian Brown. He seems virtually alone in his dire, "Practically, the Republican Party dies if it abandons marriage." GOP voters and many of its pols are muttering or even shouting that it's time to get past this irrational obsession, in light of a solid majority of the nation approving of SSM.

The piece touches on changes by the Church of the Latter Day Saints.She even ends up with a crisply applicable history lesson no states-rights and alcohol prohibition,with some counties remaining dry even today.

Dems might appreciate the national GOP remaining stupidly diverted by anti-equality fights they've already lost.  We probably can't count on that much longer.

Group Think Mega-Fail

Stupid, stupider, stupidest. The House GOP was clearly not content to lose the Presidential election as well as seats in both chambers. They are determined to miss the next huge gimme election, the 2014 mid-terms.

Last evening, the majority scuttled their Speaker's already absurd, extreme budget proposal. Yes, that would be the one that only raised taxes on those with taxable income over $1 million a year...and with huge additional write-offs so even these affluent effluents would not feel any pain. Instead the Tea Partiers held to absolutist anti-tax positions and spurned their own GOP's efforts.

By all polls, Americans get it where the TPs don't. They know giving huge piles of money to the richest crushes the economy, decidedly does not lead to more jobs, and harms nearly all of us.

The worst of the party extremists are now set up to lose elections and primaries in two years. Normally the mid-term is when the party without the Presidency pick up many Congressional seats. Regardless of how the fiscal cliff thingummy resolves, we are not likely to forget the callous arrogance and deep stupidity of Republicans.

That's Republicans, not Congress, not the President, not even the vagaries of economics. If the Tea Party Reps need a slogan, let's go with Smug and Stupid.

Reverse Engineering Dem Machinery

Those who enjoy the good fight in politics dismayed at GOP Chair Reince Priebus' recovery-by-committee announcement this week. Rather than taking the route of personal responsibility, he and what passes for party leaders kept up their delusions.

Forget the many tea-party types who claim that Mitt Romney would have won if only he had been more brutally right wing, a.k.a. more like what actually cost them the election, including Senate and House seats. The alleged brains of the GOP are the back end of the elephant.

Priebus inexplicably to those who live in the real world looks to retain his job after his abject failures. Now he claims that all the party has to do under his pathfinding leadership is copy what the Dems did right this time. All will be well.

I snort in his direction.

His newly acronym-ed GOP (Growth and Opportunity Project) applies RNC members plus Jeb Bush and Ari Fleischer. Let's call them the usual suspects, á la Casablanca. Their eight mission-impossibles are campaign finance issues, demographic changes, fund-raising, geting out the vote, messaging, outside groups, and presidential primaries — buzz words each and all. 

Together this abrogation of duty must also cause considerable amusement among Dems. The task before the GOP's alleged leadership is not to pretend they can emulate and maybe improve on lefty tactics and strategies. In fact, instead of thinking that adding more high-tech aids and PR ploys will reverse their fortunes, they should look beyond messaging and into message. 

(Click below to hear Dem campaign god Howard Dean on MSNBC giving real advice to the dumb.)

For the GOP to get its act together, it has to admit its essential platform and policy blew the election. They simultaneously managed to offend and turn off large portions of the middle class, women, Latinos, African Americans and far more. 

Priebus hinted at that to the WaPo, while making it plain he would not push for policy revisions. He told Jennifer Rubin, "I can’t tell you what policy recommendations, if any, will be made, but when you are doing a deep dive like this it is hard not to look at the message. Policy bleeds into a lot of things." Yet reading all of his recent statements, I figure it's plain he will get this little traveling circus to study everything and then try to nudge it to recommend (never demand) comprehensive immigration reform and similar planks that will bring in the millions disgusted with the GOP now.

In other words, as I and many could tell him right now, Dems won in a terrible economy because their message was superior, rational, compassionate, and little d democratic, a.k.a. American. Republicans don't need new tricks and toys. They need new hearts and minds.

Here in MA, we can recall when the Dems lost the U.S. Senate seat in the special election following Ted Kennedy's death...to a do-nothing state senator, Scott Brown. The extremely capable state party chair, John Walsh, did not play Let's Form a Committee. He first admitted the obvious failings of both their candidate and the campaign. He considered it a personal failure, the worst of his life. He dug right into the issues, after first setting them out for all in and beyond the party to see.

That's what having personal responsibility, courage and insight can do.

---

Romney Fills Hall With Nothing

For a very wealthy person in expensive clothing, Mitt Romney presents sadly threadbare spirit and thinking.

The most apt analysis of his pathetic RNC speech came in the New York Times in two parts this morning. First, the lead editorial, Mr. Romney Reinvents History, details his biggest lie — that Congressional Republican obstructionism was not the proximate cause of our national struggles in recovery. It goes on with the truly damning truth that neither he nor Paul Ryan have any specific to back up promises of better times if they come to power.

Second, in an analysis piece, Facts Take A Beating in Acceptance Speeches, the most egregious of the fabrications and extreme lies in both acceptance speeches are debunked in one place. A voter would have to be very separated from history and reality to buy into either speech. Each demands "trust me" with no plans or specifics.

Back to a recurrent theme here. the election will come down to how many American voters are willing and foolish enough to go once more for a Republican fantasy, one that has failed again and again.

This time, it appears to demand more of an effort. Neither top-ticket guy has a plan at all. Sure, we can expect them to pretend that it's the fault of the POTUS and Dems that they blocked recovery and jobs growth. That's dirty, but predictable, politics. Here though, in Tampa they had and showed nothing. It was absolutely their obligation to present a path to prosperity. They abjectly failed.

Ryan repeatedly said it would be up to Congress to implement their vague yet overreaching promises...no plan and no details. Hence, neither can claim to be a leader in any way. Romney likewise said electing him would mean lots of jobs...no plan and no details. Honestly, any voter would have to be a Pollyanna or simply delusional to buy into the no-plan/no-details fantasy.

By the bye, Ryan and I shall have the advantage of time to kick this around on Left Ahead next week. You can join us live Tuesday, September 4th, at 2:30 PM Eastern here. Afterward, the show will there, at Left Ahead, or on our iTunes page.

Twits Tampa Tweets

So-so social media have a formal and expanded place at the RNC do in Tampa. A fine piece in the Tampa Bay Times details accommodations and projects impacts.

Big talking heads like Wolf Blitzer speak of how tweets have already changed his operations. The convention will have roving FB and other media types posting text and video. There are green rooms for candidates and others to do interviews, Skyke meetings, and social media posts.

As a regular, relentless and maybe now passé blogger, I'm mixed on it all. I too swirl in the vortex including Twitter, G+, FB and more. There are plenty of blogs, which have progressed far from the days of ain't-my-kittens/kids/lover-cute days. Yet, undeniably local blogs, particularly political ones, are rarer and have less clout (not Klout).

It was six years ago, here in MA, that gubernatorial candidate Deval Patrick showed net savvy, something his friend Barack Obama picked up and ran with two years after that. They treated bloggers like reporters, used campaign-related websites brilliantly, and along the way, got love, loyalty and votes from millions of first-time and other young voters.

That was particularly significant in that before those elections the GOP had been much more tech and net savvy. Fortunately for the Dems, those previous web uses were not grassroots organizing, rather the chants and drumbeats of heavy-handed and nasty messages. Patrick and Obama showed how to get voters not haters.

Now it's the huge, largely national blogs that have presence, and the spontaneity and diverse insight have nearly disappeared in the arrogance and puffery. Young voters are not nearly as engaged and candidates don't seem to be making any effort to duplicate the successes of 2006 and 2008.

Frankly even though I am on Twitter (@whirred), I acknowledge that insight and analysis aren't likely in 140 characters. You can point to larger posts, your own or others, but most tweet eaters aren't much for clicking away from their feeds.

It is funny to see such oldsters as Blitzer learning to use their thumbs and feigning social-media love and savvy. Of course, they had to do so. Yet their abbreviated and oversimplified and follow-the-scooper oral coverage was LITE enough already. Slashing content further for FB and Tweeter makes that even more trivial.

Social media will be very common at the RCN and almost certainly the DNC shows. Alas, they'll fall in the balloon and funny hat class — colorful, expected and inconsequential.

More on GOP Fantasies

Readers here know I fret about how many American voters will choose the fantasy world on November 6th. I have written many times, like here, that this could well be the main determinant of this election. My Left Ahead listeners have heard that too.

The pending (9/10) issue of The Nation was disquieting and reassuring simultaneously to read similar thoughts. There, Peace and Disarmament Correspondent Jonothan Schell had his take on this. Subscribers to this essential maggy can read it online now here. [For heaven's sake and your mind's, subscribe if you don't.]

I come at this from the lamentable prophesy that at least 40% of us and maybe more than half will go with the fantasy. The often and easily disproved economic tripe of trickle-down, job-creator and similar lies is simply too enticing for too many. They want guns and butter, services with no taxes, unregulated pseudo-capitalism with that fairness only the greedy have always delivered to the masses.

Schell though goes through the problems but has an optimistic conclusion. He eviscerates the GOP/Ryan bag of dreams. He concurs that this is too powerful a call to fantasy, so many can't resist it.

Yet, this conclusion is:

The GOP base is fired up. But the cost could be high. Even today’s electoral politics may still have one foot remaining in the reality-based community. Ordinary voters may not be much like Diogenes, carrying a lamp through the world in search of an honest man, but they are much less likely to be passionately attached to a long list of fantasies than the GOP fanatics. That this is so could be a saving grace of American politics in our otherwise spin-stupefied era.

I remain to be convinced. I think the danger is far greater than that. I am not sanguine enough to trust the majority of Americans to be firmly grounded in reality. I still call for Obama and the DNC's crew to hammer the truth until it rings in everyone's ears.

Maybe Schell is correct. We should not depend on the kindness and rationality of millions of strangers. Therein lies the way of Blanche DuBois.

Looks and Yucks

It's a wee point and I apologize for my shallowness, but why the devil are the cable talking heads insisting that Paul Ryan is handsome or photogenic? He's certainly not.

Granted, I'm only a guy and a straight one at that. Maybe I should be disqualified from commenting. Yet, I have eyes. I've read much literature as well as such analysis as the Survival of the Prettiest (I recommend it and bought it long ago).

Rep. Ryan appears to be the love child of the infamous sexter Anthony Weiner and a cartoon character like Dumbo or Dopey the dwarf. For the later, it's the ears. Disney is predatory about protecting copyright, so no pix of them here.

However, consider the official, public portraits of Ryan and Weiner.

They are more than separated at birth. Ryan on the left has the absurd ears. Both have disproportionate features that preclude them from that pretty class.

In addition, both project (my sense) smarminess and lack of sincerity. I'd count my fingers after shaking hands with either.

Why should it make any difference if Ryan is another cartoonish, Dumbo eared, Dudley Do-Right jawed very plain guy? It's only because mass media are telling us again and again that he is attractive. We are programmed to believe that if a woman or man is a looker, she or he has other virtues.

Amusingly, our society simultaneously clings to the dumb-blonde and similar stereotypes that pretty folk can totally lack common sense. That's another matter.

In this campaign, a meme is that Romney and Ryan are the pretty pair. Their campaign does nothing to say, let's forget our rugged, swarthy good looks and talk about issues. They'll take it.

They're not about to advertise, "Vote for Dopey and his dopey economic failure."

We should note that Paul Ryan is hard to look at. Whoever started the meme that he's a beautiful person was wack and just plain wrong. If we get over that fantasy, perhaps we can get to his fantasy budget proposals.

Obscenity of Bucks

We see that the Romney/Ryan ticket figures on an even bigger payday from the self-interested PAC stuffers. Today, Paul Ryan was headed to Las Vegas to make kissy face with billionaire Sheldon Adelson in that effort.

I hope you join me in wishing for failure in November. If under the ruinous ruling of Citizens United, efforts to buy the Presidential election crash, smash and trash, you and I and all Americans will be better off.

The puffy arrogance of the Adelson types is truly an affront to democracy. Let reality include a long, strong pin to deflate them.

As a kid, I listened to WABC and heard the Dennison's Clothiers, Route 22, Union, New Jersey, ads umpteen times. The refrain was "Money talks, nobody walks," for whatever meaning that had to any of us. However, I also heard in Leon's Hide-Away in North Plainfield, and in the Village, Bob Dylan's "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding), where the lyrics included, "While money doesn't talk, it swears."