"Four Degrees And A PHD"

After dancing a jig and shucking and jiving for the GOP, Ken Blackwell is second from last in pledged votes in the race for RNC chairman according to YourRNC.com. Ken I think you might want to consult with this song from Trick Daddy entitled "Amerikka". Just substitute the words "Republican Party" for America and I think you will get the picture.

One Trick Pony

I have seen a few postings on progressive blogs today about RNC Chair hopefuls Ken Blackwell's townhall blog and now a new Katon Dawson's youtube attack ad of sorts. First here is the rundown on both from CNN.com:

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Despite the climate of national goodwill surrounding Barack Obama as he prepares to take the oath of office, two of the candidates vying to lead the Republican National Committee unleashed harsh attacks against the president-elect on Friday.

Katon Dawson, the chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party, promised in a new a YouTube message to be Obama's "worst nightmare" and said it would be the party’s mission for the next four years to "expose" the Democrats for what they "want to do to this country."

"I can assure you that Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will understand that Katon Dawson will become their worst nightmare," he says in the video. "We will expose them at every turn for what they are doing to the American public."

snip

Earlier in the day, former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, who has positioned himself as one of the most rigidly conservative contenders for the RNC's top job, published a column on Townhall.com accusing Obama's economic stimulus package of being a liberal "Trojan Horse" that has "serious flaws, some of which convey a partisan advantage."

Now at the Washington Monthly, Steve Benen chose to compare and contrast Dawson with remarks Tim Kaine recently made about his role as the newly appointed chairman of the DNC. I won't get into all of that but I wanted to point it out so you can understand the context of the excerpts.

Dawson, meanwhile, wants to fight. He wants to work hard to be a "nightmare" for his opponents. Democrats haven't started governing yet, but he's already outraged by what the majority party is "doing to the American public."

snip

Kaine has the advantage of helping lead the winning team. It's easy to be gracious when you've already achieved your goals. But putting that context aside, watching these two competing clips, on the same afternoon, on the same topic, makes clear how both parties have very different ideas about partisan warfare.

The DNC's vision is shaped by Obama; the RNC's vision has been shaped by Gingrich circa 1994.

Now I love Benen's writing and I comment on his blog a lot. I am not really disagreeing with anything he wrote, but I think he misses an essential point. This isn't partisan warfare for Dawson. This isn't just an "approach". What Dawson and Blackwell are engaged in predates 1994 by a long shot. What they are doing really shouldn't even be labeled attacks, rather what they are really doing is just being typical Republicans.

Katon Dawson and Ken Blackwell ARE the Republican Party. This is why their party's trip isn't going to be into the wilderness, its going to be into the abyss. They don't know any way other than to attack their opponents rather than promote their own ideas. Yes they attack when they are in the minority but a lot of people aren't pointing out that they also attack when they are in the majority. This isn't some stance they are adopting just because they got tossed out on their ass. Its truly all most of them know. And with the advent of new media it just makes it so much harder for them to be successful with any of the attacks they used to use. People don't have to settle for getting spoonfed propaganda by the mainstream media when the attacks come. Now they can go to the internet and find out for themselves if they are being snowed and that doesn't bode well for Republicans.

See its not that Katon Dawson or Ken Blackwell weren't paying attention to the election or don't realize that the people don't want this kind of bullshit anymore. I am sure he and other Rethugs know that. But when you have only one bullet in your gun thats really the only one you can shoot. The problem is their party has revealed themselves not to be committed to their own bogus policy platforms when they actually get into office so they can no longer point the finger at Democrats as big government spenders and their Reagan era "tax cuts cure all ills" mantra has been exposed again as "voodoo economics" by this current economic crisis. (As an aside I find it AMAZING that no Democrat ever points out that Reagan came into office when the top tax rate was above 70%. You have a lot of leeway to cut taxes at that point, 39% not so much). But I digress...

The more they continue expose themselves as one trick ponys all they are doing is sending their credibility level to new lows. But don't expect it to stop or change. For years that kind of politics worked so they never attempted to change or adapt. Now there is probably just too much ground to make up in the market place of ideas AND policy doctrine is you don't change your stance on issues even if they become unrealistic. Shorter me, they are fucked.

To use a baseball analogy they are like the character Cerrano from the movie "Major League". He could knock the cover off the ball if you threw him a fastball but he never learned to hit a curve. And after he was exposed the pitchers just threw him all curve balls and he kept striking out trying to swing for the fences. With all of the problems facing our nation and the kind of new politics Obama presents to them the GOP has curveballs coming to them at all angles. But like hard headed numbskulls they will keep looking for the fastball, swinging for the fences and ultimately striking out.

Don't Do It Cuz It Just Might Work

Ken Blackwell is just so full of win. I truly hope that moron is chosen to take the reigns as head of the RNC. You just can't teach the level of stupid that this guy has at his command. He is sure to take their bad situation heading into the wilderness and turn it into a nuclear meltdown of which they will never recover.

His latest foray into ass hattery comes from this post on his townhall blog. Now I know much has been made about the GOP trying to reinvent themselves online after President Elect Obama kicked their asses all over the net this election season, but evidently not everyone has been taking their correspondence courses. You see Blackwell published a manifesto about why the Republicans should oppose Obama's stimulus plan apparently unaware that ANYBODY can read it. And what is the problem with people other than Republicans being able to read his post you ask? Well its because of the reasons WHY he tells them to oppose it. The most interesting reason by far is that they should oppose it because.......wait for it......wait for it.......it just might work.

A week ago, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, mentioned Mr. Obama says his goal is for 80% of these three million jobs to be private-sector. That means, Senator McConnell continued, that 20% would be public-sector, meaning this bill would create 600,000 new federal government jobs. For comparison, Mr. McConnell noted this would be the size of the entire Postal Service workforce.

Once government creates a job, it rarely eliminates it. Government swells by nature, feeding on tax dollars taken away from private citizens and employers until it becomes a bloated, sprawling bureaucracy.

So if Mr. Obama creates 600,000 new government bureaucrats, those jobs should be expected to be kept around permanently, long after this economic crisis is resolved. After all, eliminating those jobs means laying off 600,000 people. Who wants to take responsibility for that?

But most federal employees, that are not political appointees, vote Democrat. Since Washington, DC is the seat of government, whenever new federal bureaucrats are created many live in Maryland and Virginia. In 2008, Virginia went Democrat for the first time since 1964, and Mr. Obama won it by 130,000 votes. Creating 600,000 new jobs might help cement Virginia in the Democrat column, making it harder for Republicans to retake the White House.

Now I for one don't think most Americans would be upset about 600,000 new jobs being created in the public sector because right now most people just want to have a job. That he doesn't realize this is just another example of how divorced from reality the members of the GOP really are. But that's not the best part...

What makes this particularly damaging to this authoritarian deficit-expanding coward is that on the one hand he accuses Obama of trying to create these jobs for political purposes and then in the next breath he says the GOP should oppose these new jobs being created so they can have a shot at the Presidency again in 2012. Some how I doubt that the over two million people who lost their jobs over the course of the last year will give much of a shit if the Republicans EVER get back into office if it means they will be able to get a new job and take care of their families. And unfortunately for him it is now public knowledge that he would rather deny them the dignity of work than deny his conservative cronies their shot at the ring.

At least back in the day when Bill Kristol sent his memo commanding the Rethugs to oppose kill universal healthcare because Americans would like it, he had the common damn sense to do it in secret. Of course being a black man who chooses to be a Republican pretty much shows you his level of intellect doesn't it?

Can they please stop making it this easy? Seriously. I mean damn I would like a challenge every now and then.

(h/t ThinkProgress)

It's "President Elect Obama" BITCH!

What would we do without all of the Republican WEAKSAUCE to laugh at? Today they decided to have a televised debate to help seat a new RNC chairman. Who couldn't have predicted that when asked each of these morons would say Ronald Reagan was their favorite Republican President. I mean fuck Abraham Lincoln right? But to get to the title of my post, the "Brothers Brothers" Michael Steele and Ken Blackwell were also on stage for the debate. When every panelist was asked who their worst Republican President was Steele showed how totally spineless he was in refusing to pick one. But Ken Blackwell is a TRUE Republican so he wasted no time in naming not only one but TWO bad Republican Presidents, one off them being the FAIL that is the current President Bush to throw under the bus. Again predictable. But check out how this disrespectful muthafucka refers to President Elect Barack Obama.

NORQUIST: Ken?

BLACKWELL: Hoover, because he opened the door to big government activism, and I think that unfortunately, President Bush in the last few months, has opened up the door to Mr. Obama’s big government.

That's why I am glad that sell out ass bastard is on the other team. We don't need cats like him no matter what his skin color.




(h/t Thinkprogress)

They Are Just Making This Too Easy

I didn't really post anything about the Chip Saltsman story where he sent out the "Barack the Magic Negro" song to all his friends up until now because it has been widely covered and I really didn't have much to add. I didn't think it was that earth shattering because I have always seen the Repubican party as white and racist. Now I know that there will be card carrying rank and file Republicans who will be offended by that but I have some advice for you. If you want to stop being seen as racists stop supporting racist elements in your party. There aren't a whole lot of Democrats listening to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. I don't see Howard Dean sending out racial parodies of Condeleeza Rice. It is what it is. But here is the thing, not only did Saltsman not apologize about the incident, he didn't even admit it wasn't a very smart thing to do at a time when his party is trying to reach out to minorities. Hell he basically said he didn't do anything wrong and get over it. I mean I should also point out that the CD had the "Star Spanglish Banner" on it as well. Stay classy GOP

Now I don't honestly know if Chip Saltsman is a racist or not, but I do know at the very least he is very racially insensitive. But I blame not only him but also the few black folks that actually are members of the Republican party. They are so eager for those white folks to accept them that they never stand up and protest when members of their own party pull this kind of bullshit. Ken "Uncle Tom" Blackwell almost fell all over himself trying to defend Chip Saltsman which in my eyes is enabling. From now on whenever Saltsman or any other GOP member tells a racist joke the can say "Don't worry, Ken said its OK". Talk about being a useful fool.

This is why I say the Republican party is about to go the way of the dinosaur. They aren't headed for the wilderness, they are headed for the abyss. Time has truly passed them by and they still don't get it. Minority outreach will become more and more important in the coming years because very soon there will be more minorities in this country than there will be white people. And after so long of not caring about the minority vote, the good white folks in the Republican party have not the first clue about how to reach out to those minorities. They think that if you just explain that the "Magic Negro" song is just a joke then nobody will really care. Especially if its a joke from that notoriously funny guy Rush Limbaugh. Seriously.

Now today we get a story from Politico with this headline:

'Magic Negro' flap might help Saltsman

I absolutely hope so. I want Chip Saltsman to be the RNC chair so bad I wish I could vote for him two times. Because anything that helps him is going to hurt the Republican Party. If they can't see that electing a guy to lead their party who sent that CD out is going to cost them minority votes in perpetuity then they deserve to have him as chairman.

Speaking of the RNC I wonder what their committee members think about Saltsman's stunt.

“When I heard about the story I had to figure out what was going on for myself,” said Mark Ellis, the chairman of the Maine Republican Party. “When I found out what this was about I had to ask, ‘boy, what’s the big deal here?’ because there wasn’t any.”

Well thats just one white guy, lets see if anybody else has an opinion.

Alabama Republican committeeman Paul Reynolds said the fact the Saltsman sent him a CD with the song on it “didn’t bother me one bit.”

“Chip probably could have thought it through a bit more, but he was doing everyone a favor by giving us a gift,” he said. “This is just people looking for something to make an issue of.”

Oh so he was doing everyone a favor. Oh now that makes all the difference in the world. But maybe these views aren't all that representative.

“I don’t think he intended it as any kind of racial slur. I think he intended it as a humor gift,” Oklahoma GOP committeewoman Carolyn McClarty added. “I think it was innocently done by Chip.”

Yeah, it was a humor gift... because Saltsman is a fucking joke. What makes it so bad is that the song isn't funny AT ALL. Over at Coates' spot we had a conversation about a different parody song of K Fed a few weeks back that had racial overtones. Now that song was bad, but it sounds like comedic gold compared to Limbaugh's tripe.

Now I know what you are thinking. "What about the hanful of white guys who came out and blasted Saltsman over the gift." Well I would point out that Mike Duncan had a vested interest in doing that seeing as how he is the current RNC chairman and wants to keep the post. But thats not even really my strongest selling point today. What do you think other party members think about Duncan coming out and doing the right thing and saying Saltsman was wrong?

Not everyone is so sure, with some RNC members contending that Anuzis and Duncan may have actually hurt their candidacies with their responses.

“Those are two guys who just eliminated themselves from this race for jumping all over Chip on this,” one committee member told Politico. “Mike Duncan is a nice guy, but he screwed up big time by pandering to the national press on this.”

Ok Ok so thats just one anonomous person. I mean surely nobody else in the Republican party thinks like that.

While South Carolina GOP Chair Katon Dawson and former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele have decided to stay away from the controversy, offering no comment, former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, who would be the party’s first black chairman, has drawn notice for his vigorous defense of Saltsman.

“Unfortunately, there is hypersensitivity in the press regarding matters of race. This is in large measure due to President-Elect Obama being the first African-American elected president,” Blackwell said in a statement. “I don't think any of the concerns that have been expressed in the media about any of the other candidates for RNC chairman should disqualify them. When looked at in the proper context, these concerns are minimal. All of my competitors for this leadership post are fine people.”

As a result of his position, a source close to the race said that at least 12 uncommitted committee members have contacted Blackwell to thank him for his support for Saltsman and have expressed anger toward Duncan and Anuzis “for throwing a good Republican under the bus.”

Indeed, in a fluid race in which six candidates are vying for the votes of 168 members, both Blackwell and Saltsman stand to benefit from a backlash to the flap.

Yeah you read that right folks. Sending a "Barack the Magic Negro" CD out and defending the guy who did it will get you MAJOR street cred in the Republican Party. Coming out against such a racially insensitive and all around dumbass move might get you fired though. Great job on that minority outreach thingy Republicans.

Is there really anything more to say? I mean I haven't even brought up the disasterous Republican positions on Economic and Foreign Policy. What exactly does a Republican bring to the table these days? IMHO not much.

So don't believe the hype Republicans, you aren't going into the wilderness. you are going into the abyss. I can't say that I am sorry to see you go.