Simmering Rage Within the GOP

That's the title of David Broder's latest column. Since I'm an honest man, I can't call it must reading. Here's a taste of the article:

My weekend visitor was one of the founders of the postwar Republican Party in the South, one of those stubborn men who challenged the Democratic rule in his one-party state. He was conservative enough that in the great struggle for the 1952 nomination, his sympathies were with Sen. Robert Taft of Ohio, not Dwight D. Eisenhower. He has lived long enough to see Republicans elected as senator and governor of his state and to see a Republican from the Sun Belt behemoth of Texas capture the White House. His profession won't let him speak with his name attached, but he is sadly disillusioned.

"My wife was thrilled by the veto" Bush administered last week to the bill expanding federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, because she shares the president's belief that those clumps of cells destroyed in the research process represent human life. "I thought it was stupid," he said. "I know too many people who are like this", and he shook his hands like a victim of Parkinson's disease, "and their only hope of a cure is in stem cells. Now Bush is forcing that science to move overseas."

He went on: "How the hell long can they refuse to raise the minimum wage?" He was furious, he said, with the Republican leaders of Congress who keep blocking bills to raise the minimum wage, which has been stuck at $5.15 an hour for years. "I'm a conservative," he said, "but they make me sound like a damned liberal the way they act. They spend like fools, they run up the deficits and they refuse to give a raise to the working people who are struggling. How the hell are you supposed to live on $5.15 an hour these days? If it wasn't for Pelosi," he said, "I'd just as soon the Democrats take over this fall. Get some checks and balances and teach these guys a lesson."

It sounds like the rantings of another misinformed blueblood RINO. At least he condemns Pelosi, which is about the only positive I found about him.

Broder brings this up to suggest that Republicans will stay home, giving Democrats a strong shot at retaking the House. Broder couldn't be more wrong. In fact, the GOP will gain seats in the House this year. In fact, Nancy Pelosi will contribute to the GOP retaining control of the House:

Pelosi coming to MN to raise $ for Wetterling

Patty Wetterling's campaign manager Corey Day says U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, will hold a fundraiser for Wetterling on August third. Wetterling, a DFLer, is running against Republican Michele Bachmann in Minnesota's Sixth Congressional District. Bachmann brought in some high profile fundraisers of her own in the past month. They include Vice President Dick Cheney, White House political director Karl Rove and House Speaker Dennis Hastert.

This will be a disaster for Wetterling. There aren't a hundred people in the Sixth District that think highly of Pelosi. If I were Patty Wetterling, I'd treat Pelosi like she's radioactive. I wouldn't be within fifty miles of her.

It's official now that John Murtha will be campaigning for 41 House candidates while he loses his seat in PA-12. How on God's green earth anyone can think that Murtha isn't delusional or a fool is beyond me after this:

Murtha says he thinks such a race is likely and told The Hill that if the election were held now Democrats would be catapulted into the majority. "If it was today, we'd win 50 seats," he said, adding that Democratic strategists have assessed the field of competitive races in which they think he can help.

This isn't the first time that he's made that prediction, though it's still just as stupid as the first time.

"In 41 seats they think I can help," he said. "They've got it narrowed." Murtha said he plans to campaign in all of them. He also said, "I'm going to where Nancy sends me," referring to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

I can believe that they've "narrowed it." In fact, that's something that I'm predicting. In 2004, Kerry kept pulling ad buys in states as his electoral chances dwindled. They'll do that this year too because the majority of voters in America's heartland don't relate to Nancy Pelosi, John Murtha or Howard Dean.

I first became aware of the spreading discontent on the right in visiting with people in the church social hall after the funeral this spring for Lyn Nofziger, Ronald Reagan's longtime press spokesman and adviser. The comments about the Bush White House people, who were notable by their absence at the service, startled me. But since then I have heard the refrain over and over: They never reached out to us. They never thought they needed our help. Now they're in trouble. To hell with them.

It's the 'inside-the-Beltway' bluebloods that don't like the transformational policies of the Bush administration. Big deal.

Whether or not the complaints are justified, they are epidemic. They are often accompanied, as they were in the case of my weekend visitor, by the comment that everything the White House does seems to be aimed at pleasing only one section of the Republican coalition, the religious right.

Broder needs to get out into the heartland because he's convinced himself that the Washington, DC GOP is the majority. Broder also needs to read Glenn Reynolds' An Army of Davids. Politics are driven now by the activists, not the bureaucrats.

It's also disappointing to hear Broder believe the canard that the Bush administration caters only to the Religious Right. It's stupid to think that that's accurate. If the Bush administration only cared about the Religious Right, then the GOP would be a minority party.

But the dissent threatens Republican chances of avoiding a major defeat in the midterm elections. Andrew Kohut's survey for the respected Pew Research Center last month found Democrats far more motivated to vote this year than Republicans.

So what? Democrats were highly motivated to defeat Brian Billbray in the CA-50 special election. Francine Busby still lost. Now she's trailing Billbray for this fall's regular election by 10+ points.

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Posted Thursday, July 27, 2006 3:11 PM

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