| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"reeder" |
| Date: |
06 May 2006 03:46:02 AM |
| Object: |
The Great Republican Rebranding |
The Great Republican Rebranding
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Saturday, May 6, 2006; A17
Sen. Rick Santorum wanted to talk.
His purpose, he said over breakfast earlier this week in the Senate
dining room, was to "tell the other side of the story" about his
record, which his foes use to cast him as -- these are his words -- "a
mean-spirited, hard-right country club Republican."
Santorum wanted to describe the work he had done on "nontraditional
Republican issues," including faith-based initiatives to help the
poor, his work with Bono to expand funding to fight AIDS in Africa and
his efforts to secure federal money for Pennsylvania's inner cities.
Poverty is a big deal to him, Santorum explained, because "if you want
me to be honest, I'm a Catholic." He added: "How many times did the
nuns beat into your brains: the poor, the poor, the poor, the poor?"
The poor, the poor, the poor, the poor are not typical words in a
Republican's political litany, and that is the point. Santorum has
been running behind for months in his reelection struggle against the
popular Democratic state treasurer, Robert Casey Jr. If Santorum
doesn't change his image, he loses.
Santorum is nothing if not shrewd. Running with the 1994 conservative
tide, he won his seat from then-incumbent Harris Wofford after
characterizing AmeriCorps, the national service initiative and a
Wofford legislative monument, as a program "for hippie kids to stand
around a campfire and sing 'Kumbaya' at taxpayers' expense." (Santorum
later became an AmeriCorps supporter.) With the tide running the other
way 12 years later, Santorum is eager to cast himself as a champion of
social justice.
Santorum is not alone. All over the country, Republicans are engaged
in a massive effort at rebranding, reframing and, in some cases,
wholesale retreat from past positions. The surest sign that the nation
is in the middle of an ideological transition is that Republicans
don't want to sound like -- well, Republicans.
Thus are those who once derided Al Gore's environmentalism now
painting themselves in very bright shades of green. Last month Rep.
Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) took a drive in a hydrogen-powered car to show
how much he cares about conservation and the planet.
Members of Congress who once eagerly showered tax breaks on the energy
companies now want you to know they're tough on Big Oil. Last month
House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and Senate Majority Leader Bill
Frist (R-Tenn.) urged federal agencies to investigate possible price
gouging by the petroleum giants.
Of course, turning on a dime is not that easy, and the GOP leaders --
under pressure from their business allies -- have been all over the
lot on changes in accounting rules that would have levied higher taxes
on the energy companies. For the moment, they seem to have dumped the
idea.
And the issue of stem cell research is causing a spate of conservative
headaches, most notably for Sen. Jim Talent (R-Mo.), who is in a
reelection battle with the Democratic state auditor, Claire McCaskill.
Earlier this year Talent dropped his sponsorship of federal
legislation to ban the cloning of human embryos. That move enraged
many of his supporters in the right-to-life movement, so Talent then
came out against a state ballot initiative that would add a provision
to the Missouri Constitution protecting the right to conduct stem cell
research.
Then, on Wednesday, Talent said that position was his own and that he
was not really urging voters to join him because "everyone has to
reach their own personal judgment and make a decision based on that."
If someone published a book called "Profiles in Parsing," it would
become this year's bestseller among Republican candidates.
"All politics is reaction," Randall Rothenberg wrote in his 1984 book,
"The Neoliberals." Rothenberg was describing the response of Democrats
traumatized by the rise of Reagan-style conservatism. Back then, it
was Democrats struggling to reinvent themselves as
entrepreneur-friendly folks (anybody remember those "Atari
Democrats"?) moving beyond "the solutions of the 1930s."
The current reaction is not simply to President Bush's low poll
numbers. It's also a response to the failure of conservative policies
and to the declining appeal of conservative rhetoric. Conservatives
are trying to save themselves by offering progressive-sounding
criticisms of the status quo, much as liberals offered ersatz
conservative critiques two decades ago.
If Rick Santorum wants you to look at his record in a way that makes
him a paladin for the poor and if Dennis Hastert wants you to know
that he's suspicious of the oil companies, the political weather is
changing. When one side starts making the other side's argument, you
don't need to be a pollster to know which belief system is in the
ascendancy.
.
|
|
| User: "Fred Oinka" |
|
| Title: Re: The Great Republican Rebranding |
06 May 2006 03:16:53 AM |
|
|
Another good title would be, "Fool Me Twice, Shame On Me".
These guys are shameless indeed. Anything for a fast buck, and anything
to get elected.
.
|
|
|
| User: "needledik doesnt have a canadian clue" |
|
| Title: Re: The Great Republican Rebranding |
06 May 2006 03:39:48 AM |
|
|
"Fred Oinka" <stardusthevn@cox.net> wrote in message
news:1146903413.289865.77980@u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com...
Another good title would be, "Fool Me Twice, Shame On Me".
These guys are shameless indeed. Anything for a fast buck, and anything
to get elected.
repugnigoons are unlimited fools and they know no shame.
.
|
|
|
| User: "" |
|
| Title: Re: The Great Republican Rebranding |
06 May 2006 08:02:13 AM |
|
|
On 6-May-2006, "needledik doesn't have a canadian clue"
<needledik@syix.netcom.ca> wrote:
Another good title would be, "Fool Me Twice, Shame On Me".
These guys are shameless indeed. Anything for a fast buck, and anything
to get elected.
repugnigoons are unlimited fools and they know no shame.
Well The elephant goes 'OINK.'
There are no limits even to their shame. To which, of course, they are
oblivious.
CLark
--
www.cafepress.com/fartotheleft
http://www.cafepress.com/fartotheleft.56829088
.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Related Articles |
|
|
