Skip to main content

No more room for Reagan



Bob Dole is the latest conservative to come out and say that the GOP needs to do some soul searching.  When asked on Fox News Sunday if Reagan would make it in today's Republican party, he said "I doubt it," and further noted that the national committee should put a sign on its door, "Closed for Repairs" and come back next year with new ideas and a new agenda.

Meanwhile, Boehner and Mitch seem to be on cruise control, content to sit it out until 2014, assuming Americans will blame the latest stalemate on Obama and the Democrats, despite most polls showing just the opposite.  Yet, the Tea Party remains very active, and may very well mount insurgent challenges to Republican leaders who have been anything but inspiring.

The Tea Party seems to have gotten a lift from the IRS "unfairly" targeting it for tax audits.  A Northern California Tea Party affiliate has even filed a law suit against the IRS.  Tea Party darlings, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, still get a lot of press, but Bachmann, the TP caucus leader in the House, says she won't run for re-election.  However, Sarah Palin took full advantage of Memorial Day weekend by pitching up at the Indy 500.

The Dems seem to be targeting key House races that could put them in the majority.  Virginia is seen as one pivotal state.  The DNC has to make a stronger effort this year as the mood of the country definitely opens the door to potential big gains in '14, if the DNC invests wisely.

It is a shame it has come to this.  Like the old Pete Seeger song, Which Side Are You On? we have to choose between one party or the other to effect change, especially with labor issues once again in the fore.   Bipartisanship seems to be a thing of the past.



Comments

  1. Good to see Bachmann quitting - there have been too many scandals involving her staff, she has made an endless amount of lies which have proven to be embarrassing, and her husband's anti-gay movement has been said by many local gay advocates to be a cover up for his own closeted lifestyle.

    As for Reagan:


    "Reagan, Nixon would never get voted in by today's Republicans, Bob Dole says
    The former Repubican Party standard-bearer says that today's GOP members are too conservative and overly partisan. 'They ought to put a sign on the National Committee doors that says "closed for repairs,"' he says.

    Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/bob-dole-today-gop-dismiss-reagan-nixon-article-1.1355137#ixzz2UzU5ZLlj




    Even Jeb Bush has expressed disgust with the slant his party is taking today.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

O Pioneers!

It is hard not to think of Nebraska without thinking of its greatest writer.  Here is a marvelous piece by Capote, Remembering Willa Cather . I remember seeing a stage production of O Pioneers! and being deeply moved by its raw emotions.  I had read My Antonia before, and soon found myself hooked, like Capote was by the simple elegance of her prose and the way she was able to evoke so many feelings through her characters.  Much of it came from the fact that she had lived those experiences herself. Her father dragged the family from Virginia to Nebraska in 1883, when it was still a young state, settling in the town of Red Cloud. named after one of the great Oglala chiefs.  Red Cloud was still alive at the time, living on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, in the aftermath of the "Great Sioux Wars" of 1876-77.  I don't know whether Cather took any interest in the famous chief, although it is hard to imagine not.  Upon his death in 1909, he was eulogi

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

  Welcome to this month's reading group selection.  David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908.  At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades.  Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society.  I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran.  Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro

Colonel

Now with Colonel Roosevelt , the magnum opus is complete. And it deserves to stand as the definitive study of its restless, mutable, ever-boyish, erudite and tirelessly energetic subject. Mr. Morris has addressed the toughest and most frustrating part of Roosevelt’s life with the same care and precision that he brought to the two earlier installments. And if this story of a lifetime is his own life’s work, he has reason to be immensely proud.  -- Janet Maslin -- NY Times . Let the discussion begin!