Skip to main content

The God Vote

By


The Republicans still don't seem to have figured out that part of their problem is the voters they cater to.  This is a vote they have in their back pocket.  Who else are religious voters going to vote for?  Certainly not Democrats.  But, the Republicans only gut check seems to be to re-identify themselves with their own core constituency.

Joe Biden teed off on the Republicans this week, notably Rand Paul and Ted Cruz.  Not surprisingly, the veteran senator had a hard time understanding how Republicans and a handful of Democrats could allow two freshmen senators to bully them on the background checks bill.  But, these two senators appear to feel they have god on their side.  At least, Ted Cruz does.

It was great to see a leading Democrats finally come out and attack Republicans.  For the past two years the Dems seem to have been laying low, afraid to get in the fray, as they cater to social conservatives as well in many Congressional districts.  But, with the political lines growing ever more divisive it seems veteran Democrats are tired of all this filibustering and grandstanding and are making a big push to overturn the House in 2014, and hopefully get something accomplished in the last two years of the Obama administration.

Already, the Republicans are gearing up for 2016 with Mitt Romney (of all people) hosting a policy retreat in Park City, Utah.  He seems to think the Republicans have a chance, but I'm sure any potential Republican nominee will stay as far away from Mitt as possible.  This guy is damaged goods.

But in this strange world, new polls show that Americans now have a more positive impression than negative impression of George W. Bush.  See what a few dog paintings and opening a presidential library will do for you.  Probably no one did more than Dubya to make the GOP God's Own Party.

Daniel Williams further expounds on the making of the Christian Right in a book by the same title.


Comments

  1. James FergusonJune 15, 2013 at 1:49 AM

    I don't know if it was intentional but the title of the book could be a play on Buffett's classic song, God's Own Drunk,

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqjQu0KzvA0

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

By
  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, not...
228 comments
Read more

Dylan in America

By
Whoever it was in 1969 who named the very first Bob Dylan bootleg album “Great White Wonder” may have had a mischievous streak. There are any number of ways you can interpret the title — most boringly, the cover was blank, like the Beatles’ “White Album” — but I like to see a sly allusion to “Moby-Dick.” In the seven years since the release of his first commercial record, Dylan had become the white whale of 20th-century popular song, a wild, unconquerable and often baffling force of musical nature who drove fans and critics Ahab-mad in their efforts to spear him, lash him to the hull and render him merely comprehensible. --- Bruce Handy, NYTimes ____________________________________________ I figured we can start fresh with Bob Dylan.  Couldn't resist this photo of him striking a Woody Guthrie pose.  Looks like only yesterday.  Here is a link to the comments building up to this reading group.
182 comments
Read more

The Age of Roosevelt: The Crisis of the Old Order

By
A quarter of a century, however, is time enough to dispel some of the myths that have accumulated around the crisis of the early Thirties and the emergence of the New Deal. There is, for example, the myth that world conditions rather than domestic errors and extravagances were entirely responsible for the depression. There is the myth that the depression was already over, as a consequence of the ministrations of the Hoover Administration, and that it was the loss of confidence resulting from the election of Roosevelt that gave it new life. There is the myth that the roots of what was good in the New Deal were in the Hoover Administration - that Hoover had actually inaugurated the era of government responsibility for the health of the economy and the society. There is the contrasting myth (for myths do not require inner consistency) that the New Deal was alien in origins and in philosophy; that - as Mr. Hoover put it - its philosophy was "the same philosophy of government which...
170 comments
Read more