I think I am on record, going at least back to my initial enthusiasm for the Huckabee campaign, as favoring the Republican Party going in a more populist, Main Street direction. But if they choose the nitwit populism of Joe the Plumber -- and it looks like they are -- they will truly deserve their joke status.
It's good to be a populist, but you have to know things. What was so exciting about Sarah Palin was her populism -- until it became clear that for her, it was backed up by not much. It was style, not substance -- and she was a veritable Margaret Thatcher compared to ol' Joe, whose politics, such as they are, seem to amount to irritable gesturing.
Daniel Larison speaks to the pathetic state of today's Republican Party. He writes about Michael Steele taking over as national GOP chairman: Excerpt:
Curious to see what Steele had to say, I watched the interview he gave on FoxNews, and I can't say I was all that impressed. To what did he attribute the GOP's political decline over the last two cycles? Naturally, it was spending. That was it. Spending. It's not just that he didn't address the GOP's failures in foreign policy and its errors in anti-terrorism, which I would have been interested to hear, but that this was the only reason he gave, which suggests that he thinks the main solution to GOP woes is to come out against spending (unless, of course, it relates to "defense").Steele refers to Republicans' "value for a sound economy," and this did not seem to be a joke. He said quite seriously that the election results had nothing to do with "our value for a sound economy." I don't know quite how to take that claim. One wonders where this "value" was over the last few years-no doubt being inflated by loose monetary policy along with the housing market. Then, when asked for a new idea, Steele invoked school choice! I can't really blame Steele. He has become the national chairman of a party whose Congressional leadership has believed for years that the only thing it ever did wrong was to vote for too much spending, and he has become the public face of the GOP at a time when it has zero fresh ideas, which is why he had to keep returning to lines referring back to debates from the '90s that could have been delivered in the '90s without changing a syllable. The problem is not so much that Steele's answers lack imagination, but that if he had shown an inkling of imagination much of his party probably would turn on him.
True, alas. When Joe the Plumber counts as a political sage to the leaders of the party, one can't help thinking about what the deification of the fictional Chance the Gardener said about the spiritual and intellectual emptiness of the leadership class of the era Kozinski satirized.
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Yeah, what happened to ol' Rezko? Maybe when Blagojevich gets his talk show he can announce Mr. Rezko will be guest. Then... whoops, he can't make it and... CHA-CHING!! Bailed-out.
Illindova:
Only the KosKids and other wackos on the left are more obsessed with pulling out of Iraq in defeat than their 401Ks or jobs.
Your first claim was that "nobody cared about the Iraq War," then when I said they very much did, you now retort that "nobody cared about it more than the economy." I'm sure if I contradict that, you'd make up something else to replace it. What is it that prevents you from admitting that the Iraq War really is incredibly unpopular? It sure isn't the polling or statistics or election results, since all of those show it to be incredibly unpopular. But hey, feel free to write off 65%+ of Americans as "left-wing wackos." I'm sure that will help conservatives almost as much in 2010 as it did in '06 and '08.
McCain really went out of his way to run a very classy campaign and didn't touch the Wright issue with a ten foot pole despite the fact that it was legit. He did criticize the Obama campaign, but that was not at all "hateful" or racist. Nothing that McCain or Palin did was really out of the bounds of normal campaign
Palin said Obama "palled around with terrorists," "doesn't love America," and his supporters live in "not really American" parts of the country. I loved Jon Stewart's rejoinder to this: the 9/11 firefighters being lectured on moral values by Mayor Methlab. 'NUFF SAID.
Speaking as a yellow-dog democrat and a genuine patriot, I am delighted to see the level of discourse on the part of the republicans here.
Keep it up, folks - you have disgraced the party of Lincoln, T. Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Goldwater (one of the greatest thinkers of your party), Nixon (who kept us out of nuclear war) and RR, who, tho' not my cup of tea was a pragmatist.
Something you have totally lost sight of. Rod is one of the very, very few intellectuals left who are even willing to treat with you.
Whether Americans voted for Obama or against you, you have learned nothing from your mistakes. Don't stop now.
"Your first claim was that "nobody cared about the Iraq War," then when I said they very much did, you now retort that "nobody cared about it more than the economy." I'm sure if I contradict that, you'd make up something else to replace it. What is it that prevents you from admitting that the Iraq War really is incredibly unpopular? It sure isn't the polling or statistics or election results, since all of those show it to be incredibly unpopular. But hey, feel free to write off 65%+ of Americans as "left-wing wackos." I'm sure that will help conservatives almost as much in 2010 as it did in '06 and '08."
I stand by the fact that McCain lost because of the economy, not the War in Iraq. In fact, the Iraq War was off the front pages in 2008 because we were winning and McCain was credited with the turnaround. Also, polling data suggests that support for the war picked up quite a bit in 2008 because we were winning. Americans are a quite fickle lot. They tend to support wars when America is winning and turn on said wars when America is losing. Only the KosKids and the DUers are still intense about the Iraq War and withdrawing right now. Most people are fine with us staying in Iraq and finishing the job as long as no U.S. soldiers are being killed.
"Palin said Obama "palled around with terrorists," "doesn't love America," and his supporters live in "not really American" parts of the country. I loved Jon Stewart's rejoinder to this: the 9/11 firefighters being lectured on moral values by Mayor Methlab. 'NUFF SAID. "
Obama was palling around with terrorists. Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn were terrorists who should be shunned by all polite society, but Obama had some sort of relationship with them. As for the patriotic comment, I don't think that it was any worse than Biden's comments about how it's unpatriotic to be for low taxes or the Dems. moaning about not supporting the GM boondoggle somehow made the Repubs. less patriotic.
Both the examples that you cited are similar to the political rhetoric and mudslinging that goes on in any election. (Obama's minions somehow insinuated that Palin's son Trig was really Bristol's which strike me as much nastier than either of the comments cited above). I fail to see how either of these make Palin or McCain racist. In fact, the McCain campaign went out of its way to make sure they weren't inciting any racial tensions including not bringing up legit issues (Rev. Crazy). Frankly, it's kinda lame for Obama cultists to whine that all criticisms of their Messiah are somehow racist. What are they going to do when newspapers decide to ask Obama some real questions? State that the NY Times is racist.
From The American Spectator, "Books for Christmas," December 2008/January 2009:
JOE THE PLUMBER
"My Christmas Book recommendations are as follows, though in no particular order of priority:
"Temples of Convenience--and Chambers of Delight (Tempus Publishing) by Lucinda Lambton. This book came out in the 1990s when I was just getting interested. It shed a great deal of light on the development of the lavatory or, as we say over home, “the hutch.” This book contains pictures of over 150 “hutches,” some pretty fancy ones, though none from Ohio and most the product of non-union labor. The descriptions are good too.
"The Theory of Money and Credit by Ludwig von Mises. The book is a 1912 study of monetary theory. It brought monetary theory into the mainstream of economic analysis. It is important reading for these troubled times.
"Flushed with Pride: The Story of Thomas Crapper by Wallace Reyburn. And just when you think you know everything about plumbing, this book comes along.
"Plumber’s Handbook (paperback, but it is pretty water-resistant) by Howard C. Massey. Readers might find this book a little too technical, but I have learned a lot, particularly on the topics of greasy waste systems, outside waste interceptors, and what for me has been a longtime conundrum, local gas codes.
Joe the Plumber was born in Ironton, Ohio.
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