Republicans WANT to be the party of Evita Mooselini

Yes, the Republicans are perfectly OK with being the party of willful ignorance, of venal, petty greed, of having as their standard bearer an aging prom queen with a mean streak a mile wide; an incompetent media hog who cares nothing about issues or the problems facing this country -- only about power, and the extent to which power can feed the hole in her soul that's only going to grow bigger as she learns she won't be the Head MILF forever:

Coming off a shellacking at the polls in November, the plurality of GOP voters (43%) say their party has been too moderate over the past eight years, and 55% think it should become more like Alaska Governor Sarah Palin in the future, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Just 24% think failed presidential candidate John McCain is the best future model for the party, and 10% are undecided.

Only 17% of Republican voters say their party has been too conservative, and 30% say its actions and positions have been about right, with nine percent (9%) not sure.

Even after being trounced in the polls, this party of institutionalized worship of stupidity has learned nothing. This party thinks that what Americans really want is more hatred, more divisiveness between some mythical "real America" in which white evangelicals are the only "real Americans" and everyone else is left in poverty and hunger.

This is the Republican Party. Sarah Palin is the Republican Party, and it doesn't matter who they put as head of the RNC. Electing Michael Steele to head the party in an attempt to woo black voters is like trotting out a former high school Mean Grrl in an effort to attract disgruntles Hillary voters -- it simply shows just how superficial and clueless the Republican Party is.

Joan Walsh, who somewhat redeemed her unquestioning Hillary-worship during the primaries with her masterful smackdown of Dick Armey last week:

The only thing sadder than the GOP's leadership deficit is its ideas deficit, and the two afflictions are related. Imagine if, as RNC head, Steele got together with other party mavericks (if they exist) to draft a stimulus package he thought might actually reach African-American and working-class voters, one that didn't rely merely on the voodoo of tax cuts but also included stimulus spending that would put unemployed and underemployed workers in new jobs. I'm not saying it would work, but it would be interesting to hear a pragmatic GOP alternative. Instead Steele's just another Republican talking head mouthing "tax cuts, tax cuts" like a zombie, while the economy continues to shed jobs and the nation heads for harder times. Similarly over the weekend, GOP Sen. Jim DeMint was absolutely stomped on ABC's "This Week," with not only Barney Frank but also with corporate chieftains blasting his assertion that only tax cuts can create jobs.

"We have to decide if we want to be a free market economy and let the money stay there or be a government-directed economy, which is where we're headed with this plan," DeMint argued. FedEx CEO Fred Smith countered: "No question about it, the infrastructure of the country has been underfunded for a long time ... it certainly would be a wise thing to invest in all kinds of infrastructure," while Google CEO Eric Scmidt came back with: "I'm worried that tax cuts alone won't work because people are not paying any taxes because they're not making any money."

Still, the stimulus fight is tougher than it should be for Democrats. Clearly the best ally the Republicans have is the economic illiteracy of the pundit class in America. I'm watching NBC's Chuck Todd say the Democrats have lost the "message war" over the stimulus, because it's now just seen as a "spending bill." There's no way for a stimulus bill not to be a spending bill; the point is that the economy is such a wreck the government becomes the spender of last resort. This had merely been a stupid GOP talking point until 10 minutes ago; now it's becoming a stupid media talking point. Funny how that works.

Meanwhile, this morning MSNBC's Joe Scarborough began railing about how the plan's rebates to working people who don't earn enough to pay income taxes (though they do pay sales, payroll and property taxes) amount to "socialism." Let's get this straight: It's socialism when government gives money to workers whose jobs don't pay enough to keep them out of poverty, but it's not socialism when the government bails out greedy, failed banks? I guess not, especially if the bailout forces don't impose limits on executive compensation or play a role in managing the bailed-out enterprises. That's actually called lemon socialism, as Paul Krugman notes, in which "taxpayers bear the cost if things go wrong, but stockholders and executives get the benefits if things go right." Obama knows better than that.

Perhaps soo, as Evita Mooselini might say. But Obama is also painfully aware of the fate that met the Democrats who have preceded him in trying to break this country free from the stranglehold of the Beltway press corps -- from John Kerry being hounded for windsurfing to turning down the crowd noise to make Howard Dean sound like a lunatic instead of a candidate trying to buck up the spirits of his workers, to the shameful treatment of Al Gore. What he hasn't learned, alas, is that is that there is no amount of capitulation to the Party of superstition, greed, and stupidity, that will satisfy Chuck Todd; no amount of bipartisanship that will satisfy Joe Scarborough; no amount of clean government that will satisfy George Snuffleupagus. The companies that own this men want Republicans. And they shall have their way.


(h/t)