SC GOPers: Lindsay Graham “Weakened GOP Brand” With Bipartisanship, Belief In Global Warming
A bunch of people have already pointed to local press reports saying that conservative Senator Lindsay Graham was censured by the Charleston County Republican Party for being too far to the left for South Carolina Republicans.
The party sends our reporter Beth Marlowe a copy of the full resolution, and it’s even more fun than you might have expected.
The resolution explicitly condemns Graham for backing cap and trade — not because it’s a job killer, but because “global warming caused by carbon emissions” is “still in doubt as evidenced by the past decade of cooling temperatures.”
It also singles out Graham’s work on the “Gang of 10” and the “Gang of 14,” both of which were bipartisan groups of Senators.
It concludes that Graham must be censured because he “continues to weaken the Republican brand.”
For these good people, at least, working towards bipartisan solutions and acknowledging the existence of global warming are at odds with, and a threat to, the GOP brand. Ah, South Carolina!
This blog’s homepage is here. RSS feed here. Twitter feed here. Email me here.
TEABAGGERS GONE WILD!!! Order *YOUR* DVD today! (Just $1.99, + 24.99 S&H)
Having lived in S.C. for seven years I’m not even surprised. Imagine a state where every other citizen is bilgey..really…these folks may not have pulled off secession in the literal or physical sense…but mentally they have never rejoined the Union.
It’s not just bipartisanship that bothers them…now a days that means consorting with those damn yankees!
There is still a huge GOOPer contingent that considers the GOP’s problem to be one of branding.
I can understand where they’re coming from. They’ve had a lot of success in the past by managing perceptions, irrespective of substance. It worked for them then, and it still does somewhat, but not nearly to the same degree. Old habits die hard.
One factor in the success of perception management was 9/11. It gave their fear card trump power. But that power has been waning, and relying on that alone (2006…) hasn’t been enough. Trouble is that with the waning of that power, they’ve got no substance to help shore up their support.
I hear Rash Limbaw and the Teabaggers are officially re-branding it the “Cap Your Azz and Tax” Bill!
jzap — it would be ironic if the ultimate political impact of 9/11, which handed the GOP big victories in 2002 and 2004, created a complacency and reliance on that one trump card that ultimately damages the GOP far more than it ever helped it.
But seriously, folks…I strongly suggest someone check the lead levels in SC’s drinking water.
“I can understand where they’re coming from. They’ve had a lot of success in the past by managing perceptions, irrespective of substance. It worked for them then, and it still does somewhat, but not nearly to the same degree.”
Bush busted that balloon. All we have to do is keep reminding people what was behind all that “branding” – Karl Rove, George Bush and Dick Cheney.
People are getting complacent because we got Congress back in ‘06 – been awhile since the good ol days of Dr. Kitten Killer Frist and Rick “my name is now an internet synonym for the very nasty aftereffects of very nasty ***” Santorum
very nasty s*e*x
I forgot it gets bleeped.
Maybe Molly Ivins meant the State of South Carolina?
I’m waiting for the day when the tea-baggers led repub party pronounce that even sarah palin is far too left…. yes, they’re that nutz and that rabid.
I blame Lincoln. Abe, not Blanche. That ‘preserve the Union’ stuff of his was a terrible error.
And I’m only half-kidding …
Greg and Tena: Yes, I do see the irony there. I can’t say that the GOP’s post-9/11 strategy will end up hurting them more than it helped them, but it does seem to be a hugely significant factor in their marginalization.
Yes, Dubya’s idiocy did play a big part in the bursting of that balloon. But a large part of that idiocy stemmed from his (and his advisors’) overconfidence in the power of the fear card. They thought they could do anything they wanted and still scare the voters into supporting them. It worked in 2002 and 2004, but eventually their reliance on voters’ fact-blindness led them to a recklessness that did them in.
Nick:
“I blame Lincoln. Abe, not Blanche. That ‘preserve the Union’ stuff of his was a terrible error.
And I’m only half-kidding …”
Nice to see you coming ’round.
“They thought they could do anything they wanted and still scare the voters into supporting them. It worked in 2002 and 2004, but eventually their reliance on voters’ fact-blindness led them to a recklessness that did them in.”
That and gross incompetence and hypocrisy. It followed this order, roughly: Teri Schiavo – America suddenly realized the right actually does want to get all up in your personal life; Katrina – Jesus, take the wheel!; privatizing Social Security – That’s it. Game over.
David Waldman over @ dkos
“When Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) convened a hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation, and Community Development yesterday, he asked everyone to join him in a moment of silence for the victims of the Ft. Hood shootings, and not a single Republican would join him!
Of course, that’s probably because there wasn’t a single Republican in attendance. (Gee, maybe I should have gone with that as a headline. Darn it all, it’s Fox’s world, we just live in it!)
And why wasn’t there a single Republican in attendance, as near as I can make out at any point, throughout the two hours during which the committee sat?
Probably because of the subject of the hearing: “Ending Veterans’ Homelessness.”
How patriotic of these scoundrels !
From SC to SLC: Could the Mormon church be going soft on abomination?
It’s important to remember that Republican Lindsay Graham is a far right Republican.
But far right isn’t far enough for the right wing extremists that now control much of the Republican Party.
What’s particularly obscene about the right wing extremists is their complete rejection of the few sane things that Republican Lindsay Graham has done.
The neo-Republican extremists have completely rejected science and are increasingly showing themselves to be as fanatical as any zealots on earth.
It’s bad enough that the right wing’s gamble with the ‘invisible hand’ led to a global economic collapse, but now the right wing are gambling with the planet’s climate.
When did insanity become a feature of the right wing and not a bug?*
*(old microsoft marketing humor: “that’s not a bug, it’s a feature!”)
Next, they’ll go after anyone who shook hands with Teddy Kennedy or co-sponsored legislation with him.
“From SC to SLC: Could the Mormon church be going soft on abomination?”
Salt Lake City’s mayor supports same *** marriage.
See this is what has happened – urban centers by and large are Democratic, liberal, tolerant. It’s the rural areas that are backwards and want the rest of us to go there with them.
by and large.
This is the answer, as well to the South Carolina conundrum: It’s a lot of rural.
Tena-
The exurbs I guess straddle the line. I see alot of that ’round here in the Plano/Frisco/North Dallas axis…
“I see alot of that ’round here in the Plano/Frisco/North Dallas axis…”
O north Dallas is hopeless. A lot of people out there in the exurbs are transplants from elsewhere, too. That is GOP Land, all up through there. And up in Denton, y’all have an anti-choice crusader who’s trying to come up in the batshit insane world.
Tena: Hmmm. Kinda makes sense; thanks for the insight.
Roundup posted:
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/political-media/happy-hour-roundup-111/
!
The only thing that Republicans are masters at is marketing: ‘branding’, the use of image to create the illusion of substance.
At the core of the Republican Party is a marketing machine that can re-create a Hollywood entertainer like Ronald Reagan, who often forgot his scripted lines, into a mythical warrior despite Republican Reagan’s having been too weak to serve in the military.
Republican marketers (google: “Team B Strategic Initiatives Panel”) deliberately overestimated the threat of the Soviet Union (which, while a real threat, was falling apart all by itself) and then pretended to “defeat” the non-existent, exaggerated threat.
Even more Orwellian is the right wing’s ability to simultaneously deify a Hollywood entertainer like Ronald Reagan while simultaneously vilifying of Hollywood entertainers.
It’s the Right Wing’s First Rule: Rule’s Don’t Apply To Them.
“At the core of the Republican Party is a marketing machine that can re-create a Hollywood entertainer like Ronald Reagan, who often forgot his scripted lines, into a mythical warrior despite Republican Reagan’s having been too weak to serve in the military.”
Used to be, NewsReference. Used to be.
I don’t see any baby Karl Roves out there.
I see Mark Schmidt; and he couldn’t market air conditioning on the Equator.
Ah, South Carolina!
If only Charleston was in some other, saner state!
The exurbs I guess straddle the line.
I’m pretty sure Dennis Hastert’s Illinois district was in the Chicago exurbs.
Yes, hardline obstructionist conservatism has done wonders for the Republican Brand. Just look at the two elections they won by purifying themselves of all those people who weren’t real conservatives.
Now if they can just convince the other eighty percent of the country to vote for Tea Partisans
Sort of the old….
1) Purify Party of Moderates.
2) ????????
3) Profit!
Scenario.
MADONNA==what’s your fav photo of her book ***
i guess huckleberry isn’t far right enough for
the SC GOP. cry me a river.