Can the Democrats Retake the South?

While it is unlikely that anything significant can happen between now and the November 2014 midterm elections, just as the GOP is facing a bleak long term future in may parts of the country due to demographic changes and changing attitudes among the Milennials, change is happening in the South as well.  Even here in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia attitudes are changing be they in terms of gay couples joining heretofore straight only private clubs - my partner and I are examples - or service members openly marrying their same sex partners.  Moreover, in the last two year's statewide elections, Democrats prevailed.  A piece in Politico Magazine looks at why the Democrats may regain the South in the future.  Here are excerpts:

[I]t was one-party domination by Democrats, the party of resistance, of the anti-carpetbaggers. In fact, no other region of the country has ever been so completely dominated by one political party for so long—almost 100 years, so long that generations passed in which some Southern folks never even met a Republican. But all of that changed following the final implementation of Brown, the Voting Rights Act of 1964 and the Civil Rights Act of 1965. Those momentous steps toward racial equality birthed the modern GOP in the South. This was the new resistance: The modern Republican Party in the South, once again, was built on race and the anti-Washington Democratic backlash brought about by civil rights.

This is where the road back to power starts for Southern Democrats. Populism and economic inequality will be the battleground of the 21st century, and while it’s true that in the South these issues are still inextricably tied to race, it’s a different conversation than the one our parents had. It is more honest and more open, both about race and about its economic and social implications for our society. We are the only party that can have that frank discussion. Racial equality leads to economic opportunity. We should own this issue, whether we are talking to African Americans, Hispanics or whites.

This is something the Republicans—trapped by their base and their history—simply cannot do. And it is the core not only of their utter lack of support within the black community but also of their problem with Hispanic voters, the South’s fastest-growing demographic. Of the 10 states with the fastest-growing Hispanic populations from 2000 to 2011, all but two are in the South, with Alabama, South Carolina and Tennessee topping the list, and Hispanics are more than twice as likely to identify as Democrats than Republicans.

To win over these new voters, Republicans must change their understanding of their own history. The past year has shown just how hard that is. All Democrats must do is embrace our history.

Thanks to John F. Kennedy, Andrew Young, Lyndon Johnson, Barbara Jordan and a host of others, we can do this. We can end the discussion of race as an issue that has divided us since our founding and talk about race as the economic issue it is, with real implications for the present and the future. This is not to say that every campaign must begin with a discussion of race. Far from it. But we must internalize it, embrace it and acknowledge that racial equality—really the equality of and opportunity for all men and women, is at the core what we believe—at the core of our economic message; it has been the very foundation of our party since 1965. I for one am proud of it, and we can now win on it.

Step two for Democrats deals with another taboo subject: money.

For three decades, Southern Democrats have basically run against or away from Washington. And when that does not work, we have run a “the other guy is way crazier than me” campaign to brand our opponents as out of the mainstream. The domination of media by national cable news, the rise of the Internet and the slow death of local news have made bashing Washington, D.C., obsolete or ineffective. But taking down the other guy, while a fun way to campaign, is not a long-term strategy for sustained victory. Sooner or later, our opponents will come to their senses.

Prominent Republicans Sign Brief in Support of Gay Marriage

Maggie Gallagher, Brian Brown, Tony Perkins and other professional Christians who enrich themselves by disseminating anti-gay hate are going to be ever so pissed at a new development:  dozens of prominent Republicans have signed a brief supporting the right of gays to marry and asking the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down Proposition 8.  While Bobby Jindal and others in the GOP refuse to acknowledge that anti-gay policies are toxic for the GOP's long term viability, the Republicans who signed this brief can see reality and know that they must support equality in the long term or perish.  Here are highlights from a New York Times piece:

Dozens of prominent Republicans — including top advisers to former President George W. Bush, four former governors and two members of Congress — have signed a legal brief arguing that gay people have a constitutional right to marry, a position that amounts to a direct challenge to Speaker John A. Boehner and reflects the civil war in the party since the November election. 

The document will be submitted this week to the Supreme Court in support of a suit seeking to strike down Proposition 8, a California ballot initiative barring same-sex marriage, and all similar bans. 

The Proposition 8 case already has a powerful conservative supporter: Theodore B. Olson, the former solicitor general under Mr. Bush and one of the suit’s two lead lawyers. The amicus, or friend-of-the-court, brief is being filed with Mr. Olson’s blessing. It argues, as he does, that same-sex marriage promotes family values by allowing children of gay couples to grow up in two-parent homes, and that it advances conservative values of “limited government and maximizing individual freedom.” 

Legal analysts said the brief had the potential to sway conservative justices as much for the prominent names attached to it as for its legal arguments. The list of signers includes a string of Republican officials and influential thinkers — 75 as of Monday evening — who are not ordinarily associated with gay rights advocacy, including some who are speaking out for the first time and others who have changed their previous positions. 

Among them are Meg Whitman, who supported Proposition 8 when she ran for California governor; Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida and Richard Hanna of New York; Stephen J. Hadley, a Bush national security adviser; Carlos Gutierrez, a commerce secretary to Mr. Bush; James B. Comey, a top Bush Justice Department official; David A. Stockman, President Ronald Reagan’s first budget director; and Deborah Pryce, a former member of the House Republican leadership from Ohio who is retired from Congress.  .  .  .  .  Jon M. Huntsman Jr., the former Utah governor, who favored civil unions but opposed same-sex marriage during his 2012 presidential bid, also signed.

[T]he presence of so many well-known former officials — including Christine Todd Whitman, former governor of New Jersey, and William Weld and Jane Swift, both former governors of Massachusetts — suggests that once Republicans are out of public life they feel freer to speak out against the party’s official platform, which calls for amending the Constitution to define marriage as “the union of one man and one woman.” 

In making an expansive argument that same-sex marriage bans are discriminatory, the brief’s signatories are at odds with the House Republican leadership, which has authorized the expenditure of tax dollars to defend the 1996 marriage law. The law defines marriage in the eyes of the federal government as the union of a man and a woman. 

Experts say that amicus briefs generally do not change Supreme Court justices’ minds. But on Monday some said that the Republican brief, written by Seth P. Waxman, a former solicitor general in the administration of President Bill Clinton, and Reginald Brown, who served in the Bush White House Counsel’s Office, might be an exception. 

Tom Goldstein, publisher of Scotusblog, a Web site that analyzes Supreme Court cases, said the amicus filing “has the potential to break through and make a real difference.” 

He added: “The person who is going to decide this case, if it’s going to be close, is going to be a conservative justice who respects traditional marriage but nonetheless is sympathetic to the claims that this is just another form of hatred. If you’re trying to persuade someone like that, you can’t persuade them from the perspective of gay rights advocacy.”

Yes indeed, the spittle will be flying in sheets in hate group offices around the country.  The GOP needs to accept the reality that the battle against gay marriage is futile.  Meanwhile, I continue to believe that the GOP cannot be saved until the Christofascists are driven from the party and exiled to the political wilderness where they belong.

Poll Finds Tea Party Hates Gays The Most

Click on image to enlarge

This blog often slams the so-called Tea Party crowd because like the Christianists and so many in today's GOP their hypocrisy simply screams out for exposure.  A new Washington Post poll on the issue of same sex marriage reveals that Tea Party loons may be the biggest hypocrites of all..  They certainly are the most virulently anti-gay of any political group.  The claim to want "smaller government" but have no problem having the government controlling the relationships of others and policing our bedrooms.   Another interesting finding is that a majority of "old school Republicans" support same sex marriage.   How many who fall within that category still vote for GOP extremists isn't revealed.  Here are highlights from a New Civil Rights Movement article on the poll:

[A]s it turns out, the Tea Party hates gay people the most. In a just-released Washington Post poll, members of the Tea Party came in as the lowest supporters of same-sex marriage by a huge margin. The poll overall finds that 53% of all adults (and 52% of registered voters) believe same-sex marriage should be “legal,” while 42% feel it should be “illegal,” maintaining the consistent response rate found by almost every major poll over the past few years, which find that the majority of Americans support extending civil marriage to same-sex couples.

The poll, conducted by the Washington Post in conjunction with the Kaiser Family Foundation, broke the results down into political party affiliation, and even further, into 13 sub-groups, one of which is the Tea Party.

[A] mere 6% of Tea Party members said they support same-sex marriage. No other group was close to that low support level. Even Republican religious values voters (along with pro-government conservatives) came in at 11%, almost twice the rate of Tea Party Republicans.

For those struggling with “not supporting same-sex marriage” equating “hate gay people,” it’s really quite simple: If you don’t support marriage equality, you are saying you believe gay people just aren’t as good as you are, they are “less-than,” and they don’t deserve the exact same rights that you do, merely because of who they are, who they were born as. What does that sound like?

Ironically, the Tea Party’s favorite symbol, the Gadsden flag reads, “Don’t tread on me.” Apparently, that works only one way.

As I said, the hypocrisy is mind numbing.

The Road t to Marriage Victory in New York

There's still plenty of analysis of how marriage equality was won in New York State. One thing that seems to have been key was a member of the executive branch who wasn't afraid to be a leader - .i.e., Governor Andrew Cuomo. To me, the contrast between Cuomo and Obama could not be more stark. Obama always follows - often unwillingly and kicking and screaming. Cuomo took charge of the issue head on and worked all the factions and brought the discipline to get the job done. Imagine what could be done if Washington if we had a head of the executive branch who wasn't afraid of his own shadow most of the time. There's already talk of Cuomo as a possible contender in 2016 and if he can continue to get things done and be a LEADER, the conjecturing could be on the mark. At present, one poll shows 59% of Republicans approving Cuomo's performance in office. Here are highlights from two New York Times stories - here and here - that look at the results achieved in New York State:
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It sounded improbable: top Republican moneymen helping a Democratic rival [Cuomo] with one of his biggest legislative goals.
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But the donors in the room — the billionaire Paul Singer, whose son is gay, joined by the hedge fund managers Cliff Asness and Daniel Loeb — had the influence and the money to insulate nervous senators from conservative backlash if they supported the marriage measure. And they were inclined to see the issue as one of personal freedom, consistent with their more libertarian views. Within days, the wealthy Republicans sent back word: They were on board.
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The story of how same-sex marriage became legal in New York is about shifting public sentiment and individual lawmakers moved by emotional appeals from gay couples who wish to be wed. But, behind the scenes, it was really about a Republican Party reckoning with a profoundly changing power dynamic, where Wall Street donors and gay-rights advocates demonstrated more might and muscle than a Roman Catholic hierarchy and an ineffective opposition.
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And it was about a Democratic governor, himself a Catholic, who used the force of his personality and relentlessly strategic mind to persuade conflicted lawmakers to take a historic leap.
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Mr. Cuomo was diplomatic but candid with gay-rights advocates in early March when he summoned them to the Capitol’s Red Room, a ceremonial chamber with stained-glass windows and wood-paneled walls. . . . . . “You can either focus on the goal, or we can spend a lot of time competing and destroying ourselves,” the governor said. This time around, the lobbying had to be done the Cuomo way: with meticulous, top-down coordination. “I will be personally involved,” he said.
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By the time a Catholic bishop from Brooklyn traveled to Albany last week to tell undecided senators that passing same-sex marriage “is not in keeping with the will of their people,” it was clear the church had been outmaneuvered by the highly organized same-sex marriage coalition, with its sprawling field team and, especially, its Wall Street donors. “In many ways,” acknowledged Dennis Poust, of the New York State Catholic Conference, “we were outgunned. That is a lot to overcome.”
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Mr. Cuomo invited the Republicans to visit him at the governor’s residence, a 40-room Victorian mansion overlooking the Hudson River, just a few blocks from the Capitol.
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There, in a speech the public would never hear, he offered his most direct and impassioned case for allowing gays to wed. Gay couples, he said, wanted recognition from the state that they were no different from the lawmakers in the room. “Their love is worth the same as your love,” Mr. Cuomo said, according to someone who heard him. “Their partnership is worth the same as your partnership. And they are equal in your eyes to you. That is the driving issue.” In the late hours of Friday night, 33 members of the State Senate agreed with him.
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As for Cuomo's future? Here are more highlights:
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The passage of a same-sex-marriage bill late Friday in New York drew considerable national coverage to the Empire State and was broadly touted as a major victory for first-term Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.
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It also has stoked talk that Cuomo is rapidly transforming himself into a first among equals when it comes to the jockeying for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.
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“It’s not just that he delivered on a major civil rights issue for the Democratic base in a huge state, it’s how he did it — winning bipartisan support and sticking with it when it seemed it might fail,” Democratic consultant Jason Ralston said. “Combine that with his name and his focus on the middle class, and he is at the front of the pack for 2016.”
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A Quinnipiac University poll conducted earlier this month showed that more than six in 10 New Yorkers approved of the job Cuomo was doing, while just 18 percent disapproved. Amazingly, 59 percent of self-identified Republicans said they approved of how Cuomo was handling his job.
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“If you can govern successfully in this environment, everyone has to take you seriously,” said Democratic strategist Paul Begala.

Sexual Misconduct - It's Alright If You're a Republican According to Eric Cantor

It's the hypocrisy of the GOP that makes me want to vomit. Case in point: Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor who is demanding the resignation of Congressman Anthony Wiener based on Weiner's incredibly stupid "sex-ting" of inappropriate photos. Cantor obviously applies one standard to the GOP while demanding a far different standard of Democrats. Remember " I was hiking the Appalachian Trial" GOP Governor of South Carolina Mark Sanford who was in truth boinking a mistress in Argentina? Or maybe you remember Nevada U. S. Senator John Ensign who was having an affair with the wife of one of his staff members? Still not remembering? How about Louisiana U. S. Senator David Vitter who was a client of the D.C. Madam as well as hookers in New Orleans? In each of these three instances, Cantor failed to call for the resignation of the individuals involved - even though their conduct was far more egregious than that of Wiener. Instead, he said that the decision lay with the individual involved and their constituents. But in the case of Wiener, Cantor wants a resignation. Let's be clear. I am NOT defending Wiener's stupidity. But Cantor's hypocrisy is nauseating. The Hill has coverage on Cantor's hypocritical double standard. Here are some highlights:
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House Majority Leader Eric Cantor called on embattled Rep. Anthony Weiner to resign a day after the New York Democrat admitted to having sexually charged online relationships with six women, none of whom are his wife.
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“I don’t condone his activity. And I think he should resign,” Cantor, a Virginia Republican, said after an event in his district Tuesday, according to the Daily Progress. Cantor is the first leader in either party to call for Weiner to step down
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Cantor upped the pressure on Weiner Tuesday, breaking with Republican leaders who preferred to stand out of the way as Democrats tried to untangle the mess. While GOP leaders had remained silent on the matter, the party machinery has been working to stick Weiner’s troubles to other Democrats.
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The National Republican Congressional Committee has pointed out which politically vulnerable Democratic incumbents are recipients of Weiner campaign cash, and one, Rep. Betty Sutton (D-Ohio) already has said she dump her Weiner contributions.
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Frankly, in my opinion, Cantor is an embarrassment to rational, thinking Virginians. I view has a whining little worm who while not as insane as Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli, is morally challenged at best even though he talks about so-called family values just like Ensign, and Vitter. Residents of Cantor's district need to wake up and vote his sorry, lying ass out of office.

Who Are the Opponents of Gay Marriage?

According to a new ABC News/WaPo poll results shown above, the answer is Republicans, Southerners and those over 65 years of age. The good news is that a whopping 65% of the under 29 age group support gay marriage. As a result, expect even more hysteria form the professional Christian set who are ultimately doomed to lose this battle as the aging homophobes die off. While I am impatient for full equality, it is nice to know that side is on our side in the long run.

Surprising Fox News Column: Why I’m Joining the Fight for Marriage Equality

I generally give little regard to Fox News, a/k/a Faux News, because so often reality seems to have no bearing on how news and alleged "facts" are presented. The recent addition of Sarah "Bible Spice" Palin as staff underscores of untethered the networks world view can be. In fact, I usually look at Fox and the Drudge Report merely to see what propaganda the enemy is putting out. Thus, I nearly choked on my coffee to see that Fox News has an editorial supportive of same sex marriage and basically telling Republicans the reason that they need to get on board in support. Andrew Sullivan ghas made similar arguments in some of his books, but it still is a shocker to see them appearing under the Faux News banner. One can only hope that rational conservatives - there are still some left in the GOP, although far fewer than once was the case - will read and contemplate these arguments in support of gay marriage. Here are some highlights:

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You may think, “San Francisco liberals at it again! Hijacking the courts, inventing new constitutional rights!” Stop there. The lead counsel in the case is George W. Bush’s Solicitor General, who successfully argued Bush v. Gore before the Supreme Court in one of his fifty-five performances before the nation’s highest judicial body. He is Theodore “Ted” Olsen, a founder of the Federalist Society, constitutional law expert, and one of the most respected conservatives in America.
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Mr. Olsen thinks constitutionally guaranteed rights ought to transcend left vs. right, Democrat vs. Republican divides (he even recruited legal opponent David Boies as co-counsel). I agree with him. And as a proud Republican representing a younger generation of conservatives that cherish individual freedom, I am honored to join the American Equal Right’s Foundation’s Advisory Board.
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I encourage everyone, but especially Republicans, to consider Mr. Olsen’s arguments on the merits, both in his opening statement and throughout the trial’s ensuing three weeks. The plaintiff’s counsel seeks to convince Judge Vaughn R. Walker that the Supreme Court has already decided in Loving v. Virginia, Turner v. Safely, and in Lawrence v. Texas among others, that the right to marry is a fundamental right currently denied to an entire class of American citizens. This is unconstitutional.
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We Republicans have often found ourselves on the wrong side of civil rights struggles since the 1960s, but there was a reason that Martin Luther King, Jr.'s father is said to have supported Republicans.
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Republicans were historically the party ever-expanding freedom to disenfranchised minorities, from newly liberated slaves to giving women the right to vote. Susan B. Anthony was a Republican. By supporting the AFER trial we have an opportunity to establish our historic credibility on civil rights issues once again. But we should support marriage equality because it is the right thing to do.
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Gays and lesbians are our friends, neighbors, doctors, colleagues, sisters and brothers. Does it sit well with you that because of their sexual orientation, a factor outside one’s control, that they should have less rights and protections in the eyes of the law? . . . If you are uncomfortable with gay marriage, I encourage you to pay attention to this trial, the plaintiffs, the defense and the spectrum of experts, historians, psychologists, economists, political scientists, who will testify as to the effects and detriment of Proposition 8. In the words of NAACP chairman Julian Bond, “The humanity of all Americans is diminished when any group is denied rights granted to others.”
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[W]hat if a democratic election imposes mandates that violate a citizen’s constitutional freedom? In the event that majority rule insufficiently protects individual liberty, our system of checks and balances puts forth that it is the role of the courts, to guarantee and protect the rights to individual Americans.
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That’s why the Supreme Court, in 1967 Loving v. Virginia, legalized interracial marriage –six years after our current president was born to an interracial couple. At that time 73% of the population opposed “miscegenation.” How long would it have taken to change popular opinion, for the minority to democratically win their constitutional rights? As Martin Luther King, Jr. famously asserted, “Justice delayed is justice denied.”
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For those of you who would label me a "RINO" (Republican In Name Only) for taking this stand, I direct you to Vice President Cheney, whose conservative credentials are impeccable, and who answered a question on the topic before the National Press Club audience on June 1, 2009 by saying simply, “…freedom means freedom for everyone.

Despite Pleas by Virginia Tech Families, Virginia Legislative Panel Rejects Gun Bill

One would certainly think that after the Virginia Tech tragedy back in the spring of 2007, Virginia would want to clean up some of the failings in the state's gun laws that allowed Seung-Hui Cho to legally buy guns despite his mental health problems. But NOOOOOOO. The wingnut Republican members in the Virginia General Assembly committee all voted to kill the bill that would change the gun laws to try to avoid some future tragedy.

Of course, these are the same Christianist ass kissing folks who are against abortion. In their view, you cannot kill a fetus through abortion. But once that child is born and grows up, they happily allow nuts to be on the loose with guns - including automatic weapons - so those children or adults can get shot up and killed. I do NOT understand the mentality. Fortunately, our Governor took them to task. Here are some highlights from today's Virginian Pilot (http://hamptonroads.com/2008/01/despite-pleas-tech-families-va-panel-rejects-gun-bill):

RICHMOND - Families of those killed and wounded during a deranged gunman's rampage at Virginia Tech implored a legislative panel to close the loophole in state law that allows criminals and the mentally ill to buy firearms at gun shows. The Republican-dominated committee ignored them, voting 13-9 along party lines Friday to kill legislation to require unlicensed sellers at gun shows to run criminal background checks on buyers. Such checks now are required only of federally licensed gun dealers.

Despite the setback, the gun show loophole issue is not dead. Similar legislation is pending in a Senate committee, and supporters plan a lobbying blitz and vigil in remembrance of the Tech victims Monday on the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. "We're not going to give up," Andrew Goddard of Richmond, whose son Colin was wounded in the Tech shootings, told reporters after the committee meeting. "We're going to be energized by this."

Democratic Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said the administration prefers the Senate bill, and he and others have only begun to politically pressure the proposal's House opponents. "There are those who apparently think it's fine for a felon to have a gun or a dangerously mentally ill person to have a gun or a domestic abuser to have a gun. They usually won't stand up and say that because they'll be laughed out of the room if they do, but apparently that's what they believe," Kaine told reporters. "Contrary to the clear federal law denying felons, domestic abusers with protective orders and dangerously mentally ill individuals the right to have a gun, these gun shows provide a very easy and public means for people who cannot legally have weapons to go in and get them," Kaine said.

The committee has long been hostile to gun-control measures and friendly to gun-rights groups and firearms dealers. Eight of the Republicans who voted to kill the gun show bill received more than $4,100 in contributions from gun advocacy groups or dealers last year, according to figures compiled by the nonpartisan Virginia Public Access Project.

Retaining Influence vs. Winning in November

In watching the morning news while getting my caffeine fix – which was much needed after the birthday celebration last night – Chris Matthews was being interviewed on what is going on within the Democratic Party in the primary races: Obama has broken out and is challenging the powers that be within the party that are aligned with Hillary Clinton. Matthews believes they (the lobby interests, other special interest groups, etc., players in the Democratic establishment) will be doing everything they can to stop the Obama so as to not lose their power and influence. I suspect that Matthews is correct and in my view, Hillary and these players in the establishment are being very short sighted. I continue to believe that Hillary will have a much more difficult time winning in November than Obama would, particularly since she will unite the warring factions within the GOP like no one else can on the Democrat side.

If various dirty tricks are employed against Obama, the party runs the risk of (1) alienating the black vote and (2) disillusioning younger voters who are tired of the same old “business as usually” with a result that many opt out of voting. If this happens to a significant degree, Hillary’s chances of winning in the general election are made even worse. Thus, these interest groups in effect would rather retain their enhanced power and influence within the party as opposed to winning in November, 2008. Is it better for the Democrat Party and the country to have the same tired groups retain power within the Party and have a Republican in the White House? I think not and find it very sad that some are putting themselves clearly ahead of the interest of the Party as a whole, not to mention the country. Personal greed is one of the biggest problem with politicians today. I sincerely hope that they do not prevail.