Race Baiting Is The GOP's Midterm Strategy

With no popular legislative successes and trade policies emanating from the White House that will likely harm the economy and particularly damage Trump stronghold regions of the country, the Republican Party, led by the master of hatred, is falling back to race baiting and racial resentment as the principal means to try to motivate their base to go to the polls in November. The problem is, of course that the tactic seems to be more effective in motivating Democrats and decent, moral people - which excludes evangelical Christians - to mobilize to resist the hate driven message. Ed Gillespie tried a similar approach in Virginia in 2017 and it did not end well for Republicans: Gillespie suffered a 9 point loss and the GOP lost 15 seats in the House of Delegates. Yet the GOP still believes that the message of huge tax cuts for the wealthy and race baiting will resonate with a majority of voters. A piece in Slate looks at the disgusting GOP strategy lead by the foul occupant of the White House. Here are article highlights:

It’s still too early to know if a “blue wave” will carry Democrats to victory in November, but Tuesday’s results bode well for the prospect. Democrats advanced competitive candidates in California’s “top two” elections and flipped a state Senate seat in Missouri that had long been held by Republicans. New polling gives Democrats a 10-point lead in the congressional generic ballot, bringing their average lead to roughly 8 points, and the same poll shows Democrats with a substantial enthusiasm advantage heading into the summer.

The sense that Republicans are behind in the race for a House majority might explain why President Trump has recently turned up the heat on racial resentment. There were his broadsides against MS-13 as “animals,” part of a broader attack on illegal immigration that, taken together, collapsed the distinction between violent criminals and otherwise law-abiding migrants. This week, Trump brought debates over sports, racism, and police violence back to fore when he pointedly disinvited a delegation from the Philadelphia Eagles from a White House gathering, accusing the NFL players of disrespecting the country for kneeling during the national anthem.

Never mind that no Philadelphia player has knelt in protest during the anthem. Reality is less important than the goal at hand: to stoke cultural anger and racial resentment, and hope that it brings GOP voters to the polls. It’s a national version of what Ed Gillespie tried in the closing days of the Virginia gubernatorial election: running on Hispanic gangs and “ungrateful” football players and hoping to stem a loss by enraging enough white people to blunt Democratic enthusiasm.

In other words, race baiting. A number of Republican strategists think this might work. “Trump’s habit of ignoring the economic message preferred by House and Senate Republicans in favor of the culture war tropes that propelled him to the White House is increasingly seen as an asset,” reports David Drucker for the Washington Examiner . . . conservative analysts and consultants, including Bill Whalen of the Hoover Institution, who says Trump “very cleverly tapped into this issue.”

Clever might be stretching it. At the start of the year, Republicans thought they would be running on tax cuts. . . . But when put to the test, it failed. Backed by outside groups and party organizations, Republican Rick Saccone touted those tax cuts in the tight race to hold a heavily Republican House district in the Pittsburgh suburbs. Voters weren’t interested, and opponent Conor Lamb, a Democrat, made ground by tying Saccone to “tax cuts [that] go to the wealthiest 1 percent.”  By Election Day, Republicans had stopped talking tax reform, and Saccone had pivoted to a Trump-like message of brash resentment.

The same was true of Gillespie in Virginia, who turned to racial and cultural flashpoints after his chief economic idea—large upper-income tax cuts—fell flat with voters throughout the state. In an ominous sign for Republicans, 42 percent of voters say they are “less likely” to vote for a candidate who supports the president’s tax bill.

In the absence of popular accomplishments or a broad economic message—the party’s other agenda item, Obamacare repeal, is similarly unpopular—racial resentment is all that’s left. With Trump at the lead, that’s where Republicans are headed . . . . it’s also true that this strategy hasn’t worked. Gillespie floundered and Virginia Republicans nearly lost their hold on the state’s House of Delegates. Saccone, running in a deep-red district, couldn’t close the gap. And Republican voters haven’t been motivated enough to stop Democrats from winning dozens of special elections in districts across the country that were previously held by the GOP.

So far, “Trumpism” has only worked for Trump. Perhaps Republicans will successfully use his appeal to retain their House majority. But voters have suggested that what they want is less of Trump, not more. Mimicking his approach may help tip the scales in the other direction.

As I have argued before, Democrats need to emulate the coordinated ground game that Ralph Northam used so successfully in Virginia.  I continue to hope November brings a blood bath for Republicans. 

Seanate Passes Immigration Reform - Will House GOP Racists Kill It?

Yesterday, the U. S. Senate passed a sweeping immigration reform bill with 14 Republicans voting for passage.  Now, the issue goes to the House of Representatives where it faces an uncertain future given the extremism and anti-immigrant mindset of the members of the House GOP.  Obviously, if the reform is killed by Republicans in the House, Hispanics will have a greatly increased motivation to get themselves to the polls in 2016 and vote the bigots and racists out of office.  Huffington Post looks at the bill that cleared the Senate:

The Senate passed a politically fraught immigration reform bill on Thursday that would give a path to citizenship to some of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S., bringing them out of the shadows and preventing continued record deportations that have separated hundreds of thousands of families.   The bill passed 68 to 32, picking up all Democrats and 14 Republicans.

Undocumented immigrants and advocates in the crowd, many of them young so-called Dreamers, broke out into applause and chants of "yes we can!" after Vice President Joe Biden, who came to the Senate to preside over the proceedings, read the results. Senators in the bipartisan "gang of eight" that drafted the bill -- Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) -- patted each other on the back.

The path to citizenship is long -- likely 13 years or more -- and arduous, but advocates are thrilled that it would exist at all, given opposition from many Republicans and the failure of bills to carve out such a path in the past. Dreamers, young undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children, would be able to earn green cards in five years, as would some agricultural workers.

The bill adds huge increases in border security, bolstered by an amendment from Corker and Hoeven that helped bring on board unsure Democrats and Republicans. The amendment would prevent green card status for undocumented immigrants until the government deploys 20,000 additional border agents, mandates E-Verify to prevent businesses from hiring unauthorized workers, completes a 700-mile border fence and adds to entry-exit systems to track whether foreign nationals overstay their visas.

Although those border security measures and other pieces of the bill come at a cost, the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the legislation would shrink the deficit by nearly than $900 billion, minus expenses from the Corker-Hoeven amendment.

The bill has vehement opponents in Sens. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), along with 27 others who voted in opposition to the bill. They argue that the bill is "amnesty" . . . .

The opponents have expressed hope that the bill will die in the House, which is a possibility, given Republican opposition there. Lee said earlier Thursday on the Senate floor that the legislation is doomed to fail anyway, resigned that it would pass in the upper chamber.

"If this bill passes today, it will be all but relegated to the ash heap of history, as the House appears willing to tackle immigration reform the right way," Lee said ahead of the vote. "The sponsors of this bill had the best of intentions, but in my opinion, intentions aren’t enough."

A column in The Daily Beast suggests what will come now in the House: race baiting and the demonizing of immigrants and minorities in general, things that today's overtly racist GOP does best.   Here are column excerpts:

The situation is this. The immigration reform bill passed the Senate yesterday. It will now go to the House. A few weeks ago, as I read things, there were occasional and tepid signals that the House would not take up the Senate bill. Now, by contrast, those signals are frequent and full-throated. For example, yesterday, Peter Roskam, a deputy GOP whip in the House, said this: “It is a pipe dream to think that [the Senate] bill is going to go to the floor and be voted on. The House is going to move through in a more deliberative process.”

“Deliberative process” probably means, in this case, killing the legislation. House conservatives, National Journal reports, are increasingly bullish on the idea that they may be able to persuade John Boehner to drop the whole thing.

Phyllis Schlafly and talk-radio opponents of the bill like Laura Ingraham have been saying for a while now that the party doesn’t need Latino votes, it just needs to build up the white vote. 

And now, they have the social science to prove it, or the “social science” to “prove” it. Sean Trende, the conservative movement’s heavily-asterisked answer to Nate Silver (that is to say, Silver got everything right, and Trende got everything wrong), came out with an analysis this week headlined, “Does GOP Have to Pass Immigration Reform?,” showing that by golly no, it doesn’t.

Somehow or another, under Trende’s “racial polarization scenario,” it’ll be 2044 before the Democrats again capture 270 electoral votes. Thus is the heat of Schlafly’s rhetoric cooled and given fresh substance via the dispassionate tools of statistics.

These Republicans and the people they represent—that is, the sliver of people they care about representing—don’t want any outreach. They almost certainly won’t let a path to citizenship get through the House. And they’ll attack minorities in other ways, too.

And here’s the worst part of this story. If the House Republicans kill immigration reform, and Republican parties across the South double down to keep blacks from voting, then they really will need to jack up the white vote—and especially the old white vote—in a huge way to be competitive in 2016 and beyond. Well, they’re not going to do that by mailing out Lawrence Welk CDs. They’re going to run heavily divisive and racialized campaigns, worse than we’ve ever seen out of Nixon or anyone. Their only hope of victory will be to make a prophet of Trende—that is, reduce the Democrats’ share of the white vote to something in the mid- to low-30 percent range. That probably can’t happen, but there’s only one way it might. Run the most racially inflamed campaign imaginable.

That’s the near-term future we’re staring at. We can take satisfaction in the fact that it’s bad for them, but unfortunately, it’s not so good for the country.

The New York Times Savages NOM

In an amazing main page editorial the New York Times takes the National Organization for Marriage ("NOM") to task for its previously secret race baiting and minority trashing strategy in its quest to make gays a despised and denigrated minority. The editorial clearly infers that NOM is like a swarm of rats or cockroaches that scurry away when a bright light is turned on. Yes, it's strong stuff, but there is absolutely nothing Christian in NOM's agenda. Indeed, the organizations is a prime example of why those espousing no religious affiliation are the fastest growing segment of the American population. Who with a shred of moral decency would want to be affiliated with such foul modern day Pharisees? The editorial also calls on Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich to renounce their signing of NOM's marriage pledge and strive to distance themselves from NOM's toxic and hateful agenda. Here are some editorial highlights:

When a light is shined into the dark corners of American politics, it’s never pleasant to see what scurries away. Last week, a federal judge in Maine unsealed memos from the National Organization for Marriage, one of the most prominent groups fighting against same-sex marriage.

The group uses its designation as a social welfare organization to avoid federal disclosure, but the memos dispel any notion that the claim has any legitimacy. National Organization for Marriage is a political group, through and through.

The documents brag about its “crucial” role in passage of Proposition 8, California’s ban on same-sex marriage that was overturned by a federal appeals court. They describe the group’s use of “robo-calls” to scare residents in different states away from supporting marriage equality. They talk of a plan to “expose Obama as a social radical,” but the most appalling portions deal with the group’s racially and ethnically divisive strategies.

“The strategic goal of the project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks — two key Democratic constituencies,” says one memo.

Another stated aim is to manipulate Hispanic voters by making the exclusion of gay people from marriage “a key badge of Latino identity.”

These are not the musings of a marginalized group. The day after the memos became public, National Organization for Marriage’s co-founder and chairman emeritus, Robert George, was appointed by John Boehner, the Republican House speaker, to a United States commission focused on addressing religious intolerance and extremism around the globe.

Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich have publicly aligned themselves with the group and signed its pledge to work aggressively from the White House against same-sex marriage. Now that the group’s poisonous political approach is out in the open, Mr. Romney and the others should be racing to make clear their disapproval.

NOM truly makes Christianity something ugly and nasty.

When Will the GOP Condemn Its Extremists?

What with the "birther" insanity still going full tilt - even as the parade of alleged Obama foreign birth certificates all go down in flames as forgeries as shown here and here - I admit I find some humor in the fact that the Republican Party is reaping some of the unhinged seeds it deliberately sowed in its shameless, win at all cost quest to remain in power. Sometimes it is better to lose power than to sacrifice all principal and fraternize with lunatics - a concept the GOP leadership should have contemplated before it drove most thinking and rational people from the Party. E.J. Dionne has a column that looks at the GOP's self-inflicted wounds and raises the question of when, if ever, will the true nut case within the Party be condemned? Personally, I suspect part of the dilemma now is that if the crazies are driven from the Party there will be virtually almost no one left. Here are some column highlights:

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[T]he surveys show Republicans now leading in this year's two major governor's races, in Virginia and New Jersey. There's just one problem: The country still doesn't like Republicans.

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A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll last week captured the public's mixed verdict. The headlines focused on growing doubts about Obama's health-care plan and the drop in his approval rating, from 60 percent in February to 53 percent now. But the same poll found that while Democrats as a party had a net positive rating of five points (42 percent positive to 37 percent negative), the GOP faced a 13-point deficit. Only 28 percent rated the Republicans positively; 41 percent rated them negatively.

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Perhaps this has something to do with how few positive things Republicans have to say. As a result, the party is being defined by extremist voices who have faced little push-back from its leaders. The extremists include the "birthers" who, against all evidence, insist that Obama was not born in the United States and thus is ineligible to be president. These guys are so out there that party leaders and conservative commentators have started to disown them.

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Race-baiting is no longer off-limits on some of the right-wing talk shows. Fox News's Glenn Beck, for example, declared that Obama "has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture." . . . . Rush Limbaugh was far less subtle when her comment first surfaced. "How do you get promoted in a Barack Obama administration?" he asked. "By hating white people -- or even saying you do, or that they're not good or put 'em down, whatever."

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The harshness of the rhetorical salvos is feeding worries among some Republicans that the GOP is increasingly perceived as a right-wing, Southern regional party. . . . to take advantage of the opportunities that might come their way, Republicans will have to make themselves an acceptable alternative. They have not done this yet. Facing down extremism and breaking out of the party's regional enclave would be good places to start.

The Race Card

Eugene Robinson's column in today's Washington Post takes looks headon at the fairly blatant race baiting that has become an increasingly significant tactic of team Hillary Clinton. While anyone not suffering from significant delusions has more or less figured out that Hillary's gig is up, the Democratic Party as a whole should be raising Hell with this racist nastiness that started with Bill Clinton down in South Carolina. As a recent article in the Newport News Daily Press quoted from below indicates, the GOP in Virginia is salivating at the opening the anti-black rhetoric coming from team Clinton may give to the Repubicans if Obama's nomination is hijacked somehow.

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Yes, it is true that some white Americans are racists and will not vote for a black man - or in Obama's case a half black man. But no major candidate or political party at this late date should be engaged in these gutter tactics. I truly believe that until this country puts racial bias behind it, we are never going to achieve a just society or reach are full potential as a nation. A successful Obama presidency would cut race baiters - both black and white - off at the knees. Moreover, it would help set the stage where never again could one's skin color be used as an excuse by non-achievers or a penalty against those with merit. I believe of in that kind of America. Hopefully, the coming campaign through to November will not sicken me by the baseness of what Hillary and the GOP may attempt to use to divide the citizenry. Here are highlights from Robinson's column:

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From the beginning, Hillary Clinton has campaigned as if the Democratic nomination were hers by divine right. That's why she is falling short -- and that's why she should be persuaded to quit now, rather than later, before her majestic sense of entitlement splits the party along racial lines.
If that sounds harsh, look at the argument she made Wednesday, in an interview with USA Today, as to why she should be the nominee instead of Barack Obama. She cited an Associated Press article "that found how Senator Obama's support . . . among working, hardworking Americans, white Americans, is weakening again. I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on."

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As a statement of fact, that's debatable at best. As a rationale for why Democratic Party superdelegates should pick her over Obama, it's a slap in the face to the party's most loyal constituency -- African Americans -- and a repudiation of principles the party claims to stand for. Here's what she's really saying to party leaders: There's no way that white people are going to vote for the black guy. Come November, you'll be sorry. How silly of me. I thought the Democratic Party believed in a colorblind America.

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Let's examine those premises. These are white Democrats we're talking about, voters who generally share the party's philosophy. So why would these Democrats refuse to vote for a nominee running on Democratic principles against a self-described conservative Republican? The answer, which Clinton implies but doesn't quite come out and say, is that Obama is black -- and that white people who are not wealthy are irredeemably racist.

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The other notion -- that Clinton could position herself as some kind of Great White Hope and still expect African American voters to give her their enthusiastic support in the fall -- is just nuts. . . Only in Camp Clinton does anyone believe that his supporters will be happy if party leaders tell him, in effect, "Nice job, kid, but we can't give you the nomination because, well, you're black. White people might not like that." At some level, she seems to believe the nomination is hers. Somebody had better tell her the truth before she burns the house down.

Here's what Virginia balcks are saying (and Virginia is a state I believe Obama will carry if he's the nominee) per the Daily Press:

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The 2008 presidential campaign is turning out to be a pivotal moment for black Republicans in Hampton Roads. On the one hand, a number of black political leaders previously aligned with the GOP say they will support Democrat Barack Obama should he win the nomination. His candidacy, they say, represents a "chance of a lifetime" for a black to compete for the nation's highest office. On the other hand, should Hillary Clinton win the Democratic nomination, many say it would be a rare opportunity to recruit disillusioned black voters who have been Democratic loyalists since the 1960s, when lifelong Republican Martin Luther King Sr. pushed nationwide black support toward John F. Kennedy.

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"If Barack Obama is not the nominee, the good thing is that black folks will finally realize that the Democrats don't love them," says Quash, of Suffolk. "I have always told black folks that the Democrats are far more racist, far more elitist, far more sexist and far more anti-Christian than the Republicans ever were."

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Don Scoggins, president of the Washington-based Republicans for Black Empowerment, agrees that if Obama loses the nomination, "that will be the best opportunity" to recruit blacks. Scoggins concedes, however, that as long as Obama is in the race, he will get lots of support from black Republicans. . . . At least two local black leaders usually associated with the Republican Party have shed the label; others are re-examining their party affiliation.Newport News Sheriff Gabriel Morgan formally resigned from the party about a month ago.

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Of course, none of this means anything to Hillary since it's all about her and her sense of entitlement.

Clinton Playing The Race Card Again? If So, She Is NOT Worthy to Be President

Both Daily Kos (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/3/3/14550/75567/858/467989) and America Blog (http://www.americablog.com/2008/03/why-is-obamas-skin-blacker-than-normal.html) are reporting what, if true, has to be the lowest and nastiest stunt used by Hillary's campaign yet: ads that suggest they were intentionally darkened so as to show Barack Obama's skin significantly darker than it has ever appeared in any debate and other video footage I have seen. Having seen Obama in person, I can attest that the skin tone in the new Clinton ad is MUCH darker than his skin in real life. The Clintons have shown that they have utterly NO SHAME other occasions, so it is unfortunately all too easy to assume that once again they are showing themselves to be utter dirt bags. If this stunt is true, obviously, Hillary thinks black voters are so stupid they will vote for her in November even after she has resorted to disgusting tactics like this to try to win the primary. I'm truly beginning to believe she has Karl Rove secretly on her payroll. This stunt has made her even more unelectable against McCain. Here are highlights from Kos:

Call me crazy, but it certainly appears to me that Sen. Obama's skin tone is significantly darker in the Clinton campaign commercial. Watch it again and see if you agree. Now, as most of us know, one of the ways in which to demonize a person of color is to make them appear darker than they are. By this twisted logic, somehow being more black makes you more threatening. One of the first times I distinctly recall this issue being brought to the forefront was the Time Magazine cover picture of O.J. Simpson after his arrest. Time was heavily criticized for darkening the shade of Simpson's skin in the cover photograph. Whether intentional or not, the message was that a darker skinned Mr. Simpson somehow was more threatening or frightening than a lighter skinned Juice. Notwithstanding the ridiculousness of this notion, it attempts to exploit stereotypes concerning race--specifically, to dredge up fear of black men. IF the Clinton campaign has deliberately doctored the footage of Sen. Obama to exploit racist fears, she should be banished from American political life--along with anyone else involved.

Here are John Aravosis' remarks:

I went and got the original footage from the Clinton ad, and then compared it to 3 different video clips of the same debate from 3 different sources. I did this so as to take into account any editing, or quality issues, that might have accounted for Obama having darker skin in any particular video. None of the 3 video sources I found showed Obama nearly as black as the Hillary ad does. Click the image above to see a larger version. Look at his lips. Look at his eyebrows. Look at how the red MSNBC background has turned more purple. Clearly the image was darkened. The question is "why."

It just keeps happening again and again and again. The Clintons keeps doing things, saying things, that sound awfully racist. And we're to believe that this, the - what? 8th, 10th time? - this has happened is again just a coincidence. The first half a dozen times you launch seemingly racist attacks on your black opponent, maybe - maybe - we can write it off as "boy you're really dumb not to get it." But having a seemingly-racist attack from the Clinton folks on Obama every single week, after a while, you don't get to play the "I had no idea!" card anymore. After that many times, you're race-baiting. You're using racism to win. And you're destroying your legacy and your husband's. Enough already.

Barack Obama's Youthful Drug Use

As has been widely reported, a now unemployed campaign adviser for Hillary Clinton floated a balloon concerning Barack Obama's admitted use of drugs in his late teen years. Yes, it is true that the GOP candidate whoever he may be will no doubt try to depict Obama - should he be the Democrat nominee - as what the typical GOP white voter views blacks as being like anyway: drug users, criminals, welfare cheats and low life types in general. The GOP base is not mostly lily white without good reason. Back when Doug Wilder ran for and was successfully elected Governor of Virginia, that under current was discernible. It will be even worse in 2008. Of course, Christian Right base that now controls the GOP not only dislikes gays, but Hispanics, Catholics (unless they are so far right that they want the Latin mass returned church wide), Jews (except for their role in bringing about Armageddon), and basically everyone who is not a white evangelical.

Obama will need to face up to this situation should he win the nomination and be prepared to address the issue head on. At the same time, many voters will be utterly turned off by this probable GOP tactic, not the least black voters. At the same time, Hillary needs to be prepared to face down ever imaginable skeleton that will be dredged up by the GOP from Bill Clinton's years in office should she be the Democrat nominee. Regardless of who is the nominee, expect the GOP to run a mean, nasty campaign with race baiting, gay bashing, anti-immigrant nativism, etc. That is standard operating procedure for the Christianists: wear your religion on your sleeve and then utterly ignore the principles of that claimed faith which would bar such dishonest and hate-filled statements and actions.

As for the leak from Hillary's campaign, I view it as just plain stupid. Thankfully, the campaign staffer was fired. Hopefully, others on Hilliary's campaign staff took notice. For many people - myself included - one of her big hurdles is convincing them that she is not a female "Slick Willie" and that she has some standards of fair play. This stunt did not help win them over. Here are highlights from a New York Times article that looks at this issue among others (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/16/us/politics/16obama.html?pagewanted=2&hp):

An adviser to Mrs. Clinton’s campaign suggested this week that Mr. Obama’s admission of drug use as a young man could weaken his candidacy should he win the general election. The Clinton campaign repudiated the remarks, Mrs. Clinton apologized and the adviser resigned, but she and her aides have kept the issue alive by referring to it publicly a number of times in what appeared to be an effort to drive up negative views of his character and raise doubts about his ability to weather a general election.

In an interview, Mr. Obama responded that voters would ultimately be turned off by such attacks on him, particularly about his admission more than a decade ago that he used marijuana and cocaine in his youth. “My past and my character seemed to be fine when I was 20 points down,” Mr. Obama said. “Those kinds of tactics or strategies, I think, are emblematic of an old politics. It’s the exactly the kind of politics that the American people are tired of.”

As he reaches out to those voters, Mr. Obama implores upon them a heavy sense of responsibility. At the same time, though, he seemed to unwittingly raise expectations for his own campaign here, particularly if he doesn’t win in Iowa and seeks to move on to the Feb. 5 contests for a second chance. “You in Iowa have this extraordinary privilege of choosing who the next president of the United States is going to be,” Mr. Obama told an audience at the Lakeside Ballroom in Guttenberg, a town that overlooks the Mississippi River. “Whoever wins this caucus is likely to win the nomination and is likely to win the presidency.”