The Changing South May Play to Obama's Advantage

While Virginia is slowly moving into the 20th century - despite the kicking and screaming of the GOP and the Christian Taliban which holds that party's reins - there is still much that needs to be done to move the state into the 21st Century. But as I noted, things ARE changing, albeit not at the pace many thinking and rational citizens would prefer. Something similar is happening in other southern states and the trend seems to be causing the GOP consternation. Never mind that the GOP has consciously embraced ignorance, intolerance, and bigotry based on race and sexual orientation. The Washington Post looks at this development. Here are some brief highlights:
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The dynamics in North Carolina that worry Republicans — a booming minority population, an influx of more moderate voters and a changing set of priorities — are on display across other parts of the South as well, most notably in Virginia and Florida, where Obama also won in 2008.
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This time around, his campaign hopes to make a play for Georgia and Texas, seeing in those states the same sorts of economic and cultural changes as elsewhere in the South. An Obama victory in either would be a long shot, but a win in any of those Southern states would make it difficult for Republicans to capture the presidency.
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In North Carolina, the changing nature of the state is on display regularly. At a recent forum on education, executives with drug maker GlaxoSmithKline and IBM, which have big presences in the Raleigh area’s Research Triangle Park, pleaded with Gov. Beverly Perdue (D) to oppose service cuts proposed by a new GOP majority in the state legislature. In rural Wilson, 40 miles east of Raleigh, business and civic leaders seem to reflect the changing values and priorities of voters.
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Many Republicans worry that their party hasn’t entirely grasped the evolving nature of the South. To them, that means fully giving up on what was known as the “Southern strategy,” an approach to winning elections based largely on appeals to rural whites on cultural touchstones such as abortion and race.
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“This is no longer only the party of Jesse Helms,” said Paul Shumaker, a GOP strategist based in Raleigh who advises, among others, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.). “I tell my clients, and I tell others: ‘You need to quit looking through the rearview mirror, and you need to start looking through the windshield.’ ”
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Perhaps most conspicuous of all, Obama’s team chose Charlotte to host the party’s convention next year. In 2008, Obama transformed the Democratic National Convention in Denver into a massive recruitment center that helped push him to victory in Colorado. Campaign strategists expect a repeat in Charlotte. “It will be 2008 on steroids,” said Scott Falmlen, a Democratic consultant in Raleigh
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Not all Republicans are ready to abandon the “Southern strategy,” a game plan that Helms famously used to great effect as recently as 1990 with a TV ad stoking white resentment over affirmative action. . . . But if those tactics still work in localized legislative races — as it is widely presumed they do — there is a growing belief that they are less effective statewide. Hayes said the GOP plans unprecedented outreach to blacks, Latinos and young voters.
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Yet Republicans continue to give Democrats material to portray the GOP as out of step. In Raleigh, the Republican-controlled General Assembly is considering bills that would curtail early voting and voter registration and require a photo identification to cast a ballot. Republican House Speaker Thom Tillis said the measures are intended to reduce voter fraud or costs, but Democrats say they are really about blocking young and minority voters.

A Death Wish On the Part of the New York Times

In the past, I have often read and quoted from the New York Times. That is until now. Now, the New York Times is requiring that one to pay for some form of subscription in order to view articles and columns, etc. The last time the Times tried this approach it was an abysmal failure. People simply went to different news sources and the Times ultimately relented. It will be interesting to see how things play out this time. I refuse to pay for a subscription and like many others will simply rely on other news outlets until such time as the Times comes to its senses.
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I hope advertisers realize that their potential number of page views will be plummeting and demand a corresponding adjustment in the Times' advertising rates. Until the Times gets a reality check, readers will not be seeing much in the way of Times stories on the blog.
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Virginian Pilot: Out in the Park Has New Home in Norfolk

Leave it to the Virginian Pilot to come up with a half ass headline about "Out in the Park's" move this year ti Norfolk's Town Point Park next Sunday. I tend to not read the Pilot with any degree of seriousness because quality, objective reporting is typically an unknown concept for Norfolk's only newspaper which is run more as a framework for running ad print that for any serious reporting of the news. In any event, the Pilot has a piece on next Sunday's event which I, the boyfriend and many others have helped underwrite. We are all praying for good weather and a great turn out. So far the Pilot coverage has not attracted any foul, wingnut commentary. Here are story highlights:
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The region's annual Out in the Park event is on the move this year - from Chesapeake to Norfolk. The 23rd annual celebration of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender culture will move on Sunday to Norfolk's Town Point Park from Chesapeake City Park, where it's been held the past five years. It previously was held at Mount Trashmore in Virginia Beach and Lakewood Park in Norfolk.
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Last year the event attracted 8,000 people, based on estimates by Chesapeake park rangers. This year, organizers anticipate 10,000, Hermansen-Parker said, because of
the centrality of Town Point Park and increased publicity from fundraisers and other events. Also, he said, Norfolk's park is known for festivals, and downtown's parking garages provide more options than the Chesapeake location.
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Hampton Roads Pride has raised about $70,000 - a record for the annual event - in sponsorships and in-kind donations to pay for security, entertainment and other expenses, board member Patrick Mullins said. Local businesses - such as Decorum Furniture, which donated $5,000 - have been a backbone of the event's financial support, Mullins said.
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The event's lineup includes local and national acts such as Kempsville High graduate DJ Lady Miss Kier of Deee-Lite and Suzanne Westenhoefer, one of the first openly gay comedians to appear on television. Instead of the usual Pride Parade, there will be a Pride Boat Parade on the Elizabeth River. So far, 20 vessels plan to dock along the park's marina edge. Businesses and vendors in the gay community also will be on display.
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City spokesman Bob Batcher said Norfolk is a vibrant community, and the Hampton Roads Pride festival is a good example of that diversity.

Monday Male Beauty

Obama's Secret Weapon in Florida: Rick Scott

Politico has a story on the way in which incumbent Florida Governor Rick Scott - a certifiable loon in my view - may well be a key for Obama carrying Florida in 2012. Scott seems to be doing all he can to alienate everyone other than the most extreme Kool-Aid drinkers and so far has racked up huge negatives. Indeed, he's probably the most unpopular governor in the nation. Once again, his election was a result of the Tea Party/Christianist Frankenstein monster of the GOP's own creation. As readers know, I am hardly a huge Obama fan. On the other hand, I worry about what kind of nutcase the GOP may nominate to challenge Obama in 2012. Hence, the entertainment factor in seeing a darling of the ultra far right poisoning the political waters. Here are some highlights from Politico's story:
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Six months ago, in the wake of the wipe-out midterm elections, moderate Florida Sen. Bill Nelson privately vented that President Barack Obama, weighed down by his health reform effort and muddled messaging, was “toxic” for Democrats back home.
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What’s changed? The killing of Osama bin Laden, slow but demonstrable improvements to the foreclosure-ravaged economy, a cooling of tea party passions and the toxic nature of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s Medicare overhaul in a state with one of the largest populations over the age of 55 in the nation — all are factors in Obama’s turnaround.
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But Obama’s biggest asset in a critical swing state . . . . might be Rick Scott, the wildly unpopular Republican governor Democrats are casting as Lex Luthor to Obama’s Clark Kent.

Democrats say Scott, a stern, angular, unvarnished former health insurance executive, is an easily caricatured embodiment of conservative excess and tea party overreach. And he will likely be Obama’s prime target in Florida, no matter who the Republican presidential nominee is, . . .
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A Quinnipiac University poll last week showed his approval rating at 29 percent and his disapproval rating at 57 percent — by far the lowest approval rating of any governor in the country. “The double whammy for any Republican running in Florida is Rick Scott and Medicare,” said Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the south Florida congresswoman who was chosen for her new job, in part, to be Obama’s most visible surrogate in the nation’s biggest swing state.
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Almost single-handedly, he’s managed to energize a Democratic base demoralized by last year’s midterms. The party’s surprising victories in the Tampa and Jacksonville mayor’s races this spring were fueled by anti-Scott fervor, Democratic strategists say. Scott has picked fights with almost everybody: reporters, liberals, Republicans, but especially with the Obama administration, rejecting $2.4 billion for a high-speed rail link between Tampa and Orlando and $1 billion to implement the health reform law — all while positioning himself at the vanguard of the state-level anti-Obama movement.
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But their [Obama's] biggest long-term task is wooing Hispanics, especially if Rubio enters the race. At the moment, Democrats can take consolation in two facts: Rubio has said he’s not interested in being anybody’s No. 2 and Hispanic support for Obama in the state in 2008 — about 57 percent — was nearly identical to Rubio’s performance among Latinos in 2010. “Marco’s a threat, no doubt,” said veteran Florida pollster Dave Beattie. “But Obama does about as well among Hispanics [as] Rubio does.”

Will Social Conservatives Make Iowa Irrelevant?

From my waning days in the GOP as the extremists of the Christian Right slowly increased their vice grip on the party, I know how skewed the nomination process has become. In Virginia, organizations like The Family Foundation utilize a network of far right churches to mobilize voters for primary contests. These zombie like voters - who would gladly take the country back in time as they push for a defacto theocracy - then go to the polls and shift the outcome in favor of extremist candidates. The same cancer infects the primary process on other states with Iowa being one of them. The result is that now, some in the GOP think Iowa should be largely ignored since its primary structure is so dominated by the Christian Taliban that a nominee popular with that segment of the electorate may well prove unelectable elsewhere. As I've noted before, the GOP in its quest for short term expediency has created a Frankenstein monster. The Washington Post looks at the move by some to relegate Iowa to irrelevance because the extremists in that state hold too much sway. Here are some highlights:
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Iowa — Politically speaking, this state is in something of an existential crisis. For the past nine presidential elections, Iowa has reveled in the attention it gets with its position at the front of the presidential nominating contest. This time around, the question is not just who will win the Iowa caucuses but also whether it will matter.
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When the rest of the country is focusing on the economy, will Republicans in other states take their lead from the outcome of an eccentric process that has been dominated by social conservatives?
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Some of the leading presidential contenders, who have invested little in the state so far, appear to be hoping that the answer is not all that much — increasing the anxiety that Iowa Republicans feel about their place in the political firmament.
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The uncomfortable fact for Iowa Republicans is that their cherished caucuses have rarely been much of a launching pad. Since the party held its first one to pick a president in 1976, there have been only two instances in which a winner who was not an incumbent has gone on to take the GOP nomination. And only one of those, George W. Bush in 2000, won the White House.
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In a recent column for the New Hampshire Union Leader that was reprinted in the Des Moines Register, former New Hampshire GOP chairman Fergus Cullen wrote that important issues don’t get debated in Iowa, because “three quarters of the audience wears tinfoil hats.”
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“Iowa Republicans didn’t set out to marginalize themselves, but it’s happened — to New Hampshire’s benefit,” Cullen added. “With several major candidates likely to bypass Iowa, and the odds rising that Iowa’s skewed caucus electorate could support candidates with limited general election appeal, the likelihood of New Hampshire being called upon to make a correction” increases.
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Some Romney supporters in Iowa say they would understand if he turns elsewhere. . . . I think he’s got a good chance of beating Obama,” he added, “but the problem here is to win in Iowa you’ve got to go too far to the right, and it will hurt him in the national election.” The overall direction of Republican politics in Iowa has swung rightward on social issues, even since the last presidential election.
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Obviously, it would be great fun to see Iowa's role in the nomination process marginalized because of the growing toxicity of the Christian Right's influence. It could help the saner members of the GOP to make a more concerted effort to reclaim the party from the crazies and extremists.

Confessions of A Former Southern Baptist, Liberty University Trained Pastor

I've often described the Christian Taliban in America as a clear and present danger to the rule of law and the continued governance of the nation under the U. S. Constitution. The Christiaists' goal is a theocracy with themselves in charge and where everyone else must be stomped under the Christianinists jackboot. Thus, it is interesting to hear a former Southern Baptist pastor who was trained at Jerry Falwell's lunatic Liberty University echo the sentiment. After being expelled from ministry for getting a divorce, Jason Childs had a come to Jesus moment and he came to see that the version of Jesus being peddled by Falwell, et al, is a pretty foul and nasty piece of work. Unfortunately, too few in the media are brave enough to call the Christianists out for what they are. He has a piece at AlterNet that looks at his conversion story. Here are highlights:
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I was a Liberty University-trained evangelical pastor. I was sure that I was right and that every other person not of my faith was going to burn in hell forever. I was taught that we as Christians should take this nation back, only to find out later that we never had it to begin with.
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After five years of teaching this homophobic, divisive message that has hurt so many millions of people in our world, I went through a divorce. The Southern Baptist Convention will not let you remain in the ministry after a divorce, so I had to think of something else to do with my life.
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I did see America, and the country I saw was very different from the one I was taught about by Jerry Falwell and my mentors at Florida Bible College. What I found was that this nation is filled with people from all walks of life, and from every different culture. I met thousands of people, from the beautiful forests of Washington state to the bayous of Louisiana. I found that these folks are not the wicked sinners I was taught about.
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I want you to know that the fundamentalist political movement is the beginning of a cultural revolution that will take our nation to a very dark place. You have to understand that this has been methodically planned and is being carried out with the utmost vigilance. In accordance with their worldview, my old friends do not in the least care about what you think. They are against democracy, and they are seeking to end the rule of the majority in our great country.
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They truly believe that if you have not been “saved,” you are living under a curse and are incapable of knowing what is best and that because of this you should be ruled over.
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While we watch the revolutions across the Middle East, we are seeing a great truth: that people have within them the natural desire to be free. It is so sad that as the people of the world are fighting for freedom, we here in the United States are going in the opposite direction. The far right, under the control of fundamentalists, is declaring an all-out war on human progress.
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As has been the case with religious zealots over the centuries, they are a root cause of human misery and have the blood of countless millions on their hands. They need to be stopped and identified for their treasonous behavior. The ridiculous deference and special rights given to the Christian Right needs to end now. Today we honor those who gave their lives for the United States. We cannot stand by while others engage in what can only be described as sedition against the U. S. Constitution.

Sunday Male Beauty

Sarah Palin: Motorcycle Rides and Unbridled Lunacy

I'd prefer to try to pretend that Sarah Palin doesn't exist. TYo me, she embodies a combination of ignorance, unbridled ambition, hubris and egomania. Frank;y, I do nor understand how anyone sentient can view her as a serious candidate for anything above dog catcher - and that's probably stretching it. Were she ever to receive the GOP nomination, it would be a signal that the end of the nation was at hand and that thinking, rational people need to start fleeing the USA as if it were a reincarnation of the Titanic on the night of April 14/15, 1912. While Palin and her handlers can clearly manipulate the most ignorant and/or mentally unbalanced portions of the GOP base, one would think that there would be someone left in the GOP to stop the inmates from taking over the insane asylum. Huffington Post looks at Palin's weekend stunt to apparently re=energize her prospects as serious GOP candidate.
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Sarah Palin rumbled through Washington on the back of a Harley as she and her family began an East Coast tour Sunday that renewed speculation the former Alaska governor would join the still unsettled Republican presidential contest.
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Wearing a black leather jacket and surrounded by a throng of cheering fans, Palin and family members jumped on bikes and joined thousands of other motorcyclists on the Memorial Day weekend ride from the Pentagon to the Vietnam Veterans' memorial.
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Palin remains one of the biggest questions for Republicans, who have not yet settled on a frontrunner to challenge President Barack Obama's re-election. While many of Palin's likely rivals have worked to build campaign organizations in early nominating states such as Iowa or New Hampshire, Palin has taken no concrete steps to begin a presidential campaign.
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Given Palin's star power, she might be able to wait longer than others. But clock is ticking, the establishment isn't happy with its options and one of the earliest tests of campaign infrastructure, the straw poll in Ames, Iowa, is scheduled for August.
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Palin showed no hints she would join the field on Sunday although she again demonstrated her ability to build excitement and practice person-to-person, retail politics.
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On the windshield of Palin's bike: a likeness of President George W. Bush. Next to it, the words "Miss Me?"

Mary Hibben Phelps Isachsen - A Tribute to a great Lady

The boyfriend and I are back from Washington, D.C., and I wanted to continue my tribute to my late Aunt who died on Friday. She was a great lady and a lot of fun. She played a huge role in my childhood and she will be forever etched in my memory and in my heart. Ironically, her late husband grew up at the same orphanage as the one where my father and his siblings spent their childhoods - his widowed mother was a house mother at one of the dormitories. It was through my father that my uncle and aunt met. In her younger years she was a stunning beauty and served as a Wave in World War II. I will miss her so deeply. Here's a portion of her obituary from the Troy New York newspaper that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of her amazing life :

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Mary Hibben Phelps Isachsen, 88, of Sixteenth Street, died on Friday, May 27, 2011 at St. Mary's Hospital. Born in Panama on May 3, 1923, she was the daughter of the late Bruce and Azelie Phelps and beloved wife of Dr. Nils O. Isachsen who died May 6, 2009. They were married for 60 years.
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Mary was a graduate of Marymount Academy and Syracuse University. She was a veteran of the U.S. Navy, serving as a nurse during World War II. Mary was a Mico Biologist with St. Mary's Hospital in Troy for over 35 years. She loved sailing and gardening.
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Survivors include a son Bruce Isachsen (Jennifer) of Ballston Spa, a daughter Sara Ann Hines (Tom) of Lansingburgh, four grandsons Eric Hines (Kimberly) of North Carolina, Justin Hines of Lansingburgh, Ryan Isachsen (Cassi) and Evan Isachsen of Ballston Spa, a granddaughter Caitlin Isachsen of Ballson Spa, a sister Ann Lopushinsky and several nieces and nephews. Mary is predeceased by a sister Marion Hamar.
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I truly feel that an era is passing. Only my aunt in Syracuse remains from that generation. I know that life gores on, but it is so hard to see wonderful individuals pass on. Again, my condolences to my cousins. They are traveling down a road all too familiar to me and my siblings.