Last night I had a few minutes to catch up with an old friend. She’s a stay-at-home mom who went back to work as a Special Ed teacher a few years ago. We don’t talk politics much — she had told me she was “pretty conservative” and a Republican a few years back, but she did vote for Obama in 2008. After she’d detailed some of the hassles that are coming down the road for teachers, even in relatively liberal New York, and her hopes that the teachers’ union would be able to push back on some of the more ridiculous stuff, I asked her if she was still a Republican. She said she was still registered as one, but “What was I thinking?” She was clearly done with the Republican Party, and I was a bit surprised, because she is moderate-to-conservative and a good fit for New York’s Republican party. But she’s also a good, and proud, teacher, and you can’t fuck with people’s livelihood and pride and expect any loyalty in return.
Sometimes I read or watch things like Huntsman’s performance yesterday and think that a candidate like him has a chance to galvanize moderate Republicans, and inspire them to take back their party. When I have thoughts like that in the future, I’m going to remember my friend, and realize that most of Huntsman’s potential audience has already left the GOP and has no intention of coming back.
Baud
Moderates almost by definition don’t get galvanized and take back parties. At best they are there to pick up the pieces after the radicals flame out.
cathyx
If she’s moderate to conservative, she’s a perfect fit for the democratic party now.
Baud
@cathyx: Let’s hope there are many others like her. We could use all the help we can get in 2012.
rikryah
my question is…WTF was she a Republican in the first place?
oh right, she thought that as the GOP demonized public employees, and have been carrying on their assault on public education for 20 years, that they weren’t talking about HER.
uh huh
Starfish
Educational video about the Republican candidates.
arguingwithsignposts
Sadly, there are a good number of neoliberals like Matt Yglesias who seem perfectly content to push the GOP line on teachers as entitled fat cats living high feeding off the public trough.
Keith G
I agree. And I am still distressed (and depressed) that even though we can point to a future that in theory is better, there is so much damage being done now that I can only wonder if future promise can ever be fulfilled.
Yes the GOP is slitting it’s own wrist, but it still shares the drivers seat as it bleeds all over the rest of us.
mistermix
@rikryah: In New York State the Republican party was generally a supporter of unions, and their candidates garnered many union endorsements, up until the past few years.
Linnaeus
@rikryah:
Nail, meet hammer. I’ve seen many instances of a conservative person coming to the realization that they’re no exception to the folks that other conservatives like to demonize. Interesting to see how their perspective changes then. Which is better than no change at all, to be fair.
jwest
So one Obama voter who is starting to realize that teachers might be held accountable for results in exchange for pay and benefits is not planning to vote Republican.
That’s a good start. Like Kay, if you have a rally and provide a meal, you might get 50 people to attend.
As I’ve brought up previously, you’re time might be better spent deciding who is going to be the Democrat candidate for president in preparation for Obama’s announcement that he’s decided not to seek a second term.
HRA
You are absolutely right about Huntsman. It’s way too late to change my mind (I left the Republican party in 2009) and too late for Huntsman or any other moderate candidate to change the climate of the Republican party. They allowed the clowns to run amok and they keep coming out (read Perry).
Time to go back to work.
schlemizel - was Alwhite
@rikryah:
This!
My wife works special ed in an elementary school in Minnesota & I am not allowed to ask teachers who come out as Republican what makes the one when we go to school parties. Last time I did that there was an exchange not unlike what you stated: “OH! I see when the demonize public education and teachers they didn’t mean you so thats alright then.
arguingwithsignposts
@jwest:
So, jwest, when do you plan to hold all those bankers who wrecked the economy “accountable for results”?
Your time might be better spent trying to figure out how to take the engine out of that clown car your team calls a list of presidential hopefuls.
ant
@jwest:
what?
where you hear Obama aint runnin?
schlemizel - was Alwhite
@mistermix:
Thats not unusual. Most NY Republicans are actually Democrats, just like most Texas Democrats would be comfortable in the Republican clan just about anywhere else in the country.
Svensker
@ant:
One of the voices in his head is sayin’ that.
schlemizel - was Alwhite
@jwest:
I’m sure in your dreams that big bad black man won’t haunt you for another 4 years but you still have the problem that any Democrat mentioned as a potential would still make a better President the the orange haired bozos falling out of the Republican clown car.
Larime the Gimp
I really believe that a lot of the assault on teachers has to do with the fact that each generation tends to get progressively more liberal and that this generation coming up now is extremely so. The fight over teachers is really a fight over who gets to educate the future, and they know that unless they win that battle their days are numbered.
MattF
There’s another effect– from what I’ve seen, ex-Republicans become more liberal as time goes on. They discover 1) that Democrats aren’t actually wild-eyed commies and 2) their views on various subjects are actually to the left of a lot of Democrats. So, welcome to reality.
gene108
I’ve met folks, who voted for Bush, Jr. in 2000, who will never vote for a Republican again, because even though they are devout Christians and generally conservative on social and economic issues, they happen to be part of the reality based community and realize the modern era Republicans are nothing but BS artists.
Tone In DC
The light bulb over folks’ heads is coming on, slowly but surely. Wisconsin has been a BIG help with that, despite the middling coverage.
Also…
____________________________________________________
ant – August 22, 2011 | 9:06 am · Link
@jwest:
what?
where you hear Obama aint runnin?
_________________________________________________
IMHO, folks like west here sometimes make stuff up. Just my $0.02
jwest
Aguingwithsignposts,
You mean all those bankers who supported Obama in 2008?
Ant,
Obama’s ego won’t allow him to go into an election that most assuredly will end in a 40+ state landslide for Republicans. He would rather bow out than join Jimmy Carter in that particular spot in history.
srv
Family reunion with upstate New Yorkers this weekend. All loathed Bill and the carpetbagger, republicans since Nixon probably. Did not have to persuade any of them that their party is full metal loony. They get it.
dpCap
Hey, I used to be Republican. Voted for Bush both times. (Sorry, but I still think Kerry is a Douche and not because of that Swiftboat thing.)
Now I just consider myself an Independent with sympathies toward the Democratic party.
ant
@jwest:
dude, you crazy.
I hate to break it to ya, but, cant nobody else hear them voices.
Baud
@jwest: So Obama has a big ego, but he nonetheless believes that he will lose in a dramatic fashion? I take it your alternative reality is still under construction.
Breezeblock
I officially left the Republican party about 15-20 years ago (by that I mean unregistering as a Republican), though I never voted for a GOP candidate for President in my entire life.
I’ll never go back, as I’m moving more to the left as I get older.
JGabriel
@jwest:
I’m thinking the people who should be held responsible for the poor educational results of recent years would be the ones who keep cutting educational funding.
Who would that be again? Oh, right: REPUBLICANS.
.
Larime the Gimp
I also love how the people that are the most angry at teachers for supposedly failing are the same ones that don’t want to recognize science and would have us teach that The Flintstones was a historical documentary.
Kirbster
I think 2012 is going to be a good election year for Blue Dogs, on the theory that even if they do little good, at least they don’t do much harm, unlike the 2010 crop of radical House Republicans. I’d prefer more liberal candidates, but I’m apparently in the minority.
JGabriel
@jwest:
Bwahahahaha! Heh heh heh heh heh!
Dude, whatever drugs you’re taking, keep’em to yourself. We don’t want that kind of brain damage in the rest of society.
.
jwest
JGabriel,
I’ve heard that poor educational results were the fault of Republicans reducing funding, but I’ve never seen any actual proof that any funding was ever lowered.
Can you point me to a link that shows where a school had to do with less money (without a proportional decrease in students) than it had in the previous year?
Ann B. Nonymous
@jwest: It must be nice to be drunk so early in the morning. And the whole day is yet ahead of you!
Comrade Javamanphil
Watched the interview with Obama on CBS Sunday Morning yesterday when interviewer Anthony Mason “reports” that “when the football team doesn’t work together, it’s the coach that gets fired first.” I.E. Washington dysfunction will cost Obama the Presidency in 2012. Gee, Anthony, is that true when 1/3 of the team is actively throwing each game in order to get the coach fired and has even admitted that is their strategy?
As long as our media continues to report events in such a way, the GOP has a shot in any election. Their strategy is to undermine any legitimacy of government and turn moderately liberal to moderate voters into cynical “both sides do it” voters.
JGabriel
@Kirbster:
Me too. I wish we had a viable center-left party. Instead, all we got are a center-right party (Democrats) and far right extremists / borderline fascists (Republicans).
So Democrats it is.
.
Larime the Gimp
@Kirbster: Neither side can hold a majority for more than one term without a big tent approach that means letting in less than ideal candidates. I don’t like them much, either, but the difference between having blue dogs and having ideological purity is called Speaker Pelosi.
@JGabriel: I don’t even think it’s physically possible in today’s political climate for either side to win 40 or more states. He really is high.
JGabriel
@jwest:
I’d like to introduce you to a new tool called: Google.
I’m sure if you’re really interested in the subject, you can find answers there.
.
Baud
@Comrade Javamanphil: Ha! I’m sure Obama would have to have the power to bench certain players.
Davis X. Machina
@Kirbster:A marginal R House seat is the Blue Dog’ natural habitat — those are the very seats that turned over in the ’06 election one way — thanks, 50 state strategy — and the other way in ’10.
Hal
Take their party back to what? My impression is that moderate Republicans where the same as their more conservative counterparts, but support some right to choice, and are maybe a inclined to support civil unions, and some social programs. Otherwise, I’m not so sure there is that much difference between moderate and conservative Republicans given the fact that at the end of the day, they’ll most likely be pulling the lever for whomever ends up with the nomination.
Davis X. Machina
@Hal: This is certainly Jonathan Bernstein’s take. (On the limited damage Perry’s extremism can be expected to do, if nominated, to his Republican support in the general…)
jwest
JGabriel,
That “Google” thing is amazing. However, it might be more effective for you if you actually click on some of the articles and read them.
Here’s a sample from the first one I read:
“But she added that although the county’s funding to the school system will decrease, total funding for schools from the county, state and federal government will increase next year.
Combined, all state and federal funds for the school system will go up by $26 million, said Marshall Spatz, the school system’s budget director. It is unclear, however, if the council will use that figure during its budget deliberations.”
As I said, you would hard pressed to find a school that has faced any actual cuts. The liberal fantasy that kids would be learning if only mean Republicans didn’t cut funds just doesn’t ring true to most people anymore.
Comrade Mary
Huntsman is NOT a moderate. He has a Republican’s views on economics, approved of Paul Ryan’s plan, and is hard right on abortion (see Little Gren Footballs). If any of these issues matter to you, this should kill your crush on the guy.
Jay C
Well, for whatever reason (and I’m sure the very-clever BJ commentariat can figure it out), when it comes to dealing with teachers’ unions “fuck[ing] with peoples’ livelihood and pride” is de rigeur nowadays for politicians and other Serious People on the Right: whether or not it has much (any) bearing on the “education issues” at hand.
I was reminded of this reading the lead review in this Sunday’s New York Times Book Review (“Class Warfare” by Steven Brill): basically a book-length screed about how the Eeeeevulll teachers’ unions are at the core of each and every problem with American education today (and how corporate-model for-profit charter schools are the universal panacea).
Even the fairly (self-admittedly) sympathetic reviewer had to take a step back and call BS on this simple-minded approach (hell, apparently even Brill had to backtrack in his closing chapter) – but it’s just symptomatic of what passes for issue analysis on the Right these days: loudly and publicly bashing those Designated Enemies is all that matters – dealing with actual “issues” is a distant second. Always.
nominus
@rikryah: Comments like that are a big reason why the Dems haven’t gained as much as they should have: There are a lot of disillusioned moderate conservatives who have had the rug pulled out from under them by the party they used to support, but a lot of Dems treat them with contempt because they were late to the realization instead of welcoming them and getting more voters like them to help beat the neocon wingnuts.
Maybe the Tea Party aren’t the only ones that need lessons in how to compromise. Take advantage of the strange bedfellows instead of mocking them.
Larime the Gimp
FTFY
Original Lee
@jwest: Dude, that’s true for the whole state of Michigan. We would break WordPress. Go use your Google-fu.
gex
@Linnaeus: It’s their entire MO. The only Republicans in favor of stem cell research are those with family members suffering from a serious disease. The only Republicans in favor of SSM are those with family members who are gay. Et cetera, et cetera. Conservatism is the philosophical attempt to justify greed. It is only ever about them. As long as the policies hurt someone else, it’s all fine and good. It’s only when their malicious policies affect them that there’s a problem.
jwest
Gex,
When George Bush overruled the Clinton ban on embryonic stem cell research, he was allowing federal money to be spent on existing lines, even though the science showed more promise with adult stem cells. No ban has ever existed on any privately funded stem cell research, only limitations on what taxpayer money can be used for.
jwb
Folks must be pretty desperate for troll bait to take up the inane shit jwest is serving up.
Will
I had a chat with a “moderate Republican” friend of mine yesterday. He smokes, he drinks, he has no problem with gay rights, and he doesn’t really seem to hate anybody. He turned straight to me and said “Don’t you like Michelle Bachmann?”
I really think a lot of these folks are just aggressively uninformed.
dpCap
I’m disappointed. I was trying to be a gentle troll, but nobody took my bait because jwest went all ape-shit.
catclub
@dpCap: Isn’t there a law in economics about bad money driving out good? Apparently works for troll comments too.
Gin & Tonic
@jwest:
I am unfortunately very familiar with the funding of my local school district and several surrounding ones here in the supposedly blue Northeast, and they all, every single one, are entering their second or third fiscal year in a row with total budgets at 0% increase year-over-year. That’s *total* budgets, including all sources of funds. If your total budget goes up 0%, then programs are being cur, because utilities and maintenance are not optional, and the price of heating oil and electricity is not declining.
I’m sure it’s worse in the red states.
jwest
Gin & Tonic,
Does your school district or some of the surrounding ones publish their budgets on the internet? It would be interesting to get a link to one that actually is operating with the same amount of money without a decrease in students.
cleek
the troll grows fat from overfeeding.
wonkie
@gex:
Exactly. The fundametal difference between Democrats ad Republicans is that Dems think government is there to serve everyone and must be paid for by everyone, but Republicans thik govermet is there to serve just them, paid for by everyone else. .
boss bitch
Please stop with the Huntsman moderate-unlike-the-others meme. He is perfectly willing to pander to the base, has flip flopped on the issues and has supported the Ryan plan along with other dumb ass policies.
Comrade Dread
I can help.
You were thinking that you didn’t want big government, you wanted smart government.
You were thinking that taxes should be lowered on the middle class people who were struggling to afford to pay them, whether they were income taxes or property taxes.
You were thinking that government often is inefficient and were lured in with promises of privatization. Not realizing that ‘privatization’ meant funnelling taxpayer dollars not to competent businesses that could provide a public good better than the government, but to businesses that were well connected with GOP politicians and could get away with providing crap.
You were frustrated at tales of regulation hurting small business, and didn’t realize that when the GOP talked about deregulation, it had no intention of repealing those types of regulation. It simply wanted to get rid of those pesky rules about dumping industrial waste in your drinking water and enact tort reform so you’d get a token sum to compensate you for your children’s cancer treatments.
You were still thinking that business still thought long term and would do their best to act responsibly to maximize their long term health and profits. You didn’t realize that the culture had become fixated on the next quarter and an entire class of modern businessmen didn’t give a rat’s ass if they tanked the company and the economy as long as they got rich doing so.
You were thinking (at least in the 90’s), that maybe it was time to cut back on defense spending and foreign adventures overseas and didn’t realize that the GOP only cared about that shit because they hated Clinton.
You were thinking that the GOP cared about fiscal responsibility (oh, how quaint those days were), and didn’t realize how much of that was also due to Clinton hate.
You were thinking that these darn kids these days were dragging America to hell in a hand basket and later came to realize that the GOP’s commitment to traditional values only extended to the bedroom (yours, not theirs) and had nothing to do with creating a sense of community and society.
Then you were thinking that the GOP screwed it all up so badly, that the only party that might share even a fraction of your values was the Democratic one (and even a portion of them had abandoned those values for GOP ones), and you’d cast votes for them now.
dcdl
@jwest:
http://www.albany.k12.or.us/departments/#
Look under the Financial Information heading.
Halcyan
I am one of those who left the Republican Party. Though I left when it was clear tat George W. Bush was going to be the standard bearer of the party in 2000.
It has only gone down hill since then. But for me, that was the turning point. W was a puppet of the puppet masters, and he was an expert at repeating talkig points again and again, without seeming to feel shame at doing so. A forebearer of today’s Republican Presidential contenders.
With the exception of Jon Huntsman. Huntsman represents the Republican Party that I knew and was a part of for most of my life.
I do not believe that the Republicans will gai their sanity in time for this next election. But I believe that Huntsman could pull the old coalition together. The coalition of Republicans from m past – where our country was far more important than winning elections.
And honesty, itegrity and trustworthiness mattered.
Halcyan
@Halcyan: I hate typos.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Comrade Dread:
This is so good it should be picked up and reposted on the front-page by one of the blog authors, IMHO. I know a lot of people IRL who fit this line of thinking to a T.
Lydgate
Pardon me, but what has Obama, Arne Duncan, and all the other assorted education hucksters done for teachers?
Elie
@Comrade Javamanphil:
Yes, the MSM plays a role but believe it or not, so does the professional left, which has been doing a fair amount of damage to the morale of the Democratic base. Can’t tell you how many left liberal friends that I have had conversations with (including my husband) on why Obama is not a “sell out”, and what actually happened a month ago during the debt ceiling debacle. We can’t do much with the MSM, and apparently can’t do much with our so called, own side, to prevent self inflicted injury to our side — as though there is no cost to increasing the chance of getting a republican elected when all the demoralized democrats file their nails or stay at home on election day.
JR
I needed to get a power pole installed recently, and a friend recommended I call Byron. Byron asked me to meet him at a place he knew how to find and lead me in to see where he would have to so the work.
When he showed, typical Bubba-looking guy in a F-150. When we got to our farm, first thing he says is “Like your bumper sticker!” Which says “Veteran for Obama”. I say my truck has one too.
He says “My mom was Republican, so I was too, but in 2000 I couldn’t vote for the guy. I’ll never vote for a Republican the rest of my life!”
Mow, Byron is a big guy, 6’1″, 350 or so, with buzzed off hair, probably 50ish, maybe IBEW before he became a company, maybe still IBEW. Smart enough to make a good living in a technical craft business, smart enough to know that Republicans aren’t good for working Americans, or anyone else, really.
If you look at the numbers, the economy doesn’t do so well during Republican-controlled periods, even the very rich do much better with Democratic-controlled government. The numbers don’t lie!
’nuff said for anyone who can think.
ornery curmudgeon
MrMix, kindly tell your friend to de-register as a Republican. She’s still supporting their fundraising and election-polling stats.
JohnR
@jwest:
I guess I’m kind of glad my first response to this got deleted by the Gods of the Internet. It was pretty full of naughty language. I know you’re a Godless, heathen troll, but this stuff has been condemning people to death for a decade when it could have been avoided, and it makes me pretty much furious. First of all, think (or as close as you can manage to that activity) for a moment. You’re taking the word on science of a bunch of people who have turned their back on science and decided to go with their gut instincts and faith in entrail-reading and astrology.
Right – point by point:
1. The ban was Bush’s.
2. The science did _not_ show more promise with adult stem cells. What’s been done with adult stem cells has been done mainly because nothing further could be done with fetal stem cells, which are both more useful and easier to use than adult stem cells.
3. “Private money” Holy shit, I get tired of fucking turds using this line of “argument”. Who do you think pays for damn near everyline of research that leads to clinical applications? Here’s a hint – it sure as fuck isn’t “private money”; that only goes to a few applications that might turn a big, fucking profit. And thanks to those scumsucking Republicans and their so-called “Christian” base, there’s less and less “taxpayer” money for that research every year. Plenty to keep those fucking Wall Street parasites in caviar and ortolan’s tongues, though.
4. Not to beat a dead horse, but those “existing lines”? That’s one of the biggest crocks of crap that the bastards spewed, and even at the time it was well-documented BS. Something like a third of those “existing lines” weren’t even viable, and of the rest, the research hadn’t got to the point of keeping them alive on their own – iirc they had to be grown on a bed of mouse fibroblasts, which made them unusable for clinical applications. Not a big problem in itself, but since no new lines could be established after Bush’s ban, no way to make any lines that would be useful. Oh, well, as long as nothing useful could come from the embryos that got killed off anyway, right? Who cares how many people had to die so that these Satanic “Christians” got their upside-down theology sated. Guess I better hang it up here, I’m starting to get riled up again. Damn trolls.
Mike G
@jwest:
“Adult stem cells showed more promise”, and yet instead of letting scientists decide where to direct research resources, The Chimp grandstanded in specifically banning new embryonic stem cell research to pander to right-wing magical-thinking ideology.
What could be more credible than scientific decisions made by the crowd that believe Adam and Eve rode dinosaurs to church. Repuke scientific literacy makes the Flintstones look like the Jetsons.
Stefan
@dpCap:
Honestly, you didn’t consider Bush to be a douche? Really?
jwest
“At this point, the Congress intervened and passed the Dickey-Wicker Amendment in 1995 (the final bill, which included the Dickey Amendment, was signed into law by Bill Clinton) which prohibited any federal funding for the Department of Health and Human Services be used for research that resulted in the destruction of an embryo regardless of the source of that embryo.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_cell_laws_and_policy_in_the_United_States
rikryah
@nominus:
nominus,
as a Black person who has watched working class/poor White folks VOTE AGAINST THEIR INTERESTS FOR GENERATIONS
as they held their Whiteness near and dear to their hearts, as they were being played for fools
I’m not the one to look for if you want sympathy for you being a fool. Someone else can coddle you – it won’t be me.
HyperIon
@Jay C:
Diane Ravich gave him a good run for his money on C-SPAN yesterday. Boy, was Brill dickish.
Michael Bersin
@JGabriel:
Heh. Facts have a well known liberal bias.
And, in the music business: