Doghouse Riley (via James Wolcott):
Last year Mitch Daniels signed a bill blocking Federal funds from going to Planned Parenthood in Indiana. And his is what passes for a credible voice on cultural détente in the Republican party.
The moderate wing of the Republican party is dead and it isn’t coming back any time soon.
Maude
It’s hard to tell the difference from Dr. Tar and Mr. Feather.
The moderates died with Eisenhower.
schrodinger's cat
Why do the our media betters pretend that GOP moderates, even exist. When it is clear to almost anyone who has been paying attention can see that GOP moderates are an endangered if not an extinct species.
BGinCHI
Riley’s blog is great and essential reading on IN politics. Funny as hell, too.
Kay has been nailing Mitch’s flying under the radar while fucking over the middle class here at BJ as well.
I guess after the SOTU speech Daniels gave, everyone in the MSM got amnesia about his role in the Bush administration.
Oh, also, fuck you, Mitch Daniels.
kindness
The ‘moderate’ wing. Those assholes don’t even whimper from their cages any more.
Hunter Gathers
The only difference between Daniels and current ‘sane, moderate’ GOP heartthrob, Chris Christie, seems to be height and weight.
As we all know, the Civil Rights legislation of the 1960’s would have passed with 90% of the vote if put up for a public referendum, and anyone who disagrees with that statement hates America.
Suffern ACE
@BGinCHI: Oh they haven’t forgotten that role. They don’t forget Christie’s either. They liked the Bush Administration. It makes them tingly.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
as long as we’re talking about Indiana: I hate it when they describe Dick Lugar as a “moderate”. Dick Lugar is and always has been one of the most conservative members of the Senate. the fact that he has a calm demeanor and he’s not a mouth-breathing hater like Inhofe or DeMint– whose voting records, I’d bet, are more or less indistinguishable from Lugar’s– doesn’t make him a moderate. Hell, I’d be surprised if Snowe and Collins have voted noticeably differently from DeMint or Inhofe or Cornyn in the last five years, with the notable exception of the stimulus.
Jack Germond made this point in his book, which I believe came out in ’99 or 2000, that he couldn’t believe he lived in a world where Bob Dole and Gerald Ford, who were considered right wing in the seventies, were now (then) considered moderates.
schrodinger's cat
@BGinCHI: The media is full of fail. At least the Republicans, loathsome as their tactics are, are the opposition, their job is to provide a counter point to the Democrats. The media’s job is to report what is happening, they are not doing that.
The Moar You Know
Not to worry, he isn’t running. He’d have to explain why his wife left him for someone who was presumably taller.
Suffern ACE
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That is an important trait that means moderates for those who worry about “image” and “message.” It’s the only reason, really, that Romney should be considered the “moderate’s” candidate. Because people say that he is and he is dull.
cathyx
What’s really annoying about this whole thing is that most people associate Planned Parenthood with being an abortion provider, which most of the facilities don’t do. They provide breast exams, gyn exams and general reproductive health exams. Stupid men need to realize that if they don’t want to get a disease having sex with someone, they shouldn’t be opposing the funding.
BGinCHI
@The Moar You Know: Oh, I heard she left him for a man.
Angry DougJ
@The Moar You Know:
Let’s not forget that Daniels is a motorcycle-riding workout fanatic who didn’t seem that upset when his wife left for a couple years. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Amir Khalid
@BGinCHI:
She did come back to him, though.
Neil
For all the linking here, why isn’t doghouse in the blogroll?
Benjamin Franklin
The moderate wing of the Republican party is dead and it isn’t coming back any time soon.
This is a good thing, no?
Remember, most of the Country is in the Middle. They are low-info voters who feel government is something they want to hire other people to manage. They are on a ‘need to know’ basis and are easily manipulated because they haven’t the interest, or the time to research the issues thoroughly.
It’s a battle for hearts and minds, and they don’t have the message the Middle wants to hear. Dems, historically, have been passive on actively getting their message out.
But, if we do; we win.
geg6
Amir Khalid @14:
Oh, I have no doubt that she got dumped by her boy toy and lil’ Mitchie bribed her to come back and when he dabbled with running, she put on the brakes real fast, probably with many dire threats preceding.
He totally sets off my gaydar.
EconWatcher
@geg6:
I think that’s what AngryDougJ was hinting at with his, “not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Benjamin Franklin:
Not in the short term, given tribal loyalties, media bias and the sort of idiots who think “Oh, Mitt/Meg Whitman/Marco Rubio/Chris Shays/Susan Collins may be a Republican, but s/he’s not one of those Republicans”. Mitt will get a lot of votes from NPR Republicans under this theory.
Violet
CNN has a Jeb Bush interview where Jeb just said that if the GOP doesn’t court Hispanics they’re dead as a national party. Ya think? He also said something like, “We have to let them know our club is open to them.” Isn’t that just like a white, male, patrician, old money, career politician? “Our club?” Which one? The country club? Oh sure it’s open to the brown folks…if they want to clean toilets. Oh wait, that’s their kids’ jobs.
Citizen Alan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I never forgave Jack Germond for attacking Gore with just as much petty vindictiveness as all the rest of the Villagers. to this day, I seethe when I remember one of the last columns he wrote on the eve of the 2000 election. In it, he related that Gore had told the audience at one of his campaign events that “this is one of the biggest crowds we’ve had,” but when Germond asked the Gore staffers, they admitted that there had be a few that were bigger. PROOF POSITIVE that Gore was a serial liar who was not to be trusted. So no, I don’t have a lot of interest in the blatherings of a pompous bloated git like Jack Germond.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Citizen Alan: I didn’t see that column, but Germond definitely had a strange hatred of Gore. Just part of the herd, I guess, but in most respects he strikes/struck me as being smarter than the herd. He was also one of David Broder’s best friends, which I wouldn’t begrudge anyone if they had the sense to say, “David’s a sweet guy, but a fucking moron.
Karen
No. They’ve just changed the definition of “moderate.”
Jay in Oregon
I gotta say as someone who is trying to work on his own marriage, I don’t begrudge Mitch Daniels or his wife for getting back together at all. If she left him for another man then decided she made a mistake, and he was gracious enough to give it another shot, I have no problem with that.
Hell, in a party with serial adultery, “open marriages”, foot-shuffling-in-bathroom stalls, diaper-wearing johns, and double-wetsuit-and-dildo fetishes, splitting up and getting back together is downright folksy and quaint.
EDIT: Yeah, there’s always the possibility he needs a beard or that she’s only into him for his money/power/access, but as long as they are both OK with the arrangement, ain’t none of my business.
cmorenc
IF Obama wins in 2012 AND the Dems manage to even barely hold the Senate and gain at least parity or a narrow majority in the House, then IMHO the GOP’s demographic house of cards begins to visibly begin crumbling. If economic conditions continue gradual improvement 2012-2016 with no catastrophic national setbacks, then the modern reactionary GOP is doomed to go the way of the Whigs. The biggest reason they are so fiercely uncooperative to the point of outright sabotage of democratic voting groups and the foundations of New Deal programs is that they know 2010-the 2012 elections is their once-in-a-lifetime last chance to blow it all up and erect institutional obstacles to any threats to being displaced as the governing elites for a generation or two to come. If they lose this time, it’s slow death for them and they know it.
Benjamin Franklin
@Jay in Oregon:
I admire your traditional values…..quaint, though, they may be.