Son of Timatollah

I. The Republican core explained, here by James Carville and Stan Greenberg at Democracy Corp:

• While a sizeable majority of voters say Republicans have lost in 2006 and 2008 because they have been “too conservative,” a sizeable plurality of Republicans say, it is because they have “not been conservative enough.”
• Over three-quarters of Republicans say Palin was good choice, while a majority of the electorate says the opposite.
• Two-thirds of Republicans say McCain has not been aggressive enough, but a majority of voters think they have [sic] been too aggressive.
• Looking to the future, a large majority of Republicans say the party needs to “move more to the right and back to conservative principles,” while an even larger majority of all voters say, it should move to the “center to win over moderate and independent voters.”
• Finally, almost 60 percent of Republicans say “if Barack Obama is elected, he will lead the country down the wrong path and Republicans should oppose his plans,” while 70 percent of all voters say they “should give him the benefit of the doubt and help him achieve his plans.”

II. The Republican core, explained here by Michael Schaffer at The New Republic's The Plank:

When I was in fifth grade, there was this kid named Matt who was the Kid With the Temper. Three or four times a year, he'd spaz out to comic, theatrical effect--throwing things, kicking desks, roaming the hallways, and, once, locking himself in a closet and emerging with a black eye. With the sort of cruelty unique to 10-year-olds, classmates used to goad the poor kid when it looked like an outburst was near, circling around him in the knowledge that we'd soon glimpse what we all knew was inside. The scene described in Seyward's post from Columbus [here, TAW], and depicted on any number of YouTube clips, seems remarkably similar. Camera-equipped Obama supporters outside McCain and Palin rallies wave signs and ask questions in the certainty that their very presence will unleash the ugliness that appears to be inside all too many of the GOP faithful. Of course, Matt was a little kid in school and these folks are adults out in the world, so I'm not saying I feel any particular sympathy for those who just can't seem to keep themselves from shouting racial or ethnic epithets or just dumb-ass Cold War jingoistic nonsense, at their tormentors. But what amazes me is how little provocation it apparently is to reduce a lot of solid middle American Republicans to a bunch of hysterical fifth-grader [sic].

Labels: contemporary, core, republican