[GeneV]

A few years ago, Bobby Jindal was the rising star. Then the rising star was chosen to speak in response to President Obama's first SOTU speech, and his star was in the toilet.

Now, since the 2012 losses, he has been the most vocal voice to change his party. First, he spoke out with this:

“We’ve got to make sure that we are not the party of big business, big banks, big Wall Street bailouts, big corporate loopholes, big anything,” ...

“We cannot be, we must not be, the party that simply protects the rich so they get to keep their toys.” We’ve also had enough of this dumbed-down conservatism. We need to stop being simplistic, we need to trust the intelligence of the American people and we need to stop insulting the intelligence of the voters."

“Simply being the anti-Obama party didn’t work. You can’t beat something with nothing. The reality is we have to be a party of solutions and not just bumper-sticker slogans but real detailed policy solutions.”

Read more: Jindal: End 'dumbed-down conservatism' - Jonathan Martin - POLITICO.com

Now, after the revelation of Mitt Romney talking to his supporters and saying that Republicans lost with Hispanic and Black voters because President Obama gave them "gifts," he responded to the Republican Governors' Ass'n:

"That is absolutely wrong," "I absolutely reject that notion."

“I don’t think that represents where we are as a party and where we’re going as a party," Jindal continued. “That has got to be one of the most fundamental takeaways from this election: If we’re going to continue to be a competitive party and win elections on the national stage and continue to fight for our conservative principles, we need two messages to get out loudly and clearly: One, we are fighting for 100 percent of the votes, and secondly, our policies benefit every American who wants to pursue the American dream. Period. No exceptions."

This sort of self-criticism and rejection of "faith-based" conservatism not founded in fact was refreshing in John McCain in 2000, and garnered him the support of many (including me) who used to be Republicans but are now called liberals. Can Jindal make this stick?

[pxpaulx]

I don't think I'd ever vote republican here (I'm from Canada afterall, haha) but I agree with your assessment, he has generally struck me as well spoken and intelligent. Couple him with Chris Christie who comes off to me as pretty honest and straight shooting and they'd have a pretty good ticket come next election.

[wildman]

Can Jindal make this stick?

No. Because to confuse this statement with "Republicanism" -

-“We’ve got to make sure that we are not the party of big business, big banks, big Wall Street bailouts, big corporate loopholes, big anything,” ..."

Is a contradiction in terms.

He might be talking about a third party but not the Republican party.

If folks are going to vote for a Liberal they are going to vote for a real Liberal.

[GeneV]

I don't know that I'd be ready endorse Jindal for President (he lacks experience and other qualifications McCain had in 2000), but he is asking the right questions for his party. The questions need to be answered by the entire party, not just the top of the ticket. As he put it, simply being anti-Obama is not enough. It is also negative. Talking about makers and takers is negative. Negative on the other candidate invites negative on your candidate. Romney and the GOP talked a lot about how bad things were, but when it came to an alternative, no "there" was there.

Compare this with Ronald Reagan's optimistic message (right or wrong) and there is a huge difference.

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Last edited by GeneV; 11-15-2012 at 07:03 AM.

[Rondec]

A few years ago, Bobby Jindal was the rising star. Then the rising star was chosen to speak in response to President Obama's first SOTU speech, and his star was in the toilet.

Now, since the 2012 losses, he has been the most vocal voice to change his party. First, he spoke out with this:



Now, after the revelation of Mitt Romney talking to his supporters and saying that Republicans lost with Hispanic and Black voters because President Obama gave them "gifts," he responded to the Republican Governors' Ass'n:



This sort of self-criticism and rejection of "faith-based" conservatism not founded in fact was refreshing in John McCain in 2000, and garnered him the support of many (including me) who used to be Republicans but are now called liberals. Can Jindal make this stick?

I think that there is going to be a shift. The Republicans can see the writing on the wall. If they don't shift away from pounding the same drum, their demographics are going to shrink away to nothing. Immigration, catering to the wealthy and Wall Street are issues where the Republicans can shift and pick up some support in the middle.

There are a lot of voters who are pretty conservative socially, but don't like a lot of the other things that Republicans spew regularly and if they shift, those voters would swing away from the Democrat side. Honestly, with an issue like gay marriage or, abortion, Latino voters would be a lot closer to Republican platform, then the Democrat stand point. But as long as the Republicans are the party of self deportation or worse, they wouldn't vote for them for any reason.

[normhead]

There are no leftists in America. There hasn't been for more than 50 years. My grandfather came the closest of anyone to being elected to the house or Senate as a socialist, when he lost by 2500 votes in Iowa. That was probably back in the late 40s or early 50s. SInce then, I don't know if there has even been a truly left leaning candidate. The Republicans aren't fighting the Democrats for leftist or centrist votes, they are fighting for the conservative vote, because the majority of the country is conservative. The choice is between radical loud mouth bible thumping conservatives and more quiet reserved and "stay out of the limelight" type conservatives. I doubt there is s true left winger anywhere in the United States. Universal Health care etc. is embraced by conservative governments in many places.

IN the US it's the conservative vote against the neanderthal vote. When you think of the liberal/socialist politics of the 60's 70s, when people talked about nationalizing services and creating more equality in wages and working conditions... those polices are extinct in American politics today. Regardless of that the righties will tell you there is some kind of meaning ful threat from the left.. Killing your enemies with drones, contniuing foriegn wars, holding people at Gitmo without trial, etc, are not liberal polices. In the same way the conservatives used to call progressives communists (even though they weren't) they now call them "liberals" (even though they aren't) rIght wing politics depends on having an enemy that must be combatted. It's always going to be somebody. Whoever champions the poor, the alienated, the dispossessed will always be labeled what ever the phrase of the day is. Communist, socialist, liberal, "person who gives gifts to minorites". The bar just keeps moving.

[jeffkrol]

As much as it pains me (Jindle's support of our current college dropout gov.) he did diss Romney quite well
AJC version of Gene's ...

Mitt Romney, exit stage right. A little quicker, please … | Jay Bookman

Mitt Romney, exit stage right. A little quicker, please …

To reiterate on Romney.............

"What most voters don’t know is the way Mitt Romney actually made his fortune: by borrowing vast sums of money that other people were forced to pay back. This is the plain, stark reality that has somehow eluded America’s top political journalists for two consecutive presidential campaigns: Mitt Romney is one of the greatest and most irresponsible debt creators of all time. In the past few decades, in fact, Romney has piled more debt onto more unsuspecting companies, written more gigantic checks that other people have to cover, than perhaps all but a handful of people on planet Earth

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/8/30/matt_taibbi_the_secret_to_mitt

One more for fun:

DAILY GRINDER: Mitt Romney Goes Out With His Middle-Finger Raised

Former presidential candidate Mitt Romney kept his psychopathic streak alive yesterday when he told campaign donors who gave millions of dollars to his campaign for naught, that Obama won the election because he gave minorities, women and children “gifts.” Take it, Mitt (because you do it so well): “The President’s campaign,” he said, “focused on giving targeted groups a big gift—so he made a big effort on small things. Those small things, by the way, add up to trillions of dollars…our strategy worked well with many people, but for those who were given a specific gift, if you will, our strategy did not work terribly well.”

http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/phillynow/2012/11/15/daily-grinder-mitt-...-finger-raised

T

o round things out this week, The Nation exclusively released audio of a recording of Lee Atwater explaining the GOP’s “Southern Strategy”—a campaign tactic in which the right uses racist rhetoric to stir up Southerners using codewords instead of blunt racist terms—which had been quoted before but never heard.

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Last edited by jeffkrol; 11-15-2012 at 07:37 AM.

[GeneV]

I think that there is going to be a shift. The Republicans can see the writing on the wall. If they don't shift away from pounding the same drum, their demographics are going to shrink away to nothing. Immigration, catering to the wealthy and Wall Street are issues where the Republicans can shift and pick up some support in the middle.

There are a lot of voters who are pretty conservative socially, but don't like a lot of the other things that Republicans spew regularly and if they shift, those voters would swing away from the Democrat side. Honestly, with an issue like gay marriage or, abortion, Latino voters would be a lot closer to Republican platform, then the Democrat stand point. But as long as the Republicans are the party of self deportation or worse, they wouldn't vote for them for any reason.

I agree with that excellent analysis, but I think if I hear the word "demographic" again, well..... That term starts to sound to me like some kind of technical problem. The problem is the economic and social policy. It wasn't one specific group that changed based on a particular issue peculiar to that group, but really only one specific group that hung on. With the exception of older white men, working people in a particular economic class voted pretty close to the same way regardless of their color or ethnicity. Almost two-thirds of workers (including white males) making the median individual income or less voted for President Obama. African Americans, Latinos and young people are more likely to be in that income group.

As the President pointed out in his press conference, polls show more people actually agreed with him on issues than voted for him. Year after year, that has been the case, and eventually it catches up to any party as the slogans start to get old.

[jeffkrol]

In the same conference call, Romney talked about plans for the future. He wanted to keep his donors together somehow, he said—“to meet perhaps annually, and to keep in touch with a monthly newsletter or something of that nature”—so that they could help steer the G.O.P. and, presumably, the country. Which just makes the whole thing sadder: he still can’t see it.

Romney seems to think that newsletters and meetings and money can solve the Republican Party’s problems, that it can win the White House when it doesn’t have to run against a President who’s bribing voters. He doesn’t see that he’s the problem: what he believes, what he says. Conservatives have constructed a myth that says certain groups—blacks, Hispanics, women, young people—vote Democratic because they’re stupid, because they’re lazy, and because they can be purchased with trinkets and baubles. It’d be one thing if they kept that myth a secret, but instead they shout it from the rooftops. Then, when it’s over, they wonder why those people voted Democratic again.

Romney was never the worst offender on this score; he never delighted in it, as people like Matt Drudge and Rush Limbaugh do. But he certainly participated. Indeed, part of his problem throughout this campaign, and the one before it, is that he’s never been good at disguising his lack of respect for the American electorate. His changing positions, his evasions about them, his misrepresentations—they all, ultimately, came off as a challenge: I think you’re too stupid not to fall for this. And there are very few people who appreciate being told they’re dumb, or the person who said it.

There are, of course, other, larger problems for the Republican Party to grapple with over the next few years. But they’ll have trouble solving many of them if they can’t get past this and realize that Democrats don’t have to bribe voters—not when their opponents are so interested in insulting them

.

Read more: Romney Blames Obama's "Gifts" to Voters for His Loss : The New Yorker

corporate-think.. send memo..............

[Rondec]

I agree with that excellent analysis, but I think if I hear the word "demographic" again, well..... That term starts to sound to me like some kind of technical problem. The problem is the economic and social policy. It wasn't one specific group that changed based on a particular issue peculiar to that group, but really only one specific group that hung on. With the exception of older white men, working people in a particular economic class voted pretty close to the same way regardless of their color or ethnicity. Almost two-thirds of workers (including white males) making the median individual income or less voted for President Obama. African Americans, Latinos and young people are more likely to be in that income group.

As the President pointed out in his press conference, polls show more people actually agreed with him on issues than voted for him. Year after year, that has been the case, and eventually it catches up to any party as the slogans start to get old.

Well, my biggest problem with Obama has been that he has ended up governing like a Republican (although more liberal in social terms). It has been discussed in other threads, but the Obamacare law is not adequate to deal with the health care needs of this nation, Gitmo is still open, and there has been way too little done to stabilize the housing market.

On the other hand, I think Obama has been very Reaganesque in his policies and that has really painted the Republicans into a corner. Democrats have tended to choose more conservative candidates for the presidential race and compared to the extreme positions that the Republicans have to take to win in their primaries, Democrats claim the left and the majority of the center -- a winning proposition/.

[boriscleto]

There are no leftists in America. There hasn't been for more than 50 years. My grandfather came the closest of anyone to being elected to the house or Senate as a socialist, when he lost by 2500 votes in Iowa. That was probably back in the late 40s or early 50s. SInce then, I don't know if there has even been a truly left leaning candidate.

Just one, and he's from Vermont...

Bernie Sanders - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[mikemike]

The nation can have him after 2015. He is doing a great job leading this state successfully navigating the recession, balancing difficult budgets, and reforming healthcare and education. In his second term he has been solidifying and advancing reforms.

[GeneV]

Well, my biggest problem with Obama has been that he has ended up governing like a Republican (although more liberal in social terms). It has been discussed in other threads, but the Obamacare law is not adequate to deal with the health care needs of this nation, Gitmo is still open, and there has been way too little done to stabilize the housing market.

On the other hand, I think Obama has been very Reaganesque in his policies and that has really painted the Republicans into a corner. Democrats have tended to choose more conservative candidates for the presidential race and compared to the extreme positions that the Republicans have to take to win in their primaries, Democrats claim the left and the majority of the center -- a winning proposition/.

I agree again. I don't know if the President has really learned this, but picking a Republican plan (i.e. Romneycare) is not a winning proposition as an opening bid. They described it as if it were the plan it should have been anyway, and opposed it. He might as well have gone for the full Monty.

That aside, it does seem that the Dems have moved a lot more toward the center.

[jeffkrol]

Just one, and he's from Vermont...

Bernie Sanders - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kucinic is close as well.. too bad he's out.........

Dennis Kucinich - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Since "progressives" are an offshoot of the Republican party it is a bit messy...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Progressive_Caucus

The CPC is committed to government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Their policy agenda is rooted in four core principles: (1) fighting for economic justice and security in the U.S. and global economies; (2) protecting and preserving civil rights and civil liberties; (3) promoting global peace and security; and (4) strengthening environmental protection and energy independence. Their fundamental fairness plan reflects national priorities that are consistent with the values, needs, and hopes of all Americans, not just the powerful and the privileged. Accordingly, the CPC also advocates "universal access to affordable, high quality healthcare", fair trade agreements, living wage laws, the right of all workers to organize into labor unions and engage in collective bargaining, the abolition of significant portions of the USA PATRIOT Act, the legalization of same-sex marriage, US participation in international treaties such as the climate change related Kyoto Accords, strict campaign finance reform laws, a crackdown on corporate welfare and influence, an increase in income tax rates on upper-middle and upper class households, tax cuts for the poor, and an increase in welfare spending by the federal government.[5]

Just because the "lamestream media" doesn't think they exist .....

Attempts to impeach George W. Bush
Main article: Movement to impeach George W. Bush

On June 10, 2008, Kucinich introduced 35 articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush on the floor of the House of Representatives.[127][128][129] On June 11, the resolution was referred to the House Judiciary Committee.

Calling it "a sworn duty" of Congress to act, co-sponsor Robert Wexler stated: "President Bush deliberately created a massive propaganda campaign to sell the war in Iraq to the American people and the charges detailed in this impeachment resolution indicate an unprecedented abuse of executive power."[130]

On July 10, 2008, Kucinich introduced an additional article of impeachment accusing Bush of misleading Congress into war.[131][132][133]

On July 14, 2008 Kucinich introduced a new resolution of impeachment against George W. Bush, charging him with manufacturing evidence to sway public opinion in favor of the war in Iraq. This resolution was also sent to the judiciary committee.

Democratic leaders Steny Hoyer and Nancy Pelosi opposed the impeachment efforts.[citation needed] None of them ever progressed to a full House vote.

[Ratmagiclady]

Well, I think Jindal's said some things that the GOP might do well to take to heart: unfortunately, he himself has been a Christian Right radical and a lockstep Republican so long himself, it's really in question if he can repackage himself well enough, and especially have anyone believe him.

His civil rights record just ain't anything for him to be proud of: he may be going after: he's got one up on the rest of the GOP by having a realistic assessment about why they and he failed, but his actions and a lot of his uncivil words will still be a deal-breaker for many: I notice he hasn't mentioned the religious fanaticism factor in things like that, cause he's been one of them.

He does seem like a reasonably-intelligent guy, what I peg as 'convert's zeal' aside. He might be maturing. Or at least showing signs of having learned something. Then again, he could have learned it *before.* So, maybe we'll see in a few years.