What is Daily Kos full of? Many things, of course, but this past week one correct answer to that question would have been "advice for conservatives." One Kossack suggested that if Republicans want to win in 2012, they'll have to adopt Newt Gingrich's Meet the Press position on Paul Ryan's Medicare reforms. Another asserted that GOPers ought to profusely thank President Obama for not destroying them when he had the chance.
As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym.
...There was a time when obsessing over tax cuts might have been enough, but today's GOP would've booted Ronald Reagan to the curb a long time ago. The modern-day Republican has to kiss Paul Ryan's ring while ranting against the global climate change "hoax." He must hump Rush Limbaugh's leg while pretending that Sarah Palin is a serious person. He must believe that Obama is a Kenyan muslim, while simultaneously believing he's also a secular humanist out to destroy religion. And he must believe that the new health care law is worse than Hitler, and that Newt Gingrich would still be with his first wife if Massachusetts and Iowa gays hadn't been allowed to destroy "traditional marriage".
And he has to froth at the mouth.
That's the new litmus test. Sorry to say, the [Tommy] Thompson Republican is obsolete... [Emphasis mine.]
Mark Sumner: GOP extremism keeps getting more extreme
...[T]he last thing Republicans want is for recovery to set in and the deficit to decline. That would rob them of their crisis-generated opportunity to go Galt on America. Instead they want to use this moment to see just how far they can push. Forget Overton windows, they've opened up the Overton skylights and knocked down whole Overton walls in an effort to drive the national conversation into realms of rightness previously unknown...
Candy Randy: Conservatives should be grateful for Obama's mercy
...The right wing should get on their knees and kiss Obama’s feet! He could have destroyed the Republican Party and demolished the conservatives for good! But, he didn’t, because he is a good man...The right says the exact same thing about Obama as the left said about Bush for eight years. They even use the same rhetoric as the left did! There is one important difference: the right makes money on “Obamaphobia.” The right sells dehydrated food to victims of the American dollar’s drop to nothing. They sell weapons so that good Americans can defend themselves against the roving bands of socialist Muslims in the streets!...
Jed Lewison: To beat Obama, the GOP will have to move to the left
...Republicans still haven't figured out that their fundamental 2012 problem doesn't have anything to do with their candidates: it's that the GOP has moved so far to the extreme right that none of their candidates have room to take positions that would appeal to mainstream Americans.
...Gingrich...was right when he said repealing Medicare was a radical plan dreamt up by right-wing social engineers...
Gingrich might not understand the mechanics of 21st century politics, but Republicans don't understand Americans aren't interested in returning to 19th century public policy...
Joelgp: On the other hand, maybe Obama's unbeatable
...To become a republican president one must:
1. Win the support of the right wing media...Republicans...don’t dare to reach for “unguided” conclusions that are not endorsed by one of their heroes. Democrats don’t roll like that. All of us are experts (in our own minds) and we rightly trust our own opinions more than those of anyone else.
2. There are two main components of this year’s GOP litmus tests because republicans...don’t do nuance very well. They like things black and white—mostly white—but that’s a different subject. Consequently, their candidates must vehemently oppose Obamacare, and completely support Ryan’s destruction of Medicare. Period...
3. Republican candidates must express a deep personal disdain for Obama with carefully crafted racial codes to continue their Southern Strategy. However, they must dump those Dixiecrat dog whistles in the general and bring back nuance to hide their extremism without dampening the spirits of their tea party zealots...
...I guarantee you the GOP will lose in 2012 regardless of who’s ultimately their nominee because “normal” candidates can never satisfy these special republicans. They have set up this threefer obstacle course that can only be won be by the wild, nutty and crazy bunch like Palin, Bachman and Herman Cain... [Emphasis his.]
Benintn: Democrats are the party of truth and love...
...The Democratic commitment to truth is a sort of "Trump Card" (pun intended) that directly opposes the bigotry, prejudice, deceptions, and hate speech of the religious right. As Republicans attempt to define themselves by who they hate, Democrats continue to brand themselves for how they show love to neighbors in need...
Flitedocnm: ...and are like the Union Army in the Civil War
The battle lines are now clearly drawn...
The armies are assembled.
Those who wish to repeal every progressive advance from Teddy Roosevelt onwards have donned the gray uniform of the Confederacy of Dunces, and its battle standard is the Grover Norquist holy grail of starving our federal government until its shrunken and shriveled ghost drags itself to a merciful death in the bathtub of oblivion...
And we who wish to see a nation that isn't a wholly owned subsidiary of Blackwater-Lockheed-Martin-Exxon-Mobile-Goldman-Sachs, where there is a middle class that isn't spending its waking hours waiting in line to be hired as Walmart Associates and McDonald's Flippers, where women are not reduced to apron-wearing ever-obliging coffee-fetching damsels of misogynistic Donald wannabes, have clad ourselves in shades of blue, while we await sunshine and the moment when sanity returns to our political process...
