Poof goes the GOP

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-1230edit2dec30,0,3342271.story

Poof goes the GOP

December 30, 2008


Just how stupid are Republican Party leaders? We're about to find out.

Chip Saltsman, a candidate for chairman of the Republican National Committee, sent a compact disc to committee members over the holidays. It includes a tune titled "Barack the Magic Negro," which first aired on Rush Limbaugh's radio show in 2007.

The song is a parody of "Puff the Magic Dragon" by conservative satirist Paul Shanklin, who does it in an impersonation of Rev. Al Sharpton. A sampling of the lyrics: "Barack the Magic Negro lives in D.C. . . . he makes guilty whites feel good. They'll vote for him, and not for me, 'cause he's not from the hood."

Saltsman, a veteran political operative who managed Mike Huckabee's presidential campaign, told a Capitol Hill newspaper that the song is just a lighthearted parody, a little joke. RNC Chairman Mike Duncan said he was "appalled" by the song, but some of Saltsman's competitors for Duncan's job have defended it.

Republicans have been rejected by American voters in the last two national elections. They've lost the House, the Senate and the White House. They have just about given up on the African-American vote. More Hispanics turned away from them this year.

Yet some of the people who want to run the national Republican Party think that a song mocking the race of the next president is all good, clean fun.

There's going to be a little more interest now in who wins the race for chairman of the Republican National Committee. If it's Saltsman and company, the party is going to be in the wilderness for a long time.

Oh, Rush the magic addict
who lives off DC
and frolics in Honduras towns
for viagra's ecstasy

Little kids are poor there
for money they'll have Rush
a big fat man who shows them cash
and things that make them blush

Off he goes to travel
without his fifth wife there
We wonder why so many left
when they find out they glare.

Oh, Rush the magic addict ...

Once he was Jeff Christie
who did solicit cops
for sex with men
when he was young
So stung when he was caught.

Sex lies live forever
but not so little joys
His radio brings us hateful things
an old man who plays with boys

Oh, Rush the magic addict ...
by Festivito

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

For a long time the GOOP has lived in their bubble world...the parallel universe where their racism, mysogny, homophobia and other hates flowed like water and they played it with major hubris that almost made their hatred and conveluted world view seem logical and acceptable. This led the party to further drive to the far right...the more outrageous, the louder the noise and the more divisive the rhetoric the better. It fueled and was fueled by hate radio and cable food fights and enhanced by a very loud and aggressive GOOP message machine that attacked any and all that questioned. It bullied some, coward others and emboldened the worst elements of their corrupt party that has driven it into near obsolescence.

The facinating thing (and IMHO, expected), is how each time they get their asses kicked, their answer is to move further to the right...highlight all the things the majority find repulsive, but the parallel universe thrives on. It's up is down as the more these asshats try to show their "relevant" or try to launch another one of their slime attacks, the law of diminishing returns has gone into reverse...driving them further rather than closer to regaining their lost credibility. Moderates in that party don't stand a chance as those intent on driving that party further into the political abyss have the loudest megaphones.

Saltsman is no fool...he's playing to a small, angry, very white and very racist audience. This is showing his "street cred" as the "Great White Hope".

The Whigs died because they compromised on an issue dear to most of their base, which split off with anti-slavery northern Democrats to form the Republicans.

I think if the Republicans die out, they'll go like the Federalists -- be completely marginalized and irrelevant, so much so that they die out and then internal divisions within the Democrats will form a new splinter party to form to take its place. The Democrats would split into the Progressives and a more Conservative Democratic party, which would attract more moderate former Republicans.

However, I doubt either scenario will occur. They'll do what they did in 1993 and 1945, obstruct and obfuscate, and stage at least a partial comeback in 2010.

The Right Wing base is more vindictive and angry right now; they want Liberal Blood. If you want to win their support you need to show a willingness to support their more extreme positions on the issues or, at the very least, attack liberals with gusto.

The question is, however, how important is it to keep the base vs. not offend the middle.

Bryant

They are kicking themselves.

All we have to do is sit back and watch.

If they don't change their tune - and soon - they will put themselves on a path to extinction that they won't be able to turn back on.

And they're not going to change their tune. The GOP and their mouthpieces like Limbaugh and his ilk have long banged the drums of hatred for anything that's not old, white, and male, and that group is quickly shrinking, and they refuse to accept that reality and adjust to it by truly reaching out to other ethnicities, women, and the GLBT community. Having at least four years of a Black president is not going to diminish their vitriol.

TlalocW