Is This Political Ad Too Gay For Virginia?

One thing that always pisses me off is the way the Christofacists believe they have free license to say whatever foul and horrible thing they want about gay citizens hiding behind the cloak of "deeply held religious belief."  Of course, most of what they say is a pack of outright lies and they seem to see themselves as exempt from the Commandment against lying and bearing false witness.  Somehow they only observe nine Commandments. Here in Virginia this year we have the most extreme and insane slate of GOP statewide candidates in Virginia's history.  While the most openly insane is Lt. Governor candidate "Bishop" E. W. Jackson, who n my view belongs in an insane asylum, gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli and Attorney General candidate Mark Obenshain share Jackson's views of gays - they are simply trying to hide their extremism from voters.  Above is a mock ad against Jackson that I would personally like to see aired in Virginia so as to put Jackson's hate and batshitery on the air waves.   A piece in The Advocate considers the ad and in the closing paragraphs sums up my views:

I work in the information business. I can't possibly agree with the notion that spreading the word about what homophobes say doesn't make a difference, that it doesn't help reduce homophobia in the long run. What I believe will happen (and has been happening) is that Americans are recoiling from the likes of E.W. Jackson and Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum and the others.

Times have changed. Americans by and large are not asking us to hide anymore. But we can't expect them to stand up for us if we won't first stand up for ourselves.

Jackson may play well to the rural and less educated parts of Virginia, but many areas, including Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia will likely view him as frightening.  But only if his fully insanity is put on view.  The same goes for Ken Cuccinelli who hopefully will soon have to defend the Marshall-Newman Amendment as soon as the ACLU files its promised lawsuit.  Just last night the boyfriend and I had dinner at the James River Country Club - not exactly perceived as a bastion of liberalism - as guests of friends and not one person batted an eye seeing a gay couple there.  And they ALL know who we are due to the boyfriend's near celebrity status with the women.  We need to be open about who we are and we need to take the battle back against the hate merchants like Jackson, Cuccinelli and Obenshain.

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GOP Lunacy: Winning More White Voters Can Save the Party

The GOP's circular firing squad seems to be continuing unabated as supposed leading lights in the insane element of the GOP continue to argue that all the party needs to do for future victory is win over more white voters.  Never mind that the demographic hand writing is on the wall and never mind that young whites are fleeing the party in droves, repelled by the GOP base's blatant racism and rampant homophobia.  A column in the Washington Post looks at the continuing batshitery:

[T]he argument that Republicans don’t really need to improve their standing much among Latinos to be competitive in national elections is gaining real ground among Republicans — posing a serious threat to immigration reform. The emerging case is that Republicans mainly need to do even better among whites — by doing a better job energizing white supporters and by bringing in more “missing” white voters who might be inclined to vote Republican — thus relieving them of the inconvenient need to alienate their base with anything that might persuade Latinos to give their party a second look.

Today Nate Cohn published what may be the most comprehensive piece yet attempting to debunk this notion, which was perhaps best laid out by Sean Trende the other day. Cohn’s piece is well worth reading in full, but here is the summary version:

1) If Republicans are going to increase their performance among white voters even further, they will have to moderate on social issues in ways that will be discomfiting to the base in any case; Republicans will have to “pick their poison.”

2) The whites-only theory of the case depends on the GOP continuing to improve its standing among whites going forward. While this is currently happening, GOP gains among them are largely regional — focused in the south and in Appalachia. At the same time, Democrats may be gaining among whites outside these regions, which, if it continues, could “cement the Democratic edge in the Electoral College.”
3) The notion that the GOP’s future hopes turn largely on boosting turnout among “missing white voters” who didn’t turn out in 2012 is complicated by the fact that many of these voters might vote Democratic. This could be made even worse by the fact that many missing whites were young voters. Over time, if the next generation of young voters is as liberal as this one, it could push the national white voter further leftward.

Cohn concludes:

Conservatives take solace in the possibility that they could win with gains through whites, presumably on the assumption that the changes needed for gains among non-southern white voters will be less painful than embracing immigration reform. To the extent that this assumption is informed by the view that the GOP is making broad, steady gains among white voters, it is wrong. The GOP has a tough road ahead.

In other words, it seems like an epic gamble. But judging by the GOP’s continuing embrace of hidebound positions on issues that many Republicans themselves recognize a need to evolve upon, it increasingly appears to be a risk the party is prepared to take.

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The GOP’s Reform Challenge - Mission Impossible?

How do you reform and modernize a political party whose base is increasingly defined by the open - indeed, proud - embrace of ignorance and a rejection of all modern knowledge?  How does a political party lead the world's remaining super power when its base wants to govern according to Bronze Age understandings of the world and its place in the universe?  It's a huge challenge and one that frankly I do not see the Republican Party overcoming until the Christofascists elements in the party are kicked to the curb and exiled to the political wilderness where they belong.  Years ago the GOP establishment welcomed these insane elements into the party and now they are like a metastasizing cancer that needs to be eradicated.   A column in the Washington Post looks at the impossible mission whats left of the sane GOP leadership is facing.  Here are highlights:

It is often argued, including by me, that the GOP needs its own Bill Clinton or Tony Blair — a leader to reposition the party and reinvigorate its political appeal. But if these figures are examples of successful reform, British Prime Minister David Cameron is a warning of its perils.  Cameron set out to modernize the Conservative Party. He has found that not everyone is happy to be modernized. 

Cameron’s embrace of environmentalism and gay marriage has also received criticism from older, less cosmopolitan party regulars. The quarrel has been fed by a (disputed) quote from a source close to the prime minister dismissing Tory activists as “swivel-eyed loons.”

The lesson for the Republican Party is sobering: A political coalition being stretched is at risk of being shattered.

For the GOP — beating against heavy demographic and generational tides — the attempt to modernize is unavoidable. In the next few elections, the ebb might be overcome with just the right presidential candidate, in just the right political circumstance. But in the long run, Republicans are borne away from power. There won’t be enough white and gray voters to win national elections.

The fundamentalist approach to reforming the GOP — an oversimplified Reaganism, advocated in the tone of Barry Goldwater — would only hasten the decline. It is an appeal to an electorate increasingly confined to Republican primaries.

Religious conservatives, for example, are the single largest constituency within the GOP, and compose about a quarter of the entire electorate. Such voters are not baggage thrown overboard to lighten the ship; they are planks in the hull. So the Republican Party is left with a challenge: It needs to become more socially inclusive without becoming socially liberal. Some think (or hope) that this is impossible.

The GOP will need to welcome new Americans and champion their economic and social mobility. It will need to remain true to the stable, pro-life convictions of its strongest supporters, while recognizing broad shifts taking place on gay rights among younger Americans, even within the Republican base. And it will need to speak to the concerns of working-class families who are the real swing voters in national elections.

But the Republican readjustment will also require a leader of a certain type. There is one combination that makes this transformation work at a national level: a reform-minded Republican who has the sympathy of religious conservatives. 

[I]t is a creative response to the Republican reform dilemma to make religious conviction a source of outreach. And it might accomplish something Cameron has not: making the party’s base a participant in the party’s modernization.

Personally, I think the column's author is dreaming - is hallucinating a better word? - if he thinks the Christofascist GOP base  will cooperate with any form of modernization.  In 2012 the GOP's national platform was written by leaders of registered hate groups.  Those folks are literally insane in my view and logic and reason will get nowhere with them.  You don't put the mental ward patients in charge and then foolishly hope for a good out come.

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