Are You Ready for Some Republi-CON Smack Down

UPDATE: "Are the battles among establishment Republicans and the tea party folks the desperate thrashings of a dying movement or the labor pains of a new one?" Read The New York Times, G.O.P. Grief and Grieving.

2010 will be a year of Republi-con civil war, and Florida is where the fighting is now fiercest.

As previously noted, the 2010 Florida Senate race is shaping up to be Washington leadership v. grassroots, pragmatism v. ideological delusion, reality v. lunacy. It is an intra-party fight whether to moderate the political agenda or go all-in conservative hypocrisy, whether the campaign theme should be hope for the future or fear and loathing.

And Florida is a great setting for this smack down, a political "swamp of Elián Gonzáles, Terri Schiavo, Mark Foley, Katherine Harris, William Kennedy Smith, confused Jews voting for Pat Buchanan in Palm Beach County, the National Enquirer (based here), Rush Limbaugh (lives here) and Tiger Woods (crashed here). " (BTW, there is a local NW Florida/Republi-con Riviera angle to the article.)

So get ready for the fun by reading The New York, The First Senator From the Tea Party?


P.S. One of these guys needs a catchy and practical proposal to unite and reform the party. I'd suggest GR&TR (formerly known as GRAC). We'll discuss Friday.

Republi-CON Victimhood

In 1948 Strom Thurmond of South Carolina ran for President of the United States on the Dixiecrat (or States' Rights) ticket. Thurmond had based his presidential campaign largely on an explicit racial segregation platform.

In December 2002, at the 100th birthday party of Thurmond, Trent Lott, Senate Republican leader, said: "When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over the years, either." After an outcry by Democrats, Lott resigned his leadership post.

Now it has been reported that during the last U.S. presidential campaign, Harry Reid, Senate Democratic leader, praised Obama as a "light-skinned" African American "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one." Republicans are demanding Reid resign. Should he?

Is pining for the good old days of segregation and white supremacy the same as an accurate analytical comment on politics and race?

Truth is though, a review of statements by members of both parties show they are not so different after all.