republicans

This is just absolutely amazes me:

The Arizona House on Monday voted for a provision that would require President Barack Obama to show his birth certificate if he hopes to be on the state’s ballot when he runs for reelection. The House voted 31-22 to add the provision to a separate bill. The measure still faces a formal vote.

It would require U.S. presidential candidates who want to appear on the ballot in Arizona to submit documents proving they meet the constitutional requirements to be president. Phoenix Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema said the bill is one of several measures that are making Arizona “the laughing stock of the nation.” Mesa Republican Rep. Cecil Ash said he has no reason to doubt Obama’s citizenship but supports the measure because it could help end doubt.

The courts have pretty much said that President Obama’s birth certificate is a none issue, so Arizona will horrible lose this fight. But I think there could be a more interesting approach. Maybe legislation should be introduced in Congress stating that since Arizona doesn’t want to recognize our legally elected President then they will not receive any more federal money. I’m sure the Republicans will block the bill, but it would be a nice message to send to the state.

Then there’s the whole issue of Arizona requiring anyone they “think” might be an illegal immigrant to show papers. I was just looking at the Arizona state flag:

With Charlie Crist facing more pressure to drop out and the rumors growing of him running as an independent, it leaves a big question; if Crist wins, who will he caucus with?

Now take that a step further. Imagine a Senate much like we had after 2006, one that was pretty much evenly split. The balance of power in the Senate could lie in the hands of Joe Lieberman and Charlie Crist. Crist could feel burnt enough by the Republicans that he decides to caucus with the Democrats, which could push Joe Lieberman to caucus with the Republicans. That would leave the problem intact. Of course the Democrats would still hold control with the tie breaker going to Biden, but it still makes for a very interesting dynamic.

Then there’s a bigger possibility. Having both Crist and Rubio on the ballot could split enough votes for the right that Meek ends up pulling out a win.

It’s like 2000 all over again. Florida will be the state to watch this fall if Crist goes the independent route. Stuff like this is why I love politics – the strategy and the outcomes.

It’s going to be the Republicans big campaign talking point this year – REPEAL! That might work for the crazies in the Tea Party, but a new poll shows that a big majority of those who support repeal actually want the bill repealed so we can get something better – a public option:

When asked how important they thought it was for Congress to work on “establishment of a public option that would give individuals a choice between government provided health insurance or private health insurance,” 67 percent of Americans rated this as an important topic to address. This finding is even more striking given the fact that 59 percent of those in favor of repealing the health care reform legislation rated the public option as important to pursue. Another surprise is that 67 percent of Republicans and 59 percent of Independents also agreed that the public option was an important topic to be addressed by Congress.

That really puts a crimp in the GOP arguments to just do away with reform.

Michael Steele took to the airwaves today to try and fix his highly tarnished record. That of course didn’t work out too well as Steele tried to pull out the race card, something he said he never does just a few short months ago.

As if that isn’t bad, now we have the news that one of the RNC’s top fundraisers has called it quits:

Former Ambassador Sam Fox, a top supporter of George W. Bush who was one of the co-chairmen of the Republican Regents — the RNC's top-level fundraising board — has left the post, two Republican sources said.

Fox, a Missouri businessman who was Bush's ambassador to Belgium, was one of the RNC's few remaining connections to the deep-pocketed Republican establishment and was viewed as the heaviest hitter among its fundraisers.

Fox didn't return a call seeking comment.

But Fox was "deeply troubled by the pattern of self-inflicted wounds and missteps," another major Republican fundraiser told me today, and had "lost confidence" in Steele.

This needs to be put into some perspective. We have a mid-term election year in which the minority party is trailing the majority party in money on hand. That is extremely uncommon, but now the RNC has the added problem of their revenue streams drying up even more.

Obama’s announcement yesterday of opening offshore drilling was met with strong opposition, and not just from the left, but even the right.

But what if there is something more sinister at work here? Chances are that Congress won’t go for the plan, so there really is no chance of it surviving without Republican support, yet Republicans are appearing to be more against the plan than Democrats.

Now flash forward to October. I can see the political ads now. We have views from the 2008 campaign trail, complete with chants of “drill baby drill” and then come back to present day showing Republicans opposing a plan to do just that. Talk about making the “party of NO” meme sticking.

Yes this could be a brilliant political move by Obama, but it is also a very risky one. Hopefully he is sacrificing some of his popularity to boost that of the Democrats. If they oppose the bill , then they will attract more of the base, while if Republicans oppose the bill, well that will be a big turn off for the “drill baby drill” crowd.

Make no mistake about it. I have thoroughly enjoyed watching the GOP slowly implode since the 2008 elections. Sure they have had what appears to be little upticks, but overall they have been suffering a very slow and painful death. But there is a danger in all that and we are now seeing it.

Today Eric Cantor took to the television cameras to proclaim that the violence aimed at Democrats is the same thing he has been undergoing the past few days. In this instance he highlighted that someone shot out the windows of one of his campaign offices. As more details come out from the local police, we quickly learn that Cantor wasn’t telling the actual story. If this was deliberate or not is something to be debated at a later date, but what we do know is that the bullet that broke through Cantor’s window was a stray, randomly fired in the air and with just enough force to penetrate the window, but not the blinds behind the window.

Then you have John Boehner out there trying to weasel his way out of his “dead man” comment about Rep. Steve Driehaus (and to add a little more interest to that, I literally live on the boundary between Boehner’s district and Driehaus’).

This is the problem with today’s GOP – they have no leadership. Everyone is vying to be the defacto leader of the Republican Party, so they all go out and make their own absurd statements. Imagine if the GOP had a true leader that exhibited common sense. This would be a person that would say “let’s stand beside the Democratic leadership and jointly denounce this activity”. That would have a real impact, but instead we have various high level Republicans making statements that is only worsening the situation.

I’ve been reading more on that Gallup poll from yesterday that shows more Americans now supporting health care reform than opposing it. For a refresher, here’s the results:

What’s interesting is the headline accompanying this poll:

By Slim Margin, Americans Support Healthcare Bill's Passage

I don’t really remember pollsters considering a 9% margin “slim”. Perhaps all the talk of the “60% majority” of the Senate has confused the people at Gallup.

Then we have those on the right trying to spin this away. For example, here is Allahpundit:

And so it came to be, after a day’s worth of nonstop coverage of History!, that ObamaCare’s gotten a bounce.

What is really interesting here is when you look back at recent history. In the heat of last summer, during those viral townhall meetings, we saw support for health care reform plummet. There was 24/7 news coverage of the yelling and screaming, but if you ask anyone on the right that coverage had nothing to do with the wavering support. Sorry guys but you can’t have it both ways here.