Eisenhower: Republican Party is Running Out of Ideas
Life long Republican and granddaughter of Ike, Susan Eisenhower, said today on an Obama campaign conference call featuring campaign manager David Plouffe and herself that while she truly regrets it, the direction John McCain has been pressured to go is showing that "the Republican Party is running out of ideas."
She also said that "The world is watching. This is a unique opportunity to restore confidence in the country."
She's right -- and what really interests me is what Eisenhower is calling for is reasonableness, common sense, and leadership -- instead of arrogance, demeaning name calling, attacks on patriotism, and the like.
There is a crowd of frustrated, increasingly dissident Republicans that Obama can easily harvest if he simply reaches out to them and demonstrates that he will be serious about problem solving and achieving common sense results.
-- Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note
But there's no reason to pander to voters on the right. Don't adopt their failed policies in the hopes of winning over their "moderates" who are almost never moderate. For example, John McCain himself was once considered a moderate Republican. He isn't one. Neither is Chuck Hagel. Or William Cohen. They're all social conservatives at least and fiscal conservatives as well. They don't need to be courted or placated since their ideas are wrong.
July 31, 2008 4:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Republicans aren't running out of ideas, they are running out of schemes to flimflam the American voter. They never had any ideas other than using government power to enrich themselves.
The end result is two endless wars and a sinking economy. The snake oil of gay baiting, racism, fear, and 'right to life' posturing may not sell during this years election funfair.
July 31, 2008 4:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Who the hell is Susan Eisenhower, and what the hell would she know about anything, anyway?
July 31, 2008 5:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ellen asks:
"Who the hell is Susan Eisenhower, and what the hell would she know about anything, anyway?"
from the bottom of her column in the WaPo, which I got from the link provided by Mr. Clemons;
Susan Eisenhower, a business consultant, is the author of four books, most recently "Partners in Space: US-Russian Cooperation After the Cold War."
and....
http://www.saveamericastreasures.org/eisenhower.htm
July 31, 2008 6:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
As I said . . . .
Who the hell is Susan Eisenhower, and what the hell would she know about anything, anyway?
August 1, 2008 12:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ellen and Susan have a history? (I hope you are too young to have gone to school with her...)
August 1, 2008 12:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
You know how to hurt a girl.
Welcome back, jollyroger.
August 1, 2008 3:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Welcome back
Avast and ahoy yourself...when last we saw our plucky heroine, she was declaring herself only fitfully a visitor to these precincts. A glance at your profile for recent postings belies that stated intention.
My browser and the new server have not been on good terms, and only recently did I figure I'd do best to just crank up IE for TPM only.
August 1, 2008 7:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think the Republicans are running out of ideas, I think that after 6 years of Bush and a Republican Congress and what that produced, what they're running out of are ways to pull the wool over the public's eyes.
July 31, 2008 6:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's hard to run out of something you never had to begin with.
But seriously, I wholeheartedly agree that what the Republican is running out of is new and ingenious ways to deceive the American public.
July 31, 2008 7:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
But they haven't run out of new ways to loot and pillage.
July 31, 2008 7:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Most recently, the Democratic Party has taken a cue from the Republicans and has beefed up its own looting and pillaging techniques.
But whereas Republican Party loots the taxpayer and pillages the Constitution, the Democratic Party gleefully eviscerates itself and replaces its liberal innards with conservative clockworks.
There is a ton of evidence that the Democrats have become a second party of the well-to-do, and that the party's politicians -- and it would seem most of their supporters) are just as focused on garnering money and votes, and just as indifferent to service and the general welfare, as are the Republicans.
August 1, 2008 8:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Tankard says;
I couldn't agree more. I think the business friendly DLC has way too much influence in the party, and all too many in the DLC see politics as self service rather than public service.
Harold Ford was mentioned in another thread, and to me, he's the quintessential example of the self serving politician.
August 1, 2008 10:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Eisenhower is calling for is reasonableness, common sense, and leadership"
These are values that the republican party once had, and I completely agree that this is what they need to go back to.
Its frustrating to see politicians like obama throw away simple concepts like supply and demand and McCain completely fails to call him out it any significant way. Instead he calls him out on playing the race card, which is insignificant compared to the other issues at hand.
If he were to explain to the American people why obama's policies are faulty using common sense in a somewhat convincing manner he would have a landslide victory, but he has problems doing this because he is in reality a progressive democrat.
July 31, 2008 11:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Inasmuch as Sen. McCain has adopted almost every miliary, imperial, economic, and social policy imposed on this country by the hyper-successful Cheney/Bush Admininistration, may we infer that you consider the current kleptocracy a group of "progressive democrats" as well?
August 1, 2008 8:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ultrapoop knows the nations biggest secret, George W. and McW are really liberals.
August 1, 2008 11:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
And Ronnie and GHWB were actually socialists.
August 1, 2008 11:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mccain has had some incredibly liberal policies with immigration, environmentalism, social issues, etc. If you look into it, it is pretty easy to find policies of his that conservatives disagree with.
Definitely way more liberal than Bush.
Although I will admit that during this election he has slid closer to the right in attempt to shore up his base. My argument is that I beleive that his heart is further to the left.
August 4, 2008 9:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with Ellen this much: the Republicans have never had any other idea than maintaining privilege and fleecing the unwary.
However, by cloaking themselves in righteousness, patriotism and the fear of God, they have at least promoted those ideals de dicto to those who they intend to fleece.
As such—ironically-- they inspired many good Americans to strive to live up to those ideals.
That’s a good thing
Now that they have been unmasked as charlatans and impostors, a great fog of spiritual confusion has descended on our land.
Liberals are not temperamentally suited to carry the mantel of the Great Conservative Creed (GCC). Having been successfully painted by the impostors as weak, decadent, immoral reprobates they have come to half-believe it themselves and often act accordingly. A spiral of symbiotic poison is the result.
So who is left in this parade of clowns? That's the big question.
August 1, 2008 2:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
"carry the mantel" should be "wear the mantel" (got my torches and garments confused).
re: ultraplop. I don't claim to be a great historian of the Republican party, but I do consider myself as something of a student of human nature.
Greed is in our genes.
Conservatism, as I understand it, is motivated not by any lofty aspirations to transcend our human failings, but to accept them and fashion our public policy accordingly. That is what motivates them. The de dicto espousal of a righteous, God fearing and tough minded creed (what I call the GCC) is their method of keeping the whole thing under some control and who better to keep things under control than those who have no illusions about our fallen nature and accept it as a modus vivendi . They are the cognoscenti.
Liberals on the other hand actually aspire to elevate the human condition and so they--you might say foolishly--strive for human improvement.
I'm not saying that the world is divided up into two camps the greedy Republicans and the angelic Liberals. We all have our failings, but some of us are prone to resignation and others to yearnings for a better life for us all.
August 1, 2008 1:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Very interesting post. I would say your analysis is pretty close, but let me go a little farther:
Conservatism is about individual freedom. Liberty, freedom, free trade, capitalism, etc. The concept of freedom is contradictory to the liberal progressive idea of human improvement ( at least in most cases) The reason why is that if your neighbor is free, you can't force him to be a better person or live a better life. For instance, where I live in Minnesota (very liberal state) they passed a law that states that I have to have a carbon minoxide detector in my house. Does this improve my life? In a rare case yes, but it is another freedom I have lost. What if I didn't want any electronic devices in my home? How many more things will government dictate that I buy? The idealogy of Liberty is that man should be free to do the right thing, which means that he is also free to do the wrong thing, which again contradicts the liberal's idea of human improvement.
August 4, 2008 9:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well first off, even though Mccain has recently changed his mind on a few policies such as bush's tax cuts, drilling, immigration, etc. I beleive he is pandering to the right and his heart is to the left such as it was several years ago when he was voting contrary to bush.
I consider Bush to be progressive because he lets the democratic led congress do practically what ever they want. Maybe they have some deal going where they keep funding the military in Iraq, and he lets them turn our country into a socialist nanny state. Not to mentio many of Bush's policies have nothing to do with free market capitalism such as his feeble attempt at social security reform. Bush as we all know has not been able to control spending what so ever, you know it used to be only liberals that were associated with overspending.
To andrew:
You are living in a dream world. I recommend to you that read and understand the history of the republican party. You couldn't say the things you have just said if you had any understanding of history. And if you think political corruption is a partisan topic, you are grossly mistaken.
August 1, 2008 8:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
ulrtaplop said;
heh heh heh, Andrew DID base his opinion on Republican history.
It may be that the History you read is bereft of Republican failures, demagoguery, hypocrisy, misfeasance, malfeasance and nonfeasance.
August 1, 2008 10:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hello John,
Well for starters, the first republican to win office was Abraham Lincoln and as most people know, he passed the emancipation proclamation. What of the above mentioned terms do you call that?
The problem with your argument is that you have the strange assumption that demagoguery, hypocrisy, misfeasance, malfeasance and nonfeasance are things specific to the Republican Party. If you look at only the negative, yes Republicans can be associated with the above mentioned terms in some situations, however, the same can be said for democrats or any political party.
August 4, 2008 8:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
I consider Bush to be progressive because he lets the democratic led congress do practically what ever they want.
I'm sure you have some examples.
you know it used to be only liberals that were associated with overspending.
Ronald Reagan was a liberal?????
August 1, 2008 11:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Not really, but it could be said that he spent like one. The reality is that he could not get a democratic congress to control spending. This has been Bush's problem too, except he unlike Reagan never even tried. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I beleive Bush only vetoed one bill.
August 4, 2008 8:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
In response to your first question about examples of bush:
How bout the 300 billion housing bail out?
Well actually I don't really have to debate this one any further because if you look at the number of vetos vs the number of bills passed to see how buhs has kept congress in check.
August 4, 2008 9:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
I n ever said corruption is partisan. Corruption is part of the human condition.
Ask yourself: "why is there no History of Ethics?" The answer is that ethics like mathematics and logic is composed of eternal truths and not open to the whims of the day or culture for that matter.
If you do not accept that, then you are a relativist and everything is up for grabs and all is premitted.
But greed and selfishness, malice and prejudice have always been wrong and will always be wrong just like 2+ 2 will always be 4 no matter who says otherwise.
August 1, 2008 7:19 PM | Reply | Permalink