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How the GOP Loses Women
Stephan Savoia / AP Photo
Dede Scozzafava’s exit from a New York House race is just the latest example of the new Republican Party’s hostility to pro-choice women. Linda Hirshman on why Sarah Palin is a club of one.
Former Republican congressional candidate Dede Scozzafava cried real tears Saturday as she conceded the right-wingers had pushed her out of her race. Even though her local party had picked her to run in Tuesday’s election for the upstate New York seat vacated by the new secretary of the Army, John McHugh, her support for abortion and gay marriage made her too liberal for the new national party. Insurgent Republicans, led by Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, mounted a candidate on the conservative line, and fought Scozzafava so effectively that she turned tail and ran. She then endorsed the Democrat.
The transformation of the Republican Party by the rise of conservative, evangelical, and Southern movements disables the Republicans from grooming a new generation of female candidates.
Watch out, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. Locked in a Republican primary battle for governor of Texas, and unwilling to say women should go to jail for their abortions, she is the next duck in the barefoot and pregnant shooting gallery. All the coverage has been about the conservative attack on the Republican establishment. But Scozzafava’s defeat and the mounting campaign against Hutchison reveals a fascinating and underreported problem for the Republicans: They will only run women who will say that women should not control their reproductive fates. Although there are many male Republican candidates who easily embrace this position, politically accomplished women who believe in criminal abortion are rare, even in the Republican Party. And the ones who surface are likely to be, well, rogue.
The scene was set the day Hutchison announced her candidacy for the governorship of Texas last January. Just down the street, the incumbent governor, Rick Perry, who has shown no signs of stepping aside, was addressing the Texas Rally for Life. Perry had already started attacking Hutchison for not being anti-abortion enough. A few days later, Sarah Palin stepped in and announced her support for the anti-abortion Perry.
Hutchison’s faint liberalism on this one issue sure took her out of the running for V.P. in 2008. The Republicans could have chosen Senator Hutchison—a sophisticated and well-educated woman who would doubtless have played well on the national stage—but wound up with Sarah Palin. She may be a media darling and a political terror now, but all the polling around the actual election of 2008 reflected that her manifest ignorance and amateurishness played a substantial role in the Republican defeat.
• John Batchelor: The Last Days of the GOP
• Samuel P. Jacobs: Newt’s War of IndependenceAs the Scozzafava affair reflects, the Republicans could do nothing else. The hostility to women’s liberation is central to the contemporary Republican Party, a party that surged back into power starting in 1968 based on three crucial developments: the conservative ideological revival; the alliance of the party with conservative and orthodox Western religion; and the takeover of—and by—the American South. All three of these forces are hostile to women’s equality. At the birth of the modern conservative revival, conservative intellectual icon Richard Weaver explicitly set out the role of women in the new conservative movement. Women are rooted in nature and intuition, he wrote; they made a terrible mistake when they traded their natural place in a stable hierarchy for a superficial equality with men. In 1971, another of the pillars of the conservative takeover of the Republican Party, Phyllis Schlafly, launched a movement from her living room in St. Louis to STOP, as she put it on countless eight-sided signs, the Equal Rights Amendment, which would have put language of sexual equality in the Constitution. And STOP it she did. Years later, Schlafly boasted that she’d defeated the women’s amendment by making the first alliance of conservative Protestants, devout Catholics, and orthodox Jews—a crucial turn of events in the Republican resurgence. When the evangelical Christians decided that politics wasn’t too worldly for them to get involved in, they, too, made an alliance with the Republican Party. Evangelical teachings, which treat the Bible literally, include the Biblical injunction that women must obey their husbands. Evangelicals heavily favor women staying out of the market economy to stay home, and indeed they do disproportionately stay home.
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gak001
When women vote, Democrats win.
What's particularly interesting is seeing the breakdown of polling. In one poll I looked at recently, if you take out the South, Obama is doing quite well and the Dems and Congress aren't doing too shabby.
jpelhamtn
Absurd article. Palin is neither southern...nor in her political career...been a part of the evangelical political movement (otherwise known as Christians acting as responsible citizens and voting).
It's amusing when left wing elitists pretend to know what 'women' feel or want. Obviously, Palin has enormous support around the nation from women and men alike. Liberals may not like it...but those are the facts.
Palin is loved because she took the heat from the media and didn't go down with all the punches. She is a successful mother, grandmother, a 12-year elected official, wife, marathon runner, author, speaker and business-owner. Believe it or not Daily Beast readers...such women do exist all over America and they love Sarah Palin. http://www.reagantopalin.com/
cbeenthere
When SP ran for mayor, she did something no one in her town had ever done running for office, she was aided by an anti-abortion movement. If that ain't mixing politics and religion I don't know what is.
theBUSHdemocrat
Absurd comment. Science (not gut instinct and religion) show that this article is dead on. The Republican party has been marginalizing pro-choice women for years. Hutchinson is the better choice for Repub in Texas, and was the better choice for VP. Snowe has been publicly disrespected since people took notice of her. And ppor Whitman - I truly believe she intentionally railroaded by Bush & Co when they placed her in charge of the EPA. She had national star power but was bad for the "party," so let's put her in a position and not let her do her job.
But somehow Guilani, Ridge and many others are celebrated.
Palin is loved because she played on small people's fears.
What isn't amusing is the radical right's ideals. The problem with the anti-choice movement is that they believe ANY life is better than NO life. I wonder how many of them were "raised" by parents who didn't want them? I betcha that would change thier mind.
al-nafs
Reading Comprehension Fail.
The article was not saying that women do not support Republicans. It was specifically talking about female Republican candidates for office. There are many Republican women, the article notes that there are few female Republican candidates. Also, nowhere in the article does it say that that Palin is from the South.
Abandonedbygop
This is right on. I am a life long Republican, Christian, woman who has been abandoned by the GOP because I do not believe the state should be in control of my uteris. They have become a one note band that is no longer worth listening to.
kconwaycole
And all of those women have lost credibilit, because any honest thinking person would realize that Sarah Palin ain't got what it takes!
Dolmance
What is there about your positions that are in any way different from the Taliban, other than the name you ascribe to God?
None. Just another propaganda drunk guy making mouth farts in an effort to recycle what you can remember from Glenn Beck who is just a really dumb guy talking down to people who are even dumber. Elites indeed!!!
intellegere
Palin is not loved by all or many republicans. She is the reason most are leaving the party. I know since this is why I have. She is not a true conservative and she only is in it for the money. She is an uneducated radical who thinks many will go with her ill conceived rhetoric. I hope she does decide to run in 2012 and Obama defeats her with over 80% of the vote. Go ahead and follow her right off the cliff.
gak001
Just because your gut tells you it's true, doesn't make it so. Check your facts with an independent, non-partisan source. Of course by your elitist comment, I imagine you think sources like the Annenberg Foundation (Factcheck.org) are just part of the librul, elitist academia.
goatsrus
What this article overlooks is how the Democrats treat fellow Democrats who are pro-life. There is a history of well known democrats not being allowed to speak at National Conventions or who lose support once a pro-choice Demo shows up. To be balanced, that issued should also be discussed.
Honchos
The article isn't about Democrats.
LookintoDelight
This ISSUE has nothing to do with WOMEN.
Unless one assumes its a rarity for a woman to be sane and intelligent.
The GOP is losing both genders, most of whom identify themselves as
independents.
dooreen
If we all went back to nature, we would all be having 13 or 14 kids. Who can afford that?
It is technology, not politics that has given women options. Then politics catches up.
And I think it will be technology that will solve a lot of problems, that humans cannot solve on their own.
I think it just turned out, women as individuals, made similar choices, when the pill came out, that changed everything.
Luckily that choice is free from interference from public authorities. So far so good.
I have a question. Do you ever wonder why humans smell the way they do?
That might be a defense we have, and maybe it is natural, but it is also anti social, to let yourself stink. When you think about it, it is a big deal. Industries are built hiding the human stink.
Who makes up the rules when defining natural or being natural?
That is what having power over others is about. They get to define the rules. And that is what people try to influence.
But try running for any position without money. It is near impossible.
Once women are able to make money, they were able to get into politics and/or support other women in politics.
Both left and right and full circle. It is a process, sadly it becomes a sum zero game. Always going back to zero for someone.
kayanna
It's always difficult for women from a University environment to write accurately about the grassroots; the fly over country that exists outside the coasts. Unless one is a practicing member of a religion or related to a woman who are comfortable in their skin as a religious "bigot" the limitations of language and culture and simple rhetoric seem to make communication almost impossible. We are speaking to each other across such enormous distances about subjects that all value but I find challenges just in making these issues clear to my sons whom I have raised.
There are a vast concourse of brilliant conservative women in politics in local and community politics. From the outside they read as "the other" or different from people like my my mother-in-law (upper crust San Francisco white) yet we have managed to find ways to communicate and find common ground. Most if not all of these women hale from the Mid-West towards California, where the idea of a woman in charge is considered less-threatening than in the coporate environment of the East Coast. Women pioneers, without their husbands, built much of the west and continued to lead in the best sense of the word long after men died. Look at states like Idaho, Utah, California to find a plethora of conservative women politicians who are strong in their own right and are used to dealing with the absurdities of everyday life. Most of us grow up, eventually do to live's realities, to be conservative. The small percentage of women (usually at Universities) that remain liberal, will remain caught in that mind set, but don't worry about the loss of strong, conservative women. Just look around you. The West in particular has a history of creating such women.
dcbooknurse
I would argue with the idea that 'University' women (or men for that matter) are liberals because they don't understand how real life works. It may be that living in large cities has a different set of challenges than living in small towns or rural communities, but that doesn't make those challenges any less real. One could argue that living in a large city makes one more understanding of and open to a wider variety of lifestyles and cultures, while living in small, homogenious communities make you more insular and less tolerant. Dismissing anyone who is a liberal as simply someone who doesn't understand real life or has never faced real challenges is demeaning and inaccurate.
TwainsYankee
This is the most condescending letter I ever read. At what age am I supposed to be conservative?
Leprekike
Perhaps this serves to highlight the problems inherent in allowing the two-party political machine in this country to define the parameters of American existence and behavior. Both parties are very good at limiting the scope of their product, and the treatment of Scozzafava today and the marginalization of Bob Casey (pro-life Democrat) in the recent past also serve to underscore the glaring fact that each party has an agenda, regardless of the personal differences that individual candidates may have. This can also be recognized in the behavior of the Congress, where it takes time to build coalitions of consent within each party in order to push various bills, subjugating individual ideas to the greater concept of party unity; it isn't so easy to do, otherwise it wouldn't take so long to accomplish. Obviously, those with greater political clout will end up on the top, with their obeisance to the party's national platform paramount rather than faithfully representing the desires of the citizens in their districts or states. I would think that the only way to break their hold on us is to refrain from giving them any more funding, and make them immediately accountable to us, rather than to their party chairman.
urbancowgirl
Pray tell - As a university educated woman who is currently unattached to a man, working in a respected job to completely support myself in a southern state, at what point do my liberal values switch to conservative?
I mean, I'm only 22 so I guess I still have plenty of years to decide that my gay friends actually shouldn't get married, I'm not really all that attached to decisions about my own uterus, I actually really hate supporting the country I love with taxes, or that equality among genders, races, ehtnicities, and sexualities isn't actually all that important to me.
So what do you think - 10, maybe 15 years?
DevilsLawyer
Kayanna: Read. Some. Polls. Women vote more Democratic than men do. You can't tell me they're all students, professors, or university workers.
newswoman
I have been waiting for someone, a woman preferably, who will stand up for abortion as a necessary solution to some problems. The anti-abortionists have gotten most politicians to be afraid to defend the practice.
As a woman, I will make up my own mind as to whether I will terminate a pregnancy, usually for a good reason. Abortion entered the political arena back in 1957, I believe, when there was an epidemic of German measles, which causes defects in the fetus (blindness, for one), and many women had abortions. Some Catholics got wind of this and made a stink and it has grown into a national movement, especially in the Rep party. The Reps always talk of freedom and less government control, but they want to control women. They can't have it both ways!
Llplo99
Exactly! They want less government yet want to control many social issues that are frankly none of their business.
jpelhamtn
Most conservatives have long advocated that it would have been better for voters in each state (via their legislators) to determine the abortion issue. That would have taken such a devisive and personal issue out of the courts into the court of public opinion. The problem with liberals is that they don't trust the people to make these decisions and then have states rise or fall on the merits of their decisions.It would be interesting today to see which states would have thrived and which did not as a result.
OpinionatedGifts
All of this is true, but there are a couple key issues regarding New York's 23rd District.
Scozzafava was pretty much hand picked by GOP leaders in the district. A handful of leaders, 7 I believe. Part of what is going on up there is a sort of rebellion against the party establishment. Yes the extreme right used some harsh tactics, but there was already hostility in that district for Scozzafava because D 23 is extremely conservative over all. They like Sarah Palin there, and they would rather have thier version of Michelle Bachman than someone that can actually help them. It's a kind of "What's Wrong With Kansas" scenario.
The Conservative will likely win because that's who they want. Nevermind that he knows nothing of the local issues, he's anti abortion and that's good enough for them.
southernborn
Well, lets use Palin's own quote here "Theres a place in Hell for woman who don't support other women". Now, she said she was quoting Madeline Albright, but she wasn't...... Madeline Albright said "there is a place in hell for women who don't help other women".
Now, Paline knew that, so I attribute the quote to Palin. So, by not supporting Kaye or Dede, I guess she has a place in hell reserved for her......... or does her own words just apply to other women, not herself.
By the way, I don't agree with the quote of course, just sayin.........
MotherofThree
Yeah, well Sarah never said anything bad about Dede. She was FOR Hoffman, not against Dede. And we can't say the same about the people who continue to trash Sarah Palin.
If you can't see the difference between supporting someone you agree with and trashing someone you disagree with, then there's really no point debating with you.
Aurora
What was your reaction to Mr. Limbaugh's statement regarding Mrs. Scozzafava and bestiality?
Superfancy
The GOP has a nasty habit of humiliating and marginalizing its few high-profile women: Condi Rice and Christine Todd Whitman, for instance. Now they've thrown Scozzafava under the bus. For this, and many other reasons, I no longer vote Republican.
newswoman
Women and minorities are 'second class citizens' in the Rep party. They kowtow to men in the conservative world, who don't like women in control, even of their own bodies. They go against their own interests and don't even know it.
magicman
Except of course in the case when married women become knocked up by their local Policeman, after throwing their husbands in jail for crimes imagined, and then have abortions to cover up the affair from their husbands. It's a real world out there, you seem not to know this?
Why do women always choose to strip first and explain second? It certainly isn't proof of moral character, is it? The killing of defenseless babies is the charm women wear around their necks as they claim Motherhood for themselves. And what kind of Motherhood is this?
unbesteveable250
Can someone please explain what the f*ck this guy magicman is saying? "...Married women become knocked up by their local Policeman," "strip first and explain second"? I'm confused.
OffenbachStutz
Magicman is obviously old and sick. Feel sorry for him.
cbeenthere
unbesteveable-
Why do I think he is working from a personal history?
nortonclybourn
magicman is trying to turn the conversation back to his Mom issues again. Someone give him a referral to a therapist.
magicman
@ unbesteveable250
As it says in the posting, these are common everyday occurances, a part of real life and the full flower of what it means to be a modern woman. It has been made into a Jerry Springer world out there, simply because you have made the choices that have allowed it to become that way.
It is not that women are second class citizens, it is that second class citizens become that way through their own thoughts, deeds and actions taken in the course of an ordinary day.
Scozzafava endorsed a Democrat. How Republican could she really be? Aren't traitors to Party and Principle always going to be second class citizens? Or, can you reverse that idea with simple wishful thinking?
That Scozzafava endorsed a Democrat, after seeking and receiving a back room Republican endorsement from 11 County representatives and not in a Primary Campaign, is testamony to her character. You wouldn't want to serve in the front lines of Afghanistan with this one, she might point the rifle at you if she doesn't get what she wants, or better yet jump to the other side in the middle of battle. Not a team player....apparently, and good reason for her new designation as a second class citizen of the Republican Party.
magicman
@ nortonclybourn
Would you have been happier in life had your mother believed in overpopulation and of 'free-choice' and simply had you aborted? You make it sound as such.
magicman
@ OffenbachStutz
You know nothing about me, yet you claim to. You read very little and write nothing of consequence. But I do thank you for revealing your character. Sadly, it took only one written line for you to reveal who you are and what little character you truly possess. You should have held out for two lines, your retort would have added suspense to the conclusion.
OffenbachStutz
No, no, magicman, Thank YOU!
Ozone69
She should have run on the Dem. ticket. She's a RINO like Mike Bloomberg.
SimonSaize
Does the G.O.P lose men too? See the problem is using women, as I stated during the election and wrote to Mrs.Palin-Clinton herself, she was used for her gender- a "female" candidate- it was labeled publicly. She had no problem with that, it was a way to get ahead. I guess it makes the men look nice for allowing it to happen. then again maybe they lose their position because it doesn't work out- is that based on gender or performance? And besides when it comes to performing- the world's a stage for today's political players.
newswoman
It always made me laugh that the Reps nominated Palin as a contrast to Hillary. In other words, if women don't vote for Hillary, then they will vote for Palin!! No way. Women voted for Hillary because they admired her smarts and because she was a Dem and agreed with their views.
Palin was a rock star, but had no knowledge of what it took to be V,P. I still don't think she will run again and get caught up in the politics of a campaign.
Why should she when she can speak at events and make $100,000 doing it?
winston1
The only thing Hillary achieved was being First Lady of the USA, She rode in on the NY senate seat on her husband's coattails, and the DNC cleared the path for her and knocked Nina Lowery out of the way. She isn't any smarter then Sarah Palin; at least Sarah ran a state. I feel the same way you do about speaking engagement's paying high fees to Bill Clinton, whom sexually molested women and was accused of rape is disgusting.
winston1
The only thing Hillary achieved was being First Lady of the USA, She rode into her senate seat on her husband's coattails, and the DNC cleared the path for her and knocked Nina Lowery out of the way. She isn't any smarter then Sarah Palin; at least Sarah ran a state. I do feel the same way you do about speaking engagement's, paying high fees to Bill Clinton, whom sexually molested women and is accused of rape that is a disgrace.
OffenbachStutz
Incoherence twice! Well alright!
PatriceFitz
@winston1: "Hillary Clinton isn't any smarter then [sic, if you know what that means] Sarah Palin"???!!
What is there to say to such nonsense?
ukeman
"Hillary...She isn't any smarter then Sarah Palin"... ??
Well there's one more poster who's posts will henceforth be skipped by me as measured and come up short.
LookintoDelight
Very true and totally insulting.
rtwyatt3
The extreme evangelicals will be the downfall of the Republican party no matter their gender. America is changing and they will be and are being left behind. They will either accept the ever changing world or continue to be a minority in it.
The Republican party is in a very tight spot because their entire platform has been built around the extremists view points. They won't change because their base will refuse to change. It's really that simple. As in NY, they will continue to divide the party and possibly try and build a strong conservative party. They will not be successful. They just haven't realized that their just aren't that many people who share their views.
djanimaequeen
Bingo
whipmawhopma
rtwyatt3 - "The extreme evangelicals will be the downfall of the Republican party no matter their gender. America is changing and they will be and are being left behind. They will either accept the ever changing world or continue to be a minority in it."
Double bingo.
LookintoDelight
We need Ralph Reed back to put a cute puppet face on these evil people.
surlybastard
I'd love to see Amy Siskind respond to this.
candyman101
Kay Bailey Hutchison is a joke. Why even mention her? We have a joke of a governers race in Texas.
jpelhamtn
Meaning what ... that the liberal Democrats in Texas could not field a credible candidate? (granted, such would be an oxymoron)
PhilMcRoin
you are the ox-like moron..
ReyesHawk
Hey, we have liberal Dems in Tx!!! But yeah, we can't field a credible candidate. The ones with the money to run (very limited fund-raising opps) all have something really wrong with them and the ones the true progressives like couldn't win an election for dog catcher. Too liberal for most of the state.
PhilMcRoin
Bill White (mayor of Houston) would be a great democratic candidate for governor.. but he is running for Kay's senate seat.. o but he's not so liberal.. is that part of your argument? ..that they have to be a liberal democrat, or are you assuming all democrats are liberal?
LookintoDelight
Hey did ya hear the one about that downhome good ole boy rancher -
from Kennebunkport? Yuk Yuk.
Baddchild
This article along with the posts above are just asanine. GOP tough on women???? Any women that runs as a republican is trashed in the MSM and by sexist lefties who think unless a women is in favor of crushing a baby's skull and sucking out of the womb at 7 months with a straw she is evil and must be destroyed. Shows you how messed up you loonie lefties are, to think a baby traveling 6 inches in the birth canal is the determination of life and discarded waste saved for the next facial creme to remove the wrinkles from around pelozi's eyes.
It's not the GOP trashing there women, its the loonie left scared of the smart intelligent women the right have to offer that don't follow the feminist template on how to live.
Scofazza - pro-abortion, pro card check, maried to a afl-cio leader and you think she was republican? She even endorses the democrat. thats why this seat wil go to the GOP in a landslide. People are seeing what life would be in a liberal society and they are not liking it. 53% of the vote was not a landslide or a mandate, someone should have told the dems that, they wouldn't be in so much trouble nationally otherwise.
rtwyatt3
You are assuming that abortion is the only thing women care about. What about equal pay for equal work? What about education for themselves and their children? What about access to daycare? What about health care for themselves and their families?
Women care about many more issues than abortion and the GOP has not addressed those issues. In fact, they don't see a problem or have any answers for any of the issues I just stated.
KateTheGreat
Oh yes they do...the GOP has answers to these questions: "Hey women! Stay home barefoot and pregnant -- your vastly superior god-husband will fix everything! Ignore the past where a woman and children were owned by her husband - no matter if he was a drunk, beat-her, whored, and then died leaving the family destitute..."
Oh the good old days *rolls eyes*
jpelhamtn
All of what you mention above is what PALIN has fought for all her political life (12 years as an elected public servant)....so why don't you support her? She actually went out and did something about it....unlike opinion writers here who only talk and complain.
rtwyatt3
What record? Please, do tell.
Palin appointed a guy to be Attorney General who said "If a guy can't rape his wife...who's he gonna rape?" and "There wouldn't be an issue with domestic violence if women would learn to keep their mouths shut."
She hired a guy as public safety commissoner who later quit because it was learned that he had a sexual harassment case against him.
Alaska ranks # 46 in the nation on education. Her own child dropped out. Alaska ranks # 39 in the nation for having the least healthy citizens.
She also told Katie Couric that she didn't support the Lily Ledbetter Pay Act.
.
Picachu
You are an obvious manifestation of the problem the GOP has. You are a radical right wing nut job who tries to cast everybody else who is not, according to your stilted and xenophobic perceptions, like YOU, as some kind of evil wacko. I would posit that the evil wackos infact have manifested themselves in disproportionate number in the republican party. This is why you are slipping into the abyss. You think you represent most americans thinking, when in fact, most americans are moderates, and we find your stilted radical ideals both offensive and abhorent. You people like to yell and scream and call names, but you don't have any time for thoughtful reasoned debate. That is because your radical nutty ideas won't hold up to rational analysis.
djanimaequeen
Right on!
LookintoDelight
Palin; "The Bush Doctrine? Does he have a Dentrist too?
dbro0009
there you go again using complete sentences and big words!!! commi liberal devils make me sick! tryin to make me read books and brush my teeth! i burn them books and use tooth brushes to clean my gun!
newswoman
There you go, baddchild, spouting the antiabortion line. Late term abortions are very, very rarely done and only when the fetus cannot live outside the womb. You know this but continue to talk about 'crushing a baby's skull', etc. just to make abortion sound like it is ALWAYS done this way, when we know it isn't. Tell me, baddchild, howmany children have you had?? I suspect you don't know squat about the situation. Why is it always men who are so anti choice? (I assume you are not a woman).
PatriceFitz
Have you been pregnant, Baddchild? Have you had to decide whether to grow a fetus inside your body that was going to kill you? Have you had to decide whether it made sense to bring to term a pregnancy where the fetus, if it survived until birth, would be severely physically and mentally handicapped?
If you did, and you made that choice... isn't it wonderful that you had the choice about what you were forced to grow in your body?
Or wait... is it just that you really think pregnancy is a punishment for sex? Do you think sex is bad and dirty, baddchild?
Aurora
Well said; and how sad it has to keep on being said; to counter act SO MANY LIES.
outlier
The Repubs have built a coalition with a basis in anti-intellectualism, anti-science, demagoguery, pandering to the nativist and the fundamentalist, a fear-mongering cynical view of the electorate, without room for independent thought. The Repubs succeed only when good government fails. Therefore the "logical" approach they've taken to government has been to undermine regulation and planning, revenue streams, public education, the Arts and Sciences, and demonization of opponents(is this really the American cultural tradition?). Sadly, the scorched-earth approach of the hard-line conservatives toward moderate Republicans is just an extension of the standard operating procedure of the party. Moderate Republicans, what few remain, should be lining up to join the alternative. It just warms the cockles of my heart.
LookintoDelight
Another one issue loony.
NEXT!
RawhideRex
1) Moderate Republicans... GET CONTROL OF YOUR PARTY!!
2) Wonder how all the pro-Palin because she is a woman feel about her now that she kicked a fellow woman under the bus.
Baddchild
yea moderates get control of your party so the democrats can stay in power and keep destroying the country....
see that is the difference between the GOP and democrats. dede's gender is irrelavant to her getting elected, it's her policy and stands on the issue where as in the democratic party all that matters is the race and gender of the candidate.
PhilMcRoin
"keep destroying the country".. I love it when you freaks say that.. it is really funny.. keep the comedy coming.. like liberal media.. thats another funny one.. real Americans o man.. funny... all this coming from a group of people who have bought the bs of another group of people who's goal is to turn America into a theocracy instead of a democracy.. Well I am sorry if the demoncrats are ruining it for you self righteous pricks.
LookintoDelight
It's the Dems turn.
That's how it works.
Aurora
So, were you happy and well during the Bush administration? Were you better off after those 8 years? Do you not wish for the well-being of our nation? What would be your first step, with your neighbors, to achieve a tangible improvement in your community?
jpelhamtn
Palin...an accomplished woman who actually leads rather than follows...does not see Americans as special interest groups as most readers of DAILY BEAST do...she looks at individuals and decides who is best for both women & men...and for that matter...her children and grandchild.
She didn't kick anyone under the bus...she used her intelligence and influence to back the candidate she felt was best for our nation. In most of America that is known as free speech.
byersl
Please don't use intelligence and Palin in the same sentence!
unbesteveable250
I just want to be a fly on the wall in jpelamtn's life when after a few more elections under their belt (obviously 2008 was the first one they paid attention to) all the little trite cliche's about politics they're throwing around gets ground up in the meat-grinder of reality. I predict alcoholism or the nunnery. Either way, it would be fun to watch.
Picachu
That's funny. I would have liked to have watched your face to see if you kept a straight one while reciting this little bit of sophistry. Your clear assertion of your own moral superiority is quite apparent in your rant.
newswoman
Palin threw Scozzafava under the bus because she was pro choice and that is all Palin cares about.
LookintoDelight
SHe FOLLOWED the first place winner in that beauty pageant.
rennaissancebiker54
God I love your insight....
tumbleweed
Reagan created a monster when he invited the Southern lunatics and the Christian Fundamentalist radicals into the Republican Party. Giving their agenda a prominent place on the Republican platform. That's when I started looking for another party to vote for as well as most of my family. None of us have voted Republican in close to 25 years now. I have said for 20 years now it's eventually going to destroy the Republican Party. It appears to be finally coming to pass.
jpelhamtn
Of course, Tumbleweed, you seem to forget these 'lunatic southers fundamentalists' actually voted in greater numbers for Clinton over Dole in 1996 according to CBS, CNN, ABC & MSNBC. So, I guess they were not so lunatic then, huh?
PhilMcRoin
that's because they thought Dole was a fruit cocktail... literally.
LookintoDelight
That was BEFORE his viagra.
Gettin' it regular has helped him mentally too.
jpelhamtn
Absurd article. Palin is neither southern...nor in her political career...been a part of the evangelical political movement (otherwise known as Christians acting as responsible citizens and voting).
It's amusing when left wing elitists pretend to know what 'women' feel or want. Obviously, Palin has enormous support around the nation from women and men alike. Liberals may not like it...but those are the facts.
Palin is loved because she took the heat from the media and didn't go down with all the punches. She is a successful mother, grandmother, a 12-year elected official, wife, marathon runner, author, speaker and business-owner. Believe it or not Daily Beast readers...such women do exist all over America and they love Sarah Palin.
http://www.reagantopalin.com/
Picachu
It's even more amusing that neanderthal right wing nuts like yourself would pretend that you speak for an entire gender, and of course anybody who disagrees with you is nuts. This very attitude belies the sophistry and logical falacies that underlie all your positions and thinking. You have a massive cognitive disonance that, of course, you don't even recognize. Yes there are women who love Sarah Palin, and they are beaten down under the thumb of male dominated southern whites who run the republican party. They are proud to stay in their place.
djanimaequeen
Picachu, stupid people don't know that they are stupid. Plain and simple.
PhilMcRoin
"otherwise known as christians acting as responsible citizens and voting"
right...
http://www.jesuscampthemovie.com/
Aurora
Heard you the first time...
do you ever, as an intellectual exercise, try on the mind-set of those with whom you disagree? just for five minutes?
uglykidjoe
truly absurd...
the problem with dede had nothing to do with her stand on abortion (which Palin by the way endorses) nor any other social issue...it was her fiscal stupidity (read leftist) tendencies which sunk her boat.
newswoman
Wrong, uglykid, it was abortion and nothing but abortion that made Palin support her opponent. That is all the rightwing conservatives care about, not healthcare, education, equal pay for equal work, Afghanistan, etc. It's all abortion all the time. They have lost all credibility.
PhilMcRoin
and they should have lost all credibility even with the pro-lifers.. Call me crazy, but didn't we just have an evangelical pro-lifer as a president a few years ago, with a republican majority in congress and the supreme court?
The only time the republicans care about abortion or ANY issue for that matter is election time. At least the democrats do their best to look busy when they are in office..
jpelhamtn
Wrong again 'Newswoman; -- Governor Palin did not mention anything about social issues in her endorsement of Hoffman. So, unless you have some sort of power to read minds...you are willfully lying in each of your posts here. But then a liberal lefty with the handle NEWSWOMAN...not sure we'd expect anything else.
Working women of real achievement...such as Palin...are able to hold many views because she has led a varied and successful life. You seem, sadly, as one who did once abort a child and have not dealt with it. I feel badly for you. (If I'm wrong then I guess neither of us are mindreaders are we?) Get the point?
If Palin only cared about abortion -- then she would not have championed many causes in her tenure as a public servant. Her record indicates a desire to root out corruption...not a one issue advocate for life.
jpelhamtn
PALIN made clear her views on Equal Pay long ago (guess you weren't listening) and she issued a detailed assessment (yet again) on Afghanistan just a few weeks ago. Palin has such personal self-confidence that's she's willing to commit her positions in writing...she does not try to sneak behind closed doors with media types and speak off the record. Cowards do this...but leaders do not...and she is a leader.
LookintoDelight
Palin refuses to understand most women cannot afford to make the choices she had.
She's a whack job who needs her choices validated ,to prove to HERSELF, thats she's normal. They need to INFLICT their choices on everyone else.
Thank you.
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