The US conservative project has taken an existential hit (Guardian)

[struggle4progress]

Thanks to Bush and Iraq, the Republican coalition that has come to dominate America suffered a huge crash

Martin Kettle in Washington
Saturday November 11, 2006
The Guardian

... What happened this week was not complex. It was the crash of the conservative political project begun by Newt Gingrich in 1994 and crystallised under George Bush since 2000. It was the crash heard round the world. It came in the form of a nationwide protest against the Iraq war and Bush's presidency. A new survey of actual voters, conducted since election day by Bill Clinton's former pollster, Stan Greenberg, confirms that Iraq was by far the most important issue that influenced Americans' votes. The divide among those for whom Iraq was the most important issue went 3:1 in favour of the Democrats. That, in a nutshell, explains what happened.

The use of the word crash is important if we are to understand the new situation in Washington. This was not an election in which the traditional Democratic vote finally roused itself to overturn Republican rule. It was an election in which the Republican coalition that has gradually come to dominate America since the civil-rights acts of the 1960s suffered a huge existential hit as a result of Bush and Iraq.

The Democrats did not just win among the usual groups such as the poor, women and black people. This time they won among the middle class too, among small-town voters, among every age group and - crucially and emphatically - among independents and moderates. Even where the Democrats lost they polled significantly, taking 45% in the south, 28% of white evangelical Christians, 20% of conservatives and 15% of people who voted for Bush in 2004. These strong showings among unlikely groups help explain why Democrats won congressional seats in so many "red" states this week and why the win that finally gave them control of the senate came from the near south.

No one can say if this is an epochal hit or one from which the Republicans will bounce back in 2008. But the implications of the 2006 crash are fascinating. This is not the creation of a new majority, Greenberg stresses, but a lot of space has nevertheless opened up in which the Democrats could do even better in future. Clearly such optimism has to be highly contingent. Only a fool would overstate it. Karl Rove has not become incompetent overnight. But this week defies the argument in influential recent books that America is a conclusively conservative country ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1945215,00.html

[Phredicles]

1. Sweeeeeeeeeeet - Recommended.

[rodeodance]

5. yes. it is Sweeeeeeeeeet. thanks for the rec. We have to remember it

was Cindy who put Iraq and the WH shanagans on the radar screen

[some guy]

2. the last paragraph

" And Iraq? Those who expect a sudden sea change may be disappointed. It won't be a 180-degree shift, a senior British Washington-watcher suggests. But maybe a 60-degree shift is now on the cards. The name of the game now is minimising the damage of a lost war. With Democratic approval, American policy has been explicitly subcontracted to James Baker and his Iraq Study Group. But that doesn't in itself solve the problem. The damage of Bush's Iraq adventure has just got bigger, not smaller. It now stretches from the streets of Baghdad and Basra into the heart of the once triumphalist and now humbled Republican party. "

I'm not certain American policy has been explicitly subcontracted to Baker and his Iraq Study Group; though it's prety clear the Bush* maladministration has handed policy off to them. Given that it's James Baker, I think the Dems need to find a different option for getting out of Iraq, and then push that option instead.

[struggle4progress]

3. Congress forms panel to study Iraq war (Mar 06)

Panel to recommend Iraq policy to Congress, White House
From Ted Barrett
CNN Washington Bureau

Wednesday, March 15, 2006; Posted: 2:43 p.m. EST (19:43 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Congress unveiled an independent panel on Wednesday assigned to study the U.S.-led war in Iraq and to make policy recommendations for both Capitol Hill and the White House ... Wolf said Congress will appropriate $1.3 million to fund the group, which will work under the auspices of the congressionally chartered U.S. Institute for Peace and three think tanks. http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/03/15/iraq.study/


This Just In: The Iraq Study Group Has Nothing to Report
By Dana Milbank
Wednesday, September 20, 2006; Page A02

... Former secretary of state James Baker and former congressman Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.), the study group's co-chairmen, called a briefing yesterday to give a "progress report" on their activities. A dozen television cameras and scores of reporters filled the hall -- only to discover that Baker and Hamilton had revived Jerry Seinfeld's "show about nothing" format.

"We're not going to speculate with you today about recommendations," Baker announced at the session, hosted by the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Can the war in Iraq be won?

"We're not going to make any assessments today about what we think the status of the situation is in Iraq," said Hamilton ...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/19/AR2006091901341.html

[some guy]

4. eh

Lee Hamilton, Vernon Jordan, Leon Panetta, William Perry, Chuck Robb. Their "Democratic Party" credentials don't impress me. DLC at best, which to me means the COINTELPRO wing of the Republican party.

I have known the group existed, and were going to make recommendations, but I've also known they were holding off until after the mid-terms.

I'll bet a nickel, their recommendations leave US corporate interests strongly positioned in Iraq. As though it's "our oil under their sand."

edit: typo.

[rodeodance]

6. and most of all, the group will give the illusion the corp interests will

not be their.

[rodeodance]

7. I am certain that the Iraq proble HAS be contracted to the Baker group

[some guy]

9. Obviously, the Baker group

had been sent to try to figure out a way out of Iraq, since they've been there, and have their report ready to present. But that is a seven month old decision; given the shift of Congress in the mid-terms, I am hoping (perhaps vainly or naively) that the Dems will look for an alternate solution - mostly, because I know I'm not going to much like anything this group proposes...

George McGovern and William Polk have a (probably) different proposal, and I read some where they(? - McGovern, at least) is/are planning to meet with Dems this coming week on this topic.

Good, bad or indifferent, this plan seems to pretty much get the US completely out of Iraq.

Truthout link to the McGovern-Polk plan

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. Rice as vice-presidential nominee?

Pulling this one sentence out of the article:

Rice is manoeuvring to be her party's vice-presidential nominee.

Do people agree she wants that? Do you think she stands a chance (of being the Republican nominee - ignore what would actually happen in the election)?

[Oak2004]

10. *I* want that

but I am not sure whether the party would care to elect *any* Bushies right now. Do not underestimate the fury of Republicans at their own leadership right now. Then again, they may throw the VP bone to the neocons in the interest of "party unity".

I, of course, salivate at the thought of seeing videotape of Rice's dismissals of warnings about 9/11 played over and over again during the campaign :)

[struggle4progress]

13. I would enjoy having Rice near the top of the Republican 08 ticket. But

let's face it, racist sexist homophobes are a key Republican constituency, and the racist sexists would launch a whispering campaign against Rice, similar to that launched against the unmarried Myers, whipping up the homophobes. So she doesn't really have a chance. She should know it, too: she's in the party of that has pinned its hopes on white southern male identity.

[NVMojo]

11. K & R

[applegrove]

12. Thanks for finding this. n/t