Bye-bye, bullies! A GOP culture of scorn and intimidation rejected by voters

[powergirl]

AS a southerner (Texan) the last paragraph resonates the loudest for me.

From Salon:

Nov. 13, 2006 | The votes are counted, the Democrats control Congress, and everyone knows the 2006 election turned on two things: Iraq and GOP corruption. But before we move on it's worth savoring one more aspect of Tuesday's results: the repudiation of the culture of bullying and intimidation perfected by Republican leaders, especially since 9/11.

George Allen's defeat was the clearest example. Everyone knows he stepped in "Macaca," but the debate about the word's racial meaning threatened to obscure the basic message: Allen was caught on YouTube doing what comes naturally, bullying somebody, somebody who just happened to be the lone brown-skinned man at his campaign event. Sure the racism mattered, a lot, but it was the bullying no one could deny. And when Salon, just a few weeks later, revealed the senator's habitual use of the N-word in college, one factor cited by witnesses who came forward was seeing Allen, the bully of old, captured on that video.

But Allen's not the only bully who lost on Tuesday. In the last year Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum tried to transform himself into a good Catholic conservative motivated by love, not hate, but Santorum sealed his defeat in 2003 in an interview where he equated homosexuality with bigamy, polygamy, incest and most famously "man on dog" sex. In the furor that followed, Republican leaders from Sen. Bill Frist to President Bush defended Santorum, head of the Republican Conference, who held onto his leadership post despite the storm. "The president believes that the senator is an inclusive man," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters. "The president has confidence in Senator Santorum and thinks he's doing a good job as senator -- including in his leadership post." Pennsylvanians obviously disagreed.

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There's almost no way to overstate the extent of the political sea-change last Tuesday's election results represent. Allen's defeat has particular importance, since as recently as last spring he was considered a front-runner for the Republican nomination in 2008. Allen was cut from the same cloth as Bush, two transplants to the South -- Allen from Southern California to Virginia, Bush from Connecticut to Texas -- who embraced certain Southern stereotypes, from cowboy boots to nicknames to a faux-down-home suspicion of book learnin', but not much Southern dignity or decency.



http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/11/13/bullies/