Something's happening here: The Great Republican Bug-out

[Rose Siding]

Those things that have enraged us most? The outrages and assaults and indecencies that took our breath and made us wonder if the country could ever right itself? We weren't the only ones who noticed.....

After President Meets Reporters, Sullivan -- Once a Bush Backer -- Now Suggests He May Have 'Lost His Mind'
...Sullivan said the president was "so in denial," comparing the Rumsfeld endorsement to applauding the job FEMA's Michael Brown did on Katrina: "It's unhinged. It suggests this man has lost his mind. No one objectively could look at the way this war has been conducted, whether you were for it, as I was, or against it, and say that it has been done well. It's a disaster.

"For him to say it's a fantastic job suggests the president has lost it, I'm sorry, there's no other way to say it.....These people must be held accountable." He added that today, Richard Perle, a leading neocon and Iraq war backer, had today called the administration "dysfunctional."
http://editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003347326&imw=Y


This Is No Fun
By: John Cole October 31, 2006 at 4:02 pm
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I just thought I would go on record stating that the last few weeks and months have really sucked for me. I spent my whole life in the GOP.....

...In short, it really sucks looking around at the wreckage that is my party and realizing that the only decent thing to do is to pull the plug on them (or help). I am not really having any fun attacking my old friends- but I don’t know how else to respond when people call decent men like Jim Webb a pervert for no other reason than to win an election. I don’t know how to deal with people who think savaging a man with Parkinson’s for electoral gain is appropriate election-year discourse. I don’t know how to react to people who think that calling anyone who disagrees with them on Iraq a “terrorist-enabler” than to swing back. I don’t know how to react to people who think that media reports of party hacks in the administration overruling scientists on issues like global warming, endangered species, intelligent design, prescription drugs, etc., are signs of… liberal media bias.

...I think the whole party has been hijacked by frauds and religionists and crooks and liars and corporate shills...

RW columnist says 'Enough is enough,' quits GOP
by quaoar
Wed Nov 01, 2006 at 11:40:34 PM PST
Frank Schaeffer is a Christian conservative columnist for the Dallas Morning News. And as of yesterday, he is a former Republican.

What drove him from the GOP is the tsunami of sleaze that the Republicans are heaping upon the nation in their desperate bid to hold onto power.

The last straw, he says in his column, was an email he got from the George Allen campaign........
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/11/2/24034/3220

In MA: GOP icons lament party's drift, head for other side
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2592374

And this morning the NYT -which for the first time since Watergate has endorsed *NO* Republicans- came to the party in a Keith Olbermann costume:

When the president of the United States gleefully bathes in the muck to divide Americans into those who love their country and those who don’t, it is destructive to the fabric of the nation he is supposed to be leading.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/02/opinion/02thu1.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

To see people wake up and shake it off like this is amazing. These are anecdotes but they are from disparate backgrounds across the country.

There are a good handful of former Republicans who already made the conversion and are running as Democrats now, from VA to the Great Plains. It's been suggested that we should watch for party switchers if the Dems take either house. I think it will happen anyway. It's already happening.

[porphyrian]

1. Kick for intelligent redistribution. - n/t

[JohnnyLib2]

2. Recommended

I think of these as scouts for others with a deep, deep, sense of disgust.
Better late than never applies here.

[babylonsister]

3. Another fabulous quote from Sullivan yesterday: This isn't an

election, it's an intervention!

Paraphrasing, but still, I loved it!

[RevCheesehead]

4. The NYT "came to the party in a Keith Olbermann costume."

:rofl:

[ginnyinWI]

5. I remember reading his father's book back in the day

when I used to belong to a Pentecostal church. This is good news, and serves as an illustration of how far the GOP has strayed and become corrupted. I hope he has a large audience who will follow him.

[young_at_heart]

6. Black is white...up is down, etc. etc.

It seems so terribly easy for him to spout craziness.....he makes it sound "normal"!

[civildisoBDence]

28. Ignorance is Bliss, War is Peace.

Welcome to 1984 in the Twentieth Century.

Newsprism

[Cetacea]

7. K+R eom

[cwydro]

8. kick

:kick:

[acmavm]

9. In a sane and ethical world this would tell you that the only

reason for an election this year is to prove that these corrupt thugs are done destroying this country, OUR COUNTRY.

But in a world where Diebold, Sequoia, and ES&S count the votes, we have to worry ourselves sick that this will be three stolen elections in a row.

I was always taught that the worst thing you could do is to ask God to damn someone to hell. Not only are you hoping for eternal punishment for the person you hate, you are also diminishing your own soul because you should never ask for eternal alienation from God for anyone.

But you know what, for these thugs I do. And in this case I think that it will all right.

P.S. - Any of you anti religious people, save the cracks for someone who cares.

[FredStembottom]

14. It may get stolen....BUT it won't be SUCCESSFULLY stolen.

I am cautiously, as of this morning, deciding that another stolen election can not hold. It has become too universally unbelievable that the Repubs can hold on. Expect all Hell if the Repubs somehow hold onto power. People in the streets etc.

[kestrel91316]

15. Word on the street is, if they steal this one, the hoi polloi are going to erupt.

The RW won't be safe driving to work, even.

[lyonn]

17. From an anti religious person:

Hey, if there is a heaven or hell I would damn them to it! So there, we all aren't bad.

[robinlynne]

27. that's 4 stolen elections in a row...

[Nothing Without Hope]

10. K & R for this encouraging sign. Pigs are flying, and in the right direction

[annabanana]

25. EE-Youch!. . . Toles nails it again!. . . . . . .n/t

[Hidden Stillness]

11. They Claim This is "Recent" Republican Behavior?

The only thing that annoys me about this, is the hypocrisy of Republicans pretending that all this insanity and criminality is new and recent, when really it was always an intrinsic part of what Republicans are, and was always the logical consequence of what would happen if they were ever completely in power, unapposed. When these people say, "smaller government," "get the gummint out a my life," etc., to now pretend that you are "just so shocked," that when people were/are drowning, starving, destitute, in the Gulf Coast region, that the Government did nothing, and left them there to fend for themselves with nothing--liars. What the fuck did you think corporate executives who hate government were going to do? They are "shocked" at the "sudden, recent" meanness of Republicans? Go back ten years, go into a bookstore, and every goddamned book on the shelves was "Slick Willie" this, and "They Murdered Vince Foster," that "Didn't Inhale," on and on and on. These sociopathic bastards have been poisoning us all to death with their hatred and cruelty since the 1980s, whan that horrible bastard Reagan started cutting cancer patients off their Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid, and they wheeled them into the Capital Building and the Hearings--where they lost! You can't blame this on "Christians" or anybody else; this is what Republicans are, and it was always going to come to this.

[bbgrunt]

19. good rant and very, very true.

[Laelth]

30. Hear, hear!

I remember coming to political sentience in the 1980s and asking my elders why the Repukes were so vile. They said it all started with the cold war ... McCarthy, etc. Before that, I heard, most Republicans were sane and genuinely cared about America (even if they had always been greedy, at least since the turn of the 20th century).

... just a little supporting anecdote.

-Laelth

[Nothing Without Hope]

12. I suspect Richard Perle is just sulking because they haven't invaded Iran...

...yet.

[lyonn]

18. Afraid so Nothing Without Hope

That guy give me the chills. How I hate people that think they know more than the dummies out there voting and the repub. party is chuck full of them.

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

20. Perle is as much an Israeli as an American - suspect motives

He's a dual citizen with very mixed loyalties.

He may want to invade Iran or he may be upset at how badly BushCo bungled Iraq.

[cui bono]

13. Hm... Party switchers. That would be awesome if the Senate goes 50-50 and

a few Repubs switch to Dem. :)

[Straight Shooter]

16. Everyone please read the Daily Kos entry on Schaeffer.

It is quite amazing in its sincerity and, sadly, the heartfelt pain. I have very little sympathy for Repubs as a group, since they allowed all this to happen and enabled what we're all going through, but what little sympathy I do have goes to the duped, like Mr. Schaeffer.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/11/2/24034/3220

I'm a Christian, a writer, a military parent and a registered Republican.

On all those counts, I was disgusted by an e-mail I just received that's being circulated by campaign supporters of Republican George Allen, who's trying to retain his Senate seat in Virginia.

The message goes like this: "First, it was the Catholic priests, then it was Mark Foley, and now Jim Webb, whose sleazy novels discuss sex between very young teenagers. ... Hmmm, sounds like a perverted pedophile to me! Pass the word that we do not need any more pedophiles in office."

Democrat James Webb is a war hero and former Marine, wounded in Vietnam and winner of the Navy Cross. He was writing about class and military issues long before me and has articulated the issue of how the elites have dropped the ball on military service in his classic novel Fields of Fire. By the way, that's a book Tom Wolfe calls "the greatest of the Vietnam novels."

[Rose Siding]

21. Likewise. Their beliefs haven't changed, just the

I don't know- application? perception? It must be very disconcerting, so no gloating from me -soon enough there will be differences but some very interesting possibilities for commonality seem to be emerging. Getting out of Iraq and restoring (or at least trying to restore - who knows if it can be done) some kind of global high ground top my list.

[malaise]

22. Fabulous news

I'm loving it.:D

[Coexist]

23. excellent compilation!

[Rose Siding]

24. Also today: In Kansas, 9 former Republicans run as Democrats

snip>
A mini-rebellion is under way in an American Heartland state so historically unswingable that neither national party typically spends much time or energy stumping for candidates....

A cross-section of Democrats, moderate Republicans and independents are backing the party-switchers, saying a Republican obsession with expanded government and deficit spending, along with divisive social issues like abortion and gay marriage, has marred efforts to limit government, boost spending on education and ensure fiscal responsibility.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2592891

[Skidmore]

26. Do you trust the Rs who are "running as Dems?"

I'm deeply suspicious of anyone who would vote for * once, let alone twice, and then claim that they now embrace Democratic Party ideals. I don't want the party to go farther to the right than it has already gone.

[Tanner_B.]

29. K and R

I'm deeply suspicious of anyone who would vote for * once, let alone twice, and then claim that they now embrace Democratic Party ideals. I don't want the party to go farther to the right than it has already gone.

Great point.

And I just want to say: Iraq, Katrina, habeas corpus, posse comitatus, tax cuts for the rich, Halliburton, 9/11, Abramoff, Foley, record oil company profits, record defecits, Fox News Channel, Jesse Helms, the Contract on America, Monica Lewinsky, the Gulf War, Iran-Contra, PATCO - a very incomplete list of the accomplishments and personalities of the "Republican Revolution." Never let this happen again. Thank you.

[Laelth]

31. I'll take just about anybody who caucuses with the D's

at this point. There are a number of D's I don't completely trust, including my own Congresscritter, but I'll take somebody who votes with the liberal wing of the party 30% of the time over a cookie-cutter Nazi who never votes with the liberal wing of the party any day of the week. We need to control legislatures and appoint committee chairs. If we have to accept some former R's in order to do that, so be it.

-Laelth

[femrap]

36. This has bothered me as well.

I wonder with the DLC branch moving to the right that they are in cohoots with the moderate repugs and the true Dem party is being morphed into some Centrist Party backed by Corporate money.

It's something I believe we need to watch.

[autorank]

32. It's called a "Teardown" and Andy Sullivan is there right on que

The outlier that may move to center stage is the "soldier left behind" when the President of Iraq asked US troops to move outof the area where the soldier was kidnapped, effectively ending the chances for a rescue - as the story goes. Sullivan is jumping up and down on that one. It would be interesitng if corporate media did the old, "we can cover this because its on a blog" routine. Very interesting.

Great Post!!!!!!!!!! KR

[Rose Siding]

35. lol -yeah, they could step in with one of those "it's been said" stories

"People are saying that by leaving the Republican party, they are able to look themselves in the mirror once again. Next up, a glass salesman with the impact the exodus is having on her business. And as these "ex-Republicans" are finally getting a good look at themselves, are other industries impacted- later on our panel, we'll talk to dentists and skin care specialists."

[upi402]

33. Bushler is Osama's wetdream n/t

[Boston Critic]

34. Update from Massachusetts

GOP sees drop in number of voters
Rolls at lowest point in 6 years
By Andrew Ryan, Globe Correspondent | November 3, 2006

The number of registered Republicans in Massachusetts has fallen by more than by 31,000 since the state elected Governor Mitt Romney four years ago, in a 6 percent drop that puts GOP ranks at their lowest point in six years, according to a count released yesterday.

With the Republican Party fighting to keep its 16-year hold on the governor’s office this Tuesday, the new figures show that Republicans make up 12.5 percent of the state’s voters, or 498,962. Four years ago, when the state elected Romney, there were 530,512 registered Republicans, making up 13.4 percent of the electorate.

"The last 10 years, it’s as if the Republican Party has been evaporating in this state," said Todd Domke, a Republican analyst who has worked with the national party. "But it’s less a matter of registration than fewer candidates, fewer officeholders, fewer leaders, and no strategy to reverse the trend. That's what’s disturbing."

http://www.boston.com/news/local/politics/candidates/articles/2006/11/03/gop_sees_drop_in_number_of_voters/