Article: How Dead is the Republican Party?

What do Republicans hope to gain with obstructionism? I called multiple times the senate offices of Shelby, Sessions, McCain, and Kyl today, and all phone lines and mailboxes were full. I particularly wanted to reach Shelby, as he had also voted against Eric Holder and had stated yesterday that, "the man on the street was against the stimulus bill." When asked what he offered in the bill's place, he avoided the question, obviously because he had nothing to offer.

The Republican Party is in shambles. McCain/Palin was a disaste--and Joe the plumber! Now comes the election of a black man to head the party, when the base of the Republican Party is in the South, still fighting the Civil War. You don't believe that? Just today I was talking to a man from Memphis who took the old "states rights line" that says the Civil war (or as the last generation called it, "the war of northern aggression) was not about slavery but states rights. I heard the same thing at the University of Alabama in 1962 when George Wallace stood in the door and defied the federal troops. Look back at the states that McCain heavily carried and you are now looking at the base.

Knowing how much people in Alabama disliked the election of our first African American President, Shelby and Sessions feel safe in voting against the stimulus bill, calling it a disaster in spending taxpayer money--yet in the Mobile Press-Register the school board stated that without federal bailout funds there would be schools closed, teachers fired, and the usual reduction in spending that schools across the country are now experiencing. Mobile had hoped--the contract was actually awarded to EADS--for the Air Force tanker contract, which is now being re-evaluated due to Boeing's charge of "foul." Both Shelby and Sessions strongly support this contract, and although they both have damned wasteful federal spending, of course this is not wasteful spending. I wanted to ask my two senators where they were, when only 8 years ago we had the largest surplus in history, only to be left with the largest deficit. Both senators supported Bush/Cheney on Iraq, tax cuts, and of course Justice Roberts and Alito.

It is fairly clear neither senator, along with McCain and the rest, have a clue in what to do or where to go, but their only chance to remain in any sort of leadership spot light is to simply be against anything the Administration wants to do. Regardless of how bad our economy is, regardless of job loss, foreclosed homes, two wars--Republicans have decided their own political ambitions are more important than the welfare of the country. With the election of Barack Obama, the voters showed both parties that their vicious, selfish hold on the American people could be broken. It is time that the voters "cleaned house" of both Democrats and Republicans who have gone to Washington as public servants, only to build a dynasty whose only aim is to keep themselves in power and offer some effort on behalf of their largest contributors.

The president has just finished his first news conference and is receiving high marks from the pundits. Ed Rollins, Republican consultant made a very good point about the Republicans, in that after the 8 failed years of the Bush Administration the Republicans are returning to their roots of conservatism. The only problem is that they are a trillion short and a trillion late--and the issue at hand is how do we avoid another Great Depression. It is not rocket science to see that a great majority of the American people believe that the President is their best hope and Congress offers nothing. The Republican Party bears the brand of Bush/Cheney. Until they can convince the voter that they represent something different, they will become even a smaller minority.