Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Women Trouble

Matt Stoller has a fascinating post up in which he describes a Republican training seminar for women. They laid out the strategy for getting to their target group in this election — “married women with high religiosity, women who voted for Bush in 2000 and value their family’s safety.” This explains the bizarre babble I heard the other night on Matthews after Laura Bush’s speech. They were, unsurprisingly, parroting GOP talking points (which are pretty insulting if you ask me.)

However, they seem to have targeted a very specific group whom they evidently don’t feel they are insulting by characterizing them as something like nineteenth century farmwives with no knowledge of the world beyond their homestead. I guess the Republicans know their constituency.

What’s interesting to me about the data Matt compiles is the focus group comments from independent Republican-leaning women, 30% of whom are undecided:

*”I don’t believe anything anymore”

* “I don’t like slinging mud and they all do it…”

* “I can’t hear anything from a government and trust it.”

* “I don’t believe anything anymore and we can’t make a difference because we don’t have any truth…”

* “I don’t really know aht’s happening but I know someone knows what’s happening.”

* “I absolutely believe they have no clue.”

* “They tell us to keep doing what I’ve always done, but watch out for something. If there’s something I’m supposed to worry about why am I supposed to do what I’ve always done?”

* “Kerry hasn’t won my trust yet, I don’t feel safe with him. I’m waiting to see, I think we are vulnerable.”

* “If Kerry did win the change of hands of government would lessen the protection of the country.”

* “We’re putting money into the college funds every month and it seems like it stays at the same level.”

* “What’s going to be there when our kids are ready.”

* “What’s going on with the economy. I’m not happy with my job.”

* “Turning the corner – I didn’t get that one. I want to find that corner and stand on that corner.”

These are Republican leaning married women. And they do not sound as if they are very happy with the way our politics are being waged and they are very cynical. They don’t sound like nineteenth century farmwives to me, they sound like some severely irritated twenty first century citizens.

This issue of rabid partisanship is a difficult problem to engage right now because just as these women, and I suspect many others, are getting sick and tired of the yelling and screaming — the white male contingent is kicking it up a notch. And, if you don’t properly fight back you risk looking weak, which neither men or women want, but if you do fight back, these exasperated women see you as part of the problem, not the solution. It’s the old, “I don’t care who started it, you’re both grounded” routine. Not that I blame them. It is exhausting and you have to wonder sometimes if there will ever be an end to it.

But, I have to say that if those comments are representative of this group then the Zellfire and brimstone attack of the last couple of days probably has gone over like a lead balloon with these women. From Matt’s post it appears the GOP believes they are looking for someone to “protect” them and will respond to male strength. That sounds like wingnut wishful thinking to me. Those comments sound like some people who are sick of the bullshit and would like their leaders to shut the hell up and start dealing with reality. I don’t think many of them would have been impressed by this cock-of-the-walk chest thumping that’s been going on this week in NYC.

There’s a reason why the gender gap continues to widen. The GOP remains an old fashioned boys club that welcomes rich trophy wives and fundamentalist believers in female subservience. Until they figure out that those two categories are rapidly dwindling groups in this culture and that most women reasonably don’t see politics as a particularly heroic endeavor, all this strutting around with codpieces is pretty much playing to the locker room crowd. Women are their own heroes these days.

Read Matt’s post all the way through if you’re interested in this topic. He brings up one thing that is crucial and that is the the Democrats don’t do this kind of grassroots seminar teaching which is a big mistake. People on the ground want the talking points and the rationale, they just don’t know where to get it. If the Dems aren’t doing this they damned sure should be.

Update: John Edwards knows how to make this appeal for our side and it’s not because he’s so darned cute. It’s because he knows how to subtly aim the message.

“If you got up and went to the refrigerator to get a Diet Coke, you would have missed any discussion of what they’re going to do about health care, what they’re going to do about jobs, what they plan to do about this mess in Iraq.”

Diet coke, see? He’s not talking to some hairy mook.

Update II:

Here’s a little bit of the premiere wingnut talk radio harpy, Dr Laura’s, new book:

I believe [women’s self-centeredness] is a result of the women’s movement, with its condemnation of just about everything male as evil, stupid, and oppressive, and the denigration of female and male roles in families, as well as the loss of family functioning as a result of divorce, day care, dual careers, and the glorification of shacking up and unwed motherhood by choice. These are the core destructive influences that result in women not appreciating that they are perfected when they are bonded in wedlock and have obligations to family.

I think that says it all.

Coalition Of The … Never Mind

Kos tells me that Blair and his socialist comrades are showing their true colors:

That does it! Time for Republicans in Congress to adopt the metric system! We’ll eat Freedom Muffins. And we’ll rename our language “Freedomish”.

And long overdue it is, my friends. Why we ever trusted those limey bastards is beyond me. There’s that little Norman Conquest thing that nobody wants to talk about, but there’s more than one Frenchman in the woodpile over there, if you know what I mean.

Now This Is Just Sad

Don’t look now, but Karl Rove is the Republican Party’s newest sex symbol.

The bespectacled, wispyhaired political guru – known in some circles as “Bush’s brain” – had to be physically protected Tuesday night from a flock of lady admirers during a cocktail party at Gotham Hall.

“As soon as he got off the stage, he was mobbed by a group of women,” party volunteer Warren Seubel told Lowdown.

“Women were fawning over him. They were swooning,” said Seubel. “I’ve never seen someone so gnarly get so much attention from so many women.”

Things got a tad ugly when Rove’s handlers tried to separate the man from his fans.

“It was unbelieeeeevable. I had to start throwing elbows at senators and congressmen,” said Seubel. “But the real problem was the congressional wives.”

Maybe it was the 53-year-old Rove’s toast that had the gals excited. Addressing the crowd – which included human Uzi Ann Coulter, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, G. Gordon Liddy and Interior Secretary Gale Norton – Rove yelled, “We’re right, and they’re wrong! On the economy, we’re right, and they’re wrong! On the war on terror, we’re right, and they’re wrong! On marriage, we’re right, and they’re wrong!”

Yesterday, a Rove associate tried to knock down the sex-symbol scenario. “He’s like a rock star, and people want to shake his hand, take pictures with him, say hello, etc.” the associate E-mailed. “I’ve been here all week and it is crazy, but I don’t seriously think it is because he’s a babe magnet. He’s just the man!”

Having taken a good look at the men on the floor at Madison Square Garden this week, I can see that the GOP women are pretty hard up. But, there’s really no excuse for this. First it was Ari, now this. For Gawd’s sake, ladies, have some dignity.

Mark Your Calendars

Via Suburban Guerilla, I see that we have something very powerful and important happening on September 13th:

In Chain of Command, Hersh takes an unflinching look behind the public story of President Bush’s “war on terror” and into the lies and obsessions that led America into Iraq. He reveals the connections between early missteps in the hunt for Al Qaeda and disasters on the ground in Iraq. The book includes a new account of Hersh’s pursuit of the Abu Ghraib story and of where, he believes, responsibility for the scandal ultimately lies. Hersh draws on sources at the highest levels of the American government and intelligence community, in foreign capitals, and on the battlefield for an unparalleled view of a crucial chapter in America’s recent history. With an introduction by The New Yorker’s editor, David Remnick, Chain of Command is a devastating portrait of an Administration blinded by ideology and of a President whose decisions have made the world a more dangerous place for America.

And something powerful and trivial will be happening on September 14th:

Foes of the president are salivating over a description of Kitty Kelley’s forthcoming tell-all about George Bush and his kin. “The Family: the Real Story of the Bush Dynasty” goes on sale Sept. 14, and the description on Amazon.com promises that Kelley — who made international headlines with her scathing Nancy Reagan bio — will reveal “the matriarchs, the mistresses, the marriages, the divorces, the jealousies, the hypocrisies, the golden children, and the black sheep” of the first family.

I hope that operatives are preparing to milk this situation. Here we will have two book tours, one featuring a scathing indictment of the administration’s terrible (and immoral) decisions in fighting the war on islamic fundamentalism and the other a deliciously gossipy screed that will entice the tabloid appetite of the press corpse. In today’s media climate it isn’t about a specific fire, it’s the accumulating smoke that puts the other guys off his game. The timing here is no accident.

You Noticed

It’s gratifying to see that the aristocratic Lord Saletan has seen the light and is now in favor of democracy. This piece certainly hits the nail on the head:

The election is becoming a referendum on democracy.

In a democracy, the commander in chief works for you. You hire him when you elect him. You watch him do the job. If he makes good decisions and serves your interests, you rehire him. If he doesn’t, you fire him by voting for his opponent in the next election.

Not every country works this way. In some countries, the commander in chief builds a propaganda apparatus that equates him with the military and the nation. If you object that he’s making bad decisions and disserving the national interest, you’re accused of weakening the nation, undermining its security, sabotaging the commander in chief, and serving a foreign power—the very charges Miller leveled tonight against Bush’s critics.

Are you prepared to become one of those countries?

This is quite interesting (and gratifying) but I’m puzzled. At the beginning of the week Saletan wrote:

6:33 p.m. PT—This will be an interesting convention for me. Five years ago, when I moved out of the District of Columbia—a one-party state, minus the statehood—I had to think seriously about which party to register with. I was sick of the liberal dogmatism of my college and post-college friends. I’d come to the conclusion, through personal and political experience, that while Democrats had the right values, Republicans had a better operating theory of human nature: People behave more virtuously and wisely when they bear the consequences of their actions.

I also agreed fundamentally with something Newt Gingrich said a lot when he was speaker of the House: If we leave the money in Washington, the liberals will spend it. So, when George W. Bush got elected, I wasn’t terribly disturbed. I thought he was dumb and unqualified, but with a fat surplus accumulating in Washington, sending the money back to taxpayers before Congress spent it struck me as prudent.

I didn’t agree with the conservative urge to legislate on abortion, homosexuality, or other moral issues. But in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, I found a Republican who shared my libertarian instincts on those questions: Rep. Connie Morella. On many spending issues, Morella was to my left. But I was happy to find a sensible representative who didn’t have to follow the Democratic Party’s line of bribing approved constituencies and equating virtue with spending.

The Maryland Democratic Party refused to let me vote in its primaries if I registered as an independent. The Maryland Republican Party, in need of converts, demanded no such loyalty oath. So, I registered as an independent and voted in Maryland’s Republican presidential primary for John McCain, whom I admired even when I disagreed with him. Then I voted for Morella in a tight general election contest, and she won. I was beginning to feel comfortable thinking of myself as a liberal Republican, even if this was one of just a few pockets in the country where people like me could find a place in this party.

Four years later, I come to this convention stripped of that feeling. The past four years have alienated me from this party. I’m here, among other things, to find out why.

He seems to have figured it out in the last three days. The modern Republican party is hostile to democracy.

But, dear God, what on earth did he think was going on for the last fifteen years when Bob Dole went on the floor of the senate and declared that Clinton won with only a plurality so he wasn’t legitimate? What was Saletan thinking when the Republicans insistently employed their investigative power and relentlessly mau-maued the media into pressuring the admnistration to appoint special prosecutor after special prosecutor over insignificant issues? What in the world did he think was happening when they impeached a twice duly elected president over a trivial sexual matter?

And what did he think was happening when they played an unprecedented form of hardball in seizing the presidency and then governing as if they had a huge mandate for radical change?

Did any of those actions speak of a party that gave a damn about the spirit of democracy?

It has been clear for quite some time to anyone who is paying attention that the modern Republican party is actively undermining the democratic process. Look at the Republican funded recall in California or the strong-arm redistricting all over the country, not to mention the more subtle forms of anti-democratic rule like bald-faced lying about government statistics and holding secret meetings and creating entirely new forms of executive privilege.

Yes, standing up before the nation and saying that speaking out against the president during a presidential campaign is putting our troops at risk is a very shocking charge. But, this is hardly the first time they’ve said that. I simply don’t understand how people who are paid money to watch politics for a living have missed what seems to me to be an obvious development over more than a decade. Every election since 1992 has been dicier and dicier. With each cycle, they have gotten more and more aggressive in breaking the rules and challenging accepted norms. The only real question at this point is if they have been successful in rigging enough voting machines to swing this election if it’s close enough. I’m hoping that they just haven’t had the time to get it done because if they have there is absolutely no reason to believe they won’t do it. They do not have any limits.

So yes, this election is a referendum on American democracy. At this point, they all are — and they have been for quite some time. I’m glad some members of the media are noticing. Maybe this time they won’t be so willing to smugly tell us to “get over it” if things go wrong.

But, I doubt it. Until elections are actually cancelled (which we — shockingly — even discussed openly for a while)or journalists are jailed for sedition or some other heinous suspension of the constitution (for ordinary white people, mind you) is employed, the media will continue to support the slow erosion of our political system until it will be too late to get it back.

After all, Lord Saletan still believed the Republicans held the abstract philosophy that “people behave more virtuously and wisely when they bear the consequences of their actions” in 1999, after the Republican congress had weakened the constitution and impeached Clinton over a blowjob. If he was that slow on the uptake, then I’m not anticipating that he will figure out the rest of the story until everything is already lost.

Damn That Al Gore

Does everyone remember when Jeff Jacoby got nailed for passing on that stupid chain letter about the heroes of the revolutionary war all ending up broke? Or when Pierre Salinger fell for a photo shopped picture on the internet of flight 800 being shot down?

After his speech last night, Zell was waving around a sheaf of papers claiming that it proved his claims about Kerry were true. I wonder if anybody actually got a look at it because both pandagon and Martini Republic have found some shocking similarities between Zell’s lies and a couple of bogus chain e-mails that have been going around for months.

You don’t suppose that Zell actually fell for that crap, do you?

On the other hand, baldfaced lying is no longer seen as political death, so why not? Perhaps we should have Kerry start doing speches about Bush’s long term affair with Osama bin Laden’s third wife. Somebody sent me an e-mail that said it was true so it must be.

What About The Flying Monkeys?

THE MILLER GAMBLE [Jonah Goldberg]

I think the Miller speech was fantastic, as I said. But I do think that if it had been delivered by a Republican it would be seen as a major liability for Bush — largely because the press would but that spin. I think the Bush campaign believes that the counter-spin that Miller’s a Democrat will defuse that sort of thing; “the Republicans weren’t mean. Zell Miller’s a Democrat.”

I think the gamble will pay off. But expect a blizzard of spin from those who want to Buchananify the speech.

The speech made Buchanan sound like the other Jenna. But the problem, Jonah, is that you can pretend that the GOP has some distance from the speech all you want because Miller calls himself a Democrat. But, how are you going to explain the shrill, shrieking freaks in the audience whose eyes were veritably rolling back in their heads in ecstasy every time old Zell let fly. Are they Democrats too?

It’s kind of hard to distance yourself from your own convention delegates, know what I mean?

We haven’t lost PA

I can’t tell you how important it is to read Donkey Rising every day from now on if you want to know what’s going on with the horse race. Today, Ruy has a very informative piece on likely voters vs. registered voters — and reports that the doom and gloom about Pennsylvania is bullshit.

This is not some “Pollyanna let’s all cross our fingers and hope as hard as we can that the poll numbers are wrong” nonsense. Polling is actually fairly accurate, particularly showing trend lines over time. And, we are not behind. In fact, as Ruy points out, when they poll registered voters we are quite a bit ahead. This is where the scenario of the new and motivated Democrats comes in. If it is true that we are more intense than the other side then these numbers reflect that if we get a good turnout, we win handily. When they all switch to a more reliable likely voter model closer to the election, we’ll have a little better idea if the Dems really are as motivated as we think. I’d bet we are.

Read his posts on the details of political polling and what it all means. You’ll feel better. We are doing fine.

Woah

Blitzer, Greenfield and Woodruff are interviewing Zell Miller directly after Cheney’s speech. (After Edwards, the very first words out of anybody’s mouth came from Ralph Reed.)

The good news is that they are challenging his lies. I’m beginning to think, watching him, that I was closer to the truth than I realized when I said he had a mental problem. He sounds ridiculous trying to defend his crazy talk.

Blitzer is accusing him of sounding so angry that “some are saying” his speech may have backfired. Now he’s babbling incoherently. I almost feel sorry for him.

Cheney’s speech was simultaneously dull and nasty, which isn’t an easy feat. Tad Devine is doing just fine framing the difference between the two parties as between hope and fear. After tonight that claim has even more salience. The whole thing was discordant and ugly — and the crowd was way over the top with the cheering at the Democrat bashing. It’s not a pretty picture.

Clearly, Rove has given up on tacking to the middle. He is totally playing to the base. This election is trench warfare — get out the vote.

BTW: Nice of them to make Mary stay off the stage, don’t you think? How do they sleep at night?

Update: Someone should have put a little drop of laudenum in Ziggy’s Starbucks this evening. He apparently challenged Chris Matthews to a duel. For real.

Rebel Yell!

The GOPers in the hall are so excited by the blood dripping from Zell’s mouth that I think I fear they will soon be speaking in tongues. I’m getting worried for their health. This much hate can cause strokes and heart attacks if not controlled.

But don’t you think Zell’s speech and speaking style would be greatly enhanced by a little moustache and a snappy uniform? I mean, it goes so well with the Riefenstahlesque stage set.

I have to wonder if we might not have seen a Buchanan moment there.