AIG Tax Vote Exposes Hypocrisy of Eric Cantor and the House Republicans
By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

Yesterday's decision by Rep. Eric Cantor and 84 of his Republican Party colleagues to support a confiscatory tax
on bonuses at bailed-out financial firms should give Rush Limbaugh and the party's titular leaders pause.

What do Republicans stand for?

I've always thought that, when you stripped away all the phony sermons about morality, at its absolute core the GOP was about freeing capitalists to rock and roll, unburdened by Washington regulators and oppressive taxation.

Think about it. It's pretty much the only reason to have Republicans at all. We have plenty of preachers, church ladies, moms and spouses to scold us. Why hire a Newt Gingrich or an Eric Cantor to tell us what's right and wrong if they are not going to make us rich?

But yesterday 85 Republicans took the plunge down a slippery slope.

It is now impossible for them to escape the question: If it is okay to micro-manage and soak wealthy Wall Street greedheads with a 90 percent tax after their bungling has caused a worldwide financial crisis, then what's the harm in regulating them before, and taxing them at a higher rate—say, 45 or 50 percent—when they are pulling in those gazillion-dollar bonuses in the good times?

And maybe prevent the kind of meltdown we're suffering through today?

And reduce the national debt, save Social Security or guarantee health care with their money?

Doesn't that make sense?

Not only did Cantor and the boys vote for a 90 percent tax, they pretty much trampled the spirit, if not the letter, of the Constitution along the way. The blatantly punitive tax was drawn just broad enough—maybe—to avoid the prohibition against bills of attainder.

Ninety percent! Granted, the Republicans are in a fix. They want Barack Obama to fail, don't have a coherent alternative to Obama-ism, and after messing things up so royally themselves, need a path back to popularity.

Populist outrage seems like a good, distracting bet. Maybe the public won't remember that it was George W. Bush and a Republican administration that okayed the AIG bailout in the first place, and sat idly by when the firm announced last November that it would be paying $469 million in "retention bonuses."

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/john-farrell/2009/03/20/aig-tax-vote-exposes-hypocrisy-of-eric-cantor-and-the-house-republicans.htm

This whole thing is a lie from your government, perpetrated by the Obama administration and the Democrat leadership in the House of Representatives to cook up artificial outrage over contractually obligated bonuses. Ed Morrissey says it's a freak show. It's a circus, a populist circus. It is a freak show, but it is worse. This has to be a violation of the oath of their office, what they are doing. Now, I know, $165 million, it may not seem like chump change. People are saying it's chump change in comparison to all the bailout money, but $165 million stand-alone going to individuals is not a small amount of money. I agree with that. But people are being tugged in the wrong direction on this, and the best and the brightest, the wizards of smart, are lying through their teeth. And the primary culprits -- and I don't mind being partisan here -- are liberal Democrats.

And one of the things we know about liberalism is that it is a lie. It has to lie in order to survive. It has to create demons. It has to create enemies that have to be destroyed. So while the president of the United States -- and he claims he didn't know 'til March 10th, and I don't believe that. I don't believe the president of the United States didn't know anything about it. I don't believe Geithner didn't know. We know now Geithner knew on March 3rd. We knew Congress knew before March 3rd. Do you understand this? On March the 3rd, 17 days ago, Geithner was asked by members of Congress about these bonuses. We ought to get some audio from Crowley. If we have any, if there is any. I would love to have audio from Crowley acting shocked and stunned and surprised on these bonuses on a date later than March 3rd when he brought them to everybody's attention.

And if Crowley knew about them on March 3rd, when did they really know about it? They knew enough to start asking Geithner about it on March 3rd. Geithner is lying through his teeth when he says he only knew about this on March 10th. "I didn't know; I only learned the full scope on March 10th," he's saying. We have been had. We have been insulted. Our intelligence has been insulted. We are being played like village idiots. They look at us as suckers who will believe anything, and it's all to protect their dirty little rear ends, their corrupt little rear ends. I'm having trouble describing how I feel without uttering any profanities here. I haven't been this mad in a long time, and I'm made not just about their behavior, but I am really mad and saddened at the same time at how damned easy it's been for these people to mislead this country. That's what's scary. It has been too damn easy to create a mob aimed at the wrong people, a mob being used by the Democrat Party to destroy the United States of America as you and I have known it. This is about liberalism, folks. This is not about politics as usual. This is about an ideology or a psychology, whatever you want to call it -- systematically now with no strains, no constraints, nothing to stop them -- finally implementing every dream they have ever had, to destroy this nation as founded.


http://tinyurl.com/c375vc

The 2008 election was a mirror of 1988, with President Barack Obama winning 53 percent of the vote, matching that of George H.W. Bush. Here’s what happened: During those 20 years, the minority share of the vote increased by 11 percentage points and the white college-educated by 4. The white, working-class portion decreased by 15.

If you’re a Republican, these are “uh-oh” trends.

Other trends seem destined to exacerbate the Republican plight. Obama won the millennials — Americans born between 1978 and 2000 — by 66 percent to 32 percent. This generation is adding 4.5 million voters every year.

Single and professional women are fast-growing voter blocs and they favor Democrats by wide margins. And even though Obama did better with religious voters than his Democratic predecessors, it hardly matters. The country is becoming more secular, according to new data.

Shortly after the 1988 election conservative columnist George Will wrote that Democrats were doomed by the country’s continuing suburbanization. Surely no suburbanite would vote Democratic.

But gradually, cities rebounded, and the new urban dwellers voted Democrat by large margins.

More significantly, a gifted politician named William Jefferson Clinton charmed suburban voters, not just because he was lovable Bubba, but also because he calmed their fears about Democrats.

He gave suburban, college-educated whites confidence in Democrats’ ability to be good stewards of the economy and persuaded them that his party stood for law and order and reforming welfare, which were traditional Republican issues.

As Clinton moved the party to the center and made government work, Republicans were becoming more ideologically strident and alienating America’s fastest growing demographics.

Republicans need a Bill Clinton.

http://tinyurl.com/cos4dl

The Republican party does not need to become an regional party.

Yes, the republican party is looking like a bunch of rednecks.

West Virginia's Mine Wars
Compiled by the West Virginia State Archives

On March 12, 1883, the first carload of coal was transported from Pocahontas in Tazewell County, Virginia, on the Norfolk and Western Railway. This new railroad opened a gateway to the untapped coalfields of southwestern West Virginia, precipitating a dramatic population increase. Virtually overnight, new towns were created as the region was transformed from an agricultural to industrial economy. With the lure of good wages and inexpensive housing, thousands of European immigrants rushed into southern West Virginia. In addition, a large number of African Americans migrated from the southern states. The McDowell County black population alone increased from 0.1 percent in 1880 to 30.7 percent in 1910.

Most of these new West Virginians soon became part of an economic system controlled by the coal industry. Miners worked in company mines with company tools and equipment, which they were required to lease. The rent for company housing and cost of items from the company store were deducted from their pay. The stores themselves charged over-inflated prices, since there was no alternative for purchasing goods. To ensure that miners spent their wages at the store, coal companies developed their own monetary system. Miners were paid by scrip, in the form of tokens, currency, or credit, which could be used only at the company store. Therefore, even when wages were increased, coal companies simply increased prices at the company store to balance what they lost in pay.

Miners were also denied their proper pay through a system known as cribbing. Workers were paid based on tons of coal mined. Each car brought from the mines supposedly held a specific amount of coal, such as 2,000 pounds. However, cars were altered to hold more coal than the specified amount, so miners would be paid for 2,000 pounds when they actually had brought in 2,500. In addition, workers were docked pay for slate and rock mixed in with the coal. Since docking was a judgment on the part of the checkweighman, miners were frequently cheated.

In addition to the poor economic conditions, safety in the mines was of great concern. West Virginia fell far behind other major coal-producing states in regulating mining conditions. Between 1890 and 1912, West Virginia had a higher mine death rate than any other state. West Virginia was the site of numerous deadly coal mining accidents, including the nation's worst coal disaster. On December 6, 1907, an explosion at a mine owned by the Fairmont Coal Company in Monongah, Marion County, killed 361. One historian has suggested that during World War I, a U.S. soldier had a better statistical chance of surviving in battle than did a West Virginian working in the coal mines.

In response to poor conditions and low wages in the late 1800s, workers in most industries developed unions. Strikes generally focused on a specific problem, lasted short periods of time, and were confined to small areas. During the 1870s and 1880s, there were several attempts to combine local coal mining unions into a national organization. After several unsuccessful efforts, the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) was formed in Columbus, Ohio, in 1890. In its first ten years, the UMWA successfully organized miners in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Attempts to organize West Virginia failed in 1892, 1894, 1895, and 1897.

In 1902, the UMWA finally achieved some recognition in the Kanawha-New River Coalfield, its first success in West Virginia. Following the union successes, coal operators had formed the Kanawha County Coal Operators Association in 1903, the first such organization in the state. It hired private detectives from the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency in Bluefield as mine guards to harass union organizers. Due to these threats, the UMWA discouraged organizers from working in southern West Virginia.

By 1912, the union had lost control of much of the Kanawha- New River Coalfield. That year, UMWA miners on Paint Creek in Kanawha County demanded wages equal to those of other area mines. The operators rejected the wage increase and miners walked off the job on April 18, beginning one of the most violent strikes in the nation's history. Miners along nearby Cabin Creek, having previously lost their union, joined the Paint Creek strikers and demanded:

* the right to organize
* recognition of their constitutional rights to free speech and assembly
* an end to blacklisting union organizers
* alternatives to company stores
* an end to the practice of using mine guards
* prohibition of cribbing
* installation of scales at all mines for accurately weighing coal
* unions be allowed to hire their own checkweighmen to make sure the companies' checkweighmen were not cheating the miners.

When the strike began, operators brought in mine guards from the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency to evict miners and their families from company houses. The evicted miners set up tent colonies and lived in other makeshift housing. The mine guards' primary responsibility was to break the strike by making the lives of the miners as uncomfortable as possible.

As the intimidation by mine guards increased, national labor leaders, including Mary Harris "Mother" Jones, began arriving on the scene. Jones, a native of Ireland, was already a major force in the American labor movement before first coming to West Virginia during the 1897 strikes. Although she reported the year of her birth as 1830, recent research indicates she was probably born in 1845. As a leader of the UMWA's efforts to organize the state, Jones became known for her fiery (and often obscene) verbal attacks on coal operators and politicians.

Not only did the UMWA send speechmakers, it also contributed large amounts of weapons and ammunition. On September 2, Governor William E. Glasscock imposed martial law, dispatching 1,200 state militia to disarm both the miners and mine guards. Over the course of the strike, Glasscock sent in troops on three different occasions.

Both sides committed violent acts, the most notorious of which occurred on the night of February 7, 1913. An armored train, nicknamed the "Bull Moose Special," led by coal operator Quin Morton and Kanawha County Sheriff Bonner Hill, rolled through a miners' tent colony at Holly Grove on Paint Creek. Mine guards opened fire from the train, killing striker Cesco Estep. After the incident, Morton supposedly wanted to "go back and give them another round." Hill and others talked him out of it. In retaliation, miners attacked a mine guard encampment at Mucklow, present Gallagher. In a battle which lasted several hours, at least sixteen people died, mostly mine guards.

On February 13, Mother Jones was placed under house arrest at Pratt for inciting to riot. Despite the fact she was at least sixty-eight years old and suffering from pneumonia, Governor Glasscock refused to release her. On March 4, Henry D. Hatfield was sworn in as governor. Hatfield, a physician, personally examined Jones, but kept her under house arrest for over two months. During this same period, he released over thirty other individuals who had been arrested under martial law.

On April 14, Hatfield issued a series of terms for settlement of the strike, including a nine-hour work day (already in effect elsewhere in the state), the right to shop in stores other than those owned by the company, the right to elect union checkweighmen, and the elimination of discrimination against union miners. On April 25, he ordered striking miners to accept his terms or face deportation from the state. Paint Creek miners accepted the contract while those on Cabin Creek remained on strike. The settlement failed to answer the two primary grievances: the right to organize and the removal of mine guards. After additional violence on Cabin Creek, that strike was settled toward the end of July. The only gain was the removal of Baldwin- Felts detectives as mine guards from both Paint and Cabin creeks.

The Paint Creek-Cabin Creek strike produced a number of labor leaders who would play prominent roles in the years to come. Corrupt UMWA leaders were ousted and a group of young rank- and-file miners were elected. In November 1916, Frank Keeney was chosen president of UMWA District 17, and Fred Mooney was chosen secretary-treasurer.

Following the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek strike, the coalfields were relatively peaceful for nearly six years. U.S. entry into World War I in 1917 sparked a boom in the coal industry, increasing wages. However, the end of the war resulted in a national recession. Coal operators laid off miners and attempted to reduce wages to pre-war levels. In response to the 1912-13 strike, coal operators' associations in southern West Virginia had strengthened their system for combating labor. By 1919, the largest non-unionized coal region in the eastern United States consisted of Logan and Mingo counties. The UMWA targeted southwestern West Virginia as its top priority. The Logan Coal Operators Association paid Logan County Sheriff Don Chafin to keep union organizers out of the area. Chafin and his deputies harassed, beat, and arrested those suspected of participating in labor meetings. He hired a small army of additional deputies, paid directly by the association.

In late summer 1919, rumors reached Charleston of atrocities on the part of Chafin's men. On September 4, armed miners began gathering at Marmet for a march on Logan County. By the 5th, their numbers had grown to 5,000. Governor John J. Cornwell and Frank Keeney dissuaded most of the miners from marching in exchange for a governmental investigation into the alleged abuses. Approximately 1,500 of the 5,000 men marched to Danville, Boone County, before turning back. Cornwell appointed a commission whose findings did not support the union.

A few months later, operators lowered wages in the southern coalfields. To compound problems, the U.S. Coal Commission granted a wage increase to union miners, which excluded those in southwestern West Virginia. Non-union miners in Mingo County went on strike in the spring of 1920 and called for assistance from the District 17 office in Charleston. On May 6, Fred Mooney and Bill Blizzard, one of the leaders of the 1912-13 strike, spoke to around 3,000 miners at Matewan. Over the next two weeks, about half that number joined the UMWA. On May 19, twelve Baldwin-Felts detectives arrived in Matewan. Families of miners who had joined the union were evicted from their company-owned houses. The town's chief of police, Sid Hatfield, encouraged Matewan residents to arm themselves. Gunfire erupted when Albert and Lee Felts attempted to arrest Hatfield. At the end of the battle, seven detectives and four townspeople lay dead, including Mayor C. C. Testerman. Shortly thereafter, Hatfield married Testerman's widow, Jessie, prompting speculation that Hatfield himself had shot the mayor.

On July 1, UMWA miners went on strike in the region. By this time, over 90 percent of Mingo County's miners had joined the union. Over the next thirteen months, a virtual war existed in the county. Non-union mines were dynamited miners' tent colonies were attacked, and there were numerous deaths on both sides of the cause. During this period, governors Cornwell and Ephraim F. Morgan declared martial law on three occasions.

In late summer 1921, a series of events destroyed the UMWA's tenuous hold in southern West Virginia. On August 1, Sid Hatfield, who had been acquitted of his actions in the "Matewan Massacre," was to stand trial for a shooting at the Mohawk coal camp in McDowell County. As he and a fellow defendant, Ed Chambers, walked up the steps of the McDowell County Courthouse in Welch, shots rang out. Hatfield and Chambers were murdered by Baldwin-Felts detectives.

As a result of the Matewan Massacre, Hatfield had become a hero to many of the miners. On August 7, a crowd varyingly estimated from 700 to 5,000 gathered on the capitol grounds in Charleston to protest the killing. Among others, UMWA's leaders Frank Keeney and Bill Blizzard urged the miners to fight. Over the next two weeks, Keeney travelled around the state, calling for a march on Logan. On August 20, miners began assembling at Marmet. Mother Jones, sensing the inevitable failure of the mission, tried to discourage the miners. At one point, she held up a telegram, supposedly from President Warren G. Harding, in which he offered to end the mine guard system and help the miners if they did not march. Keeney told the miners he had checked with the White House and the telegram was a fake. To this day, it is uncertain who was lying.

On August 24, the march began as approximately 5,000 men crossed Lens Creek Mountain. The miners wore red bandanas, which earned them the nickname, "red necks." In Logan County, Don Chafin mobilized an army of deputies, mine guards, store clerks, and state police. Meanwhile, after a request by Governor Morgan for federal troops, President Harding dispatched World War I hero Henry Bandholtz to Charleston to survey the situation. On the 26th, Bandholtz and the governor met with Keeney and Mooney and explained that if the march continued, the miners and UMWA leaders could be charged with treason. That afternoon, Keeney met a majority of the miners at a ballfield in Madison and instructed them to turn back. As a result, some of the miners ended their march. However, two factors led many to continue. First, special trains promised by Keeney to transport the miners back to Kanawha County were late in arriving. Second, the state police raided a group of miners at Sharples on the night of the 27th, killing two. In response, many miners began marching toward Sharples, just across the Logan County line.

The town of Logan was protected by a natural barrier, Blair Mountain, located south of Sharples. Chafin's forces, now under the command of Colonel William Eubank of the National Guard, took positions on the crest of Blair Mountain as the miners assembled in the town of Blair, near the bottom of the mountain. On the 28th, the marchers took their first prisoners, four Logan County deputies and the son of another deputy. On the evening of the 30th, Baptist minister John E. Wilburn organized a small armed company to support the miners. On the 31st, Wilburn's men shot and killed three of Chafin's deputies, including John Gore, the father of one of the men captured previously. During the skirmish, a deputy killed one of Wilburn's followers, Eli Kemp. Over the next three days, there was intense fighting as Eubank's troops brought in planes to drop bombs.

On September 1, President Harding finally sent federal troops from Fort Thomas, Kentucky. War hero Billy Mitchell led an air squadron from Langley Field near Washington, D.C. The squadron set up headquarters in a vacant field in the present Kanawha City section of Charleston. Several planes did not make it, crashing in such distant places as Nicholas County, Raleigh County, and southwestern Virginia, and military air power played no important part in the battle. On the 3rd, the first federal troops arrived at Jeffrey, Sharples, Blair, and Logan. Confronted with the possibility of fighting against U.S. troops, most of the miners surrendered. Some of the miners on Blair Mountain continued fighting until the 4th, at which time virtually all surrendered or returned to their homes. During the fighting, at least twelve miners and four men from Chafin's army were killed.

Those who surrendered were placed on trains and sent home. However, those perceived as leaders were to be held accountable for the actions of all the miners. Special grand juries handed down 1,217 indictments, including 325 for murder and 24 for treason against the state. The only treason conviction was against Walter Allen, who skipped bail and was never captured. The most prominent treason trial was that of Bill Blizzard, considered by authorities to be the "general" of the miners' army. In a change of venue, Blizzard's trial was held in the Jefferson County Courthouse in Charles Town, the same building in which John Brown had been convicted of treason in 1859. After several trials in different locations, all charges against Blizzard were dropped. Keeney and Mooney were also acquitted of murder charges. John E. Wilburn and his son were convicted of murdering the Logan County deputies. Both were pardoned by Governor Howard Gore after serving only three years of their eleven-year sentences.

The defeat of the miners at Blair Mountain temporarily ended the UMWA's organizing efforts in the southern coalfields. By 1924, UMWA membership in the state had dropped by about one-half of its total in 1921. Both Keeney and Mooney were forced out of the union, while Blizzard remained a strong force in District 17 until being ousted in the 1950s. In 1933, the National Industrial Recovery Act protected the rights of unions and allowed for the rapid organization of the southern coalfields.

Blair Mountain stands as a powerful symbol for workers to this day. The miners who participated vowed never to discuss the details of the march to protect themselves from the authorities. For many years, the story of the march was communicated by word of mouth as an inspiration to union activists. It serves as a vivid reminder of the deadly violence so often associated with labor-management disputes. The mine wars also demonstrate the inability of the state and federal governments to defuse the situations short of armed intervention.

ADDITIONAL READING:

Cole, Merle T. "Martial Law in West Virginia and Major Davis as `Emperor of the Tug River.'" West Virginia History 43 (Winter 1982): 118-144.

Corbin, David A. "`Frank Keeney Is Our Leader, and We Shall Not Be Moved': Rank-and-File Leadership in the West Virginia Coal Fields." In Essays in Southern Labor History: Selected Papers, Southern Labor History Conference, 1976, edited by Gary M. Fink and Merl E. Reed, 144-156. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977.

Corbin, David Alan. Life, Work, and Rebellion in the Coal Fields: The Southern West Virginia Miners 1880-1922. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1981.

Corbin, David Alan, ed. The West Virginia Mine Wars: An Anthology. Charleston, WV: Appalachian Editions, 1990.

Jordan, Daniel P. "The Mingo War: Labor Violence in the Southern West Virginia Coal Fields, 1919-1922." In Essays in Southern Labor History: Selected Papers, Southern Labor History Conference, 1976, edited by Gary M. Fink and Merl E. Reed, 102-143. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977.

Laurie, Clayton D. "The United States Army and the Return to Normalcy in Labor Dispute Interventions: The Case of the West Virginia Coal Mine Wars, 1920-1921." West Virginia History 50 (1991): 1-24.

Lee, Howard B. Bloodletting In Appalachia: The Story of West Virginia's Four Major Mine Wars and Other Thrilling Incidents of Its Coal Fields. Morgantown: West Virginia University Library, 1969.

Mooney, Fred. Struggle in the Coal Fields: The Autobiography of Fred Mooney, edited by J. W. Hess. Morgantown: West Virginia University Library, 1967.

Savage, Lon. Thunder in the Mountains: The West Virginia Mine War, 1920-21. Pittsburgh: Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 1990.

Scholten, Pat Creech. "The Old Mother and her Army: The Agitative Strategies of Mary Harris Jones." West Virginia History 40 (Summer 1979): 365-374.

Sullivan, Ken, ed. The Goldenseal Book of the West Virginia Mine Wars. Charleston, WV: Pictorial Histories Publishing Company, 1991.

Once again, I feel like the good folks here are giving people in general way more credit then they deserve. Rednecks (new and old) vote republican because they listen to country music and country musicians tell them to, just like when some young movie star tells all their fans to vote democrat. If you want to reserve the above statement about "rednecks" the democratic party has somehow hoodwinked all the Hollywood movie stars, because the things democrats want to do are certainly not in the best interest of those who make millions a year. It works both ways and intelligence has very little to do with it. I've said it before and I'll say it until I'm blue in the face, when 6 out of 10 people don't know who the vice president is, there is little hope for any breakthroughs in voter intelligence. They are going to vote for who they are told to vote for by their "idols". Not by looking at issues and deciding for themselves which party best serves their needs. At least, until they are homeless and starving standing in the middle of the street saying "What happened?". It's sad to say that is what it may take to wake some people up. And until one party or the other has enough people screaming at them to start listening, neither is going to do much for anyone other than themselves, because they have no reason to.

A Forbes columnist discusses the ideological breakdown of the Republican Party, its failure to diminish the deficit or the size of government in twelve years of control, and outlines a plan for renewal through a return to basic issues. Part reportage, part manifesto, Dead Right leads readers on a witty and opinionated tour through the chaos of post-Reagan conservatism. It explains why the Religious Right is a phony menace why President Reagan failed to eliminate even one major spending program why the 1992 Republican convention, originally conceived as a cunning ploy, backfired and much more. David Frum analyzes the conservative movements turn away from the economic issues that dominated the 1980s to a new preoccupation with race, ethnicity, and sex. He explains how and why conservatives decided to stop fighting Big Government and start using it. And he warns that a conservatism that loses its antiBig Government faith is doomed to futility. Dead Right dissects the new conservative position on issues ranging from education to workfare, immigration to enterprise zones, and ruthlessly scrutinizes the leadership of the conservative movement. Always lively and provocative, this is the one book that conservatives and their critics must read to understand the past and future of the American Right.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dead-Right-David-Frum/dp/0465098258

Indeed, Sullivan paints an even bleaker picture of the intellectual right:

In contemporary America, the right is now in an almost parodic state of ideology. There isn’t just a rigid set of beliefs, indifferent to any time or place (e.g. tax cuts are right in a boom and a recession, in surplus and debt); it is supported by a full-fledged organization or “movement”; this “movement” generates journals and magazines and blogs designed fundamentally to buttress the cause; and the most salient distinction discussed in these circles is between those who are for the cause and those against it (with particular scorn for any dissidents). There is, for good measure, always an enemies list, to maintain morale: the dreaded libruls! New leaders emerge because small groups of the ideological intelligentsia select them on the grounds of their conformance with the ideology — Palin and Jindal spring to mind. Or previously rational figures have to convert to full obedience to the tenets of the new faith if they are to become proper “conservatives” — McCain, Romney, two otherwise capable figures turned into hollow shells by the need to kowtow to fanatics. The final phase of this ghastly cycle is the Limbaugh-Coulter phase, in which nothing is left of the conservative cat,except a preening narcissism-as-entertainment grin.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/07/weekend-opinionator-dead-right/?ref=opinion

Why Rush Is Wrong,

by David Frum

Look at America's public-policy problems, look at voting trends, and it's inescapably obvious that the Republican Party needs to evolve. We need to put free-market health-care reform, not tax cuts, at the core of our economic message. It's health-care costs that are crushing middle-class incomes. Between 2000 and 2006, the amount that employers paid for labor rose substantially. Employees got none of that money; all of it was absorbed by rising health-care costs. Meanwhile, the income-tax cuts offered by Republicans interest fewer and fewer people: before the recession, two thirds of American workers paid more in payroll taxes than in income taxes.

We need to modulate our social conservatism (not jettison—modulate). The GOP will remain a predominantly conservative party and a predominantly pro-life party. But especially on gay-rights issues, the under-30 generation has arrived at a new consensus. Our party seems to be running to govern a country that no longer exists. The rule that both our presidential and vice presidential candidates must always be pro-life has become counterproductive: McCain's only hope of winning the presidency in 2008 was to carry Pennsylvania, and yet Pennsylvania's most successful Republican vote winner, former governor Tom Ridge, was barred from the ticket because he's pro-choice ...

Above all, we need to take governing seriously again. Voters have long associated Democrats with corrupt urban machines, Republicans with personal integrity and fiscal responsibility ... After Iraq, Katrina and Harriet Miers, Democrats surged to a five-to-three advantage on the competence and ethics questions. And that was before we put Sarah Palin on our national ticket.

Every day, Rush Limbaugh reassures millions of core Republican voters that no change is needed: if people don't appreciate what we are saying, then say it louder. Isn't that what happened in 1994? Certainly this is a good approach for Rush himself. He claims 20 million listeners per week, and that suffices to make him a very wealthy man. And if another 100 million people cannot stand him, what does he care? What can they do to him other than ... not listen? It's not as if they can vote against him.

But they can vote against Republican candidates for Congress. They can vote against Republican nominees for president. And if we allow ourselves to be overidentified with somebody who earns his fortune by giving offense, they will vote against us. Two months into 2009, President Obama and the Democratic Congress have already enacted into law the most ambitious liberal program since the mid-1960s. More, much more is to come. Through this burst of activism, the Republican Party has been flat on its back.

http://tinyurl.com/bgpgrj

mackevinized on 2/6/2009 442 PM
Subject: Steele new leader of the RNC, how do you feel about that? Limbaugh most influential republican?
Message:
Come on Frank...do you actually think the DEMONCRATS care about the blacks, Hispanics or anyone else? If they did they would not hold them back with welfare, making them a dependent class ...voter base for the Demons...you bet...all politicians care till they get your vote...


History says when democrats get in control unemployment goes down, repugnantins destroy jobs when they are in power.
Steele thinks the only thing unemployed people are good for is promising to pay them to lie for him and then he welches on his promise.

but i can say this. the whole "talking point" about rush being the leader of the republican party came from white house operatives, namely rahm emanuel, david axelrod, and of course james carvel. based on a poll of the most unpopular figures in politics today among individuals under 40, rush's name came up. it's not surprising of course that young miscreants don't like rush because when you are young you are distracted by shiny things, and often have no idea what you are talking about, but of course you are convinced that you know everything. this whole rush being the leader thing has really back fired on the dems though.

as a result of the attacks on limbaugh it has been reported that his ratings have gone through the roof. not only that, but the ratings of ALL conservative talk shows have gone through the roof. sometimes when you attack something it only elevates people's curiosity, and if people who have never listened to rush start tuning in, well, perhaps they might find they agree with him about more things then they realized, and of course they then realize that often he is misquoted and maligned by the media. so...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/06/AR2009030603435.html

Limbaugh's Audience Size? It's Largely Up in the Air

By Paul Farhi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 7, 2009; Page C01


How many people actually listen to Rush Limbaugh, the radio talk titan White House officials have spent the past week characterizing as "the head of the Republican Party"?

According to what Limbaugh delights in calling "the drive-by media," the number varies wildly. Is it 30 million (Pat Buchanan on MSNBC), 20 million (Time magazine, ABC News), 19 million (Fox News), 14 million (CNN), or "14.2 million to about 25 million" (The Washington Post)?

Answer: Maybe.

Limbaugh is widely acknowledged to be the most popular talk-radio host, as evidenced by the record $400 million, eight-year contract he signed with his syndicator last July. But estimates of Limbaugh's nationwide (and overseas) audience are exercises in guesswork, slippery methodology and suspect data. Limbaugh himself has muddied the water with the claim that he reaches 20 million people a week, although there's no independent support for that figure.

Arbitron, the radio industry's dominant audience-measurement company, has never publicly released a national estimate for Limbaugh, and it says, in effect, that the job is too complicated, expensive and time-consuming to bother with.

The difficulty comes from the vast patchwork that is Limbaugh's radio empire. His three-hour daily program is carried on more than 600 domestic stations, but these stations don't all carry the show at the same time or even for the same duration. Most air all three hours of Limbaugh's broadcast each weekday, but some carry only two hours. Arbitron has never attempted to aggregate all of this audience data for this many stations and times. "There is no economic motivation for any objective third party to do that kind of analysis," says Thom Mocarsky, an Arbitron spokesman.



And there are no ratings at all for a constituency of Limbaugh listeners: U.S. military personnel stationed overseas. Limbaugh's program is carried to these listeners on about 400 stations of varying audience sizes via the Armed Forces Radio Network, which Arbitron doesn't monitor.

The ratings service can say with some precision how large Limbaugh's audience is in a particular city and at a particular time. In the Washington region, for example, Limbaugh's program -- carried from noon to 3 p.m. on WMAL (630 AM) -- attracted an average of 167,700 unique listeners per week during January. Limbaugh has never been a huge draw in Washington; his show ranked 14th overall during January, far behind ratings leaders WTOP-FM (567,500 weekly listeners), soft-rock station WASH-FM (526,300) and Top-40 station WIHT-FM (349,300).

Premiere Radio Networks, Limbaugh's national syndicator, estimated last year that 3.59 million people were in Limbaugh's audience during an average quarter-hour of his program, based on a review of Arbitron's piecemeal data about hundreds of stations.

Because people typically tune in and tune out of stations, however, that number doesn't reflect how many individuals cumulatively listened at some point during the week. What's more, Premiere's figure is based on data from the first three months of 2008, a virtual lifetime ago in the fast-moving radio business.

Whatever the number, not all of Limbaugh's listeners are the ardent ideological followers known as "Dittoheads." According to a survey released last month by the Pew Research Center, 80 percent of his audience identified themselves as "conservative."

Figuring out the size of Limbaugh's flock "is an art, not a science," says Michael Harrison, the editor of Talkers magazine, a trade journal about the talk-radio field. "It's very hard to come up with an exact answer. It really reveals the embarrassing state of radio ratings."

Harrison's own calculation -- that Limbaugh typically attracts about 14.25 million listeners weekly -- is based on Arbitron figures from about 30 cities and spot checks of a similar number of stations. Harrison stands by his guess even though Limbaugh's program is heard on more than 600 stations across the country. "Once you get below the big markets, [the audience] doesn't add up to critical mass," he said.

Harrison said his estimate of a big spike in Limbaugh's audience this week -- some 25 million, a figure quoted in The Post -- was also based on his discussions with station program directors around the country. Although there's no actual survey data to support such a figure, Harrison said "it's what we're hearing, based on the e-mails, the calls, all the buzz this controversy is generating. We put a little bit of our interpretation on it, added it all up, and that puts you in the ballpark."

No matter the exact figure, Harrison says Limbaugh's weekly audience eclipses all other nationally syndicated personalities, including conservatives Sean Hannity (13.25 million), Michael Savage (8.25 million) and Laura Ingraham (5.5 million), according to the magazine's "rough projections."