Stayin' Classy in the Lone Star State

I recently read some article entitled "A minority within a minority". It was about how the GOP is struggling to recruit, much less retain, female voters. I can't imagine what it is about the GOP, its policies and spokes people that are turning off women in droves.

"Kay Bailey Hutchison (whose 2008 American Conservative Union voting record topped 89%) is just too darn liberal for the state and the party."
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You write that like the idea is a joke. Is it? For the state party if not the general election.

"Her popularity in Texas has persisted while she has racked up an 89.4 percent rating by the American Conservative Union, a solid number, though below that of some Texas Republicans in the U.S. House.

Hutchison displeased some conservatives in September by voting in favor of the federal bank bailout plan, a vote that sparked the Perry camp to call her "Kay Bailout Hutchison." Hutchison also angered some conservatives by supporting expansion"
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This is a pretty good overview.
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http://www.statesman.com/news/content/region/legislature/stories/04/27/0427perry.html

You know I think Texas is one of those states that probably has no chance in hell of elected a Democrat right now so in my mind that might mean that Perry is actually the more attractive candidate to the Republican base there. And if he makes it out of the primary what Dem there has a realistic chance of beating him? I wonder if the primary will turn out to be a contest to see who can out wingnut each other between Hutchison and Perry. Maybe the Democrats could get Troy Aikman to run lol.

Yeah KT the Statesman story suggested that the republican primary might decide the next governor and it being an open primary Democrats might cross over just to get rid of Perry.
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You would know the chance of that happening better than most here.

The blogospheric phenomenon of nested references makes the consultant seem ever so slightly worse than he actually is. The recoird clearly indicates that at no time did he actually refer to sluts. This was an extrapolation based on his use of the term Whorehouse.
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I think this is seriously misleading. After all, refering to the need to actually appeal to all voters as opposed to your base is called whoring all the time by political consultants, isn't it......Isn't it?......it isn't?

Sounds like it's time for KBH to return the serve and proclaim that she'd run the Best Little W---house in Texas!

I know...
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I was trying to be snarky but I probably failed to close a tag somewhere...
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Just to add to KT's point I would also say that even when I have heard the term "whoring" in a political sense it was about someone being subservient to a particular constituency for some monetary or political gain. I have never really heard any form of the word used in relation to trying to bring more people into a party. Im just sayin.

I was also thrown off by the fact that the middle paragraph of the three that are blockquoted, wasn't itself blockquoted.
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I had to read the Dallas news link myself before I was clear on who said what. However, at no time did I intend to suggest that the actual quote wasn't incredibly offensive.

This doesn't strike me as particularly more offensive or worthy of note than the "lipstick on a pig" episode (which wasn't offensive or worthy of note at all).

KT:
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If this level of discourse continues to be the Lone Star standard, what's the likelihood you and Uncle Walter will start claiming degrees from the University of Baja Oklahoma?

Seeing as how conservatives try to insult our intelligence, patriotism, morality, sexual orientation and religious choices every chance they get, this guy's statement isn't all that outrageous.
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Really, it's pretty much what Michael Steele says everyday, in slightly rougher language.

Cliff, the difference is that now they're attacking their own.
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And I love the use of "let." It's like he's suggesting people need to get special permission to vote for the GOP... He seems to be confusing political parties and country clubs.

"PD: i think that "whorehouse" is not a term i've generally heard used by political consultants, who make their living with words and images, and that the context of this one--where the opponent is a woman--makes it noteworthy."
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Funny, you'd think you hear it more often in conjunction with Congress.

Hutch is gonna wipe the floor with Perry in the primary, it won't even be close. Keep in mind Perry only beat a Democrat by 9 points in '06 in a 4-way race (with 39% of the vote, nice).

Hutchison displeased some conservatives in September by voting in favor of the federal bank bailout
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What do you know!
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Maybe more liberals should have been a little more displeased, too.

Paul Krugman
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October 1, 2008, 10:08 am
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Bailout narratives
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There seem to be two prevailing narratives about the bailout plan(s). Both have elements of truth, but are fundamentally wrong.
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One narrative is that of the Wise Men and the Destructive Yahoos. According to this narrative, men who Understand What Needs to be Done put together a plan to save the world, but they did a bad job of communicating, and a mob of ignorant people stands in their way.
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The other narrative is that of the Evil Plotters and the Righteous Uprising. According to this narrative, the same people who sold us the Iraq war have tried to bully Congress into adopting a plan that is, in essence, a cynical ripoff — a scheme to transfer vast wealth to the rich and cripple the next administration.
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As I said, there's some truth to both narratives. Many of those opposing the bailout are indeed destructive yahoos — read some of the speeches during the House debate. And yes, there were Iraq echoes in the way Paulson tried to ram his original plan through.
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But both narratives are mostly wrong.
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There's a reason Paulson et al had such a hard time communicating the case for their plan — they didn't have a very good case. To this day they've never been able to explain clearly why buying up bad mortgage assets at market prices will solve the credit crunch. The Wise Men, as far as I can tell, have never had a clear idea of what they're doing.
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My view, which I think is now shared by many economists, is that Paulson grabbed hold of the wrong end of the stick — he should have been seeking to expand bank capital, taking an ownership share in compensation, rather than trying to push up the value of toxic paper. In the end, that's what we'll probably do.

...except we didn't, actually.
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Krugman basically opines that of course we'll do the right thing, once the right people are in charge. After all, it's not like there's some conspiracy to keep doing stupid things that help banksters at the expense of the country, right Paul?

...the way that Paulson et al have been blundering around puts the lie, I think, to the idea that this is a cynical ploy. Ideology certainly played a role — it's probably a lingering distaste for Evil Socialism that made Treasury go for buying toxic waste rather than injecting capital. And if the Bush years have taught us anything, it is that sometimes conspiracy theories are right. But in this case the performance has been more Keystone Kops than Star Chamber.

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It couldn't possibly be that these guys really do know what they're doing, because that would mean...I don't know, it would be like them hatching a plan to torture false confessions out of people in their grasp to confuse enough Americans into thinking Iraq and 9/11 were somehow connected, and therefore the invasion was justified.
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So doesn't this possibility --that they're doing the wrong thing on purpose-- warrant relatively passionate concern, Dr. Krugman? After all, these are the overlords who sent blinkered ideologue Kate O'Beirne's idiot husband to administer the occupation of Iraq so that it could be in compliance with Focus On The Family's view of Roe v Wade...

So now what? Like Jamie Galbraith, I'd rather see Dodd-Frank-Paulson, which is much better than the original plan, pass than not. The true cost to taxpayers will probably be close to zero, and it would buy some time. But I'm not passionate about this. The real financial rescue still lies in the future, probably under the Obama administration.

Under the Obama administration, huh? We'll nationalize the banks then, Dr. Krugman? The stupid "keep propping up oligarch banks' books" regime will come to its rightful end, and the idiots on the Republican bench who were screaming about wasting tax-payer money to trillion-dollare tunes will be proven Krazee?
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Unfortunately, the narrative about a conspiracy to "transfer wealth" and "cripple the next administration" was fake. True, some people were worried about the effect of Treasury's policies on the next administration, but a lot of regular folks were just worried about the "wealth transfer" part --far more than the the Belway Dems who lined up with whatever Obama said he was for or against during the campaign. Village narrative manufacturers wouldn't know that, though, and so Dr. Krugman (as overexposed as he is to the Village, working at the Times and all) didn't either.
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Let's also face it: once it could be shown that rightist idiots were against the bailout for the wrong reasons, a lot of people who like Obama went along with the "Wise Men and the Destructive Yahoos" narrative because "a mob of ignorant people stands in their way", and didn't either didn't find this mob of illiterates and dullards credible...or just didn't hear about them for some reason.
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The possibility that there is a powerful establishment of elite interests at the political center, in which the primary ideological axiom is, in fact, that "men who Understand What Needs to be Done put together a plan to save the world, but they did a bad job of communicating, and a mob of ignorant people stands in their way", and which opposes popular expression of ordinary peoples' interests whether leftist OR rightist doesn't seem to get much copy in the shrinking output of mainstream publication and broadcast, so it wouldn't occur to many on the personality-centric left that being "displeased...by voting in favor of the federal bank bailout might actually be a reasonable position.
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That Charlie Cook says about Hutchison "To me, she projects moderation, which is great – except in a Republican primary." says a lot about what "great" really means in the Beltway: rejecting the values and interests of popular constituencies --again, be they oriented left or right-- in favor of "projecting moderation", which in practice means reassuring elites that democratic impulses will always fail.

Cliff, the difference is that now they're attacking their own.
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Fine, so it's what Cheney and Limbaugh say every day, just in slightly rougher language.

For the kids unfamiliar with Texas Monthly magazine: It's just as militantly leftist as Washington/New York political advocacy groups like ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, NPR, CNN, MSDNC, ESPN, the New York Times-Democrat, the Washington Post-Democrat, the Associated (with terrorists) Press, al McClatchy, Time magazine, Newsweek magazine, Sports Illustrated, People magazine, US magazine, Entertainment Tonight, Extra, et al. By the way, like the above, it has very few subscribers/viewers/readers. I think a few doctors' offices have it out, but other than that, you won't find it among the pro-America community.

militantly leftist
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LOL

KT:
As a credit card holder, I am extremely enthusiastic about my new benefits, namely the right to pack guns into National Parks.
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To celebrate, wouldn't it be a good idea if Denise McNamara and Dave Carny, as their respective politicos' seconds, arrange a dual in say, Big Bend N. P.?
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Also, OT, and forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the same Dave Carney that used to blog here on Swampland?

KT - thanks for linking to that article by Eileen Smith. Had a whiff of Molly Ivins to it. God, I miss her.

I think a few doctors' offices have it out, but other than that, you won't find it among the pro-America community.
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Nor any other reading material, to speak of.