With the news that Republican registration is falling again, perhaps it is of very little surprise that they also have very little money, especially when compared to the Democrats. But, that is the case.
One of the standouts in terms of limited dollars: the California Republican Party. The state GOP bet big on getting the referendum against the new Senate redistricting maps qualified for the November ballot (and the signatures are still being counted); overall, the party's report shows it raised $4.2 million in 2011. But the state GOP only had $439,000 in cash left on Dec. 31, and the fate of the redistricting effort still seems somewhat in doubt.
Meantime, the redistricting referendum campaign reported (PDF) having only $620.31 in the bank on the final day of 2011 and has reported no 2012 contributions. The campaign owes $214,000 in unpaid bills.
Compare that to California Democrats, who reported raising $11 million in 2011 and still sitting on a rather impressive $9.3 million in cash as of Dec. 31. That suggests Dems are well positioned for legislative and even ballot measure efforts in 2012, while Republicans will need a major infusion of cash... and in a hurry. (CapNotes)
As John Myers points out, the Senate district map referendum, while largely funded by Mercury Insurance CEO George Joseph, has still left them with emptier campaign coffers than they had before. While the Dems haven't spent nearly as much money, expect the Party to spend big time on the November ballot, with revenue and paycheck deception on the ballot.
At the same time, news from the June initiative front is also quite anemic. While the anti-tobacco groups will be kicking off their campaign to raise cigarette taxes by a $1/pack to pay for cancer research today at the State Capitol, they'll be doing it without a lot of cash. Same for the LA Labor Fed's term limits reform measure that made it on the ballot last year.
June's election will be fierce in a few competitive legislative and Congressional seats, but don't expect any big statewide push.
For the last decade, the big winner in party registration has been no party at all. Decline to state, now known as no party preference, has boomed from just under 13% in 1999 to 21.24% in the latest numbers released by the Sec. of State's office today. While Democratic numbers have fluctuated in the lower 40s, Republican numbers continue to creep downwards. If the trend continues, the GOP may fall below 30% in the very near future.
It is no surprise that the GOP is rapidly losing adherents, what with the far right extreme becoming dominant within the Party of Reagan (née Lincoln). But with district maps that require Republicans to compete for the middle, the question is whether they really can do that. These numbers certainly don't bode well for that.
As the next Congressional fight over payroll tax extensions and unemployment benefits and pipelines gets set up in the next few weeks for either its final chapter or to be kicked down the road a bit farther, one or the other, you're going to hear a lot from our Republican friends about how much they value work and workers; most especially, they'll tell you, they value American jobs for American workers.
After all, they'll say, creating American jobs is the most important thing of all.
But if we were to look back over just the last few months, some would tell us, we could quickly find examples of how Republicans promote ideas that don't seem to value work or workers at all, much less American jobs.
Well as it turns out, "some" seem to be right; to illustrate one of those examples we'll look back a month or two or three to a time some Republicans might wish was long, long, ago, in a galaxy far, far away.
Republicans refuse attempt to moderate their platform
by Brian Leubitz
In a move that will shock few watchers of the California Republican party, conservatives blocked an effort by the Corporatists of the Republican party (including Charles T. Munger) to modernize their platform. You know, try to hide the crazy stuff that the CRP's grassroots fervently believes, but the state has rejected over, and over (and over) again. But, they aren't going quietly.
The proposed language, which downplayed traditional GOP positions on gun rights, abortion and same-sex marriage, had come under fire from conservatives. Supporters had argued that the changes emphasized jobs and the economy and presented the party's issue stances in a way that would appeal to more voters. ... The committee instead approved an updated version of the current state GOP platform, which includes more detailed language sought by conservatives.
"The platform committee reversed the horrendous decisions of the drafting committee and restored core principles of the party platform," said Mike Spence, a leading critic of the more moderate plan. "It's proof that people that care about issues can beat money."(SacBee)
Instead of a platform that pushed on the issues where Democrats are struggling nationally, mostly the economy, the Republicans in California stick with their right-wing social conservative agenda. Which, oh by the way, now wedges the state in favor of Democrats.
So, for now anyway, it seems the Republicans are content to try to play nice but then act stupid. If they do lose their superminority, perhaps they can look back at their convention.
I have not been talking about the insanity around the debt ceiling and debt and deficit and the efforts of Republicans to drive us all off the cliff, but I am today - and I'm going to do it by allowing you to grab ahold of this problem and see for yourself just how unbelievably bad this manufactured crisis is going to be.
You will hear a lot of conversation about the consequences from others; today, however, you are going to get the chance to be both the President and the Secretary of the Treasury, and you will get to decide for yourself exactly what bills the Federal Government should and should not pay as the cash runs out if a deal is not made by the time borrowing authority runs out.
At that point you'll be able to see what's coming for yourself - and once you do, you won't need me to tell you what ugly is going to look like.
(FNS - Washington, New Germany, April 17, 1947) America's new Führer, Adolf Hitler, announced today that his official War History would in fact acknowledge that one of the biggest contributing factors to the defeat of the Allies was the insistence of the former United States of America on sticking to its Balanced Budget Amendment, which left them unable to fund the wartime conversion of the US economy for the benefit of the Alliance.
"All those ideas Mr. Roosevelt spoke of", said Hitler, "Lend-Lease, modular shipbuilding, War Bonds, secret weapons...in the end, all of them were just words, since the Americans' Congress was never willing to allow the country to fully fund its war effort."
So I disappeared for a full week, right in the middle of what should have been a busy writing schedule, and I have to claim some "personal days" to cover the time we missed here at the blog - but it won't be time entirely wasted.
Instead, I'm going to jump into my own personal life for today's story, and I'm going to do it so that we can stimulate some thinking about where we really need to go to if we ever hope to make some sense out of the crazy way we deliver health care in this country.
Since this appears to be the weekend that a lot of decisions are either going to be made about the future of our "social safety net"...or they wont; we're entirely unsure...let's talk about how it actually works for a lot of us - and how it could work a lot better.
By now you have heard that President Obama has chosen to throw Social Security and the Medicare and Medicaid Programs over the side of his proverbial fishing boat as bait to see if he can get Republicans to give him another really lousy compromise, much as he did last December when he gave up billions upon billions of deficit reduction in order to help Republicans preserve tax cuts for billionaires.
And it looks like the President doesn't really lose if you or I get hurt here: in fact, it seems that, in his eyes, it's to his advantage to fight against his own base as he seeks to be "the adult in the room" in the runup to the '12 election.
So we're going to have to find a way to put The Fear on this guy - and I think I've got a plan to force this President to listen.
And it works like this: if this President ain't gonna be moved by our message...we do it by holding the rest of his Party hostage.
We are continuing a recent theme here today in which two of my favorite topics are going to converge: Social Security and in-your-face political activism.
I have been encouraging folks to take advantage of the recent Congressional recess to have a few words with your CongressCritter about the proposed Death Of Medicare and all the proposed cuts to Social Security...and you have, as we'll discuss...and now we have an opportunity to do something on a national scale, just as we did a few weeks ago in support of Social Security.
This time, we're going to concentrate on fighting the idea that retirement ages should go up before we become eligible for Social Security and Medicare (and elements of Medicaid, as well), and that Americans should just keep right on working until the age of 67 or so-which isn't going to be any big problem...really...trust us.
Now that just makes no sense, and to help make the point we have a really cool video that you can pass around to all your friends-and your enemies, for that matter, since they'll also have to worry about what happens to them if they should ever make it to old age.
There are lots of big tough words coming out of our friends in the Tea Party these days, especially when it comes to the permissible functions of the Federal Government.
"If it's not specifically enumerated in the Constitution," they say, "It must be a function of the States-and the 10th Amendment says so!"
None are tougher in their language than those living in the States located below the old Mason-Dixon line-and by an amazing coincidence, just this weekend pretty much all of those States got a bit of a "gut check" in the form of dozens of tornados that slammed into the area.
So we're going to put the Tea Party philosophy to the test today, and see just what exactly the Federal Government should-and should not-be doing to fulfill the Tea Party vision and to help those folks who were hit by this particular natural disaster.
If your view of politics is filtered by a lens marked "Progressive" or "Liberal", there's a pretty good chance that you've been gnashing your teeth and pulling your hair in frustration over the "give away the store, then negotiate" approach professional Democrats have used when facing the challenges from the Tea Party last year, and all that's come after.
Over and over and over people like me have written stories wondering why Democrats, starting with this President, don't get out in a very public way and slam Republican policies, over and over and over-especially when most Americans hate the things Republicans seem to love to support.
Turning over Government to the highest bidder?
Not so popular.
Going back to a heathcare system run by, for, and of the insurance industry?
Again, not so much.
Jacking up taxes and healthcare costs for you and me in order to provide another trillion in tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires?
So unpopular pollsters hardly believe it.
But there is another way, and today's story is in two parts: we're going to talk about how hard it is to get Democrats, as a group, to get loud and get aggressive-and then we're going to talk about Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer, who is out there showing any reluctant Democrat just exactly how you can "grow the brand".
So Arizona Senator Jon Kyl went and did a stupid thing the other day by claiming on the floor of the Senate that 90% of what Planned Parenthood does is related to abortions, and that, by God, we need to cut that Federal funding for abortions, and we need to cut all Federal funding for Planned Parenthood-and we need to do it today.
Of course, that 90% claim was total hooey; it turns out that only 3% of Planned Parenthood's work relates to abortions. (The Federal funding for abortions part is, too; the Hyde Amendment made such funding illegal decades ago.)
When confronted, Kyl's office released a statement claiming the Senator's comments were "not intended to be a factual statement".
Sir Rev. Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, DFA, decided to have a bit of fun with Kyl, and he challenged his audience to Tweet their own "Not Intended To Be A Factual Statement" about Kyl.
I decided to compose a Tweet of my own...and then another...and before I knew it I had an entire story's worth; that's why, today, we'll be taking a taking a short break from the daily grind to have a bit of fun with a man who truly deserves it: Jon Kyl.
Over at the Bee, Dan Morain has a great comparison piece between today's California Democratic Party and the Republicans. One of them understand the importance of a unified community, the other is grasping at nativism (and not very well) to rile up an angry base.
Democratic strategist Richie Ross who marched with Chavez and for decades has been chief strategist for the farmworkers union, stood off to the side, soaking it in.
"This is about power," Ross said later.
On Monday, Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, a first-term Republican from San Bernardino County, stood on the north steps of the Capitol with seven other Republican Assembly members. Before being elected, Donnelly had been part of the Minutemen, the group that claims to combat illegal immigration by patrolling the U.S.-Mexico border.
Donnelly announced that he was pushing Arizona-style legislation to make illegal immigration a crime under California law. As an added attraction, Donnelly brought a special guest, Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce, who last year authored the anti-illegal immigration law. ...
Republican strategist Marty Wilson watched it all. "Very counterproductive to the expansion of the Republican base," Wilson told me.(SacBee)
With redistricting coming up, and a strange process at that, it's hard to forecast partisan breakdown. However, one thing is clear, with the increasing diversity of the state, attacking minorities is not really a politically sensible thing to do. Even much of the GOP, like Wilson, and the entire Bush crew, recognize. But they've long ago lost control of their party to the nativist extremists.
In California, where Latinos account for roughly 38% of the population, and will soon account for a higher percentage than non-Latino Caucasians, it just seems like a really, really bad idea. But you know, Russell Pearce was there, so yay!
I know the Republicans aren't looking to really get a majority, but if they don't watch it with this stuff, they'll soon find it hard to get even 1/3 of the Legislature.
So it's been about three weeks since we last had this conversation, but once again we have to take action to try to keep Social Security from being the victim of "deficit fever".
I know that doesn't make a lot of sense, considering the disconnect between Social Security and the deficit-but once again it's "Continuing Resolution" time on Capitol Hill, where some use the threat of an impending shutdown of the Federal Government to extract concessions from the other side...and some on the other side try to make points with the voters by out-conceding their opponents.
So Tuesday and Wednesday of next week, there's a national push on to get voters to call their Senators and remind them to vote for an Amendment that is a big ol' "I'm not willing to cut Social Security just because other people philosophically want to cut Government any way they can" kind of reassurance to the voters, and I'm here to encourage you, once again, to make a couple phone calls and do some pushing of your own.
I've also been storing up a couple somewhat facetious random thoughts which will be the "garnish" for today's dish; you'll see them pop up as we go along.
Political analysts in California have watched the fractious internal debate at the CA GOP Convention this weekend with no small doses of trepidation and amusement. According to conventional wisdom, the CA GOP is on its last legs. "Headed off a cliff", says Calbuzz in a post dripping with the satisfaction only schadenfreude can provide:
Like a herd of wooly mammoths at the end of the Pleistocene epoch, the California Republican Party is on the verge of extinction.
It may still recover. The CRP has come back from near death before. And redistricting, alongside the top-two primary system may yet revive it. But judging from the infighting, narrow thinking and rigid ideological positioning on display at the party's organizing convention last weekend in Sacramento, the signs are not good.
As former GOP Assembly leader Bob Naylor put it succinctly Sunday morning, "It's on life support."
Perhaps. Or perhaps analysts are looking at things from the wrong perspective: one that assumes that the purpose of the GOP, at least in California, is actually to win elections. That may be a mistake.
In reality, the GOP at a national and state level exists to 1) deliver money from the poor and middle class to the rich; and 2) feed enough red meat to their prejudiced and unthinking base to garner just enough votes to continue achieving objective #1. That's pretty much it.
Right now, the GOP doesn't actually need to win any of the statewide elections in order to accomplish those goals. Winning them would be helpful, but is ultimately unnecessary. Knowing that the chances of anyone overturning Prop 13 and the 2/3 requirement on revenues are slim to none, all they need is at least 1/3 of the members of just one of the statehouse chambers. To ram through all cuts budgets and destroy faith in government, they need do nothing more.
With that in mind, it doesn't matter if the GOP wins more elections. All that matters is that they get to that magic 1/3 number in either the Senate or the Assembly, and then that all of those 1/3 + members hold the line. If they do, they ensure an all cuts budget; they ensure that Democrats take the blame; and most importantly, that California gets held up to the world as a mockery and failure of supposedly "liberal" government. There's nothing that serves Republican interests at a state and national level more than to see California fiscally collapse. That means shock doctrine, a transfer of wealth from the middle class to the rich, an ability to end all state labor contracts in a way Governor Walker would only dream of, and ultimately the ability to crush the belief of the People in the power of their government to do good on their behalf.
More depressingly, they don't even need 1/3 of the legislators in either chamber, as long as there are enough squishy "moderate" Democrats afraid to vote for tax increases even if the Dems do technically gain control of 2/3 in both chambers--already an unlikely event, particularly after redistricting and the change to a top-two primary. There will be likely be at least one or two Democrats eager to play the Joe Lieberman in order to shore up their "independent" or "moderate" credentials to voters.
From this perspective, the CA GOP is crazy, all right. Crazy like a fox. They don't really need more elected officials. They just need to keep the ones they have in line, and they're in good shape. The worst thing that could happen to them is that enough of their members go off the GOP reservation that a responsible budget with a balance of cuts and appropriate revenue enhancements makes it before the voters--and it passes with a majority. That would actually do far more damage to the GOP than would losing several more elections.
So count on the California Republicans to demand more purity from their members, at the expense of winning elections. It is, after all, the savvy thing for them to do.
In our efforts to form a more perfect Union we look to the Constitution for guidance for how we might shape the form and function of Government; many who seek to interpret that document try to do so by following what they believe is The Original Intent Of The Founders.
Some among us have managed to turn their certainty into something that approaches a reverential calling, and you need look no further than the Supreme Court to find such notables as Cardinals Samuel Alito and Antonin Scalia providing "liturgical foundation" to the adherents of the point of view that the Constitution is like The Bible: that it's somehow immutable, set in stone, and, if we would only listen to the right experts, easily interpreted.
But what if that absolutist point of view is absolutely wrong?
What if the Original Intent Of The Founders, that summer in Philadelphia...was simply to get something passed out of the Constitutional Convention, and the only way that could happen was to leave a lot of the really tough decisions to the future?
What if The Real Original Intent...was that we work it out for ourselves as we go along?
For the past couple months I have been talking a lot about "taking it back", and I have two great chances for you to do just that over the next two days.
One of them involves actions that are taking place all over the USA-but the other is a very special and particular event which will be taking place in Vancouver, British Columbia on Wednesday.
This'll be a short story...but by the time we're done, you'll have stuff to do this week.
News is suddenly moving so fast that it's becoming hard for me to keep up; that's why we're not finishing the story today that we just began Tuesday. You know, the one about Titan Cement suing two North Carolina residents who appear to be doing nothing more than speaking the truth.
Unfortunately, other important news has forced itself to the front of the line, and it's going to demand that we break schedule, whether we like it or not.
That's why today we're going to be talking about Wisconsin, and how workers there are fighting back against the State's Republican legislators and Governor, who seem to have gone out of their way this past three weeks to govern without the consent of the governed.
It's kind of chilly today in Wisconsin...but I can assure you, things are heating up fast-and it ain't because of spring.
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There's a lot of ways to be petty and cheap and stupid, and a lot of ways to stick it to a program you don't like, and by extension, the clients of that program...and this week the House Republicans have embarked on an effort to combine the two into one petty, cheap, and stupid way to stick it to the clients of Social Security and the workers who administer the program.
They're going to sell it to you, if they can, as a way to "lower the deficit", or words similar...but what this is really about is making the actual Social Security program work less well-because, after all, if a program is popular today, the best way to make it less so is to apply a bit of "treat 'em like their cars were impounded" to every interaction customers have with the system.
And what better way to make sure that happens...then to aggressively demoralize everyone who works down at the ol' Social Security office?
