The Next Hurrah

Getting it Wrong on the Central Issue of our Times

By Mimikatz

Fifty years ago I was about to turn 15, it was 1957, and the central issue of our times was clearly seen to be the Cold War, the struggle with the Communist Soviet Union and its allies such as China.  In retrospect, at least from the US perspective, that was probably accurate, although expanding civil rights and economic opportunity to those other than (straight) white men probably runs a close second.  Fifty years from now, in 2057, when today's 15-year-olds are my age, when people look back at the beginning of the 21st Century, what do you think they are going to see as the central issue of our times?  And how are they going to think we did?

I am willing to bet that it will not be the struggle with Islamic extremists, or even with terrorists generally, as the Bush/Cheney regime and its sycophants believe.  Rather, it is much more likely to be the intertwined problems of the end of fossil fuels and global climate collapse.  And depending on what we do in the next 5-10 years, they may be wondering why we didn't feel more of a sense of urgency, why we didn't do something while there was still time, why we threw so much money and effort at a crazy, endless war in the Middle East while the temperatures and sea levels rose around us. 

While both major parties saw the struggle against communism as the central issue in the 1950's, it has been devastating to the cause of mitigating climate change that the GOP and its patrons have not only denied the urgency, but fought the effort tooth and nail for the first six years of the Bush presidency.  But that began to change, as so much did, with Katrina, then with last summer's fires and heat waves, and now this summer's extreme weather events, all of which have cost many lives on all our coasts and the interior.

While Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" was seen as a political event, last night's Tom Brokaw special on the Discovery Channel was global warming 101 for the mainstream.  A poll taken a year ago reported 70% of the public convinced that global warming is happening, an equal amount having become more convinced over the previous two years, with severe weather being a major factor in that change.  This summer's severe rains and floods probably increased the number.

With a sufficient segment of the public now convinced theere is a problem, we sorely need real leadership on the issue.  Based on the 1970's gasoline shortages and our experience here in Califonria with periodic shortages of water and electricity, I firmly believe that the public will respond favorably to clear direction and mandates for change.  In parts of the country without such leadership many people do not do more because they believe that if the problem were real, the government would be doing something.  Thus, we need first and foremost a clear statement that the problem is real, serious and must be addressed. 

Second, people need to understand that while climate change cannot be arrested at this point, it can be mitigated, and that a little effort actually can go a long way.  One of the most informative graphics in the Discovery Channel show depicted the carbon dioxide output of various activities and machines of a typical family as blocks of soot above the house.  An amazing amount can be saved through conservation and efficiency around the home with negligible change in lifestyle.  The California Flex Your Power website claims that if every household replaced one incandescent bulb with an energy-saving CFL bulb it would be the equivalent of taking a million cars off the road.   (Flex Your Power is a model partnership of utilities, residents, businesses, institutions, government agencies and nonprofit organizations working to save energy formed during the 2001 energy crisis here.  Its website has a wealth of ideas for saving energy.)   In fact, addressing energy use in buildings and construction is at least as important as addressing conservation through better means of transportation, a point also made by the Discovery Channel special.  Municipal, residential and business lighting is another area ripe for conservation.  A fascinating article in theAugust 20, 2007 New Yorker discussed how improved outdoor lighting not only saves energy and allows more enjoyment of the night sky, but is actually safer as well.  Tucson has long set an example in this area.   

Finally, it is obvious that even as we conserve, we need to develop new technologies for building, transportation and power generation.  Rather than costing jobs, this could become the next entrepreneurial frontier, if there were more incentives (such as fuel efficiency mandates, seed money and regulatory changes that mroe fairly internalized, rather than externalized, the costs of existing fuel sources). 

Concern for the environment is one major area where young voters are disenchanted with the GOP.  Along with the traqgic blunder that is Iraq, I believe that GOP denial of global warming and refusal to confront it as a major problem may prove the undoing of conservatism as an appealing ideology even to an extent in the ultra- conservative parts of the country.  Certainly that would be the case if the Democratic Party leadership and candidates made addressing global warming and coping with declining supplies of fossil fuels through conservation and innovation a major part of their platform.   Not to do so is to be wrong, colossally wrong, about the central issue of our time.

Listening to the Generals

By Mimikatz

One of Bush's standard lines is that Iraq policy shouldn't be made by politicians in Washington (other than him) and that he will "listen to the Generals."  Of course this isn't true, as a long list of generals starting with Eric Shinseki, who tried to get Bush/Cheney and Congress to understand they didn't have the forces to do what they wanted in Iraq, and ending with former Iraq Commander General George Casey who was replaced by General Petraeus, and Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who were essentially demoted recently, could testify.  But what are the generals saying now?

General Casey, now the Army Chief of Staff, was the architect of the Iraq conflict from mid 2004 until the end of 2006.  His prescription was to try to reduce the US combat role and concentrate on training Iraqis to provide their own security.  This was the plan Bush rejected in late 2006 when he decided to escalate and replaced Casey with counter-insurgency expert General David Petraeus.  But according to the Thursday Wall Street Journal, the once vilified Casey has now seen his influence return under Defense Secretary Robert Gates, as it is clear within the Pentagon that the "surge" has not accomplished much and cannot long be continued.  Casey opposes extending tours of duty beyond the current 15 months and would like them scaled back, if possible.  Casey's views are evidently shared by much of the Washington brass.  Not only are the services losing many talented young officers, according to the Journal, because of the strain of multiple deployments, but recruitment levels, especially among black youth are down.  If the armed services are to remain flexible and effective, the brass feel, the Iraq commitment must be scaled back.  Marine General Pace,  Chairman of the Joint Chiefs until his term ends on September 30, an original opponent of the surge before publicly backing it, has also called for steep troop reductions next year. 

General Petraeus is known to favor keeping the surge going for as long as possible and reducing troops only to the extent necessary to avoid overtaxing them. 

So what we have here is the generals at home, who are responsible for the overall health of the American military, now willing to speak out and urging that the number of troops in Iraq be scaled back, to as few as half what we have now.  The Defense Secretary, who was a member of the Baker-Hamilton Commission before his appointment, was also no great fan of the surge.  Meanwhile Petraeus, installed by Bush as his savior, is pleading not to have the troops withdrawn when we are on the brink of success, although he acknowledges that insurgencies can take 10 years to defeat.

Obviously there is a good deal of positioning going on here, as there is among the politicians, to avoid taking blame for Iraq and for the poor state of readiness in the event of some near-term challenge. But it is ironic that Casey's pullback to bases and concentrate on training seems to be reemerging as the leading alternative to continuing the surge. 

So what should we do?  We should remember Georges Clemenceau's WWI dictum that "War is too serious to be left to the generals."  We have a system of civilian control, not a military junta.  While input from the generals is important, it is politicians who must make the call.  In addition to their constituents, who oppose the war by large margins, they should also listen to those concerned with the long-term health of the military, not those trying to validate their chosen strategy by continuing warfare that is not facilitating reconciliation.   Certainly the troops themselves, the ones risking their lives every day, seem to be less than enthusiastic about the current policy. 

If the Dems can just bring themselves to continue calling for a scaling back of the war and rotations out (but not in) to Iraq next year, it would seem that there might soon be a majority for just such a position. 

Rudy's Frontrunner Status

by DemFromCT

An interesting NY Times piece today by Michael Cooper highlights the camapign's distorting the Giuliani fiscal record as NYC mayor (so that he doesn't have to rely solely on his dismal WTC health record).

Rudolph W. Giuliani has been broadcasting radio advertisements in Iowa and other states far from the city he once led stating that as mayor of New York, he "turned a $2.3 billion deficit into a multibillion dollar surplus."

The assertion, which Mr. Giuliani has repeated on the trail as he has promoted his fiscal conservatism, is somewhat misleading, independent fiscal monitors said. In fact, Mr. Giuliani left his successor, Michael R. Bloomberg, with a bigger deficit than the one Mr. Giuliani had to deal with when he arrived in 1994. And that deficit would have been large even if the city had not been attacked on Sept. 11, 2001.

"He inherited a gap, and he left a gap for his successor," Ronnie Lowenstein, the director of the city’s Independent Budget Office, a nonpartisan agency that monitors the city budget, said of Mr. Giuliani. "The city was budgeting as though the good times were not going to end, but sooner or later they always do."

This ties in with a recent Gallup analysis, featured on pollster.com. Lydia Saad at Gallup:

Given the advanced start to the 2008 presidential campaigns, one of the uncertainties hanging over the process has been the degree to which voter preferences for the Democratic and Republican nominations might change as some of the candidates inevitably become more familiar to the public. Do the early frontrunners have a greater chance of being overtaken than early frontrunners in previous elections?

The bottom line is this, as summarized by pollster. com:

Saad's analysis is well worth reading in full, but here is the gist: Slightly less than half (46%) of Republican's nationally know Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson well enough to rate all four. Among these voters, Giuliani trails Fred Thompson by eight points (33% to 25%). Giuliani's double digit national lead in Gallup's polling comes entirely from the 54% of Republicans who are unfamiliar with one of the top four candidates (bolded mine)...

Among Democrats, the pattern is different. Less than one in four Democrats (23%) is not yet familiar with each of the three best known candidates, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards. While Clinton holds a very wide lead over Barack Obama (53% to 17%) among those who are unfamiliar with one of the candidates, she still leads by a comfortable 13 point margin (43% to 30%) with Edwards finishing a distant third (with 13%) even among those who know all three candidates.

Time For Serious Talk On Iraq

By Mimikatz

In another couple of weeks, Congress comes back from recess.  On or about September 11 the White House will give its "polished" version of the Petraeus Report.  We already have the bleak political outloook in the NIE, and Kevin Drum shows with statistics that as compared to June-July 2006, Bush's escalation is a failure by any significant measure.  So why do we keep hearing that the Democrats are getting squishy?  Can they really be getting ready to coalesce around a strategy of removing Prime Minister Maliki in favor of General Nguyen Cao Ky--I mean Iyad Allawi--and asking the increasingly restive public for another 6-12 months before anything changes in Iraq?  How can this be?

There were two insightful posts this week that may hold a clue.  One is the piece by Jay Ackroyd at TPM Cafe laying out the DC Consensus (short version:  Iraq is going to be more awful if we leave than we can tell you, so we won't be candid about the fact that we really aren't going to be able to leave for years) and the ensuing comment thread.  The other is an op-ed by of all people Jim Hoagland at the WaPo.  He points out that George Bush most especially, but also the Pentagon and politicians of both parties, are so invested in the Iraq mess that they cannot admit their failure.  Rather than seriously trying to find a way out, they are now simply trying to protect their reputations and hang onto power.

Some military commanders, CIA agents in Iraq, Republican members of Congress, State Department diplomats and others now make their highest priority the protection of their own reputations, careers and institutions -- the three blend seamlessly into a single overriding ambition in Washington -- for the post-Bush era, which thus draws closer, in the manner of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The need to protect the White House, the Pentagon and both major political parties from greater Iraq fallout explains much of the blame being dumped on Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki at this late date -- even though his deficiencies and close links to Iran and Syria were clearly visible when the administration helped install him in the job in 2006. As he has been throughout the Iraq experience, Bush is condemned to play the cards he dealt himself. (snip)

The U.S. military is helping Sunni tribes organize into armed militias that will owe their loyalty beyond the tribe to American commanders rather than to Maliki's government. Similarly, the CIA has molded an Iraq intelligence service that draws no public funds from the Iraqi government and presumably is paid for by Langley. The agency's reluctance to act against Kurdish rebels operating against Iran and Turkey may also be part of a separate vision of the agency's future role in Iraq.

And what would be motivating the Democrats, who seem by and large to be congenitally unable to think their way to and articulate with confidence a clear view of what we must do?  Fear of being blamed, I think, as much as fear of being thought weak.  As the GOP sharpens its stab-in-the-back rhetoric, the Dems become more reluctant to speak honestly to the country, even as their popularity plummets?

If they could be honest, what should they say?  That there is no military solution in Iraq, as the NIE says.  That it is not "supporting the troops" to ask them to do a job that cannot be done.  That nearly half the troops will have to come home next year, as former General Peter Pace now says, because the military cannot sustain Bush's escalation.  That we have so wrecked Iraqi society by our ill-considered and misguided invasion and even more misguided and ideologically driven occupation that no political reconciliation seems on the horizon, especially not if we are there literally as well as figuratively calling the shots.  Yes, there may be more violence if we leave, at least for a time. But why do we think that a smaller "residual" force in Iraq will be able to pacify the country when 160,000 troops have not succeeded, except in limited areas outside Baghdad, and for limited periods?  If some force is needed to deter others from invading Iraq (and repeating our mistakes), why should that force be pinned down in Iraq, rather than positioned more safely nearby? 

Above all, they should say that Iraq is not the only, or even the most serious, threat we face.  America's existence as a nation is not threatened by the insurgents in Iraq, who overwhelmingly are fighting over who will control Iraq, not the US.  Nor is our existence as a democratic nation threatened by Islamic extremism, even if we may suffer an attack or two in the next several years.  Rather, our existence as a democratic nation is threatened by the drift toward centralization, secrecy and fascism by the Bush/Cheney regime.  By the hollowing out of our industrial capacity and the decaying of our infrastruecture.  By the decline in our schools and our public health system, indeed our whole health care system, that leaves us vulnerable to epidemics and natural disasters.  By climate change, which is already bringing more severe storms and extremes of temperature, and changes in ecosystems. 

And most of all it is threatened by politicans who treat the public like children, who won't speak to us honestly, who tell us to shut up and shop, and not raise our voices and act like citizens.

Update:

This just in:  Think Progress reports that the success in Anbar province and other Sunni areas is due to Sunni anticipation of an inevitable US withdrawal.  In other words, realizing that we are probably going to begin leaving soon, the Sunnis are positioning themselves for the post-US period by cooperating against al Qaeda in Iraq and others to reduce their influence.  This supports the idea that if we left, or were seen to be leaving soon, the Iraqis would have more incentive to resolve their differences or work out whatever modus vivendi they could.

Skubick's Off the Record

by emptywheel

I talked about Norm Pearlstine's Off the Record the other day. Well, here's a more fun Off the Record--my appearance (with three other bloggers) on Michigan's own "Timmeh," Tim Skubick's show, Off the Record, over the weekend on MI's PBS stations. I don't often link to my teevee appearances, but I had a lot of fun taping this. Among other things, I got to:

• Emphasize that Barack Obama was polling third, ahead of Fred Thompson, in Iowa (and that, in spite of hiding his fundraising, Thompson still couldn't raise much money)
• Talk about how uninterested Republicans are in this year's Presidential race
• Talk about how, if only we can aspire to be as competent as the French, universal healthcare would actually improve our healthcare and save us money
• Get one of the Republicans to agree that the worst thing would be to have George Bush in charge of our healthcare
• Call Mitt and Giuliani flip floppers, with worse women problems than Bill Clinton ever had--I even got Giuliani's cross-dressing in!
• Point out that Cheney's Pakistan policy has the effect of paying the Taliban

It's a fun time to talk to Republicans about the Presidential campaigns!

Click here to watch it on RealPlayer now. Here's the info on when it shows in Michigan:

WKAR

Fridays, 9PM

Sundays 1PM, 11:30PM

KAR2

Saturdays 10PM

Values Voters

Back in June, we posted on the launch of the ONE Vote '08 campaign campaign to address global inequities in health and standard of living. More recently, that same campaign has done some polling of New Hampshire voters via Peter D. Hart Research Associates & Mclaughlin and Associates. While there's some data about the candidates (not surprisingly, Hillary Clinton (36-19 over Barack Obama) and Mitt Romney (33-17 over Rudy) lead their respective races), the real meat of this polling data suggests a more compassionate America than political and news stories would have you believe. For example:

VIEWS OF AMERICA’S ROLE IN THE WORLD Nearly all Democrats (97%) and 70% of Republicans agree that America’s standing has suffered in recent years.  In addition to a strong military, Democrats (91%) and Republicans (78%) agree that the United States also needs to improve diplomatic relations by doing more to help improve health, education and opportunities in the poorest countries around the world.  Both Democrats (81%) and Republicans alike (70%) agree that reducing poverty, treating preventable diseases and improving education in poor countries around the world will help make the world safer and the United States more secure. Democrats and Republicans agree that America has a moral obligation as a compassionate nation to help the world’s poorest people through foreign assistance.  More than nine in ten Democrats (93%) and 84% of Republicans agree that when millions of children around the world are dying from preventable diseases and hunger, we have a moral obligation to do what we can to help.  Similarly, Democrats (90%) and Republicans (85%) agree that it is in keeping with the country’s values and our history of compassion to lead an effort to solve some of the most serious problems facing the world’s poorest people. When it comes to addressing these issues, Democrats (86%) and Republicans (67%) agree that it is important for Presidential candidates to discuss their plans for addressing global hunger and poverty issues in this campaign.  Additionally, eight in ten Democrats (81%) and Republicans (80%) agree that the next President should keep the commitments made by President Bush to prevent and fight the spread of AIDS in Africa.

There are Republican and Democratic differences, but the responses are more similar than not. All this talk about "values voters" these many years has been claptrap and balderdash, designed to polarize rather than unite. The real values voters are speaking here... Americans in New Hampshire understand our traditional role in the world and want to return to it.

STRONG SUPPORT FOR CANDIDATES WHO MAKE GLOBAL HEALTH AND EXTREME POVERTY A PRIORITY There is bipartisan support for Presidential candidates who support measures to improve disease prevention, reduce hunger and improve education.  The majority of both Republicans (62%) and Democrats (77%) would be more likely to support a candidate who supports saving 15,000 lives a day by fighting the world’s most devastating diseases including HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.  Similarly, the majority of both Republicans (60%) and Democrats (76%) would also be more likely to support a candidate who supports reducing by half the number of people in the world who suffer from hunger and live in extreme poverty, which would mean 300 million less hungry people each year.  Additionally, 54% of Republicans and 75% of Democrats would be more likely to support a candidate who supports providing greater access to primary education for 77 million children who are not in school with a special emphasis on girls. The majority of Republicans (52%) and Democrats (80%) also supports new approaches to how the United States provides foreign assistance, such as increasing micro-credit to help people start small businesses, and doing more to eliminate corruption to make sure the economies of developing nations thrive and that help goes to the people most in need.  In short, members affiliated with both parties (73% Democrats / 62% Republicans) would be more likely to support a candidate who supports increased investments in foreign assistance programs and working with other countries to strengthen national security.

National security can be strengthened in more ways than the barrel of a gun. Long term programs to work on the roots of inequity will do wonders for our own security, and this enlightened self-interest should be a major part of the Presidential campaign (as well as becoming firm US policy). While it wasn't specifically polled, pandemic preparedness is on my radar screen, and it is worth mentioning in this context that the burden of a flu pandemic would be borne by the world's poorest.

An influenza pandemic of the type that ravaged the globe in 1918 and 1919 would kill about 62 million people today, with 96 percent of the deaths occurring in developing countries.

There's every reason to support a return to a rational and enlightened foreign policy, and it turns out that folks in NH agree. We will be following whether there's more polling available from other states in coming weeks, and post data when available. More information is available here from the ONE campaign blog.

Presidential Campaigns as Job Interviews

by emptypockets

There is a quote widely attributed to Al Gore, calling presidential debates "a job interview with the American people." Whether he actually said it, I don't know -- I can't find the original attribution, and it seems to be cited most widely by Bush and Cheney during the 2000 campaign -- but wherever it originated, I think the idea has stuck. For example, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney called the recent labor debate "the biggest interview in job history." And Bill Richardson has a (sorta) humorous ad in which he gets to talk about his bona fides by playing himself literally appearing at a job interview.

All of which led me to muse, when I saw a C-SPAN "Road to the White House" program tonight encapsulated as "Candidate Chris Dodd (D) talks about his family," what if the presidential campaign really was run as a job interview? Let me just go down a list of illegal job interview questions quickly, and consider what we know about the candidates

Marital status is off-limits. That does away with much of the coverage of the Giuliani campaign. Probably quite a bit of Clinton's as well, and a sizeable portion of Edwards's.

Age and Religion are not something you can ask about. Good news for McCain and Romney?

Race is not a legal topic. No more "Is Obama black enough, too black, or just right?" nonsense. What a loss.

Family life is right out. Is there anything left to talk about?

My impression is that, compared to past campaigns, Campaign 2008 has been fairly substantive. Maybe it's the wide field and the open seat, or maybe it's just that there are so many serious problems to solve. Maybe people have a new appreciation of the Presidency as an office that can make or break the future of America.

But, I'd love to see talk of family, religion, hometowns, and race eliminated completely from the campaign, and the focus kept 100% on issues related to job credentials. Because, if we don't allow discrimination in everyday job interviews, why should we tolerate it in "the biggest interview in job history"?

None of the Above

by emptywheel

Here's the way I figure this math, from the Iowa Straw Poll.

They had 24,000 voters in 1999.
They wanted 20,000 voters today.
They got 14,000.

That says, presumably, the Iowa Republican Party wrote off 4,000 votes because Giuliani and McCain pulled out and Thompson's not in yet (24,000 minues 20,000).

But that still leaves 6,000 people (20,000 minus 14,000) they expected--and didn't get. I'm going to count 5,000 of those 6,000 as votes for "None of the Above" with the rest going to Obama. Even if we gave those 1,000 to Obama (6% of the total would have given him 1,440), that still says that "None of the Above," with 5,000 votes, still out-polled Romney, who spent millions, 5,000 to 4,516. I know this is all funny math. But still, I do think this counts as a win for "None of the Above."

And here's the best part. This is supposed to be a fundraiser for Iowa's Republican party--straw poll tickets cost $35 apiece. Which means Iowa's Republican party just made $350,000 less than it made in 1999 of this thing.

Republican Self-Hate

by emptywheel

Crooks & Liars links to Bobo Brooks informing Chris Matthews that Republicans hate Matthews' man-crush, President Bush.

BROOKS: Bush…you gotta remember though…a lot of Republicans hate Bush. I mean, we look..we talk about the Democrats, how they hate Bush, in private…

MATTHEWS: What do you mean, “hate Bush?”

BROOKS: They think Bush is incompetent and destroying their party.

Having just taped a Sunday show of my own (this one may be good--I'll actually provide a link, but it'll air ten days from now), I gotta say, Bobo is right--and Democrats really need to start hammering on it.

The two Republicans on the show with me were pushing against Democratic health care proposals, saying, "well you don't want our health care to run like Katrina or Iraq..." To which I said, "Okay, we'll make sure Bush isn't in charge of our health care program. We're in agreement." This got them nodding enthusiastically, until I continued, "But if we can only aspire to be as competent as the French, we should have working health care." Which shut them up. (Of course, I'm sure it wasn't really as cool as I remember, so assume I'm just self-promoting here.)

At the same time, these republicans were no more willing to speak enthusiastically about any of their Presidential candidates. I kept hammering them about how Obama is running third, among Republicans, in Iowa.

Perhaps most surprising of all, Obama actually finished third as the preferred general election candidate of registered Republicans, at 6.7 percent, behind Romney (21.8 percent), and Giuliani (10 percent), but ahead of Thompson (5.2 percent) and McCain (1.8 percent).

And how the leading Republican candidates fail either 2004's standard of flipfloppery or Republican standards of the last 12 years on social conservatism. Which again brought some embarrassed admissions that there wasn't much exciting in the Republican field. We're about a week and a half late piling on top of this self-hate--though the DNC has a new website out to join in the fun. But this should be the main point of every Democrat out there--the Republicans, as a party, have failed so badly even Republicans hate them.

Republicans are just barely containing their disgust for the leaders of their party. At this point, we'd do really well to unleash that sentiment.

We Can't Wait for Bipartisan Solutions

by DHinMI

"We need a consensus."

This is what Joe Biden said a little while ago, when asked by Keith Olberman if he would appoint a Republican to head up the Pentagon or the Department of Homeland Security.  I don’t have the exact language, but he seemed to imply that nothing would work unless it had significant support from Republicans.

I was floored.

If there is anything that has been apparent since the Democratic takeover of Congress, it’s that many and probably most of the current Republican members of Congress will NEVER work with Democrats for the good of the country.  Since the rise of Newt Gingrich, the majority of Republicans in Congress have demonstrated that they don’t care about the good of the country.  Grover Norquist is inadvertently one of the most honest of conservatives, and when he referred to bipartisanship as date rape, he wasn’t revealing just his own personal view, he was describing the mindset of much of the Republican Congressional caucus and it’s allies in think tanks, among campaign hacks and activists, and in a sizeable chunk of its electoral base. 

It’s a realization many of us had come to long ago.  It’s one of the reasons many of us ended up on progressive blogs, the knowledge that George W Bush, his allies in Congress and the people who push them in to power will use unscrupulous means to attain, maintain and exercise power. They know they have to conceal their unscrupulousness from the public. While the Republican party has veered farther and farther to the right, the American people haven’t really budged.  In fact, on individual issues, the American public is more liberal today than it was 10 or 20 years ago, and far more liberal than it was when Lyndon Johnson crushed Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential election, which provided the mandate to enact our major civil rights legislation and the most major extension of the social welfare state since the New Deal and World War II.  Republicans involved in organizing and running elections and selling their policy positions to the press and the talking heads know that the American public is far to their left.  But they conceal their radicalism through clever marketing scams like Frank Luntz’ Contract on America and the pabulum of "compassionate conservatism."