The Republicans DO think that government can do a few things right.
They believe that government needs to have the biggest, baddest, and most unchallenged military in the history of the world. Money is no object whatsoever to them when it comes to military spending. They believe that government, specifically the military, is the only entity able to capture, detain, and try terror suspects despite the fact that law enforcement and the federal courts used to be able to manage to do it just fine pre-9/11 (and they were able to lock terror suspects away and gain information WITHOUT the use of torture, rendition, indefinite detention, etc.)

They believe that their campaign contributors and the 1% should be able to keep as much of "their money" as possible and believe that it's government's role to keep taxes low for them under any circumstances and to refuse to go after tax evaders- Of course, they don't mind lower and middle-income workers paying more taxes. Even the bane of taxes himself, Grover Norquist, doesn't consider a payroll tax hike to be a tax increase but screams bloody murder about the tiniest of tax hikes for the 1% or closure of "tax evader enablers" (i.e. loopholes).

Outside of these two things, they just that they don't want government to do anything else- certainly nothing that they believe (or suspect) will help people and will fight TO THE DEATH to block and/or repeal any positive efforts by the government.

though I've always been behind Obama too. The MSM, Fox News, GOP are going to ballistic about this (and probably already are-I can't stomach listening to them at all). I suppose though it's a good thing that he is getting this out of the way sooner rather than later in the GE.

unless they're actually fighting for equal rights and tolerance for GLBT individuals whom happen to be part of the 1%? If they're not fighting for equality and/or increasing GOP awareness and tolerance of the GLBT community, then they might as well just call themselves "Republicans" and stop the charade of pretending like they really care that the party they belong to is bigoted and hates them (some of its members- I imagine- would probably be o.k. with seeing them dead if they didn't want their votes and money so badly).
Of course, there's no law in this country that you can't vote against your own self interest but still.

Stupid, stupid...........

We will be fortunate to have him as the nominee during this election in particular.

Post-Eisenhower/Nixon(?), they do not have any demonstrated ability to GOVERN this country/solve problems. Their main goal of holding electoral power seems to be basically implementing policies geared towards repaying their campaign contributors and, to some degree, the narrow parochial interests of their "base", as well as crushing the opposition and keep them under their boot heels.


From the article:

“They appreciate more instinctively the need for fiscal balance.”

“They understand people’s more innate belief in hard work and individual responsibility and see government as too often lacking that understanding.”

“They are more suspicious from a philosophical point of view of big government as an answer to many issues and are suspicious of Wall Street institutionally and not just their high salaries, and bad practices.”

“They respect the need for private sector economic growth (although their prescription is lacking).”

“They are more pro-small business.”

we're so "KKK" that we nominated and helped elect an African-American President of the United States of America. NOTHING says "white power" quite so much as THAT!

for the sake of our country that it is. The whole Republican Tea Party *experiment* has felt like one huge national hangover and more and more people are waking up to it. It's looking more and more like the Tea Party won't be selecting the Presidential nominee this year (though they may have some influence on the VP candidate). Republicans like John Boehner even seem to be coming to that recognition as well given his reported plan to cut the Tea Party out of the upcoming payroll tax negotiations. It remains to be seen, however, whether or not he follows through with that or ends up caving to them again however. Hopefully, by 2013 the Republican Tea Party will be remembered as small "fit" that briefly "reanimated" the post-2008 rotting corpse of the GOP or, as Chris Rock put it, the final childhood temper tantrum before falling asleep.

We'll see.............

I mean, he's been running for POTUS virtually non-stop since, what, 2007? His "coronation" seems all but assured at this point. A conservative alternative (i.e. Santorum) will likely hang around for a while longer to see if they can make a dent in him and put him "on notice" that social conservatives and baggers are watching him closely for any signs of "betrayal" or "moderation" but unless things suddenly and dramatically change, Romney's very likely got it sewn up IMHO.

is/was unrealistic IMHO. He came to the office with the belief that the Republicans and most people shared the same goal. He was wrong. Also, just b/c he hasn't changed everything fast enough doesnt mean things have stayed the same. Imagine how much "fun" we'd be having with President McSame and VP from Wasilla? We'll definitely get some real change from a President Republican next year- and it won't be pretty.

The economy was in shambles and getting worse as President Obama took office in January 2009 and then he and the Democrats in Congress got a stimulus pushed through, as well as some smaller initiatives and the net result of it has been the economy slowly but steadily improving and the unemployment rate going down. Presidents don't have total control over something as massive as the US Economy but they undoubtedly have at least some degree of influence, particularly in regards to the regulation of the markets that, say, help prevent (or encourages) the kind of financial meltdown we saw happen in 2008 and the policies that help stimulate growth. I would say speculatively that the economy was always going to rebound somewhat on its own but I'd say that it's pretty likely that the stimulus, if nothing else, helped staunch the bleeding from the 2008 meltdown and kept us from falling off the cliff into the abyss. We'll never really know, unfortunately, how much better things could be now since the GOP Tea Party has helped obstruct a lot of measures that could've had an event greater stimulative effect on the economy. Also, there is evidence that the totally unnecessary war that the GOP Tea Party decided to wage regarding the debt ceiling and the subsequent credit downgrade slowed the momentum of the economic recovery. Mitt has nobody but his own party to blame for THAT fiasco! It's, frankly, incomprehensible, the kind of reality that Mitt is pushing- this bizarre notion that the economy is severely close to no longer being free or that it's getting worse. It may be getting better slowly (largely, I would argue, b/c of GOP obstructionism) but, thankfully, it's not getting worse. Of course, they inhabit their own realities and the rest of us have to live in ours.