On the surface, she seems a bit catty. She’s very girly, she writes like girls from the San Fernando Valley talk, and at times she comes off as rather naive. However, if you follow what she is doing, and look deep through her ditzy exterior, you will see a beautiful, intelligent, shining new face of the Republican Party, probably one of the last hopes the party has. And you know she’s doing something right when she’s got jealous Fox News anchors taking cheap shots at her.

While Meghan tends to be a bit scatter-brained in her posts, she still writes better than 90% of the blogosphere, and she’s only 24 years old. Give her 5 more years behind that keyboard, and she’ll make Arianna Huffington look like Lindsay Lohan.

On the issues, I tend to agree with her a lot. She supports gay rights and believes that women should have better access to birth control. She thinks Karl Rove is “creepy” and has “beef” with Ann Coulter. There are a few things we disagree on, but I wouldn’t say that she is unprincipled. There is a line of logic and reasoning that goes into her viewpoints that I understand, even though I don’t always agree.

The reason why I understand is because I’ve been going through the same thing in my twenties. I had grown up in a very conservative household, I was programed to think a certain way. It took me a long time to deprogram, but it really boiled down to letting go of the beliefs that I never understood in the first place. Once I started down that path, my beliefs started to transition over time, and began to align with my personal insight and thought process.

In a lot of ways, she really reminds me of the man that I came to admire in John McCain back in 2000. She’s an independent-thinking maverick who isn’t afraid to stand up to her own party when she knows they are wrong. She offers up a non-partisan open-minded discussion about topics, and like the old John McCain, she isn’t afraid to go after Republicans who hold dangerous viewpoints.

In many ways, I still admire John McCain. If anything, for his sacrifice and service to his country. I could not in good conscience support him in the 2008 election, because he had become everything that I despised about the Republican Party, and flip-flopped on every issue that set him apart from the far-right when I supported him in 2000. I think he would have made a 10x better president than George W Bush, and I think this country and the world would be a whole lot different now had he been in charge. It’s difficult to speculate on these things, but when you look at the differences between the two, you realize that John McCain would have been the right man for the job, just as Obama was in last year’s election.

I only hope that, unlike her father, Meghan McCain will continue to follow her dreams and stick to her principles no matter what happens, and no matter who comes down against her. When the dust settles, and the ashes of what was the Republican Party are swept up, there will be but a few voices left holding on to the party’s name, honor and integrity. One day, Meghan McCain will be heralded by the new age of Republicans, not because she thinks outside the box, but because she understands that the box does not exist.

Here’s Jonathan Singer today on MyDD:

But as much as Kemp helped move his party to the right during his time in public life, he also brought something else to his party that has been sorely missing: Compassion. I’m not talking about the type of poll-tested “compassionate conservatism” that George W. Bush proclaimed during the 2000 campaign. No, Kemp actually believed that the country would be better off if more people had the opportunity to live the American dream.

As Singer mentioned, Kemp was a conservative because he believed that conservative principles were good for people.  You never got the impression that Kemp wanted to just help those on top stay on top.  That’s what 90% of non-Republicans believe our party stands for.  We’re seen as selfish and unwilling to come up with ways to help those who need it.

Here’s Kemp himself in a column he wrote about Coretta Scott King after her passing in 2006:

Mrs. King went on to ask me to use my political influence to help address the pressing problems of impoverished urban and rural neighborhoods, the unacceptable levels of poverty and homelessness, and ultimately the lack of access to capital for all too many people of color with which to launch businesses and own their own homes.

The issue of poverty was a subject addressed by Dr. King in his “I Have a Dream” speech of August 1963, when he said, “the Negro lives on an isle of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.” Dr. King talked of the battle against the grinding abject despair that gripped all too many people and families left out of the American dream. He said that while we’ve come a long way, we still have long to go.

Obviously, education, homeownership and job opportunities are critical to a meaningful bipartisan war on poverty…

Education.  Home ownership.  Job opportunities.  Kemp believed that the American dream and that there was nothing wrong with pushing for a society that expanded that dream.

GOP Leaders Launch Listening Tour

With the party at its lowest standing in several decades, Republicans on Saturday launched a listening tour in the heart of the Democratic suburbs, where several of the party’s leading voices steered clear of hot-button issues and instead emphasized the need to advance new policy ideas to revive the party’s prospects.

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor and former Republican governors Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney – both frequently mentioned as potential 2012 GOP presidential candidates – spoke to about 100 attendees at a pizzeria in the Washington suburb of Arlington, Va.. The event was the first held by the newly launched National Council for a New America.

They “emphasized the need to advance new policy ideas,” without really advancing any new policy ideas.  Mostly they just listened.

We don’t need these guys to listen.  Everyone knows what the employment rate is, that manufacturing jobs continue to be sent overseas, that healthcare costs are still skyrocketing, that working class families still worry about not being able to pay for Junior’s college, etc., etc.   We all know this stuff!  How many suburbanites do Mitt, Jeb and Eric need to hear from?

Apparently, Mitt touted his efforts in creating universal healthcare as Governor of Massachusetts.  Quite frankly, I didn’t hear Mitt bragging about his universal healthcare plan during the campaign.  Why?  Because he was afraid of being labeled a moderate (or worse!)

Jeb apparently threw out some education proposals during the sit-down.  This is a good start, but everyone knows that Republicans are (correctly) for vouchers and some other tweaks.  How about you go after something a little less safe than education next time, Bush.

What we need from these guys is brand spanking new stuff.  Surprise us one of these days.  Stop listening and give us something to get excited about for once.

But I have a new respect for Senator Specter, as he has crafted the most brilliant plan to destroy the GOP by leaving and joining with the Democrats where he will be free from inner-party discrimination and his career will remain safe for good. With the inevitable confirmation of Al Franken looming in the near distance, the addition of Arlen Specter to the Democrats’ arsenal will give them the 60 votes they need to block a Republican filibuster.

The Republicans have only themselves to blame for the mess they’ve put themselves in here. Specter is an unapologetic moderate, and has recently criticized the GOP for being too right-wing. Because of this, Specter was formally challenged in next years’ mid-term primary by anti-tax advocate Pat Toomey. Given that more people show up to see William Hung at your local mall than vote in mid-term primaries, it gives Republicans a good chance to oust the Senator from his spot and put up a “real” conservative instead.

Specter was given full seniority as part of the deal he struck with Democrats. The only Democrat that has been a Senator longer than him is Patrick Leahy of Vermont, making him the #2 ranking Democrat in the Senate and putting him only a heartbeat away from becoming the judiciary committee chairman. In the meantime he will head up a very important appropriations subcommittee. He will have more power as a Democrat to appropriate funds to his home state than he did as a Republican, which in turn should buy him enough votes to ride out his Senate seat for the rest of his life.

As my friend Skippy Stalin from Postcards of the Hanging points out, it seems as if the Republicans didn’t learn their lesson the last time this happened in 2001, when Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords left the Republican Party and became an Independent. The Senate was split 50/50, and Dick Cheney had the tie-breaking vote which he actually used a few times. Jeffords spoke out against the Bush tax cuts, so the Republicans decided to “punish” him by denying him earmark funding for some of his pet projects. Jeffords then left the Republican Party, giving the Democrats temporary control of the Senate.

Fortunately for the GOP, Bush was able to gain control of the Senate again in the next mid-term election, if only for the fact that he had the nation’s 9/11 sympathies on his side. The Republicans were somehow able to hold on to their majority in the Senate for another four years, before the 9/11 honeymoon wore off and the people started to realize that Bush had used a national tragedy to dupe us all into an illegitimate war.

Ironically, guess who was rather vocal about the loss of Senator Jeffords, which resulted in him temporarily losing his position as judiciary committee chairman at the time? He even proposed a ban on party-switching.

Arlen Specter has no spine, this is why he is such a brilliant politician. He has manged to rise above the stink of what’s left of the GOP, preserved his own career and ensured that he’ll maintain his position until he’s ready to retire. His move has done more than just leave the GOP in shambles, he has brought upon them their worse nightmare. He has given Barack Obama a bulletproof Senate to push his own agenda, unchecked. Had Specter allowed loyalty and personal feelings to get in the way, he’d either be out of a career, or selling his soul to the GOP like John McCain did last year, and look how that turned out for him.

Specter claims that the President cannot count on him to vote yes on everything the President wants him too, but the Democrats really only need him for cloture purposes. After that, he can safely vote yes or no on anything he wants, without having to worry about what effect it’s going to have on his voting record. The Democrats should be able to muster up enough votes to pass whatever they want.

Obama’s had a rough first 100 days in office, and Arlen Specter just threw him a rather meaty bone. While I don’t agree with many of the Democrats’ policies, I can’t help but smile when I think of how Republican stupidity has caused the party to implode. This move may have put the nail on the coffin for the GOP, whom I see going out the way of the Whig party. In the upcoming mid-term election, I expect the GOP will lose even more seats, and unlike 2002, they (hopefully) won’t have a national tragedy to cash in on.

“Yes, there is — shall we say — a ‘radical right-wing’ element with whom they identify. But by and large, I say to Republicans in America: Take back your party. The party of protecting the environment. The party of individual rights. The party of fairness. This is not the Grand Old Party.”

God willing, the party will get back on its feet during Pelosi’s tenure. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

We’ve only heard bits and pieces so far, but I bet the Democratic party made Arlen an offer he couldn’t refuse– so again, I can’t say I blame him. What would have been ideal, however, if he found a way to start a third party, and tried bringing Snowe and Collins along with him. Maybe he could have worked some sort of compromise deal with the Democrats that would have given each mutual support through this November and through Obama’s wishes to get some important legislation past. After that point in time, however, those three (and anyone else they could have brought along with them) could have tried voting as a block.

I understand all the reasons why something like this wouldn’t have happened, but it would have gotten the three a lot of attention and would have given them a huge platform from which to declare old/new Republican principles. It also would have stuck the stake into the current GOP a heck of a lot deeper than it already has.

Nothing short of complete disaster is going to help the party turn itself around. A three-Senator, third-party defection could have been huge.

What this article doesn’t say, but is obvious to any concerned Republican, is that we really can’t run on too much else at this point, at least in this political climate. So far, everything put forth by the Democrats and the Obama administration is pretty popular in the rest of the nation. We claim to have alternate plans for getting the economy back on track, upholding traditional values, keeping pressure on the bad guys around the world who are still taking aim at us, but the public doesn’t seem to notice.

I was speaking with a up-and-coming Republican operative the other day about the party’s woes. This is a guy who can’t stand Hannity, Levin, Rush (although he– like me– has some respect for the druggie), and agrees that the party needs new blood, but even he didn’t think that our problem was a lack of a message. Even he was focused on tactics– more aggressive organizing, and the like.

I didn’t feel like embarrassing him, running through all our party’s contradictions and mixed messages, but not once did he talk about why the party is so unpopular in honest terms. He really thought that if we just knocked on more doors or held more rallies, the tide of the nation could turn back into our favor.

While the summary of the decision (it’s a quick) is really good reading — it shows how obtuse all of the arguments have been. Some of the little gems in the defendant claims include: promotion of procreation (so if gays aren’t allowed to marry, straight people will have more sex and children), and saving state resources (resources that those the state is trying to exclude pay in the form of taxes) and promotion of optimal environment for children (where the court asks why sexual predators, child abusers, felons and parent that don’t provide child support aren’t included). While all of this falls under the “sky is blue; the sun is hot” category for me, of particular interest is the Court’s opinion on religious opposition to Same-Sex Marriage.  In that portion of the opinion the judges state:

“Our constitution does not permit any branch of government to resolve these types of religious debates and entrusts to courts the task of ensuring government avoids them . . .  The statute at issue in this case does not prescribe a definition of marriage for religious institutions.  Instead, the statute, declares, ‘Marriage is a civil contract’ and then regulates that civil contract . . . .  Thus, in pursuing our task in this case, we proceed as civil judges, far removed from the theological debate of religious clerics, and focus only on the concept of civil marriage and the state licensing system that identifies a limited class of persons entitled to secular rights and benefits associated with marriage.”

I’ve said many times here, marriage is a contract between two people and it has nothing to do with one’s spirituality and is not bound by religion. This sums it all up, truth be told, that’s the stone in the shoe for those who oppose giving a class of people a right that they enjoy by simply being citizens of the United States: Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The sooner people learn and understand that being gay or lesbian is not about deviant sex, teaching it to children or preying on children the better off we’ll all be. When left alone it can be as boring, thrilling and dysfunctional as a relationship between a man and woman.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is warning fellow Republicans that conservatives may leave the GOP for a third party in 2012.

“If the Republicans can’t break out of being the right wing party of big government, then I think you would see a third party movement in 2012.”

Gingrich thrashed Republicans for allowing increased spending during the Bush administration and for not doing enough to block President Barack Obama’s early initiatives.

If Gingrich is saying here that the Republican Party has become too right-wing, then I agree with him. The party of big government? Absolutely. The perpetrators of right-wing big government politics have been threatening to leave the party for over ten years now. The reason why they haven’t left is because they are all cowards. Their success has hinged on their ability to hijack the party by threat of withdrawal, but I’ve always held that they haven’t made good on that promise because they know their movement is far from being self-sustainable in the arena of national politics.

I don’t agree with Gingrich on everything, but I have always respected his views on fiscal conservatism. It seems a bit cryptic, but when Gingrich starts talking about “right-wing” and “big government” Republicans, he’s talking about neoconservatives. Whether it’s big government intervention abroad, or big government intervention in our own homes, this group of Republicans have been responsible for one of the largest expansions of government in the history of our country.

What I also believe Gingrich to be saying here, is that the neoconservatives have run the Republican name into the ground so much, true conservatives are better off starting fresh with a new party than they are continuing the legacy of Abraham Lincoln. Perhaps he is correct, but it’s a sad state of affairs for the GOP for sure.

I’m not sure that I would follow Gingrich to his new party, but I would certainly consider a third party choice if Obama continues down this road, and the Republicans put up someone like Sarah Palin.

“When I am there working I pay whatever, you know, my rate is based on income for that day in New York.  And I try to go as little as possible. If it weren’t for hurricanes down here, I would never go up there.  New York is the escape valve in case hurricanes are showing up in our area, because of the loss of electricity.  So I’ll tell you what I’m going to do.  I’m going to look for an alternative studio somewhere outside New York, perhaps Texas — another no-income-tax state — and I’m going to get the hell over there, when a hurricane starts coming our way, ’cause I told Mayor Bloomberg: I’ll be the first to lead the way.  You know, this is just… I’ll sell my apartment. I’ll sell my condominium. I’m going to get out of there totally, ’cause this is just absurd, and it’s ridiculous — and it isn’t going to work. It’s punishing the achievers for the mistakes and the lack of discipline on the part of a bunch of corrupt politicians that have run that city and state into the ground for I don’t know how many years — and I, for one, am not going to take the blame for it.”

There is no question that New York State is extremely bloated and inefficient, and has a dirty dirty habit of wasting the public’s money.  There is a common understanding among those who work in State agencies that they could cut their budgets in half and do pretty much the same job.

Here in New York, however, there is a more pressing, immediate concern than whether New York State has a culture of inexcusable government largesse.  That immediate concern is the decision by the Metropolitan Transit Authority to raise subway fares from $2.00 to $2.50, whilte also cutting services.  By law, the MTA is required to maintain a balanced budget, which led to this extreme decision.  Unless the state comes up with more money to bailout the MTA, working people, the elderly and everyone else will get a 25% hike in their transportation costs– basically a huge regressive tax– and for no reason other than the state’s inability to manage its finances.

The argument in New York against taxing the wealthy mainly revolves around the belief that if you tax the rich, they’ll leave the state, thus drying up our tax base.  With the exception of the Drug Addict radio show host, I’m not sure you’ll see much of this.  From my perspective, it looks like the defenders of the wealthy are saying that there’s little chance of low and middle class people leaving the state, so it makes a lot more sense to tax them.