National Party News

The latest poll numbers don’t tell a very good story for the Republican Party. Their national approval ratings aren’t very good (in fact they are really bad). Their congressional approval ratings aren’t much better. But those approval ratings aren’t the thing that worries me the most.

I still believe that come next year, most Americans are going to want a check on the power of the Obama administration and congressional Democrats. That should give Republicans a clear shot at taking back the House and doing much better in the Senate than most believe.

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There must be something in the water over at MSNBC studios that causes guests on Keith Olbermann's excuse for a show to temporarily lose a lobe of their brain. The latest victim to get caught up in Keith's mindless rants was former Newsweek columnist Richard Wolffe. Did you all see his segment? Of course not; on its best day, the show averages fewer than 200,000 viewers, and most of them are his relatives or buried in the DNC.

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“USA! USA! USA!” With my family, I remember proudly cheering our American athletes at the Los Angeles Olympics.

It felt great to be an American. And it’s too bad patriotism is dead today — at least among some Republicans.

Let’s get this straight. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael “Foot-in-Mouth” Steele thinks it’s wrong of President Barack Obama to go to Copenhagen, Denmark, to try to win the 2016 Summer Games for the United States? As White House press secretary Robert Gibbs snapped, “Who’s he rooting for?” Would Steele really prefer that the Games go to Tokyo? Rio? Madrid?

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In my column in The Hill newspaper today about 2010, I lay out a long series of very legitimate grievances that voters have toward institutions of power from Washington to Wall Street. With this in mind, the new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll has ominous news for Democrats. Despite the collapsed popularity of Republicans on virtually every major issue, the generic Democratic lead over Republicans is down to 3 percent.

This morning I have been circulating a memorandum to some very senior Democrats alongside my column, warning them, again, about the dangers they face if the political status quo continues. The text of my memo follows here, and for better or worse, you will be reading it, as they do:

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It might be easy to dismiss the Mike Huckabee win in a straw poll of self-identified values voters over the weekend. In one sense, if the former Arkansas governor didn’t win with this group of mostly socially conservative Christians, it would be have seemed odd.

But Huckabee should not be underrated. He is a talented politician who has a knack for the catch-phrase, a great sense of deadpan humor, an inspiring life story and a political gut that often shows him to be in touch with the anxieties and hopes of the average Joe. Huckabee was the first Republican to understand the widespread anxiety of the middle-class voter over the economy. But he also understood that the Republican base had to be expanded, and he made efforts to reach out to both Hispanic and African-American voters, and do so in a compassionate and believable way. If I were to put money down on the favorite to win the Republican primary, I would put it on Mike Huckabee right now.

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If anyone ever doubted that the president of the United States doesn't stay involved in the politics of his party and the candidates who want to run on his coattails, they are sorely mistaken.

In a brazen (and foolish) move this weekend, President Barack Obama let it be known that he doesn't think current New York Gov. David Paterson (D) is fit to continue as governor once his term expires. In fact, he thinks the current leader is a millstone about his party's neck there, and the sooner he's gone, the better for Empire State Democrats.

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In case you didn't quite hear any compelling Republican arguments for healthcare reform this week — with issues like ACORN, White House czars and the martyrdom of Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) taking center stage — I found a good one at www.newmajority.com.

David Frum, the former Bush speechwriter who famously coined the phrase "axis of evil," has taken on a lonely crusade to rebrand conservatism and reform his party. His movement doesn't have half the momentum of the tea party crowd, but his message is smart, sound and sane advice for an increasingly angry and disengaged party searching for a way back to power. His advice: persuade instead of provoke, enlarge the coalition instead of narrowing it, and choose to govern instead of enflame.

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By a vote of 240-179, the House of Representatives has passed a “resolution of disapproval” for Joe Wilson’s rude outburst on the floor of the House last week. Which is both good and bad.

Good because Joe Wilson deserved it. But bad because it should have been 434-1, with Wilson the only dissenting vote.

The fact that it wasn’t near-unanimous says more about the Republican Party than it does about Joe Wilson. Because, once again, Republicans have let the rudest, crudest, most unruly of their members represent their party.

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It’s official. August is over and the tallies are in. President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats were hosed for the better part of six weeks as they dedicated virtually all of the summer district work period to convincing America theirs was the best plan to fix the nation’s ailing health system.

Clearly, the president and his party have been buffeted not by the other party, but the American people themselves. Poll after poll shows extreme disapproval of the administration’s current offering. What amazes me even more is the level of specificity in the plan that voters are most critical of — the public option, the extreme costs, the reports of who will be covered and who won’t lose their coverage. You can’t coach that through MoveOn talking points, folks.

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Conservatives have a good target in taking on President Barack Obama’s healthcare plan. It has all the elements of a winning issue for the GOP. It is too costly, too big, too intrusive and too risky.

They should focus on that battle and let some other things go.

By other things, I mean Sonia Sotomayor, Cash for Clunkers and Bill Clinton’s rescue of the American journalists in North Korea.

Sotomayor was going to get in as soon as she was picked. She had plenty of experience, impeccable academic credentials and an inspiring life story. It doesn’t hurt that she is Hispanic — or a wise Latina, as she might call herself. Conservative groups hoped to derail her on issues like gun control and affirmative action. But she skillfully batted aside any efforts to pin her down, and going after her any further is a big waste of time. Republicans get more credibility for taking on the next Obama nominee by voting for this one. Let her go. Read more...