Stop Me Before I Vote Again

Help. The stench is in everything and I can't make it go away.

So now you know. It really does matter who's President and which party controls Congress. A Democratic-controlled Congress would never have passed the Partial-Birth Abortion Act, which banned intact dilation and extraction abortions and, in flagrant violation of Roe v. Wade, lacked an exception to preserve the health of the woman. A Democratic President would never have signed such a bill...

(more after the jump, as they say in the Mainstream Media and DKOS. And well worth the trip, in this case -- Ed.)

I always used to say that the reason Republicans hated Bill Clinton so much was because he had taken their job away: with Democrats like Clinton, who needs Republicans? Now it begins to appear that maybe Rudy Giuliani is pulling a mirror-image version of the same trick. I hate to subject you to anything from the New Republic, but hold your nose for just a minute:

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20070521&s=edsall052107

WHY THE GOP'S FUTURE BELONGS TO RUDY.
by Thomas B. Edsall

Many observers believe Giuliani's early success is the result of his calculated move rightward--a savvy effort to trick conservative voters into believing he is really one of them. But there is another possibility.... What if we are witnessing not Rudy moving toward the rest of the Republican Party, but rather the Republican Party moving toward Rudy? What if the salience of a certain kind of social conservatism is now in decline among GOP voters....

GIULIANI IS THE beneficiary of an upheaval within the Republican electorate.... the litmus test issues of abortion and gay marriage have been losing traction, subordinated to the Iraq war and terrorism. According to the Pew Research Center, 31 percent of GOP voters name Iraq as their top priority, and 17 percent choose terrorism and security. Just 7 percent name abortion and 1 percent name gay marriage.

The lions of the Christian right--Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, James Dobson-- ... reached the height of their power in the late '80s, when, by a 51-to-42 majority, voters agreed that "school boards ought to have the right to fire teachers who are known homosexuals." Now a decisive 66-to-28 majority disagrees, according to Pew. In 1987, the electorate was roughly split on the question of whether "AIDS might be God's punishment for immoral sexual behavior." Today, 72 percent disagree with that statement, while just 23 percent concur....

It isn't just average voters who are driving this shift; many members of the GOP elite--whose overwhelming concern is cutting taxes, a Giuliani forte--would privately welcome the chance to downplay, if not discard, the party's rearguard war against the sexual and women's rights revolutions. Much of the Republican Party's consulting community and country club elite always viewed abortion and gay rights as distasteful but necessary tools to win elections, easily disposable once they no longer served their purpose. Now, with most of the leading GOP contenders demonstrating at best equivocal support for the sexual status quo ante, that time appears to be drawing near.

So -- with Republicans like Giuliani -- who needs Democrats? What happens to the Democrats' be-very-afraid culture-wars strategy when Rudy is the Crossdresser In Chief? This could possibly be fun. Rudy is as crazy as a bedbug, but he most always does look like he's having fun -- and people like that. All the Democrats, by contrast, look like people suffering from acid reflux at the funeral of an aunt who unexpectedly disinherited them.

"We can't allow any idle hands," he said. "Everybody's got to be involved." -- Barack Obama.

Can't we just? I'm pretty sure we could if we tried, and I'm sorry to say there are many hands that should remain idle. Involvement in his nebulous understanding of service is not at all appealing either. He's a recruiting machine for the "leave me alone!" party.

Facts are of course no match for misanthropic platitudes uttered from on high, but what holds people back from productive volunteering has nothing to do with a desire for dissolute idleness or a commitment to suckling a poor civic spirt. The biggest obstacle is lack of time. The work week demands a lot from people. In many places it's hard to get to the places and people that need assistance. It's hard as well to find care for the family members who can't fully care for themselves. In spite of that, and according to the government's own figures, "In 2007, 60.8 million volunteers dedicated 8.1 billion hours of service to community organizations." That's formally reported volunteering and it's pretty good. Goodness knows how much more is done informally. On the wildly unlikely chance that it's not good enough, there are better ways to approach it than through sanctimonious eructations. Shorter hours, better pay and public transport would be a good start.

One of luxury fringe effects of SMBIVA-ism... we can talk sensibly about the GOP. Enter the recent much footballed Kospoll on Repub mind sets -- here's the lede take of some fireworks peddler calling itself Sam Stein over at Arianna's bath house:

A new poll of more than 2,000 self-identified Republican voters illustrates the incredible paranoia enveloping the party... The numbers speak for themselves -- a large portion of GOP voters think that President Obama is racist, socialist or a non-US citizen...

• 39 percent of Republicans believe Obama should be impeached
• 36 percent of Republicans believe Obama was not born in the United States
• 31 percent of Republicans believe Obama is a "Racist who hates White people"
• 63 percent of Republicans think Obama is a socialist
• 24 percent of Republicans believe Obama wants "the terrorists to win"
• 21 percent of Republicans believe ACORN stole the 2008 election
• 23 percent of Republicans believe that their state should secede from the United States

It then quotes the fearless uberpimple of the kos-hive himself, summing it all up:

"This is why it's becoming impossible for elected Republicans to work with Democrats to improve our country...

They are a party beholden to conspiracy theorists... They think Obama is racist against white people and the second coming of Lenin. And if any of them stray and decide to do the right thing and try to work in a bipartisan fashion, they suffer primaries and attacks. Given what their base demands -- and this poll illustrates them perfectly -- it's no wonder the GOP is the party of no."

Would that the Dem pwog-base could be so chilling, eh?

Okay, okay, don't task me with the Orthrian symbiotics of all this: the loons are on the march... we all must rally round the Magic Negro or we'll have Squadristi in the streets of our cities. What outfit have you chosen?