« Sunday Morning Blogwatch: Cable News Hysteria vs. Reality | Main | Day Seven: Bruce Roemmelt on the DNC Bus »

August 30, 2004

When you get to NYC, Take a Hard Right at Madison Square Garden...

Just a quick note that the RNC adopted its platform this morning and pushed a few more of its moderate voices out into the cold. Granted, they threw in some language to say they respected those moderate voices, even though they don't plan to do anything to support them.

As I've stated here earlier, be sure to notice the absence of far right figures and the use of their more moderate faces for the TV cameras this week, even after stabbing them in the back in the party platform. Why do they use these moderate voices when selling their candidate to the nation? Because they are out of touch with the mainstream populace and they know it... thus the bait and switch.

This excerpt from an SFGate.com article today sums it up quite well:

Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, called the GOP platform an "extremist, special interest document" at odds with the views of the moderate speakers the Republicans are highlighting at their convention.

"So if you really want to know what George Bush and Dick Cheney stand for and what they intend to do over the next four years," he advised TV viewers, "turn down the volume and read the platform."

- Aaron

Posted by amahler at August 30, 2004 03:44 PM

Comments

Anyone who has followed the Republican Party of Virginia knows that what's happened in New York is par for the course.

The GOP is keeping its true colors carefully hidden beneath a veneer of civility, when the reality is that Virginia is a poster child for what happens when moderate voices try to be heard. Everyone knows how the radical wing of the party tried to destroy state Sen. John Chichester of Stafford County in a primary last fall. Grover Norquist and the radical anti-taxers led by Norquist's disciple, James Parmalee, have threatened to field primary challengers against the 17 moderate Republicans who joined Democrats in passing the Governor's tax reform plan earlier this year. Without the leadership of our Governor and Lieutenant Governor and the strength of our own Democratic legislators, it is hard to say where Virginia might be had the GOP maintained complete control of our commonwealth.

That's the same Grover Norquist who likened bipartisanship to "date rape." The same Grover Norquist who regularly sits down with George Bush. And the same Grover Norquist who is virtually invisible at this Republican convention.

Posted by: Laura at August 30, 2004 04:18 PM

Do Not get me started on Grover Norquist unless you want an earful. That sorry excuse for a man once compared the income tax to the Holocaust. Similar to what happened here in Virginia, Grover and his friends at Americans for Tax Reform tried to take out Sen. Arlen Specter and replace him with Rep. Pat Toomey in one of the closest PA Senate primaries ever. Specter ended up winning but barely, opening up an opportunity for Joe Hoeffel, but the bigger picture here is that Grover will take out one of his own to replace them with someone who's more extreme. I saw Grover speak in a class and asked him if he ever envisioned a scenario wherein raising taxes would be acceptable. Guess what his answer was. Even Tucker Carlson described Grover as, "mean-spirited, humorless, dishonest little creep ... the leering, drunken uncle everyone else wishes would stay home."
Shouldn't have gotten me started on Grover Norquist.
Anyway, while he might not be speaking in primetime at the GOP convention, I'm sure he's lurking around in the background somewhere.

Posted by: Kat at August 30, 2004 07:23 PM