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Sunday, June 3, 2007
Republicans Should
Sex-Up Ideas Instead of Candidates...by Stephen Crockett, co-host of
Democratic Talk Radio
The sudden rise of Fred
Thompson as a leading Republican candidate for President shows that
the Republican leadership still does not understand their impending
implosion as a national political party. Thompson is a “sex-up”
version of a failed product. With Thompson, voters are getting the
same old package of ideologies and policies that have been total
disasters for the vast majority of Americans with new wrappings. Fred
Thompson is much more “Bush-lite” than the second coming of Ronald
Reagan.
Thompson is total
political hypocrite. As a Tennessee resident and voter when Thompson
was in the US Senate, I watched Thompson vote against the interests of
middle class Tennesseans, the working poor, the environment, clean
elections, education and most of the things that the majority of
Americans support. Trust me, Fred Thompson is a far right wing
politician who votes on behalf of the wealthiest of the wealthy and
the largest of corporations.
Fred Thompson knows how to
be an actor. He acts like a common man. You will see him at campaign
events in a red pick-up truck that he almost never drives except at
campaign events.
Thompson urges Michael
Moore should be condemned for visiting Cuba while making his latest
film. It has been widely reported that Thompson violated repeatedly US
law concerning the trade embargo of Castro’s Cuba by smoking illegal
Cuban cigars. Some published reports state that Thompson had these
illegal Cuban cigars in his US Senate office. If these reports are
true, Thompson is both a public hypocrite and lawbreaker who should be
prosecuted by the US Department of Justice.
The real problem facing
the Republicans in upcoming elections is not their candidates. The
real Republican political problems are their extremist political
ideology and tolerance of corruption. The problems are closely
related.
Republican power comes
from money, really big money. They have crafted a political program
that serves the interests of really big moneyed interests completely
and to the determent of every other class of American citizen. From
the rewriting of bankruptcy law to student loans to environmental
legislation to tax policies, the super rich were rewarded while the
rest of us suffered. Trade policies put corporate interests over the
national interests. The Republican Right reversed all of our
anti-monopoly government policies.
Because their power is
based on serving the elite few, Republicans are not really committed
to American Democracy. This is why they are in deep trouble in
upcoming elections.
Republican tactics reveal
their desperation. Republican politicians are using their power to
limit the voting rights of American citizens and reduce the number of
voters. Voter ID laws will not significantly reduce voter fraud (which
is not statistically significant) but will reduce the number of voters
by 3% to 5%. The voters who will not vote after the voter ID laws are
passed will be overwhelmingly poor, urban or elderly citizens who do
not drive. Instead of designing policies that appeal to these voters,
Republicans are pushing for laws that stop them from voting.
Native Americans,
Hispanics and blacks have systematically been targeted by Republican
politicians and operatives for vote suppression campaigns. College
students have also been frequently denied equal voting right
opportunities by Republican officeholders like Ken Blackwell.
The current Attorneygate
(Gonzales 8) scandal has shown that the Bush White House and the
Republican Party national leadership have been deeply involved in
using the US Department of Justice to manipulate elections. It
certainly looks that many members of the national Republican
leadership both in public office and outside are willing to break or
distort laws in order to win elections in their lust for power.
Republican policies on the
Iraq War benefit oil companies, defense contractors and other
corporate interests. They do not serve the interests of American
soldiers, American taxpayers or the American nation. The same basic
situation remains when the subject is the economy, clean elections,
civil liberties, national debt, taxes, trade, worker rights, consumer
rights, educational policies, immigration, the environment, etc.
instead of the Iraq War.
Of the 25 different pieces
of legislation that Bush has threatened to veto, the vast majority
have majority public support. All of them are opposed by powerful
corporate interests. All of them would benefit average Americans.
Sadly, this has become the Republican way.
The era of complete
Corporate control of politics is over. The George W. Bush era has been
so extreme and incompetent that it has produced a massive backlash.
Unless the Republicans find a new reason for existing besides being
complete Corporate clowns, they are likely to return to a reduced,
permanent minority Party status. Republicans need to learn to modify
their policies to obtain more supporters instead of relying on dirty
tactics and undermining American Democracy to achieve power.
Written by Stephen
Crockett (co-host of Democratic Talk Radio
http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com ).
Mail: P.O. Box 283, Earleville, Maryland
21919. Phone: 443-907-2367. Email:
midsouthcm@aol.com .
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