Tag Archives: RINO

political news, State news

Texas may prove to be Trump GOP testing ground

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If Donald J. Trump is having trouble wooing Texas Republicans into his embrace, then he might be having even more trouble everywhere else.

Ross Ramsey’s excellent analysis in the Texas Tribune lays out the problem that the presumptive GOP presidential nominee is having as he tightens the grip on his quest for the White House.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/06/06/analysis-texas-pols-trying-muster-words-support-tr/

Ramsey hold up Ted Cruz as an example of Trump’s Texas dilemma.

A lot of Texas politicians backed the junior U.S. senator’s bid for the White House. Cruz backed out of the race after the Indiana primary. He’s been mainly silent about Trump’s campaign ever since. Cruz has returned to work in the Senate.

His friends and allies, though, aren’t any more eager to attach themselves to Trump’s train than Cruz has been.

Trump said some pretty spiteful things about Cruz during the campaign. And, no, they didn’t gin up much sympathy from me … as I didn’t want Cruz to be the next president of the United States. If you’re Cruz, though, you should take some of these epithets personally.

And then there was that hideous attack on Heidi Cruz, for crying out loud!

Gov. Greg Abbott is kinda/sorta backing Trump. Ramsey noted that recently Abbott made a speech backing Trump without ever mentioning the candidate’s name. How do you do that?

Then again, Abbott has his own Trump burden to bear, given the state’s investigation into the defunct Trump University and the campaign contribution that showed up immediately after Abbott — while he was Texas attorney general — dropped the state’s legal action.

Hmmm.

Let’s not forget former Gov. Rick Perry, who once called Trump a “cancer on conservatism.” He’s now backing him out loud and proudly. As Ramsey points out, Perry also said he’d accept a vice-presidential invitation if it came from Trump.

Many actual Republicans in Texas accuse Trump of being one of them in name only. You know, a RINO.

But as Texas Republicans have demonstrated time and again since ascending to power in this state, they are willing to put actual qualifications and fitness aside when selecting candidates for high political office. Party labels matter more than anything else.

To be fair, Democrats did much the same thing when they ran the show. We still actually have a smattering of those “Yellow Dog Democrats” out there who’d vote for a yellow dog before they’d vote for a Republican.

Trump’s fight for the love of Texas Republicans remains a daunting task. As Ramsey notes:

“Many others in the GOP seem stuck on the road between their original choices for the Republican presidential nomination and Trump, the apparent winner.  Some will convert. Some will get out and proselytize for the nominee.

“But not yet. That first sale is the hardest one to close.”

national news, political news

Let’s make it a three-way race for POTUS

johnson

It’s official.

Americans are going to have three — count ’em, three — legitimate candidates for president and vice president of the United States to consider.

You may now count me as among the millions of Americans who are going to ponder the third path to the White House.

The Libertarian Party has nominated two accomplished former governors as its ticket to ride: Republicans Gary Johnson of New Mexico for president and William Weld of Massachusetts for vice president.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/libertarians-johnson-weld-trump-gary-william-223703

Here’s my dilemma.

I’ve told you already that I’ve voted exclusively for Democrats for president/VP since I started voting back in 1972. I’ve split my down-ballot ticket, though, over the years; I’ve voted for many Republicans for U.S. Senate and House, and for state and local offices in the two states where I’ve lived.

I do not yet know how I’m going to vote this year for president and vice president.

Under no circumstances would I vote for the likely GOP nominee Donald J. Trump and whoever he picks as his running mate. That’s a given.

The likely Democratic nominee, Hillary Rodham Clinton, is presenting some potentially serious concerns for me. They center on that “trust” thing that’s dogging her. Am I ready to forsake her? No, but I am ready now to look carefully at what the third-party ticket of Johnson-Weld has to offer.

Both of these gentlemen were moderate Republicans when they governed their respective states. Today’s version of hard-core Republicanism would call them RINOs, Republicans In Name Only. Johnson is most well-known for advocating the legalization of marijuana. He also did a creditable job running New Mexico. I know a whole lot less about Weld.

Both are men of substantial financial means … although I don’t hear either of them brag about it the way Trump boasts of his y-u-u-u-g-e fortune.

Given that I understand that voting preference is a private matter, I’m not likely to reveal who will get my vote. That might become evident as I continue to comment on matters as the campaign progresses.

OK, you already know who won’t get it.

I suppose, then, that my choices now are just two — which is what they’ve always been in the past.

Whatever.

I now declare myself ready and willing to examine a ticket other than one from either of the two major political parties.

That’s a big step. At least it is for me.

 

national news, political news

Trump upsets the national political truism

donald-trump-gag-big

Donald J. Trump’s presidential candidacy has turned everything on its ear.

The Republican Party is at war with itself. How does the party back a presidential nominee who opposes traditional GOP orthodoxy? And just how does the party define “unity” if it cannot back its nominee fully?

Let’s play this out a little more.

What, then, about the rest of us who at the same time oppose traditional GOP dogma while also being repulsed by the very idea of Donald Trump ever settling behind a big desk in the Oval Office?

I’m trying to grasp the apparent conflict I’m enduring now as I watch Trump get ready to become the Republicans’ next presidential nominee.

I dislike the traditional GOP view on abortion, on tax policy, on wage and marriage equality, on gun control and on immigration.

I also dislike Trump’s views on at least one of those issues: immigration. The rest of Trump’s views are, to say the least, malleable. I don’t know precisely what he thinks about any of the rest of them.

Which brings me to this point. Why do I oppose this guy’s candidacy so vehemently?

I guess it’s his unfitness for the office he’s seeking.

Trump has no record of public service;  we have nothing on which to base his past performance. He has no grasp of the basics of government, let alone any idea on how to manipulate its complexities. Trump has lied constantly throughout this campaign — and until recently has been allowed by the media to get away with it.

He is a reality TV celebrity. He “owns” beauty pageants. He’s built glitzy hotels and has lived an opulent lifestyle. And American voters are supposed to relate to this?

And I haven’t yet gotten into his moral fitness for the job. He seems to possess no moral bearings. He has boasted openly about his marital infidelity. The things he has said about women simply stand as some of the most revolting things I’ve ever heard from anyone … let alone from someone on the brink of become a major-party presidential nominee.

How many other major, mainstream presidential candidates can you name who’ve spoken to shock jock Howard Stern about his sexual exploits?

This is what I mean about Trump upsetting every political calculation there is.

True-blue Republicans don’t trust him. My goodness, this guy is the classic RINO — a Republican In Name Only. Yet, he continues to collect the votes of millions of GOP base voters who, I guess, are trying to send some kind of “message” to the party establishment.

If he’s a RINO, which he is, then he ought to appeal to the rest of us who don’t swallow the Republican orthodoxy. Am I right?

Not even …

 

national news, political news

TEA Party redefines GOP

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One of the more fascinating dynamics of the current political climate has been the realigning — in the minds of some folks — of the Republican Party.

I actually have laughed out loud at the TEA Party faction of the GOP that has taken to referring to “mainstream Republicans” as RINOs: Republicans in Name Only.

TEA Party, of course, actually is an acronym that stands for Taxed Enough Already. They comprise the harsher wing of the once-great party. They also have dominated the debate within the Republican Party and are seeking to dominate the debate across the nation.

The impending nomination of Donald J. Trump as the GOP’s next presidential candidate quite possibly is going to trigger a major realignment. The party we’ve come to know and (some of us) loathe might not exist after the November election if Trump gets swept by Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton; by “swept” I mean that Clinton quite possibly could score a historic landslide victory.

My hope for the party is that it reconfigures itself in the mold of, say, Gerald Ford, Nelson Rockefeller, Everett Dirksen, George H.W. Bush and — just for good measure — Ronald W. Reagan.

Today’s TEA Party faithful like to compare themselves to Reagan. It’s a false comparison. Why? Reagan knew how to work with Democrats. He was unafraid to reach across to those on the other side when the need arose.

Today’s TEA Party cabal has none of that skill, or willingness.

I keep hearing from my network of friends, acquaintances and former professional colleagues who keep tossing the RINO epithet at today’s Republicans who, in my view, are far more traditionally Republican in their political world view than the zealots who’ve hijacked the party’s once-good name for their own purpose.

Let the realignment continue.

 

national news, political news

Sen. Graham shows what’s wrong with GOP

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Don’t get me wrong.

Sen. Lindsey Graham — himself — is not what is wrong with today’s Republican Party. The South Carolinian’s departure this week from the 2016 presidential race illustrates what’s so troubling about others within the GOP.

Graham represents what — for the time being — appears to be a dying breed of Republican. He’s one of those individuals who works with Democrats, not against ’em.

His reputation, thus, has become of one what hardcore Republicans call RINO, a Republican In Name Only.

Graham isn’t a RINO. The label is undeserved, except for the fact that he has many friends on the other side of the Senate chamber, which I guess has become something of a kiss of death these days among the Republican Party “base.”

He became quite critical during his presidential campaign of much of the rhetoric coming from his fellow candidates. Remember when he called Donald Trump a “jackass”? He became one of the first targets that Trump singled out, reciting Graham’s cell phone number aloud at a public event.

Graham, though, had the bad form — in the eyes of his GOP base — to work with Democrats on such issues as climate change, immigration reform and tax reform. It didn’t matter that the former Air Force lawyer has been a staunch advocate for a strong defense and that he has been at the forefront of calling for more — and pardon my use of the euphemism that I detest — “boots on the ground” in the fight against Islamic terrorists.

Perhaps it was Graham’s vote against articles of impeachment against President Clinton in 1998 — as a member of the House Judiciary Committee — that sealed the deal for the GOP base.

Whatever, this faithful Republican is now out of the presidential race because he isn’t hardcore enough to suit the red-meat Republicans who still see Democrats as “enemies” and not more “opponents.”

That’s too bad.

For Graham and for his Republican Party.