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You are here: Home / Archives for Republicans

Don’t Let John Boehner Rewrite History

April 2, 2021 at 1:30 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Charles Pierce: “If there’s any evidence that John Boehner tried to arrest the prion disease before it took over his caucus, and then his entire political party, it was not evident in his performance as Speaker. The man was positively hysterical in his opposition to the Affordable Care Act.”

“That he bailed out before the maniacs took full control is a tribute to his survival instinct, not his political integrity. He got run over by forces from which he and his party had been profiting, and which got out of the lab because he wasn’t strong enough, or willing enough, to stop it.”

Filed Under: Republicans

Ossoff Urges Boycott of Georgia GOP, Not Businesses

April 2, 2021 at 11:45 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) in a statement to National Review:

“I absolutely oppose and reject any notion of boycotting Georgia. Georgia welcomes business, investment, jobs, opportunity, and events. In fact, economic growth is driving much of the political progress we have seen here. Georgia welcomes the world’s business.”

“Corporations disgusted like we are with the disgraceful Voter Suppression bill should stop any financial support to Georgia’s Republican Party, which is abusing its power to make it harder for Americans to vote.”

Filed Under: Republicans

The Most Telling Excerpt In John Boehner’s Memoir

April 2, 2021 at 10:37 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Former Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) writes in his new memoir that former Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) wanted to be placed on the powerful House Ways and Means, and that he turned her down, Axios reports.

Writes Boehner: “Her response to me was calm and matter-of-fact. ‘Well, then I’ll just have to go talk to Sean Hannity and everybody at Fox and Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, and everybody else on the radio, and tell them that this is how John Boehner is treating the people who made it possible for the Republicans to take back the House.'”

He added: “I wasn’t the one with the power, she was saying. I just thought I was. She had the power now. She was right, of course.”

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Filed Under: Political Books, Republicans

Republicans Are Boxed In on Infrastructure

April 2, 2021 at 10:04 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Jennifer Rubin: “Having declared themselves in favor of infrastructure for years, they either have to come up with a tax scheme that will fall far more heavily on ordinary taxpayers or give up their phony deficit mania (which does not apply to tax cuts, apparently). This puts Democrats in both the roles of being fiscal conservatives (pay as you go!) and defenders of working-class Americans. Republicans have the choice between embracing fiscal irresponsibility or giving up their laughable claim to be the party of working people.”

Filed Under: Republicans, Transportation

The Strange New GOP Doctrine

April 1, 2021 at 8:46 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

David Frum: “To appease those cultural blocs, Republican politicians must be willing to sacrifice everything, including what used to be the party’s foundational principles. To protect the gun, or to avoid contradicting the delusions of anti-vaccine paranoiacs, property rights must give way, freedom to operate a business must yield.”

“The QAnon-curious Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene expressed the new mentality when she took to Facebook to denounce vaccine passports as ‘corporate communism.’ It sounded crazy. But if you understand that she interprets communism to mean ‘any interference in the right of people like me to do whatever we want, regardless of the rights of others’—then, yeah, the property rights of corporations will indeed look to her like a force of communism.”

Filed Under: Republicans

GOP Leader Says Embracing Trump Is Only Option

March 31, 2021 at 7:19 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN), who leads the Republican Study Committee, argues in a memo that Republican party’s future demands an “embrace” of “our new coalition,” Axios reports.

Banks says that “both parties are undergoing coalitional transformations” and that Republicans shouldn’t fight the trend of corporate donors pulling back from the GOP.

Writes Banks: “Our electoral success in the 2022 midterm election will be determined by our willingness to embrace our new coalition. House Republicans can broaden our electorate, increase voter turnout, and take back the House by enthusiastically rebranding and reorienting as the Party of the Working Class… There is an embittered and loud minority in the GOP that finds our new coalition distasteful, but President Trump’s gift didn’t come with a receipt.”

Filed Under: Republicans

Conservatives Think America Is Doomed

March 30, 2021 at 7:27 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Matt Lewis: “What had been (in the days of Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp) an optimistic philosophy has metastasized. We are left with a right wing that is animated by despair, desperation, and an inevitable belief in American decline. We have been hearing this sort of clamoring since 2016, culminating with the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6. But there was always the hope it would dissipate if or when Donald Trump left the White House.”

“But sadly, Trump’s exit has done little to quell the incipient thirst for authoritarianism from many on the right. Indeed, the fever seems to be getting worse.”

Filed Under: Republicans

A Sickness That Runs Deeper Than Covid

March 30, 2021 at 9:14 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Michael Gerson: “It is the sign of a sickness deeper than covid-19 that the defiance of public health guidance has become a political selling point in the Republican Party.”

“In the not-so-distant past, Republican governors competed with their colleagues to author innovative welfare reform or criminal justice proposals. Now bad covid policy is a point of pride and a path to influence.”

Filed Under: Republicans

Laboratories of Democratic Backsliding

March 30, 2021 at 9:09 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Jonathan Chait looks at a new paper from political scientist Jacob Grumbach which finds that “the states that backslid on democratization over the past 16 years were shared a single characteristic: Republicans gained full control of their state government.”

“In other words, states that are rolling back democratic protections are not responding to demographic change nor to any change internal to their state. They are following the agenda of the national Republican Party. That agenda is spreading throughout the states, which are imposing voter restrictions almost everywhere their party has the power to do so. Restricting the franchise has become perhaps the party’s core policy objective.”

Filed Under: Republicans

The Only GOP ‘Camp’ That Matters

March 29, 2021 at 12:59 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

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Filed Under: Members, Republicans

Anti-Trump Group Steps Up Attacks on Election Deniers

March 29, 2021 at 9:57 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“A group that opposes former President Donald Trump is dialing up the pressure on GOP lawmakers who objected to the certification of the 2020 presidential election results,” McClatchy reports.

“The Republican Accountability Project is spending $1 million on a new round of TV and digital ads criticizing six GOP members of Congress the group says ‘encouraged a deadly attack’ on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 as Electoral College votes were being counted.”

Filed Under: Republicans

Lin Wood Seeks to Lead South Carolina Republicans

March 29, 2021 at 6:15 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Lin Wood, the defamation and personal injury lawyer who took up former President Trump’s baseless accusations of election fraud, will run to lead the South Carolina Republican Party,” The Hill reports.

Filed Under: Republicans

Most Republicans Think Pandemic Is Overblown

March 28, 2021 at 10:01 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

A new Pew Research poll finds the 60% of Republicans think the coronavirus pandemic — which has killed 550,000 Americans so far — has been made a bigger deal than it really is.

Filed Under: Health Care, Republicans

The GOP’s New Power Centers

March 28, 2021 at 12:48 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Democrats control Washington, but Republicans have a mighty counterweight that gets little attention: dominance in the states and the courts,” Axios reports.

“That one-two punch gives Republicans domain over a huge swath of America’s governing system, including power over voting laws and the redistricting of House seats, plus the ability to use state courts to their advantage.”

“Just as Biden is taking a maximalist approach to Washington power; Republicans are doing the same state-by-state.”

Filed Under: Republicans

Where the GOP Hopes to Grow Its Base

March 26, 2021 at 9:00 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

GOP pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson in an interview with Ezra Klein:

“To the extent that these days, you see discussion about expanding the coalition and bringing in voters who might be more available to the GOP. There is not as much of an appetite these days for winning back, say, college educated suburbanites, I think in part because there is a belief that there may just be too great a divide on some of these sort of values and culture type issues.”

“Meanwhile, I think there is some more appetite you are seeing among Republicans for doing outreach to those in communities of color, who may not have college degrees.”

Filed Under: Republicans

The Costs of Not Being Serious

March 26, 2021 at 5:00 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Paul Krugman: “That same loss of seriousness, I’d suggest, inhibited their ability to effectively oppose Biden’s rescue plan. They couldn’t do the hard thinking required to settle on a plausible line of attack. So while Democrats were pushing through tax credits that will cut child poverty nearly in half and subsidies that will make health insurance more affordable, Republicans were focused on cancel culture and Dr. Seuss.”

“And looking forward, why should we expect the G.O.P. to do any better in opposing Biden’s longer-term initiatives?”

Related for members: Republicans Are Committing Political Malpractice

Filed Under: Republicans

GOP Leader Calls Top Democratic Women ‘Witches’

March 26, 2021 at 1:25 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“The leader of Michigan’s Republican Party referred to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and two other top Democratic elected woman as “witches” and joked about assassination when asked how to remove two GOP congressman who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump,” the AP reports.

Filed Under: Republicans

The 7 Groups That Make Up the GOP

March 26, 2021 at 1:00 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Axios: “The post-Trump Republican Party cares most about issues in seven key categories, with most prioritizing economic issues like job creation and limited government, according to a new survey conducted by former President Trump’s chief 2016 and 2020 pollster.”

The top three include:

  1. Dollars & Cents GOP: These voters care most about a balanced federal budget, economic growth, taxes, international trade and limited government. Middle-aged men are concentrated here.
  2. Core GOP Conservatives: All GOP voters remaining who didn’t fit into the other categories. Considered extremely conservative and the most committed GOPers. Care most about honesty in government.
  3. Don’t Tread on Me GOP: Heavily focused on personal and individual freedoms, such as privacy, gun rights and marijuana legalization. Top category for young men.

Filed Under: Republicans

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About Political Wire

goddard-bw-snapshotTaegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

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