It Looks Like Republicans will Have a 2 or 3 way Split in Next Year
Here is great reporting on the Great and Greater Divide in the Republican Party. It appears that there will be a 3 or 4 way race for president in the USA next year.
http://pr.thinkprogress.org/
RADICAL RIGHT
Conservatives DividedThis past weekend, Republicans descended on Washington, DC for the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), the annual three-day event mostly consisting of fiery right-wing rhetoric and presidential hopefuls jockeying for the party’s nomination. This year, however, the conference also showcased the deepening rifts within the conservative movement. Vice President Cheney — who was welcomed with cheers last year — was booed and heckled by audience members this year. Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, was similarly greeted with boos and people yelling “Where’s Bin Laden,” “murdering scum,” and “draft dodger.” But several members of the Republican Party were notably absent. The “long-simmering tensions” within the Republican Party started spilli ng into the public view immediately after the 2010 elections and the dirty laundry was openly aired at CPAC. The intra party turmoil consists of several factions, but the main source of recent discord comes from the dogmatic and “uncompromisingly conservative” Tea Party wing of the party that has repeatedly challenged the GOP establishment. Besides distracting lawmakers from solving the serious economic issues the country faces, some Republicans are also worried that the views expressed by its own conservative base could “relegate the party to indefinite minority status.”
http://pr.thinkprogress.org/
RADICAL RIGHT
Conservatives DividedThis past weekend, Republicans descended on Washington, DC for the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), the annual three-day event mostly consisting of fiery right-wing rhetoric and presidential hopefuls jockeying for the party’s nomination. This year, however, the conference also showcased the deepening rifts within the conservative movement. Vice President Cheney — who was welcomed with cheers last year — was booed and heckled by audience members this year. Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, was similarly greeted with boos and people yelling “Where’s Bin Laden,” “murdering scum,” and “draft dodger.” But several members of the Republican Party were notably absent. The “long-simmering tensions” within the Republican Party started spilli ng into the public view immediately after the 2010 elections and the dirty laundry was openly aired at CPAC. The intra party turmoil consists of several factions, but the main source of recent discord comes from the dogmatic and “uncompromisingly conservative” Tea Party wing of the party that has repeatedly challenged the GOP establishment. Besides distracting lawmakers from solving the serious economic issues the country faces, some Republicans are also worried that the views expressed by its own conservative base could “relegate the party to indefinite minority status.”
Labels: Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, was similarly greeted with boos and people yelling Dick Cheney
posted by Kevin Anthony Stoda at 5:56 AM
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more notes from the AmericaN PROSPECT email--
ISLAMOPHOBIA: "It wouldn't be CPAC without a good old donnybrook," said "veteran conservative operative" Craig Shirley, in reference to the fact that CPAC is "often a proxy for fights over the identity of the conservative movement." This year, the showdown was focused on the conservative movement's relationship with Islam. A public feud erupted between vicious anti-Muslim fearmongers and CPAC participants advocating tolerance. Prior to the event, the right's chief Islamophobe Frank Gaffney accused CPAC organizers Grover Norquist, whose wife happens to be Muslim, and Suhail Kahn, who directed Muslim outreach efforts for the Bush White House, of being moles for the Muslim Brotherhood. As a result, Gaffney was banned from attending CPAC despite being invited for the past 15 years (although he initially claimed he was boycotting it). A source close to conference organizers told ThinkProgress that Gaffney was specifically not invited to speak at the conference this year because CPAC Chairman David Keene and other conservatives were "sick of him" and his "weird belief that anyone who doesn't agree with him on everything all the time" is either "ignorant" or "dupes of the nation's enemies." However, Gaffney's absence didn't temper anti-Muslim sentiments at CPAC. Republican presidential hopefuls Newt Gingrich, Sen. John Thune (R-SD) , Rep. Allen West (R-FL) dedicated portions of their speeches to discussing alleged threats posed by Islam. In his address, conservative activist David Horowitz stated that "political Islam is a totalitarian movement that seeks to impose Islamic law on the entire world through the seizure of states by stealth and electoral means where possible and by terror where necessary and sometimes by a combination of the two. There are hundreds of millions of believers in political Islam." Meanwhile, Norquist called on his party to "marginalize" Islamophobia within its ranks and "knock that stuff down and just make it clear that there's no place for that in the party of Reagan." But even Norquist's call for calm was met with indignation. "Grover's got to go," right-wing anti-Ground Zero Islamic community center crusader Pam Geller said in response.
NATIVISM: Immigration was also a topic of debate at CPAC this year. "Anybody that brings up amnesty in this Congress, we need to just take the scarlet 'A' for amnesty and pin it on them," King told the audience. An entire panel was dedicated to promoting efforts aimed at eliminating the guarantee that all persons born in the U.S. are automatically citizens. At another panel, entitled, "Will Immigration Kill the GOP?," former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) proclaimed, "no more of this multiculturalism garbage," adding that "the cult of multiculturalism has captured the world" and is "the dagger in the heart" of civilization. Right Wing Watch concluded, "if there is one me ssage to take away from CPAC's panel on immigration, it's that White America is in serious jeopardy and may soon succumb to immigration, multiculturalism, and socialism." However, as the GOP continues to push increasingly harsher enforcement-only policies, other members of Republican Party have pleaded with their colleagues to soften their stance. President Bush expressed concerns that the nation "is going through a period of nativism." "The decibels have to be lower," Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL) recently stated at the 2011 Inaugural Conference of the Hispanic Leadership Network -- an event that was "billed" as a forum for the 2012 Republican presidential field to speak directly to Latino voters. "It doesn't matter how good our policy positions are, if we are perceived as being anti-immigrant, we cannot be the majority party," affirmed Diaz-Balart. Jeb Bush was the first Republican to blast the Arizona immigration law. Former RNC chairman Ed Gillespie , Condoleezza Rice, Karl Rove, Colin Powell, and former Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL) have all warned their party about the dangers associated with the party's anti-immigrant tilt. Ken Starr, Michael Gerson, and Alberto Gonzalez have come out against the GOP effort to change the 14th amendment's citizenship clause. Yet prominent Latino conservative Alfonso Aguilar believes the party should be more proactive. "The question now is can we propose, can Republicans practically propose immigration solutions that go beyond enforcement only? And if we do, Hispanics will respond very favorably," stated Aguilar.
THIS ALSO COMES FROM THE AMERICAN PROSPECT EMAIL from yesterday.
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