An intelligent comment I read at the New Republic website suggests a particular line of attack: describe the Republican Party as “the bridge to nowhere.” That would work for Palin and McCain.
Here’s an excerpt of the riff from roidubouloi:
The Republican party didn’t just try to build the bridge to nowhere at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, the Republican party is the bridge to nowhere. It cannot protect us from our enemies. It cannot protect us from falling behind in global competition. It cannot protect us from the storms and natural disasters the result from climate change. It is not just the party of the past, it is the party of no place, no program, no values.”
I like it. Stir in the notion that today’s GOP is “not your father’s Republican Party” and we get a nifty little bumper sticker:
Today’s GOP: The Real ‘Bridge to Nowhere
Or a speech/interview/ad zinger:
The Clinton administration gave us peace, prosperity and a bridge to the future. McCain and Palin are offering us a bridge to nowhere.
It may not be as catchy as ‘where’s the beef?’, but “bridge to nowhere” is a familiar phrase that resonates with voters. And it makes the point that the Republicans have no vision or program, other than wielding power.
3 comments on “Today’s GOP: The Real Bridge to Nowhere”
BarryOR on
bacaange, your ideas are good and make a lot of sense. Good luck in Alaska, there are good people there.
Bridge to Nowhere, very accurate and elaborated by Ground Zero as a Symbol and a message of Republicans’ failed policies and a gaping Wound, that after 7 years Ground Zero is still a hole, still zero — that we were unable to lift ourselves out of the ashes and make ourselves whole again. You see, nothing from nothing leaves nothing and that is not Change we can believe in. Enough is Enough!
And finally, Is the Bloom coming off of Palin, as Alaska Women Against Palin Rally is HUGE! http://mudflats.wordpress.com/2008/09/14/alaska…
That’s kind of a nice slogan but right now it’s serial lying that is hurting Obama/Biden the most. And time is running out. It might be more productive to find a way to counter that.
This year’s big media narrative has been the confirmation saga of Neera Tanden, Biden’s nominee for director of the Office of Management and Budget. At New York I wrote about how over-heated the talk surrounding Tanden has become.
Okay, folks, this is getting ridiculous. When a vote in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on the nomination of Neera Tanden was postponed earlier this week, you would have thought it presented an existential threat to the Biden presidency. “Scrutiny over Tanden’s selection has continued to build as the story over her uneven reception on Capitol Hill stretched through the week,” said one Washington Post story. Politico Playbook suggested that if Tanden didn’t recover, the brouhaha “has the potential to be what Biden might call a BFD.” There’sbeen all sorts of unintentionally funny speculation about whether the White House is playing some sort of “three-dimensional chess” in its handling of the confirmation, disguising a nefarious plan B or C.
Perhaps it reflects the law of supply and demand, which requires the inflation of any bit of trouble for Biden into a crisis. After all, his Cabinet nominees have been approved by the Senate with a minimum of 56 votes; the second-lowest level of support was 64 votes. One nominee who was the subject of all sorts of initial shrieking, Tom Vilsack, was confirmed with 92 Senate votes. Meanwhile, Congress is on track to approve the largest package of legislation moved by any president since at least the Reagan budget of 1981, with a lot of the work on it being conducted quietly in both chambers. Maybe if the bill hits some sort of roadblock, or if Republican fury at HHS nominee Xavier Becerra (whose confirmation has predictably become the big fundraising and mobilization vehicle for the GOP’s very loud anti-abortion constituency) reaches a certain decibel level, Tanden can get out of the spotlight for a bit.
But what’s really unfair — and beyond that, surreal — is the extent to which this confirmation is being treated as more important than all the others combined, or indeed, as a make-or-break moment for a presidency that has barely begun. It’s not. If Tanden cannot get confirmed, the Biden administration won’t miss a beat, and I am reasonably sure she will still have a distinguished future in public affairs (though perhaps one without much of a social-media presence). And if she is confirmed, we’ll all forget about the brouhaha and begin focusing on how she does the job, which she is, by all accounts, qualified to perform.
bacaange, your ideas are good and make a lot of sense. Good luck in Alaska, there are good people there.
Bridge to Nowhere, very accurate and elaborated by Ground Zero as a Symbol and a message of Republicans’ failed policies and a gaping Wound, that after 7 years Ground Zero is still a hole, still zero — that we were unable to lift ourselves out of the ashes and make ourselves whole again. You see, nothing from nothing leaves nothing and that is not Change we can believe in. Enough is Enough!
And finally, Is the Bloom coming off of Palin, as Alaska Women Against Palin Rally is HUGE!
http://mudflats.wordpress.com/2008/09/14/alaska…
That’s kind of a nice slogan but right now it’s serial lying that is hurting Obama/Biden the most. And time is running out. It might be more productive to find a way to counter that.