GOP strategy: "Bring out the wackos to vote against something..."

[BurtWorm]

That is literally, consciously their strategy, folks, as is made clear by a quote from DeLay's man Michael Scanlon, which I came across while reading a piece about the right wing's UN-phobia in the current Washington Spectator by Ian Williamson, who wrote a similar piece for the Asia Times in June:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/HF21Aa01.html

...While polls show consistently high US public support for international law and bodies such as the UN, like most polls in the US, they should carry a rider - "So what're you gonna do about it?" The good guys would mostly answer, not a lot, while the sundry isolationists, xenophobes, unilateralists, survivalists and neo-cons have shown that the mere existence of the UN renders them speechful with rage.

They will send donations, bombard legislators and fill the Web with their virtual version of reality. Despite the widely different sources for their obsession with the UN, they unite in their hatred and fear of the world body. That makes them somewhat vulnerable to manipulation by the unscrupulous, of whom there are, shall we say, a statistically significant sample in the US political classes. Senator Joe McCarthy was one of a type, not a standalone figure.

The recent trials and congressional inquiries into lobbying activities by the former aide to Republican Senator Tom DeLay, Michael Scanlon, provided the perfect description of how anti-UN campaigners can tap into this subculture. He was using native American tribes' money to stop off-reservation gambling, but the strategy is spot-on.

"Our mission is to get specifically selected groups of individuals to the polls to speak out against something. To that end, your money is best spent finding them and communicating with them on using the modes that they are most likely to respond to. Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them. The wackos get their information from the Christian Right, Christian radio, mail, the Internet and telephone trees."

And how do they get away with it? Because there are few politicians prepared to put themselves on the line for a multilateral policy in a system where "all politics is local". The exception that proves the rule is Congressman Jim Leach, one of the few Republicans whom Abraham Lincoln would recognize as a colleague.

[Cocoa]

1. someone should post this at Free Republic

maybe people there will see that the republicans have as little respect for them as they do for their Indian "monkeys."

[Norquist Nemesis]

2. Number one on their list that affects everyone

ACTIVIST JUDGES

I can hear them now, going door to door. "We must keep a Republican Majority in the House and Senate to confirm Strict Constructionist jurists." (It won't occur to the dweller that only the Senate confirms.)

[DeepModem Mom]

3. K&R

[BurtWorm]

4. kick