Skip to main content

I'm not too proud to say this:

I'm actually starting to respect Frank Luntz. Grover Nordquist (kumquat!) is still another matter. But Luntz actually has some good advice in his WaPo editorial today:
Be bold, return to basics, stop telling, start asking, focus on results, abolish "earmarks" and embrace a permanent balanced budget.

As a pollster, I rarely hear voters call for smaller government. They tell me that they want more efficient and more effective government.
He's talking to Republicans, but any politician with a brain should be listening. I was particularly interested in what Florida Republicans had done:

Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio challenged his colleagues to create an agenda for the future with "100 Innovative Ideas" from ordinary people around the state. Instead of fundraisers, they held "idea raisers." Republicans, Democrats and independents were all welcome -- any idea that advanced the principles of good government and political accountability was considered.

It wasn't a political ploy. They released their "100 Innovative Ideas for Florida's Future" after the election. And Republican legislators got back in touch with constituents.

But the next two paragraphs are what really got me:

But what did national Republicans do as the new Congress convened and Democrats began pushing through their "Six for '06" proposals in the first 100 hours? They called a news conference not to present counter-proposals to guide the minority over the next two years, but to complain that the Democrats were treating them unfairly. They objected that the committee process was being skirted and members were denied opportunities to offer amendments.

Were Republicans standing up for retirement security, control over health-care decisions or economic freedom? No. They were upset over who was or was not allowed to offer amendments on the floor. (Note to Republicans: Americans don't care.)

"Note to Republicans:..." Hah. Yes, make me laugh, and my respect for you goes up.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

This post was a whole long longer and more emotional an hour ago...

First off: It's sad that I get better wireless reception in my backyard than in my apartment, right? Sigh. I normally try to stay out of the quagmire that is the abortion debate, but as usually, elyzabethe wrote something insightful about feminist issues that I had to comment on. Actually, I had to comment on the framing war that was going on in the comments section between elyzabethe and another friend. Then I ended up emailing back and forth with her for awhile. Then someone at work mentioned how the "choice" frame is starting to lose ground, even though advocates don't want to admit it. I started scribbling notes, sighed, and thought, "well, I'm gonna have to blog about this." Elyzabeth rants often against anti-choice organizations and legislation, as is her wont as a libertarian feminist. She’s particularly good at teasing out how anti-choice (A, if you’re reading this, bear with me, I’m referring to ‘anti-choice’ as more than just the abortion issu...
1 comment
Read more

Less Blogging, More Tweeting

FYI, I haven't been happy with how a lot of my posts are turning out, as well as the frequency with which I'm posting. Since most of the time, I just want to share a link that has an interesting take on telling its story, I'm going to dust off my Twitter account to share those and only post here if I'm really inspired. To the twelve people who read this blog, thanks.
Post a Comment
Read more

"Cows rise up!" Spokecow proclaims.

At noon on Monday, the Environmental Working Group launched a new farm subsidies database profiling the 358,070 people who've gotten over $34.75 billion in federal subsidies. Twenty-four hours later, the database was already getting 7,000 hits per hour on the new database. Two days later, the website still took five minutes to load. Why all the interest? Well, why did Microsoft's Paul Allen get $30,687 in farm subsidies between 2003-2005? Right here would be a great place for a pun about something smelling like manure, but I don't want to offend any cows, especially since they're organizing .
Post a Comment
Read more