Timely Reminder

I see where some of our none-too-subtle citizens have created a “Lynch Obama” website. Remind me again how criticism of this President is all about public policy…

As appalling as this most recent evidence of racial animus is, we would do well to consider an important point made by Martin Longmont at Political Animal last week– a reminder that sometimes escapes those of us disheartened by the outsize role overt racism plays in criticism of this President.

After reminding readers of the more outrageous accusations thrown at Bill Clinton, he writes

First, the country could elect Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia president and the Republicans would treat the Democrats’ most conservative senator as though he were advocating a communist revolution. This seems to be an essential tool in the GOP’s political tool-kit and it will be used completely irrespectively of how the Democrat actually behaves.

Second, that people blame the president when there is gridlock much more than they blame the people who won’t compromise. This is because most people do not properly understand the limitations on the office of the president’s power. And, so, you will get even somewhat savvy political commentators saying stupid things like the president could get more cooperation if he just invited more of his opponents over for dinner.

Truer words were never written.

As he acknowledges, the election of Obama unleashed a disheartening amount of racism. But the precise amount has to be calculated by subtracting out the usual lunacy and seeing how much unhinged animus remains.

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Republican Evolution

Dana Milbank has an explanation for that recent Pew poll showing a sharp decline in the number of Republicans who accept evolution. Ironically, he suggests that the Grand Old Party is continuing to…well, evolve…into an ever more conservative and religious party.

A survey out this week shows just how far and how fast the GOP has gone toward becoming a collection of older, white, evangelical Christians defined as much by religion as by politics. …..Forget climate-change skepticism: Republicans have turned, suddenly and sharply, against Darwin.

How to explain this most unexpected mutation? Given the stability of views on evolution (Gallup polling has found responses essentially the same over the past quarter-century), it’s unlikely that large numbers of Republicans actually changed their beliefs. More likely is that the type of people willing to identify themselves as Republicans increasingly tend to be a narrow group of conservatives who believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible — or partisans who regard evolution as a political question rather than one of science.

Milbank mines the data to describe the current GOP:   86 percent white, and growing steadily older (the number of self-described Republicans ages 50 to 64 and 65 and older climbed seven points and two points, respectively).  The ideological gap between the parties has grown, but–despite the GOP’s desperate efforts to paint all Democrats as leftists moving toward socialism–the data shows that the widening gap is instead a product of Republican movement to the right.

The Republican Party is achieving the seemingly impossible feat of becoming even more theological. Democrats and independents haven’t moved much in their views, while Republicans took a sharp turn toward fundamentalism.

How much farther right can the GOP go? When I left what was then still a reasonably sane albeit ideologically transformed party in 2000, I was convinced that–as the song says–they’d gone about as far as they could go. I was clearly wrong.

The question now is, ironically, Darwinian. As Milbank notes:

As a matter of political Darwinism, the Republicans’ mutation is not likely to help the GOP’s survival. As the country overall becomes more racially diverse and more secular, Republicans are resolutely white and increasingly devout. If current trends persist, it will be only a couple of decades before they join the dodo and the saber-toothed tiger.

The disappearance of what used to be a major political party composed mostly of grown-ups has already occurred, and the country is the worse for it.  We need two sensible political parties. Watching whatever it is that the GOP has become self-destruct may make some partisan Democrats happy, but most Americans recognize it for the sad and dangerous state of affairs that it is.

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Fun with Numbers

In a column right before the end of the year, Brian Howey shared statistics about Indiana. They’re revealing.

Hoosiers rank 39th in per capita income, with residents making 87.2 percent of U.S. income at $38,119, and 33rd in household income at $46,974, down from $47,399 in 2011 (32nd). In 2002, we ranked 24th at $53,482. That is a 13.6 percent decline in the last decade, ranking us 48th.

The Indiana General Assembly passed and then-Gov. Mitch Daniels signed right-to-work legislation in February 2011. Union membership declined from 11.3 percent of the workforce in 2011 (302,000 workers, or 15th in the nation) to 9.1 percent in 2012 (246,000 workers). Only 10 percent of the workforce is represented by a union, ranking us 15th, down 2.4 percent from 2011.

Indiana ranks 10th in bankruptcies over time in 2012, and sixth in the rate per 1,000 people.

Apparently, the folks who opposed Right to Work were right when they characterized the measure as “Right to Work for Less.”

Howey’s long list also included these interesting numbers: Indiana ranks 17th in college enrollments–we are educating lots of students in our colleges and Universities. But we rank 42d in the percentage of Hoosiers holding Bachelor’s degrees, and 44th in the percentage of Hoosiers with any sort of degree.

We educate them and they leave.

Maybe our intrepid legislators should ask why it is that educated folks don’t stay in our state. Could it be that those low taxes translate into poor public services and a low quality of life?

Today is the start of a shiny new year. Wouldn’t it be nice if those we elect to office would decide to work together this year to improve Indiana’s dismal numbers, and the quality of life in the Hoosier State?

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Needs No Elaboration

Sometimes, the bare facts speak for themselves.

From a recent Pew polling release: “In 2009, 54% of Republicans and 64% of Democrats said humans have evolved over time, a difference of 10 percentage points. Today, 43% of Republicans and 67% of Democrats say humans have evolved, a 24-point gap.”

There’s evolving, and then there’s regressing.

Tomorrow it will be 2014–and 57% of Republicans and 23% of Democrats reject long-settled science upon which all biology is based.

Happy New Year.

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RIP

Andy Jacobs died this weekend. The brand of politics he practiced predeceased him.

I was the Republican candidate who ran against Andy in 1980.  It was a hard-fought campaign, but hard-fought didn’t imply the sort of mud-throwing and character assassination we have become accustomed to. Andy suggested that some of my positions were uninformed; I argued that he was ineffective. When Andy retired from Congress, Bill Hudnut and I were among those invited to “roast” him, and I admitted that during the heat of the campaign I had called him a name…I had called him a Democrat.

Andy didn’t hold grudges against political opponents. His friendship with Bill Hudnut–who actually defeated him before he won back his Congressional office– is legendary. Not too many years after I ran against him, my youngest son served as his Congressional Page.  Andy and I would go on to have an occasional lunch together, and from time to time, he would comment favorably, via email, on columns I’d written.

We probably agreed more than we disagreed. When the Iraq War started, he and I shared the stage at a protest rally on Monument Circle. I seldom saw him after that, and I knew his health was deteriorating.

Indianapolis will miss Andy Jacobs.

The whole country is poorer for the loss of generosity of spirit and the politics of principle he characterized.

RIP.

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