How to Shoot Yourself in the Foot

The GOP continues to endear itself to various groups of the American public. There are those who desperately need affordable health care. There are millions registered latino and African American voters in this country, and most of the American public has been mightily screwed by the big banks. In each case the GOP and its Tea Party wing continue to alienate these segments in a rapid pace. Then we should also remember last week's fau paux, when they advised a congresswoman to go back to the kitchen. Oops!

The teabaggers, the extremist arm of the party, continually flaunt their racist signs and their verbal taunts, railing against immigrants, African Americans, and those without affordable health care. The Arizona GOP has now passed and signed into law a hughly discriminatory anti-immigration law. I feel quite sure that we can see other GOP run states pass similar legislation now that their sisters in Arizona have broken the ground. This week the GOP has successfully blocked debate on financial reform, siding with the big banks, who continue to flaunt their billions in profits and their millions in bonuses.

The GOP lets its teabagger extremist arm do the dirty work, while the leaders of the party try to stay, rather unsuccessfully, above the fray. It is clear that Sarah and her "baggers" are the front for the GOP, so they aren't really fooling anyone. The question that will arise in the fall is whether the backlash from the groups who have borne the brunt of the hate-filled tirades from the "baggers" and the mainstream GOP will put the party in its place once and for all.

The Democrats have not carried the banner of sanity very well. They weren't forceful enough in their opposition to the GOP roadblocks. Instead they dilly-dallyed around until the GOP was actually able to make them look rather weak, even by being simply obstructionist. It would have been better for the Democrats to have borrowed a play from the GOP playbook and run rough-shod over the Republicans with health care and every other vote that has come up. Such actions would have demonstrated to the American people that they were moving forward and doing something.

Now the Democrats are going to have to work from a defensive posture and hope that the GOP continues to shoot itself in the foot with large segments of the voting public. I don't think we have seen the polls yet that show the effect that these extremist GOP positions will have on the voting public.