Eight Feet Deep

Nor­mally, I’m not a big fan of Politico.

The MSM-ish, all-the-politics-all-the-time Web prod­uct once occu­pied a place on my blogroll when I was using Blogspot. But I tired of their cable news-like approach to polit­i­cal report­ing. That approach is basi­cally summed up in one word: drama. If there is no drama, cre­ate some. Plus polit­i­cal gos­sip is found there more often than not. I don’t like that. But that’s just me, the old-time news­pa­per guy who had to count head­lines and paste-up pages in the early days of his career. I’m cer­tain there are those print guys much older, or who started before me, who really are the old-timers. I’m just being half-ass face­tious.***

With all that blather I speak of Politico because there is a very good arti­cle on it today which cites rea­sons the Repub­li­can Party isn’t as well off as many believe it to be. Politico founder and exec­u­tive edi­tor Jim Van­de­Hei and writer James Hohmann report that a few unex­pected vic­to­ries, includ­ing that most recently of nude model Scott Brown who took the Kennedy Sen­ate seat, have the GOP rid­ing high.

But while some Repub­li­cans lick their chops at the prospect at tak­ing over Con­gress in Novem­ber, other GOP-ers are say­ing not so fast.

Van­de­Hei and Hohmann point out that the poll num­bers show what every­one includ­ing Repub­li­cans should know, that the pub­lic is not crazy about the Grand Old Party. The spec­u­la­tion men­tioned in this arti­cle gives the GOP an out­side chance at re-taking the Sen­ate and a fat­ter chance at rul­ing the House. The arti­cle also cor­rectly points that this is Jan­u­ary and Novem­ber will be in November.

Repub­li­can lead­ers say part of their prob­lem is get­ting their agenda out there. Other party lead­ers fret that the GOP lacks a brand. Mean­while, party minor­ity whip Rep. Eric Can­tor of Vir­ginia wrings his hands over a lack of diver­sity among candidates.

Other for­mi­da­ble prob­lems also puz­zle the GOP elite. The pub­lic likes Pres­i­dent Barack Obama, for one, and, cor­rectly, feel like he inher­ited a big finan­cial mess from Gee Dubya Bush. Money, or lack thereof, is per­haps the biggest prob­lem fac­ing Repub­li­cans, accord­ing to Van­de­Hei and Hohmann. We’re talk­ing cam­paign cash and not a Wash­ing­ton bailout.

Per­haps the biggest obsta­cle for the Repub­li­cans to over­come is not men­tioned in the arti­cle, as infor­ma­tive as it is. That is the party has a big case of see no evil, hear no evil, fear no evil.

For instance, the per­ceived agenda prob­lem. What agenda are they talk­ing about? I sup­pose if they had an agenda other than being super-obstructionist, then that would be a prob­lem. They have no prob­lem pro­mot­ing their agenda if it is attack­ing every­thing done by the Democrats.

And as for lack­ing a brand, why the GOP has unfor­tu­nately branded them­selves already as the Obstructionist-Pig-headed-Bassackwards-Reactionary party. Can­tor does see the for­est for the trees at least for the diver­sity prob­lem. But — and per­haps fate is involved here — every­thing the Repub­li­cans do turns to feces. The same can be said of their diver­sity hire pro­gram. I give you exhibit A, Repub­li­can party chair­man Michael Steele.

The GOP needs money yet they always seem to find some spare change lying around. How­ever, the whole ani­mus towards Repub­li­cans today is based on the fact that most folks who are not Repub­li­cans and even many Repub­li­cans them­selves think the party and its lead­ers — whomever they are — stinks to high heaven.

The Politico arti­cle is a great read and will only take up a few min­utes of your time. I think whether you are Repub­li­can, Demo­c­rat or Save the Bluenose Rat par­ti­sans you will find some­thing instruc­tive on what the GOP looks like at the moment. If you are a Repub­li­can you might come down off your high from win­ning in Mass­a­chu­setts a few moments, but that could be a good thing to think about which way your party is headed. If you are a Demo­c­rat you might be a bit encour­aged, but not too much.

As for as the Inde­pen­dents and Bluenose Rat lovers, well you can take what you will from it. All in all, the piece is one Politico could use more of instead of the gos­sip and faux drama that too often fills up the site.

***In real­ity I shouldn’t be so hard on Politico. Van­de­Hei is a long­time jour­nal­ist who cov­ered the White House and other polit­i­cal mat­ters for The Wash­ing­ton Post as well as other dis­tin­guished news­pa­pers. The site is doing some­thing new and I give them a B for effort. But I give them a D for over­all con­tent for the rea­sons to which I alluded.