A few days ago I thought that maybe this debacle would be over after some time passed and the Party had found a voice.  Not so, it seems.  On Monday, Rush Limbaugh announced, essentially, that his conservatives would not be donating to the Party unless Steele resigned his position.  

In addition, today on the Diane Rehm show, a cadre of conservatives had a lengthy discussion about the future of the party and the need for a new path – and the fact that the party’s leader may, in fact, by Rush Limbaugh.

Recent news from the political front presents a pretty good case for answering “yes”.  Jonathon Singer’s blog post today highlights Senator John McCain’s Twitter feed, a very interesting insight into his day-to-day activities.  No, I didn’t stutter.  McCain has recently been posting top ten lists of “pork” passed via the stimulus bill.  Yesterday’s Twitter from the Senator noted $951,500 for the Oregon Solar Highway atop the list.

How many people anyway would be reading these Tweets, though, right?  It may sound small scale, but he has over 140,000 followers, and surely more to come after his latest tweets hit the newspapers. He is most certainly earning his fair share of media through medium.  And along the way, he may earn a good bit of positive attention.  

I would caution him, however.  Twitter can be great, but sometimes, once you start to trust the beast, it turns on you.  Recently, Skittles made their home page their Twitter feed, where any members of the Twitter community can have their comments at the top of the page.  It’s a neat idea, but if you visit the website when someone has recently made a flippant or indiscreet comment, your initial reaction may quickly change from curiously to disgust.  That’s not the best way to make a first impression.

John McCain might be wary of the types of posts and comments he receives on his feed as well.

Sure enough, no sooner than Michael Steele had offended Rush did Steele make amends.  

Bobby Jindal’s response to Obama’s speech last week didn’t quite live up to expectations as the next up-and-coming Republican voice.

Immediately following his speech, David Brooks of the New York Times had some pretty tough love for a fellow conservative, criticizing him not once and but twice for his lack of intelligent direction for the Republican Party.

Newt Gingrich thinks he’s got the whole thing figured out.

Paul Jenkins does a pretty good job of describing the Republican’s worst week ever on his blog.

Karl Rove appeared on ABC’s This Week as a roundtable guest this past weekend, and when Rove took the pulpit to lambast the stimulus package, Katrina Vandel Heuval had a heapin’ pile of stop right there mister waitin’ for him.

In summing up this and my previous post, I think it comes down to two attributes which will make a political party successful.  Both of them tie into the old adage, “All things in moderation”.  These two assets, in my opinion, are

1) tolerance and 2) restraint.  

The Democratic party today is seen as tolerant, but without any notion of restraint.  The Republican Party is completely intolerant and too restrained.

Hopefully for both of them and the sake of the country, they get things figured out sooner rather than later.

She isn’t alone on this road of Democratic (with a capital D), determination.  Harry Reid and the rest of the congressional democrats are looking more and more these days like a pack of hungry dogs just waiting for the chains to be released.

Surely, this is not what Obama had envisioned before even two months of his tenure had passed.

Pelosi may be busy pushing pork through Congress, but she took a break during the President’s recent address to get in a quick workout.

She wears her liberal reputation pretty proudly on her sleeve.  Maybe too proudly…

Forbes recently posted a list of ten cities ranked according to how much money they requested from the Federal Government.  Interestingly, the areas of the country to which many Americans have been flocking for the past decade (the Sunbelt) land in the top ten most often.  Seven of the top ten cities on the list are in the Sunbelt.  

Now, I realize how ridiculous some of these requests may seem to the casual reader.  However, I also realize that for the few decades or so, cities have really been hurting.  Housing policies and road subsidies (yes, they’re there, you just have to look) have increasingly sent people flying to the outer edges of our urban regions, leaving municipalities struggling to make up the difference in revenues.  Even today, they continue to yearn for virgin land.

Some of these projects are pretty ridiculous, especially when one considers their supposed purpose – economic stimulus.  Cite article in WSJ about golf courses and such.

But not all of these projects are as ridiculous as they seem.  One can download the list of potential projects listed by each city, and locally, (in Cincinnati) a number of the projects are desperately needed after a couple decades of disinvestment.  Others would simply be the types of projects may be just Cincinnati needs to attract well-to-do or middle income people back for a visit.  Here are some numbers (keep in mind, these are simply proposed cost estimates and proposed projects)

$117 million for very badly needed updates to the Cincinnati sewer system.

$14 million for projects to improve the city’s energy usage (home insulation, recycling programs, etc.)

$132 million for the Cincinnati streetcar project.

Bipartisanship is dead.  At least, that was the discussion around the round table on ABC this weekend.  The Stimulus package passed with no Republican votes in the House and 3 in the Senate.  Not enough tax cuts! No real Stimulus!  Too important to vote down!  So what should I make of it all?

I personally liked Paul Begala’s simple approach for opposition Republicans – don’t take the money.  On Monday he suggested that Governors in opposition to the stimulus package deny the funds.  Granted, states in need of the money (namely, ALL OF THEM), might have something to say about declining aid.  Constituents in John Boehner’s district in Ohio, my hometown district, would probably have something to say about that.  

However, Begala might have gotten some governor’s thinking.  Today, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas hinted at not taking the aid, saying “We need the freedom to pick and choose. And we need the freedom to say ‘No thanks’”, even though some states like Bobby Jindall Louisiana have projected budget shortfalls next year of $1.7 billion.  Perhaps ideology can be taken a bit too far?

I do accept that some items in the package may not have been stimulus.  For example, the final bill passed by both houses on Friday included $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts.  Now, before you blow up, I’m all for the arts.  I spent a few years in music school, and recognize the importance of arts education in creating successful students.  I regularly support local arts organizations.  But is this stimulus?  I didn’t think so at first, but I may have been swayed.  How different is a broke, starving musician from a broke, starving auto-worker.  

Michelle Bachman  would have you believe that those crazy liberals (spit!) stuffed ACORN funding into the bill, $5 billion no less!  But then, I suppose you have to factor in her belief that “we’re running out of rich people in this country” to shed light on her perspective.

As Dan Ackroyd said on SNL, Republicans have finally gotten what the wanted : “Complete political irrelevance”.  Obviously, this is pretty far from the truth, but the underlying point remains:  The economy is tanking, and the Republican party is looking pretty weak.  And I have to say, as a moderate-liberal, I’m not sure that’s the best thing for the country.  Healthy debate is healthy.  And I’m  not impressed with Pelosi and the crafting of the bill in the first place, but I suppose it is only natural for the political pendulum to swing to far so fast when it was so lopsided for the preceding eight years.

I always enjoy watching David Brooks and Mark Shields debate, the this week’s conversation about the stimulus was really interesting.  I agree most with David Brooks, who agreed somewhat with the nature of the bill, but was generally upset that “we” missed an opportunity to really make a difference.  Not so much bipartisanship for the sake of bipartisanship, but doing what really needed to be done.  Brooks gets one thing right when he talks about confidence.  He argues that confidence would be better served by concentrating the stimulus money on fewer programs with more money.  He suggests that a payroll tax holiday to the lower-middle class might have been one of the better recipients for such a program.

Next up?  The Banks…

Actually, my Sunday morning routine starts with coffee, naturally, and then proceeds to politics, specifically This Week, with George Stephanopoulos.  Today’s guests were Newt Gingrich, Robert Reich, George Will and Claire Shipman.  Topic: what else — the Stimulus Package.

Up until last week’s show, I had been kind of reluctant to solidify my stance on the stimulus package.  Did I support it?  Not sure. Was $800 billion dollars too much?  Yes.   Regardless, it was obvious that this thing has to be passed.  At this point, we’re down to arguing not how much, but simply how.

Most people agree that it should be loaded with demand-based government stimulus in the form of infrastructure projects (shovel ready projects).  There is also some general agreement that tax cuts should be part of the equation.  However, all the hullballoo we’ve witnessed lately deals mainly with the proportion of these two stimuli, in combination with the wild card: pork.

Unnecessary spending to many, wasteful to others, and to still others, the product of eight years of pent-up Democratic ideology.  

Personally, I am skeptical of the favorite Republican mantra at this point in time; tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts.  I know what I’d do if I got a tax cut.  I’d save it.  And you would too.  And so would your parents, or kids, pick your poison.  Small businesses would put it away for the rainy day around in the forecast.  They’d be crazy to hire people (create jobs).  Why?  Because nobody is buying things, save at Wal-Mart and Mcdonald’s.  

Demand needs to be fostered through government spending.  Maybe this even includes long-term spending by the government, in the green energy sector, for instance.  Tax cuts just won’t cut it.  Barney Frank said it best in last week’s This Week.  

Having said this, I don’t agree with how everything has been going.  Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders have certainly pushed things into this bill which not only could have been placed elsewhere, but perhaps may have been better suited elsewhere.  I’m not sure that enough long-term planning for a green energy sector and health care legislation can be successfully crammed into a 3 week period.  

And for those who say I’m a crazy liberal, you’d be interested to know that out of the four guests this week, Next Gingrich was may favorite.  Yeah.  I said it.  

Even Obama got into the mud-slinging politics game.

Hopefully, whatever comes out of this Stimulus package works, in the short-run and long-run.  On a related note, we’ll find out just what’s in store for the Bank Bailout this Tuesday.

Washington lawmakers had better get things strait, because one thing is certain: today’s politicians haven’t ever been watched under this kind of scrutiny in a real-time.  Nothing quite like having the common-man reading over your shoulder to make you feel under pressure…