Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[seabass]

>>>the country is really vastly left wing<<<


Used to be a time where that statement would have been a joke or at least deeply sarcastic. Not so much anymore.



GOP No Longer The Party Of Business?

NEW YORK, Oct. 2, 2007

The Republican Party has been spending money like a shopaholic housewife with a new credit card, and now America's business community wants a divorce.

That's the gist of the Wall Street Journal's lead story, which tracks a multitude of indicators suggesting "a potentially historic shift in the Republican Party's identity" away from its century-long handle as the party of business.

The most prominent sign of dissatisfaction has come from former Federal Reserve Chief Alan Greenspan, a long-time Republican who blasted the current state of his party in his new book. In an interview with the Journal, he said: "The Republican Party, which ruled the House, the Senate and the presidency, I no longer recognize."

In a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll in September, 37 percent of professional managers identify themselves as Republican or leaning Republican, down from 44 percent three years ago.

And, increasingly, financially attuned people's money is going to Democrats. Hedge funds last year gave 77 percent of their contributions in congressional races to Democrats, up from 71 percent during the 2004 election. Overall, Democratic presidential candidates have raised more than $200 million this year, about 70 percent more than their Republican rivals.

Perhaps the grimmest news for the GOP's economic standing recently came from one of the party's own pollsters. Tony Fabrizio conduced a massive survey this year of the party's voters and compared it to results a decade ago. In 1997, about half of the party cared about economic issues and half about moral ones. Today, the culturally conservative wing is the same size, but economic conservatives accounted for just one in six Republicans. Meanwhile, the "deficit hawks" - fiscal conservatives of the Bob Dole and Bush 41 variety - are "all but extinct," the Journal reports.

"Democrats are the new conservatives," claims one former Reaganite corporate chairman who now helps with Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign. Republicans "are still talking tax cuts. It was one thing when Ronald Reagan was doing it and the top [income-tax] rate was about 80 percent. Now tax rates are reasonable. So what if I have to pay 5 percent more in taxes?"

Most Americans Want Cost Of Iraq War Trimmed

More grumbling about the Bush administration's spending habits showed up on the front page of the Washington Post this morning, in the form of a poll showing that most Americans oppose fully funding President Bush's $190 billion request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Bush's approval rating tied an all time low of 33 percent in the Washington Post-ABC News poll. Congress is even less beloved, with a 29 percent approval rating.

All this unhappiness stems from the fact that most Americans do not believe Congress has gone far enough in opposing the war, with liberal Democrats especially critical of their party's failure to force the president into a significant change in policy. Overall, 55 percent of Americans want congressional Democrats to do more to challenge the president's Iraq policies.

Seven in 10 adults want the proposed $190 billion allocation for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars reduced, with 46 percent wanting it cut sharply or entirely.

While people may be fed up with Congress, Republicans are catching most of the blame. By a 2-to-1 margin, those who see few accomplishments in the Democratic Congress's first nine months place more blame on Bush and the GOP than they do the Democrats.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/02/the_skinny/main3317840.shtml


Doesn't sound like a country that's "vastly conservative".