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Levi Johnston's tweets get the Shatner treatment

Remember when William Shatner set Sarah Palin’s tweets to music?

Well he’s back. And he’s turned his talents to Alaska’s other literary giant - Palin's own nemesis and almost-son-in-law Levi Johnston.

The Republicans need Meghan McCain

Comment Central has long been a fan of Meghan McCain. After all, which other Republican kept us in the loop on Joe Lieberman's footwear during the campaign trail?

Her perch at the Daily Beast seemed like a good fit: irreverent, opinionated and slightly offbeat. And, only a month into the new gig, the maverick's daughter has found her first fight.

Following McCain's recent critique of Ann Coulter and the GOP, conservative pundit Laura Ingraham hit back. She dismissed McCain as 'a Valley Girl gone awry' and 'too plus-sized.' In doing so, she's let down both herself and her party.

By attacking Meghan, Ingraham resurrected the tired old catfight cliche for a grateful media. Two blonde journalists rowing is bad enough. But hurling insults about weight? That's just embarrassing.

The 24-year-old Megan is right to note that:

Instead of intellectually debating our ideological differences about the future of the Republican Party, Ingraham restored to making fun of my age and weight, in the fashion of the mean girls in high school.

This isn't high school. The GOP is haemorrhaging young voters. McCain may not be Peggy Noonan but she's a young voter who is loyal to her party and doing her best to critique it. Republicans don't have too many of those left. Attacking the ones who remain will get them nowhere.

Will the Republicans ever crack the Internet?

The Republicans aren't exactly known for their online prowess. Their websites clunk, their social networks are paltry and they raised just one fifth of Obama's $500 million haul during the 2008 election.

Now they're playing catch-up. A GOP task force is assembling ideas and asking experts such as Ron Paul for new media advice. But will they make it by 2012?

Thomas Gensemer, Obama's web guru thinks they might. In an interview this week, he said:

From a tech perspective - I think they are going to probably have a pretty dramatic transformation of the organisation, policy and otherwise, in the next four years. This will probably come along with it.

But Meghan McCain isn't so convinced. The cyber-savvy daughter of John McCain tells the Daily Beast about the problems that she encountered running her own election blog.

I was met with confusion and resistance. A few people even asked me what's a blog.

Nor do many on the right want to talk about the internet issues that the GOP faces.

Instead, they told me that not having enough money was a huge factor in our loss—not our misuse of the Internet. Others were just plain angry, blaming the liberal media, and not the party's shortcomings online. Of course, there is truth in some of this. But denial only amplifies the stereotypes about Republicans being disconnected.

A sea-change is necessary. When Obama's wired-up team moved into the West Wing, they had to throw out the outdated technology before resuming business as usual. The Republican party must do the same if they are to mount a successful challenge.

The GOP: Things will get worse before they get better

Immediately after the 1997 election, at a meeting of Conservative party staff there was a discussion about the party's revival.

A common theme was that now Labour would be responsible for all the difficult decisions in Government and this would produce an improvement in the party fortunes. It would then be possible to build from that.

After we had been going at it for 20 minutes or so, one of the team, Tom O'Malley, said - "and what if that doesn't happen?" He then proceeded to explain why it probably wouldn't.

And, of course, it didn't.

The Republicans are engaged in a similar debate. Karl Rove had this to say:

History will favour Republicans in 2010. Since World War II, the out-party has gained an average of 23 seats in the U. S. House and two in the U. S. Senate in a new president's first mid-term election.

Other than FDR and George W. Bush, no president has gained seats in his first mid-term election in both chambers.

Now David Frum has taken up the Tom O'Malley role.

In an article for the National Post he explains the tactical and strategic reasons why things for the Republicans will get worse before they get better. His most important point is this:

Perhaps the strongest reason for doubting Republican chances in 2010 is the collapsed intellectual state of the party. Parties revive when they have something to say -- some message relevant to the lives of actual voters.

The party offered no such message in 2008, and there are no signs it will develop such a message soon.

The Republicans log on

They reached them by text, by email and by facebook.

Obama's web-savvy team got out the youth vote while McCain's literature lay unheeded on the doormat. They hired the brightest young things from social networking sites and turned them loose. The result? The most successful web strategy in campaign history.

Still it hasn't taken the Republicans long to get on the case. The younger members of the GOP have already launched a manifesto to Rebuild the Party:

2008 made one thing clear: if allowed to go unchecked, the Democrats' structural advantages, including their use of the Internet, their more than 2-to-1 advantage with young voters, their discovery of a better grassroots model -- will be as big a threat to the future of the GOP as the toxic political environment we have faced the last few years.

There's a long way to go. This week Obama staffers walked away with their campaign laptops, a fitting parting gift from the candidate who understood the power of the web. McCain, on the other hand, admits that his wife still has to help him read his emails.

No wonder then that this plea comes top of the new agenda:

Winning the technology war with the Democrats must be the RNC's number one priority in the next four years.

Hat Tip: Marc Ambinder

Could this be the end of the Republicans?

This was an important political moment.

Forget the Presidential election for a second. This was, politically, more important than that.

David Brooks captured it brilliantly in the New York Times. In an angry piece entitled "Revolt of the Nihilists", Brooks lays into Nancy Pelosi for using this hour of peril to make a Democratic fundraising speech.

But most of all he lays into conservative Republicans:

Now they have once again confused talk radio with reality. If this economy slides, they will go down in history as the Smoot-Hawleys of the 21st century. With this vote, they’ve taken responsibility for this economy, and they will be held accountable. The short-term blows will fall on John McCain, the long-term stress on the existence of the G.O.P. as we know it.

Might this event begin to split the Republican party? The banking and establishment Republicans together with the moderates and reformers might go one way, with the populist, talk radio base going the other way.

Impending defeat (in Congressional elections at a minimum) means that the coming years will be difficult for the party and see a hard fight over its future. The vote last night shows that the conservative base does not easily come to heel. And has a real constituency.

So could last night see the end for the GOP?

And as Miss July we have....the oil industry

Want a provocative present for that Republican uncle? Boing Boing brings you the answer you've been waiting for. This pin-up calendar with a twist guides us through the last year of the Bush Presidency.

Each calendar girl represents a different Bush babe (and no, we don't mean Barbara and Jenna). All the special interest mistresses are there - from Miss December the homemaker to Miss July, who gives a whole new meaning to the term essential oil.

Come to think of it, your Democrat uncle might like it too.

 

Alice Fishburn

Dick Cheney: sleeping on the job

The sight of a 66 year old coronary bypass survivor taking a quiet nap is normally no cause for concern.

Unless, that is, the survivor in question is Vice President of the United States. And the location in question is a presidential briefing on the California wildfires.

Check it out:

Alice Fishburn

Political logos and dancing elephants

The Republicans have just unveiled their new convention logo (seen at Wonkette)

And what exactly does it say about them? Well...We're up and dancing. We're cracking the circus whip to get this party motivated. We will dominate 2008.

Just don't question the stability of an elephant on two legs.

Alice Fishburn

Karl Rove's dirty secret

Karl Rove has a lot of enemies. And those who don't like him, and don't like his boss, really don't like him and really don't like his boss. So can I say I few word in his defence?

A right wing frat boy? A dirty tricks merchant? Always dealing from the bottom of the deck?

No. Karl Rove is one of the most creative political strategist of the era.

It was a brilliant idea to cast his candidate as a compassionate conservative, a position which gave him an appeal to centre voters while gratifying the base. And it was a correct, if ruthless, strategy four years later to run on security and an appeal to more traditional voters. The result was two election victories in most unpromising circumstances.

The key to Rove is not his ruthless political instinct, it is his understanding of history and ideas.

In 2002, while preparing to go and see Rove for what remains, I think, his only UK newspaper interview (read it here), I learnt this:

Jim Pinkerton, an adviser to Ronald Reagan and the older George Bush, despaired of the latter’s lack of interest in domestic policy, and said so publicly. So he was surprised, when passing through Texas in 1995 promoting a book of ideas about public service reform, to be given red-carpet treatment by the former President’s son. Rove laid on a whole day of events for him, including an intimate lunch with the Governor.

Behaviour like this, repeated with many different people over many years, explains why, in Pinkerton’s words, “at one time or other every conservative intellectual in America thought Bush was listening to them”.

His understanding of history, and interest in the problems facing McKinley and Republicans at the turn of the last century, lies behind the President's position on immigration and the desire to win over Hispanic voters.

The key to Rove, in other words, is that secretly the Republican tough man is an intellectual.