Geography is everything
It struck me today when looking over the “Sunday Morning gab-fests” of politicans hawking the party-talking points on the issues of the day for political talking-heads.
Who do the Republicans have speaking for them? Senator Richard Shelby. Senator Jeff Sessions. Both of Alabama.
Jeff Sessions is notable, as the chair of the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Arlen Specter preceded him in that spot, until political expediency flipped him the Democrats. Specter would have provided a softer-line for Sotomayor, and I suppose Sessions is getting the Republican base more representation on the score of going to battle.
The political base is a bit tone-deaf to the political implications of such things as the National Review cover, confusing in its ethnic collage work. One hit against winning the Southwest. One hit, perhaps, for winning his string of states below the Mason-Dixie line.
Other notable Republican comments from this week — Lamar Smith of Texas is going to assemble some Congress-critters to battle Liberal Bias — a greater threat than a Terrorist Attack or a Depression. Care to take a peak at the states from whence his “Fight the Liberal Bias” Caucus come?
Obama, meanwhile, is collecting a pile of Republicans in his administration. I suppose it taints the color of his administration with a certain “Rockefeller Republican” streak — adding with these the Senator of Specter, but this is a counter-reverse to the Republicans collection of conservative Democrats from whence the ideological lines between the two parties were muddled a bit more.
My observation is simply this: when I hear a news quip on the radio prefacing a voice with “Republican Congressman/ Senator / (to a certain degree Governor)”, I expect what will follow is a Southern accent. Hardly a novel statement, and it is being much bandied about, but it kind of fell down on me like an anvil today.