I don't see it on the front page of any news sites right now. It just seems like it would be odd to start calling press conferences to attack something discussed on conservative blogs and talk shows.

Who's ever done something like that?

The Democrats are doing a decent job of lumping everybody together, and the Republicans do need to contend with that. But I don't see the benefit of speaking out every time the fringe has a wacky theory. If they do it now, they have to do it always, and that's just a pointless responsibility to take on.

obama birth certificate - Google News

2300 news sources including Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, and just about every news outlet in the country.

Please, I googled "horse sex" and got 1,185 hits on Google News.

I'm not talking aboug Google News hits, that will cover blabber back and forth between various talk show hosts.

So how exactly should this be done in a practical sense? Every conservative fringe view that isn't shared by the broader conservative group should be addressed at a weekly radio address or something? How would this help? Would this make Democrats defect? Wouldn't it just highlight the fringe? I'm sure my parents haven't even heard of this birth certificate story, because they don't surf the internet.

You can do what Rep. Castle did in the video posted and say that Obama is a citizen rather than dancing around the issue or feeding the conspiracy. GOP elected officials don't need to announce anything, just slap down the conspiracy when asked and lean on the reps with the birther bill to knock it off.

It's a bigger problem than the birther bill though. Such a large share of the party is off the reservation that it leads to elected officials agreeing that the health plan is a beginning of a forced euthanasia regime, or insisting that stimulus spending can't ever create employment, or the whole damn Schiavo mess. The GOP is stuck relying on southern voters who are disproportionately likely to believe in some crazy stuff.

That being said, I thin they can rebound strongly short term if things go wrong for Obama over the next year. Long term, however, they can't keep relying solely on shrinking demographic groups. If they don't find a way to broaden Latino or African American or youth support they'll be in real trouble a decade from now. The question is will they moderate some positions to attract voters or will they stay "pure" and eventually become the 21st century Whigs?

When asked about it, you say the conspiracy is ridiculous. You say it has no merit. You tell people to get over it. You don't co-sponsor a bill and tell people that you agree with them.

I don't think it's practical for a huge political party to make a conscious effort to change to that degree. That can't announce, "This is what we are now", and then have that be so. It's not like there's this one group of guys at the top of the party who will be there forever and have the ability to change things overnight.

The process is a lot more organic and gradual. People at the state level will look for alternatives, and different kinds of republicans will pop up and fit the bill. In time, those people rise through the ranks. Years from now, leaders of the party will be those who have shown that they have support and can raise money. Whoever those people are - something the people will decide - that's what the party will be. Republicans aren't locked into who they are today. They will be defined, in the future, by those that actually have success - NOT by what today's leader's consciously decide the party will be.

I think some people have this idea that the Republicans will stick to their guns forever and get gradually smaller. That makes no sense. "Republican" is just a party name, it has no inherent ideas or values. In time, it will be whatever the Democratic party isn't, and whatever alternatives people want. Not by choice, but by natural selection.

That's the other problem. The over-dramatization of everything. Obama wants a public health care option so everyone will be dead. Obama spends money and we are communist China. This constant stream of how the country has been destroyed in 6 months and the fabric of our beings have been trampled. Turn on Fox News and you'd literally think the country had collapsed.

This retarded notion that every comment he makes somehow destroys the country. He's a President. We've had a lot of them. They make good and bad decisions. We've survived good and bad ones just fine. We've survived situations that were much more dire than today.

At the risk of annoying larrymcg, didn't we once have a thread here about whether George Bush was the worst leader in the history of the world? Hasn't he been compared to Hitler? Hmm, on the other hand, I actually understand your point in that context, because I think it was the over-the-top-insane Bush hate that pushed me over the edge to leave the Dems entirely (not that all, or most democrats are that exagerated in their views).

Foxnews does not represent all those that disagree with Democrats, just like the Bush-Nazi people don't represent Democrats. And nobody in this thread is saying the country has collapsed.

There's just a lot Democrat chest-thumping about the superiority of their party, and I'm just saying that Dems had their own problem with the fringe when they weren't in power. And to me, the Democratic fringe is just worse, because they're typically more educated.

You must have glossed over what JIMGA has posted.

Two points.

1) I generally agree with your take on how parties evolve, however, what I'm saying is that currently there isn't any movement to moderate the party. The past two election cycles have been devastating for the GOP and yet they have decided after both of them to double down on their core supporters. After 06 when they lost six Senate seats and thirty House seats they should have examined their message. After 08 when they lost another eight Senate seats and twenty-one House seats and they were left with their smallest share of seats in decades it's almost beyond belief to think they would come back with the message they've stuck to.

They can evolve into something that has a much broader base of support, but at this point there's no reason to think they will over the next decade.

2) Parties can change by dissolving as did the Whigs. Certainly times have changed and that's unlikely, but a real third party movement coupled with a determined insistence for the GOP to be the party of Limbaugh might be the best way to strengthen a second party.

Actually, if you haven't read the book The Big Sort, I think you'd really like it, JPhillips. The author's contention is that this is actually happening in both parties, as well as geographically. The blue counties are getting indigo, and the red counties are getting scarlet. In fact, the author claims that only 10% of all Congressmen are "moderate".

It's a problem for Republicans now, but unless the economy picks up it's going to be a bigger problem for the Blue Dogs. I think they're going to get pushed to the right, and I think there's a chance that by 2012 a number of them will have defected to the Republicans in a chance to save their seat. I'd also look for Blue Dog Senators to be less likely to bolt, and more likely to try to run a re-election campaign more to the left (a la Arlen Specter) than their last contest.

I'll check out tat book after my move is over and I'm settled.

There's no question that with computerized gerrymandering and agreements at the state level to make as many districts as possible safe for the incumbent that there's fewer elected officials that need to please those voters that aren't ideologically in tune with them to start. There's also the gradual sifting of the parties towards a more ideological brand. Throughout most of the 20th century there were plenty of liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats, but over the past few decades party ID is now much more strongly connected to ideology. So now we have liberals in 10+ party ID districts and conservatives in 10+ party ID districts and none of them have much incentive to compromise with ideological opponents, if anything compromise becomes a negative trait.

The Blue Dogs are interesting. What they don't seem to grasp is that success for Obama will likely mean success for them while failure will be much more likely to put their seat in jeopardy. If Obama is seen as a failure in 2010 it's far more likely that guys in more conservative districts will be replaced by Republicans than be rewarded for helping see Obama fail. Maybe some of them will jump parties, but there's only 52 blue dogs and getting even twenty percent would be a hell of a task.

My prediction is that Republicans will pick up seats in the House, but lose 1-3 in the Senate due to all the retirements and having to defend 2004 gains. In 2012, I have no idea yet. If Obama is strong it will be a rout fr Dems and if he loses it could be a rout for the Republicans. I'll go out on a limb and say one party will be seen as the winner in 2012!

I think that's also a factor of heavily gerrymandered districts.

It seemed to work pretty well for the Republicans back in '94 with the 'Contract With America'.

And that is also known as one of those once-in-a-lifetime political gambits that, amazingly, won.

It is, btw, also the major reason why Gingrich is respected (maybe not by some posters, but by Washington and the pundits) as a political thinker today.

This is actually a great fear of mine. I'm really wishing that Al Gore had pulled out Florida now. That may have brought out a moderate republican in 2004 that would have had a chance. With a quasi moderate running and losing to Obama, I fear that the party hardliners are going to push everything hard right.

When you exclude the moderates of your party, even to the point that you willingly surrender seats, you are doing far worse than just shooting yourself in the foot.

I'm not afraid to answer your questions directly. No I don't think Hawaii is covering for him. At this point, I don't see anyone other than our President who would have a need to produce the original birth certificate.

I simply think the President has an obligation under the circumstances to produce his original birth certificate. I'm not asking for his impeachment for crying-out-loud, I just want him to shut everybody up.

Talk about Mission Impossible.

He produces it, the talk goes from "Why won't he show the original" to "It's a fake, I CAN PROVE IT!"

It's a no-win situation (well, the winning move is to do nothing more than to let the Birthers make a fool of themselves and tar the Republican party with their foolishness)

What percentage of birthers feel he is also a Muslim? 99.6%? :)

Why does he need to produce the original document? He's already presented legally sufficient documents that were upheld by the Supreme Court.

Do you really think that producing the original birth certificate will shut the birthers up? I personally think they will claim that it's a fake also and will want to see a sex tape of Obama's parents (which they will claim is a fake also).

If it's the same thing as what the State of Hawaii provided, then is why is it such a huge deal that he won't produce the original?

Because that won't solve anything. I have no doubt that if Obama produces the original that the birthers will call it a fake as well.

They won't take one legal document, why should Obama expect them to take another?

Exactly, I don't know why it's a huge deal. I don't think you realize how you worded your last statement but it sounds like you agree with every sane Democrat or Republican or Independent. Let's move on to a legit issue liek health care or foreign policy.

Well, I have already stated that I would love to see him show the original to shut people up. Why not? What's the hold up?

"The conservative fringe won't believe me anyway" is kind of an odd reason not to release your original birth certificate, if that's really the reason. Didn't his campaign start an entire webpage to debunk this theory? Why stop short before the most obvious step?

I'm guessing the name "Muhammad" shows up there as a second middle name or something. He kept that hidden for a while, and now he doesn't want to look like he's been hiding anything. Just a guess.

lol

Well why do you think it's such a secret - "because the fringe won't believe me anyway?" Why didn't that reason apply to the other information the campaign provided about this?

I don't think he's hiding lack of citizenship, but he's clearly hiding something.

Not technically true, the Supreme Court has refused to hear any of those cases (as it refuses to hear most cases), and thus it has said nothing about this either way.

i think his mindset is just "i've proved it to (whoever it needed to be proved to so he could run for president), so fuck what all the nutjobs think...there's no way they'd believe anything."

didn't factcheck.org send people to hawaii who actually like held and touched and verified his original birth certificate too?

honestly i think anyone who thinks there's a shred of truth to this whole controversy is either

a) a racist looking for a cover-story

or

b) too stupid to reason with

It may not be that conspiracy, but there's definitely a conspiracy.

That style of reasoning just makes no sense unless there's some detriment to revealing the birth certificate (and there might be a totally legitimate one, I have no idea).

It's like people that refuse to take a breathalizer at a DUI stop, and they say, "what's the point, I'm going to be arrested anyway". Hey, maybe that's true, but if there's ZERO downside to taking the thing, what's the problem?

To make sense, you can't just argue that doing something will have no point, you also have to show that doing the thing is somehow detrimental, or the logic doesn't hold up.

The value of releasing the birth certificate may be limited, but whatever value is has clearly outweights the ZERO detriment to releasing it. So there must be some deteriment to releasing it. Innocent or otherwise.

What if his middle name is Macolmx?

Speaking of the fringe, welcome, DT!

I WANT TO SEE A PIECE OF PAPER THAT PROVES OBAMA WAS BORN!!!! I STILL DONT BELIEVE HE WAS BORN UNTIL I SEE THAT PAPER!!!!!

unless of course it makes the conspiracy theorists perpetually look like a bunch of nutjobs.

It's actually Rasmussen.

If that's the goal, and releasing the original birth certificate won't shut 'em up (which everyone seems to agree on), then wouldn't it make sense to release it and make them look even more like nutjobs?

Spock thinks you might want to stick with your day job...

i agree with panerd. releasing it legitimizes their voice and implies that he is listening to them and concerned about them.

So then what was with the whole website his campaign launched about this? Didn't that legitimize the voice of the opposition? Why release all the information, fight this tooth and nail, but leave out most obvious piece of evidence - the original birth certificate.

Maybe it's a calculated decision to make the nutjobs look ridiculous, but not TOO ridiculous. Now, with the bizarre secrecy surrounding the original birth certificate, even just slightly wacky people can believe there's something amiss. If we had the actual birth certificate, then only the hardcore loonies would keep at it. This way, Obama can carefully infest the Republican party with vast numbers of the slightly wacky people, and then lump them with anyone that opposes him and fellow Democrats!

That's be the quite the conspiracy in its own right. I think it's much more likely the name Muhammad is on there. Or that his father is listed as unknown or something.

Well why did you have to go and make such a partisan attack?

Can't we find the sensible middle ground of this conspiracy?

That would be high on the list of my guesses.

Yeah, he's on the fringe. Certainly not the people demanding the mother's placenta or praying there is some Muslim name on it so they can stir up some xenophobia.

The short form is the same information that's on the hospital birth certificate. It just leaves off the parent's hometowns and doctor/hospital information. This has been reported on numerous times by countless people in the Department of Health in Hawaii.

Not to mention that there are newspapers from that time that list his birth announcement. They don't list a secret middle name or a secret unknown father anywhere.

Welcome to the birther movement!

The fringe would be calling someone racist (or stupid) for questioning an Obama decision that makes no logical sense, don't you think?

Nobody here's demanding a placenta, and I personally wouldn't have any problem with a muslim name or a mysterious father issue.

Have you not followed the news? It's made the birthers and Republican party look like a bunch of racist, backwoods hicks. Why the fuck would he release whatever secret document you think he's hiding? As long as he doesn't, the party will focus on some retarded conspiracy theory instead of real issues. Sane Americans will look and roll their eyes.

What do you think he'd rather have? People scrutinizing over his policies like the stimulus plan that hasn't produced the jobs he said it would? Or some looney conspiracy theory on his birth certificate that most sane people find laughable?

The more people talk about birth certificates, grey poupon, and what beer he drinks, the less they talk about his actual policies. I think it's a savvy political move that all Presidents use to deflect away from actual issues.

He has a Muslim name on it already. And where do you think this Muslim name is? Why wasn't it listed in any of the birth announcements in newspapers?

He doesn't put it out because he doesn't have to. Because it works to his advantage. The same reason why Bush didn't denounce 9/11 conspiracy theories. Better to keep your mouth shut and make your opponents look like fucking idiots to the rest of the public.

There really aren't many of those left any more. After all, look who's in the White House.