Karl Frisch » My Column

Message in a Bottle: Romney’s Presidency Two Years In

Karl Frisch — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 06:42:01 +0000

I write this missive in the year 2014 from my small, poorly ventilated office in the Shandong Province of China where my job and millions of others have been outsourced by President Mitt Romney and his Republican allies in Congress.

Now that we are half way through President Romney’s first term in office, I’m sending this note to you through time and space in the hope that it paints a picture of the path we’ve taken since the 2012 election.

In all honesty, some Americans couldn’t be happier with Mitt Romney in the White House. Wall Street bankers, millionaires, and billionaires are doing even better than they did under President Obama, which for the record was pretty frigging great.

The rich got a very handsome 20 percent tax cut on top of the Bush tax cuts being made permanent, all paid for by drastic cuts to programs the middle class depend on and the elimination of vital tax deductions like the homeowners’ mortgage interest deduction. Good luck buying a home any time soon if you’re a member of the middle class.

During his first year in office, President Romney also removed the Obama era Wall Street regulations designed to keep America from falling into another massive economic recession. Once again, the big banks and special interests are making risky bets and gambling with our retirement accounts while the government turns a blind eye. Worse still, the 34 straight months of job growth we saw through the end of Obama’s only term in office have come to an end.

We are hemorrhaging jobs just like we did under George W. Bush. That being said, some sectors of the economy are booming — the F.B.I. for example.

No, not the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but the Female Body Inspectors.

Romney has cut off funding for Planned Parenthood leaving millions of women without vital healthcare services, contraception, and life-saving cancer screenings. He and Vice President Paul Ryan have changed the definition of rape to make it more difficult for women to seek abortions after being assaulted. With a nod and a wink from Romney’s White House, dozens of conservative states have banned all forms of contraception, mandated transvaginal ultrasounds for women contemplating abortions, and passed personhood amendments that open doctors up to criminal prosecution if an embryo does not survive in vitro fertilization and subjects women who suffer miscarriages to criminal investigations to make certain a “human life” was not murdered.

Now that the Romney administration has been successful at reforming Medicare, seniors will soon begin receiving a fraction of their old benefits through the mail in the form of vouchers conveniently attached to their regular coupons from Bed, Bath, and Beyond. As promised, these vouchers won’t come close to providing seniors with the benefits they need.

For now, gay and lesbian Americans are lucky to remain second-class citizens. That will change next year when Romney’s constitutional amendment kicks in barring LGBT people from the same rights and responsibilities that their straight counterparts enjoy. You can expect your gay friends and family to join millions of undocumented immigrants as they self-deport to greener pastures leaving behind a country once seen as a beacon of freedom and equality.

Speaking of immigrants, now that the immigration reform law President Romney crafted with the help of Kris Kobach — who wrote Arizona’s draconian “papers please” law — is in place, millions of law abiding Hispanic Americans are regularly stopped on the street and asked to present identification for doing nothing more than looking “illegal.” They’d self-deport if they weren’t already living in the country of their birth.

Instead, many have escaped to the armed forces and are now fighting with distinction on the front lines in Russia, Iran, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

I remember watching the 2012 presidential debates and thinking, “there is no way America would elect Mitt Romney and risk a return to the Bush years.” But America was desperate for more progress and they were willing to risk it on a guy with impeccable hair and a corporate raider’s sales finesse.

With President Obama in the White House, life for hard working Americans was getting better month-by-month however slowly. That isn’t true today.

Perhaps this message can point us in the right direction before you risk it all in November and set a course for the uncertain future from which I write.

Karl Frisch is a syndicated columnist and Democratic strategist at Bullfight Strategies in Washington, DC. He can be reached at KarlFrisch.com. You can also follow him on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, and YouTube or sign-up to receive his columns and updates by email.

Distributed by the Cagle Cartoons Inc. syndicate. For information on carrying his column in your publication, email Cari Dawson-Bartley or call 800-696-7561.

The Gay Soccer Dad and Lesbian Costco Mom Vote

Karl Frisch — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 06:47:28 +0000

The 2012 election may not be decided by gay soccer dads and lesbian Costco moms but their quality of life will be defined by those occupying the White House and Congress in 2013 and beyond.

While much of the conversation surrounding lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people of late has concerned the issue of marriage equality, there is much more to be said about the way our government treats LGBT Americans.

Over the past few decades great progress has been made in the fight for LGBT legal equality but I’m guessing many straight Americans — even those with close friends and family who happen to be gay — would be surprised to learn just how much is left to be done.

Gays and lesbians can be fired in 29 states based simply on who they love and not the quality of their work. On that score, the number of states sanctioning discrimination is even worse for transgender people. Stable, law abiding same-sex couples in 32 states are forbidden from jointly adopting children and denied the right to adopt the sons and daughters of their partner in an equally unfortunate number of states. Students who identify as, or are perceived to be LGBT remain vulnerable to state-sanctioned discrimination by their teachers and public schools in 36 states while 33 members of our “more perfect union” have no statewide programs protecting them from bullying. When it comes to renting a home, lesbians and gay men can be denied a lease simply for being gay in 29 states and again, the numbers are even worse for the transgender community. While hospitals accepting Medicare and Medicaid are currently barred from denying visitation to same-sex partners as a result of a mandate issued by President Obama, 26 states have no laws guaranteeing such simple human dignity should the edict be rescinded by a future President.

It has been 15 years since Ellen Degeneres came out on national television and while our culture has moved miles towards LGBT acceptance and inclusion, our laws have moved mere inches.

The presidential debates between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney will largely focus on the continuing economic anxiety of everyday Americans. To that end, debate moderators should consider how such economic worries are intensified for the nearly 10 million Americans who are confronted by these and countless other forms of government endorsed bigotry.

We know President Obama’s record on LGBT equality thus far. To highlight only a few of his most notable accomplishments, he signed the hate crimes bill into law, repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” appointed a record number of openly LGBT people to his administration, and came out in support of marriage equality. But what can we expect from his second term? Does he remain committed to the passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would forbid employers from firing someone because of their sexual orientation or gender identity? If so, how can he expect to see such legislation reach his desk with anti-gay zealots controlling the House of Representatives and a GOP Senate minority hooked on the filibuster? Will he skip Congress and sign an Executive Order barring government contractors from discrimination?

In 1994, Romney famously told a New England newspaper, “I am more convinced than ever before that as we seek to establish full equality for America’s gay and lesbian citizens, I will provide more effective leadership than my opponent.” His “opponent” was Ted Kennedy, a champion for LGBT equality. Since then, Romney has dropped his attempts to one-up Kennedy on the rights of LGBT people by opposing ENDA and calling such employment protections a “burden” on business. Furthermore, his opposition to same-sex relationship recognition is even more extreme than George W. Bush’s notorious effort to pass a constitutional amendment banning marriage equality. At least Bush supported civil unions for same-sex couples. Romney supports the constitutional amendment Bush championed, opposes civil unions, and would allow states to ban even basic domestic partnership agreements. He claims that LGBT individuals should be shown respect but how would he show such deference as President if he believes it is okay for these citizens to be fired because of who they are and that their relationships are inferior to those of their straight friends, family, and neighbors?

These are only a few of the specific questions that moderators should ask Romney and Obama during debates regarding our economic future and they should require the same specificity from the candidates in their answers.

Regardless of what happens in the race for the White House, there are signs that this election could very well be a watershed moment for LGBT equality across the country.

In 2012 at least eight states — Delaware, Florida, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, North Dakota, Texas, South Dakota, and West Virginia — are poised for removal from the list of states without openly LGBT state legislators. A significant step when you consider the fact that no state has passed protections for LGBT residents without having an openly LGBT state lawmaker.

The same holds true for Congress. In November, we could elect the nation’s first openly LGBT U.S. Senator in Wisconsin’s Tammy Baldwin and could see the delegation of openly LGBT Congresspersons increase from its current membership of four to seven including a lone Republican and two firsts: a bisexual and a person of color.

At the ballot box, voters in Maine, Maryland, and Washington will likely approve marriage equality initiatives becoming the first states to do so at the polls while Minnesota could very well defeat efforts to add a ban on same-sex unions to the state constitution.

With so much at stake for LGBT people and numerous historic electoral wins on the horizon this fall, shouldn’t President Obama and Mitt Romney have a frank discussion about issues important to LGBT Americans and their families?

Gay folks aren’t all that different from anyone else. We worry about our families, our jobs, our friends, and the future of our country too. We might even worry just a little bit more.

Distributed by the Cagle Cartoons Inc. syndicate. For information on carrying his column in your publication, email Cari Dawson-Bartley or call 800-696-7561.

Debates Should Probe Mitt Romney’s Economic Insanity

Karl Frisch — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 06:46:23 +0000

President Obama and Mitt Romney may be scheduled for their first of three debates next week, but there is really no debate when it comes to the progress we have made on jobs and how much further along on the path to recovery we might be if the GOP would just get out of the way.

Let us start with a primer on the facts for those just tuning in and our tea party brethren who fumble for their grasp on reality.

By the time Barack Obama was sworn into office in January of 2009, we were losing hundreds of thousands of jobs each month with the number reaching nearly 1 million some months. For that, we can thank the reckless economic policies of George W. Bush and the most corrupt and unethical Republican Congressional majority in a century.

After signing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, saving the American auto industry, and about a year of tough, focused work, President Obama brought the Bush job losses to a halt and ushered in 30 straight months of private sector job grown. Thus far, that is 4.6 million private sector jobs in total.

I write “private sector” with purpose. When President Bush oversaw the end of a significantly smaller recession in 2003, he did so thanks in no small part to an assist in the form of increased public sector employment — you know, government workers like teachers, firefighters, and police officers.

While President Obama saw the worst economic situation since the Great Depression as a call to action for millions in need, Republicans in power across the country saw it as an opening to cripple public employee labor unions which have traditionally supported their opponents. Public sector layoffs began with great conservative zeal.

The politicization of our national economic crisis was not surprising. Remember, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has regularly stated that the number one goal for Senate Republicans is making Obama a one-term President while other GOP leaders like vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan participated in a secret meeting to discuss strategies for crippling the newly minted Obama presidency on the very night of his inauguration.

If “public sector” employment had instead increased under Obama’s tenure at the same pace it had during the Bush years, we would be looking at nearly 1.5 million more jobs on the books, which would lower the unemployment rate by almost a single point to 7.1 percent.

With the success of Obama’s Recovery Act and other initiatives threatening the GOP’s “one-term” machinations for the President, the Republican Party has stood in the way of almost every White House economic initiative including the American Jobs Act, which would have been good for as many as 2.6 million additional jobs.

Is it any wonder that Republicans have become the Party of no? If they had said yes, our unemployment might be in the range of 5.5 to 6.5 percent by now and the President would be kicking Mitt Romney’s rear end even more thoroughly than he is already.

Despite Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus’ claim that Republicans have “specifics coming out of our eyeballs,” Romney has been mum when it comes to the details of his job creation plans.

The GOP standard-bearer might as well be a ventriloquist dummy operated by George W. Bush. After all, he is using the same policy rhetoric employed by our most recent failed Republican President — cut taxes on the wealthy so it trickles down to the rest of us, reduce spending on programs that help working families in need, and gut consumer protections and government regulations to pad the bottom lines of corporations that are already doing quite well.

With the spirit of Bush influencing Romney’s words on the campaign trail should we not assume that the former Massachusetts Governor’s legislation-signing hand would be equally possessed by Bushian demons if it ever managed to find itself in the Oval Office?

Three quarters of the first presidential debate are rightfully reserved for discussing economic issues. Since Mitt Romney’s approach to creating jobs would be the political equivalent of doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result, I am hoping Jim Lehrer of PBS — the debate’s moderator — will devote considerable time to probing Romney’s economic insanity.

Distributed by the Cagle Cartoons Inc. syndicate. For information on carrying his column in your publication, email Cari Dawson-Bartley or call 800-696-7561.

Mitt Romney’s October Surprise Arrives Early

Karl Frisch — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 04:56:00 +0000

“A bit of a sugar-high…”

That’s how Mitt Romney’s campaign responded to news this week that a spat of independent national polls have their candidate trailing President Obama by as many as 6 points following the Democratic National Convention.

If Democrats were hocking sweets last weekend in Charlotte, they appear to have sold far better than the sour lemons Republicans were offering in Tampa given the size of their respective post-convention poll bumps, or lack thereof for the Party of Medicare vouchers.

It isn’t just the national polls that have team Romney puckered.

Perhaps reading the billboard-sized writing on the wall, Romney’s campaign and its friends at Karl Rove’s billionaire funded super PAC have pulled their ads off the air in Pennsylvania and Mitt’s home state of Michigan, both once considered battleground states.

With great gusto the Republican nominee’s campaign announced this week that it would begin airing ads individually tailored for eight competitive states. The swing states of Nevada, New Mexico, and Paul Ryan’s Wisconsin didn’t make the cut.

In Ohio, internal polling for both Obama and Republicans have the President up by nearly double digits — which is likely the reason Romney pulled his adds off the air throughout much of the Buckeye State as well.

The whole ordeal has tea partiers across the country obsessively fingering the buttons on their Electoral College calculators again and again, convinced that math — like the media, science, letters, colors and shapes — must have a sinister liberal bias. How else could they be losing to a Kenyan-born, Communist, Socialist, Fascist, Stalinist, Maoist, Leninist, ist- cetera liberal?

Oh, the irony of seeing the “states’ rights” crowd in such a state-driven pickle.

What’s the Romney camp to do with the White House slipping beyond reach and its campaign quickly entering Goldwater-esque Electoral College loss territory? Reprise the same game plan that worked so well in the 2012 Republican primaries: fight dirty.

And before my conservative friends start spouting bologna about how negative the President’s campaign has been, they should pick up a phone and call John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and just about anyone else who has ever challenged the pioneer of outsourcing at the ballot box. To them, he’s the pioneer of mudslinging.

In his latest television spot, Romney includes footage of Bill Clinton saying, “Give me a break. This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I have ever seen,” in an apparent swipe at Obama’s handling of the economy. Of course, Clinton supports Obama and didn’t say those words in 2012 — he said them in 2008 when then-candidate Obama was challenging his wife for the Democratic nomination and it had nothing to do with the economy.

The ripe scent of political desperation you smell in the air has a name and that name is Willard Mitt Romney. As the stench worsens the former Massachusetts Governor and his campaign team will become increasingly nasty and misleading.

Remember, it was the Republican standard-bearer’s own pollster who just days ago said, “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.”

In Tampa, Romney told America, “I wish President Obama had succeeded, because I want America to succeed.” It was the same poll-tested message Rove has been pushing in an effort to curry favor with undecided voters who like Obama but aren’t sold on Republicans.

I’m willing to ignore the fact that Romney said he wanted Obama to fail just two months after the new President was sworn into office. I’m willing to ignore the fact that Paul Ryan attended a secret meeting on the night of Obama’s inauguration to discuss ways of crippling his fledgling presidency. I’m willing to ignore the fact that Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell said years ago that, “the single most important thing [Senate Republicans] want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” I’m even willing to ignore the existence and history of the tea party movement and Fox News.

I’m willing to ignore all of it, but I have one condition.

When Obama is reelected on November 6 and he puts his hand on the bible to swear his oath of office in January, the Republican Party and its cheerleaders must adopt Romney’s retroactive best wishes of success for the President and get the hell out of the way so he can do his job and get this country back to work.

You see, Mitt Romney’s October surprise has arrived early. It is the sad reality that his toughest decisions next year will be what color cravat to wear at his wife’s next horse ballet competition and not the choices he’d hoped to make behind the Resolute desk in the Oval Office.

Distributed by the Cagle Cartoons Inc. syndicate. For information on carrying his column in your publication, email Cari Dawson-Bartley or call 800-696-7561.

Feel the “Excitement” of Tampa in August with Mitt Romney

Karl Frisch — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 20:08:56 +0000

When I first took the plunge and began a career in politics against the advice of my conservative father, I worked for people like Tennessee’s Lamar! Alexander, former Congressman Jim Nussle, and John McCain during his 2000 campaign for President.

Yes, I was a Republican. But I was young and everyone experiments at that age — I just happened to pick the GOP before making better, more adult choices.

For political junkies like me, our Democratic and Republican national conventions are, to quote Vice President Biden, “a big f@#king deal.”

Over the years, I’ve been lucky enough to attend Republican conventions in places like San Diego and Saint Paul and Democratic conventions in Los Angeles, Boston, and Denver. I have to admit that I’ve had a blast at each of them regardless of the politics on display.

Who wouldn’t enjoy an hour of people-watching at a Starbucks in downtown Saint Paul as 75 year-old Republicans quizzically looked up from their jitterbug smart phones with blank stares no doubt wondering, “who the heck is Sarah Palin?” as they learned of McCain’s newly minted running mate.

But 2012 is different. It’s hard to think of anything less exciting than being in Tampa for a week in August with Mitt Romney.

I happened to catch a few of the speeches on cable from the comfort of my air-conditioned living room where at least I was armed with the mute button on my television’s remote control.

Despite taking a while to get there, Romney’s nomination as the GOP’s standard-bearer was a breeze littered with novelty opponents like Rick “don’t Google me” Santorum, Michele “pray the gay away” Bachmann, Ron “Libertarian magic dust” Paul, and Herman “999” Cain, while more serious candidates took a pass instead opting to address delegates from the dais in Tampa.

Republican Governors — those who skipped 2012 and others who said quiet prayers that Romney wouldn’t tap them for his ticket — were on center stage throughout much of the convention. Indiana’s Mitch Daniels, Ohio’s John Kasich, Virginia’s Bob McDonnell, and Wisconsin’s Scott Walker all took turns at the microphone while New Jersey’s Chris Christie took the larger spotlight, no pun intended, offering the gathering’s keynote.

With few exceptions, this gaggle of Republican Governors with their eyes firmly planted on 2016, devoted the bulk of their remarks to bragging about their own personal life stories and supposed records of accomplishment — during Obama’s reign of terror no less — while brownnosing the party faithful with laughable attacks on the President’s record. You would have had to listen pretty closely to hear their praise of Romney and who wants to do that?

It was like the television program America’s Next Top Model with contestants smizing for the cameras and patting themselves on the back while they ignore this year’s winner who doesn’t go on to be President errr… a top model in real life after all.

For Republicans this time around, the missing faces in Tampa were equally telling.

George W. Bush was apparently too busy clearing twigs and branches on his Texas ranch to give a speech. Dick Cheney’s warm bedside manner must have been needed elsewhere — a hunting trip with elderly friends perhaps — because he wasn’t there either. And for all we know, Sarah Palin couldn’t make the trip to Florida because she’s off filming a very special episode of her daughter’s reality show.

You’d think team Romney was hoping we’d all come down with a case of Bush-nesia before the election but when your economic policies resemble Bush’s on steroids, that’s not likely.

At least Palin was there in spirit. No I’m not comparing the fact that she cut her disastrous half-term governorship of Alaska short with how the Republican Party cut its convention short by a day out of fear that a disaster of the natural variety might cause them some logistical problems.

On this I agree with John McCain. Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan to be his running mate was not unlike the Arizona Senator anointing Palin four years earlier.

You don’t need a doctorate in political science to grasp the strategy at play here. An increasingly unpopular Mitt Romney with the whole world watching couldn’t risk the stench of failure that Bush, Cheney, and Palin have come to represent.

I really can’t blame the no-show trio, however, for skipping Romney’s coronation. I couldn’t be bothered to go either and I live for these quadrennial political love-ins.

Forget Hurricane Isaac. It was Tampa in August with Romney. That’s all the reason I needed to stay home.

Distributed by the Cagle Cartoons Inc. syndicate. For information on carrying his column in your publication, email Cari Dawson-Bartley or call 800-696-7561.

Mitt Romney and the Temple of Womb

Karl Frisch — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 08:34:41 +0000

Republicans today are absolutely obsessed with micromanaging women’s — cover your eyes my right-wing friends — vaginas.

Had I said that word aloud on the floor of the Michigan state legislature, I would likely have been banned from speaking any further by the Republican Majority just as it did to Rep. Lisa Brown in June when she dared to utter the ominous “v” word.

While the GOP may cringe at the word’s use, it certainly has no trouble crafting public policy that would tie women’s lady bits up with red tape.

Sure, Missouri’s Republican U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin made waves this week when he absurdly claimed women are somehow biologically equipped to block pregnancies following instances of what he deemed “legitimate rape,” but how far off are his archaic views on women from that of Mitt Romney and the rest of the grand old man’s party?

Not very.

In Congress, Akin got an assist with his bizarre machinations concerning rape from none other than Romney’s Vice Presidential running mate Paul Ryan who co-sponsored legislation with Akin to redefine the definition of rape. Apparently “no means no” was not clear enough.

If Republicans, including Romney, really wanted Akin to abandon his Senate bid as they now insist, should they not be telling Ryan to pack it in and move back to Janesville too?

Truth be told, if the GOP were that consistent, you would be hard pressed to find a Republican on the ballot this fall, especially in the race for the White House.

Both Romney and Ryan support so-called “personhood” amendments that define human life as beginning when a human egg is fertilized. Many on both sides of the abortion debate have roundly criticized such amendments because they could outlaw various forms of birth control, open doctors up to criminal prosecution if an embryo does not survive in vitro fertilization, and subject women who suffer miscarriages to criminal investigations to make certain a “human life” was not murdered.

In Mitt Romney’s America, women would not even be able to turn to birth control to prevent unplanned pregnancies. Not only does Romney believe that states should be able to outlaw all forms of birth control, but he and his choice for Vice President would cut all government funding for Planned Parenthood, which spent more than one third of its $11.4 million budget on contraception in 2009 and just three percent on abortions.

It seems the Republican standard bearer would prefer women take the advice of Foster Friess, his multi-millionaire super-PAC patron, who said women should use “aspirin for contraceptives” by holding the little pill “between their knees.”

If past is prologue, women who do decide to start a family would not fare much better with Romney in the oval office.

As Governor of Massachusetts, Romney vetoed funding and asked for deep cuts to child care centers, cut funding that supported mothers at-risk of violence in the home, and proposed deep cuts to programs that assist new teenage moms.

When it comes to supporting the rights of women, about the only thing team Romney is willing to offer up are shallow promises to create jobs. With women earning 77 cents on the dollar for the same work as men, you would think Romney would have selected a running mate who supported the Lilly Ledbetter Act, which gave working women additional legal routes to receive equal pay. Paul Ryan opposed the common sense, bi-partisan measure.

Romney and Ryan have taken to describing their ticket as “America’s Comeback Team.” In a certain sense, I suppose they are right. The will come back for women’s choice, women’s health, and women’s pay, and they will not stop until all of the progress made in the fight for women’s equality over the past fifty years has been erased.

Distributed by the Cagle Cartoons Inc. syndicate. For information on carrying his column in your publication, email Cari Dawson-Bartley or call 800-696-7561.

Paul Ryan’s Youth Won’t Slow GOP’s Demo Death March

Karl Frisch — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 04:11:17 +0000

As Mitt Romney announced his Vice Presidential running mate over the weekend, the Beltway chattering class was quick to trumpet the supposed “youthful vigor” Paul Ryan’s selection would inject in a campaign troubled by a summer of Olympic-size gaffes and sinking poll numbers.

In the hours following his announcement, Ryan was also heralded as a “gym rat” and “fitness nut” who was “almost a pro-skier.”

The political spin could not have been more blatant. For a party brimming with octogenarians but lacking in youthful appeal, the Wisconsin native is fresh, young, and even hip — heck, he listens to Nirvana on his iPod!

It is no surprise that the GOP would put Ryan’s age on center stage. It is a political tactic born out of necessity.

With minority populations continuing to grow especially among Hispanic Americans and more young people becoming eligible voters with each passing election cycle, demographics are quickly becoming the biggest threat facing Republicans — bigger even than that socialist, communist, Marxist, Kenyan-born dictator occupying the White House that your cranky uncle writes about in those lengthy chain emails you keep deleting.

Worse still for Republicans, young and independent minded voters are more and more likely to be turned off by the Party’s fetish-like obsession with denying equal rights to lesbian and gay Americans.

If the Republican Party fails to join the twenty-first century, these problems will not just persist, they will increase.

So, what is a party to do when it faces such problems if it is not willing to change course on public policy?

Change the rules to the game of course.

Since President Obama’s election in 2008, Republican Governors have instituted voter I.D. laws in state after state, made it harder or impossible to vote early, and made the process by which Americans register to vote, needlessly complicated. Such moves disproportionately impact the very demographic groups that are causing headaches for Republicans — namely young voters and African and Hispanic Americans.

If you doubt for a moment the motivation behind such efforts, perhaps the words of Pennsylvania state house Majority Leader Mike Turzai well help settle it for you. Speaking at a Republican State Committee meeting, Turzai said his state’s voter I.D. law is “gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania.” Refreshing honesty from a politician, especially when you consider the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania recently admitted in court fillings defending the I.D. law from legal challenge, that there was no known “voter fraud” that would be prevented by the new statute.

While young voters may have trouble casting ballots this fall because of obstacles put in place by Republicans, when they do head to the polls they will not be swayed by Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan. At only 42 years of age, the Republican Congressman is certainly young, but the only thing that makes him “youthful” is the year in which he was born.

If Ryan had his way, student loan interest rates would double and far fewer would be eligible for Federal Pell Grants to help pay for college. For those who do manage to qualify, such grants would be less helpful since Ryan, unlike Obama, would not allow the awards to increase with inflation.

And if young voters and independents have been put off by the Republican Party’s hostility toward lesbian and gay legal equality, they are not likely to be inspired by Ryan — a man who voted in favor of a constitutional amendment to ban marriage equality, supports banning adoption by same-sex couples, voted against the hate crimes law President Obama signed, and after first supporting the Employment Non-Discrimination Act which would forbid employers from firing someone simply because they happen to be LGBT, he joined Republicans in trying to kill it. Today, employment discrimination against LGBT Americans remains legal in more than 30 states.

Far from mirroring the young and those of his own generation, Ryan’s views are simply a mimeograph — to borrow a term familiar to the average conservative — of the stodgy, largely white, and old folks running, funding, and supporting today’s Republican Party.

Paul Ryan is a 70 year old man trapped in the body of young man. He’s the Benjamin Button of American politics and just as Brad Pitt’s portrayal of the character came up short after clinching an Oscar nomination, Ryan’s nomination for Vice President will suffer the same fate.

Distributed by the Cagle Cartoons Inc. syndicate. For information on carrying his column in your publication, email Cari Dawson-Bartley or call 800-696-7561.

What Happens when the GOP is Left with Only Romney?

Karl Frisch — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 04:24:54 +0000

After Iowa and New Hampshire it is clear that Willard Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee.

Ron Paul’s second place finish is New Hampshire is more a symptom of the weak field he’s competing in than his actual viability. And that “ticket” out of New Hampshire that Jon Huntsman is claiming with his third place showing? For the love of Joseph Smith, someone please tell him it’s only a Greyhound coupon.

It is beyond unlikely that any of the remaining Republican hopefuls will be able to muster the needed money, boots on the ground, or momentum to head off Romney’s eventual coronation.

That doesn’t mean they won’t try. And why wouldn’t they?

With South Carolina next on the GOP primary calendar, the other 2012ers lose nothing by sticking around just a little while longer.

Let’s be honest. Ron Paul, Jon Huntsman, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Perry will never be the Republican nominee for President. Not in 2012. Not ever. They will never be Romney’s running mate. They won’t be appointed to senior Romney administration positions should he actually win in November.

So why quit? Why give Romney a break so he can prepare for the nomination?

Those left on the GOP dais can take solace in the fact that as they stay in the race and continue to bloody Romney while only delaying his inevitable nomination, they earn street cred with the Tea Party Republican base — a base that clearly dislikes Romney.

These are the same people who count themselves as avid Fox News viewers and conservative talk radio listeners. The literate among them buy every right-wing book and magazine they can find.

Forget the future of the country or the prospects of their party in 2012, these candidates have their eyes firmly affixed on their own bottom lines. And should Romney win, the gravy train they are gearing up for will run dry without Obama to kick around.

It’s the free market at work baby and these also-rans plan on taking it to the bank.

So, what will Mitt Romney do?

For starters he’s going to keep his eye on the delegate count and move as quickly as possible to shore up the votes needed to lock this thing down as quickly as possible. That means we’ll continue to see the pro-Romney super PAC spending millions going nuclear against anyone seen as being even remotely threatening. It’s the same super PAC, by the way, that Mitt Romney raised money for and which currently employs a former member of his media team and his former head fundraiser, chief counsel, and political director. But Mitt Romney isn’t coordinating with them — pinky swear.

That should keep team Romney busy through Super Tuesday in early March.

With Romney hustling on the campaign trail, tremendous pressure will begin to mount on the Republican base to come home or risk living under President Obama for another four years.

That effort is already beginning thanks in no small part to George W. Bush’s political brain and current Fox News analyst Karl Rove.

When Rick Santorum surged to an extremely close second place finish in Iowa, Rove called it a “big win for Romney.” When Romney proved himself utterly incapable of connecting with working Americans by attempting to bet Rick Perry $10,000 during a Republican debate, Rove said he “didn’t think it was a big mistake.” Heck, the only candidate about which Rove can’t seem to find anything negative to say is Mitt Romney.

Mark my words. In short order, Fox News and the right-wing blog and talk radio apparatus will begin to circle the wagons around Romney regardless of what they’ve said about him during this long primary season.

Enter the Democrats.

Until now, Mitt Romney has faced attacks geared primarily to the Republican base. We’ve heard about his flip-flops on abortion and gay rights. We’ve heard about his hiring of undocumented workers. We’ve heard about Romney-care and mandates.

These issues have been raised by Romney’s rivals to win support from base voters. Conservatives. Evangelicals. Racist xenophobes. Not exactly your typical mainstream General Election targets.

Only recently have folks like Gingrich and Perry begun to talk about issues Democrats are likely to bring up in the Fall campaign — mainly Romney’s long history at Bain Capital of taking over U.S. companies, firing their workers, and sending jobs overseas to turn a few bucks. It’s issues like these that will seal his fate with Democrats and Independents alike.

If Romney thought it was tough to win the Republican nomination while facing off against jokes like Ron Paul, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum, Herman Cain, and Rick Perry, wait until he tries to unseat President Obama.

Karl Frisch is a syndicated columnist and Democratic strategist at Bullfight Strategies in Washington, DC. He can be reached at KarlFrisch.com. You can also follow him on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and YouTube or sign-up to receive his columns and updates by email.

Distributed by the Cagle Cartoons Inc. syndicate. For information on carrying his column in your publication, email Cari Dawson-Bartley or call 800-696-7561.

This Holiday, The Twelve Republican Days of Christmas

Karl Frisch — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 20:17:07 +0000

This year, the Republican nominating contest has been the gift that keeps on giving. With Christmas and the Iowa Caucuses just around the corner, and since I was not raised by wolves, I know one should always say thank you after receiving a gift. In the spirit of the season, here is that thank you.

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me, one wild-eyed Iowa straw poll winner. From the “pray the gay away” clinic Michele Bachmann runs with her extremely masculine husband Marcus, to her gaffes-a-plenty campaign — who can forget the time she confused John Wayne and serial killer John Wayne Gacy? — it has been a delight watching the Bachmann campaign collapse.

On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me, two Newt Gingrich mistresses. This week the former Speaker signed a pledge by an Iowa anti-gay hate group to deny marriage equality to same-sex couples and “uphold the institution of marriage through personal fidelity to my spouse and respect for the marital bonds of others.” So, Gingrich can hop from wife to wife, leaving each for his next mistress, but law-abiding, committed gay and lesbian couples can’t even have one marriage?

On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me, three federal departments that Rick Perry would shut down — specifically, Commerce, Education and ummm, oops. At this point, even die-hard supporters would have to admit that all of the swagger in Texas could not help Governor Perry debate his way out of a paper bag.

On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me, four Herman Cain sex scandals. In a matter of only days, we learned that the National Restaurant Association paid big money to at least two women who claimed Cain had sexually harassed them. Then a third woman came forward claiming the same treatment. Cain was finally forced from the race when an Atlanta woman came forward alleging a thirteen-year affair.

On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me, five golden rings from Tiffany’s on Gingrich’s charge account. Which was thoughtful when you consider the Gingrich’s already owe the luxury jeweler a reported $500,000.

On the sixth day of Christmas my true love gave to me, six Google entries before finding Rick Santorum’s campaign website. For years now, those searching for Santorum’s official website have instead found scores of websites claiming his name is actually a gay sexual neologism. Not surprising since the former Pennsylvania Senator talks about gay sex more often than I do and I’m an out and proud gay man.

On the seventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me, seven year olds working the halls of elementary schools as janitors. Well, not yet, but if Gingrich had his way we’d be kissing away our child labor laws because they are “truly stupid.” His words.

On the eighth day of Christmas my true love gave to me, eight Republican primary debates a week. Seriously, how many debates can possibly be left? I’m guessing the number is in the high 80’s like the average GOP primary voter’s age.

On the ninth day of Christmas my true love gave to me, 9-9-9. That would be Cain’s plan to create a 9 percent federal sales tax and raise income taxes on the poor while lowering them for the super rich. Questioned about the impact his plan would have on basic needs like food, Cain said the poor could eat “used” food to save money, which is sort of like telling folks, “let them eat poop!” Man, I miss this guy.

On the tenth day of Christmas my true love gave to me, a 10 thousand dollar bet. Willard Mitt Romney never fails to show his complete inability to connect with average Americans. How else do you explain his flippant $10,000 wager in a recent debate? For those counting at home, that’s 25 of John Edwards’ famous $400 haircuts, which the media just could not get enough of in 2008.

On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me, Ronald Reagan’s 11^th commandment in the dumpster. President Reagan said his 11^th commandment was “thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican,” and like many of the commandments broken thus far by the 2012 Republicans, this one is sure to be broken many times over by campaign’s end.

And finally…

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me, the twenty-twelve reelection of President Obama.

Happy holidays.

Karl Frisch is a syndicated columnist and Democratic strategist at Bullfight Strategies in Washington, DC. He can be reached at KarlFrisch.com. You can also follow him on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and YouTube or sign-up to receive his columns and updates by email.

Distributed by the Cagle Cartoons Inc. syndicate. For information on carrying his column in your publication, email Cari Dawson-Bartley or call 800-696-7561.

Meet Mitt Romney’s Vice Presidential Running Mate

Karl Frisch — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 05:30:22 +0000

We are just weeks away from the first votes being cast in the race for the Republican presidential nomination – which means it is only a matter of time before Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, and Jon Huntsman enter the ranks of presidential also-rans.

Getting here hasn’t been easy for Willard Mitt Romney — he’s hardly ever led the Republican pack in the polls. No, the former single-term governor of Massachusetts has had to wait for the preferred candidates of the GOP’ tea party base to either bow out before announcing or gaffe their way into oblivion.

Reality television stars like Donald Trump and Sarah Palin both passed on making the race despite leading Romney and the other Republican hopefuls in early polls. In the months that followed, Romney and the rest of us have had to wait as the Republican base samples one flavor of the month after another.

After Michele Bachmann won the Iowa Straw Poll, she shot to an early lead in the polls. But it wasn’t long before the Minnesota Congresswoman committed one wild-eyed gaffe too many. She confused John Wayne and serial killer John Wayne Gacy. She claimed the Revolutionary War’s “shot was heard around the world” took place in New Hampshire. It was Massachusetts. The list goes on ad infinitum. In what could be called a meta-gaffe, Bachmann recently claimed that she’d never had a campaign gaffe.

Quit giggling. Let’s move on.

As Bachmann began to sink, Rick Perry jumped in to fill the void, but his hopes too were doomed. It isn’t so much that his GOP adversaries bested him during a series of primary debates — Perry was bested by the debates themselves. Despite being able to string together some impressive fundraising numbers, he just couldn’t bring himself to string together an articulate attack on Romney or statement of his own principles.

Perry’s demise led to the rise of Herman Cain whose entire campaign has been premised on a 9-9-9 plan to cut taxes on the wealthy and corporations while raising income and sales taxes of the poor. Cain claimed that those who would have trouble affording food under his plan could eat “used” food to save dough. From atop the GOP field, Cain was confronted with news reports indicating he’d sexually harassed or assaulted at least two former employees and just this week a woman came forward in Georgia and admitted to a 13-year affair with Cain. At least that sexual relationship was consensual, so I guess he has that going for him.

Republican base voters concerned with so-called “family values” slowly shifted their focus to Newt Gingrich. Which makes perfect sense. After all, the former Speaker divorced his hospital bed ridden first wife to marry his first mistress before divorcing that second wife to marry his second mistress with whom he had an affair during his championing of the Clinton impeachment. His most recent campaign proposal was to do away with child labor laws. Who would have thought that Gingrich was still having such trouble keeping his campaign staff together?

That leaves us with Mitt Romney who has been stagnant at 20 to 25 percent in the polls for months. I know that sounds pretty horrible. But, with Republicans, slow and boring wins the race.

Romney is going to be the Republican nominee for the same reason that Reagan, Bush I, Dole, and McCain were nominees. They all ran at least once for the GOP nod and lost. See, Republicans are pretty predictable. They may like gambling with the economic future of our country but they rarely go all in when it comes to picking a standard bearer.

And like inevitable nominees before him, Romney will be forced to choose someone far too conservative for the general electorate as his running mate to keep his base happy. It’s why Bush I chose Quayle, why Dole chose Kemp and why McCain chose Palin.

So who is Mitt Romney likely to pick? My money is on South Dakota’s John Thune. He’s a Senator so he’s got Washington experience. He’s young and attractive. He’s got a proven track record of beating big name Democrats like former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle. He looks slightly less like a used car salesman than Romney. And perhaps most important of all, he’s extremely conservative which should quell Republican base fears of Romney.

If you ask me, Romney/Thune has a familiar ring to it. — sort of like McCain/Palin. And we all know how that turned out.

Karl Frisch is a syndicated columnist and Democratic strategist at Bullfight Strategies in Washington, DC. He can be reached at KarlFrisch.com. You can also follow him on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and YouTube or sign-up to receive his columns and updates by email.

Distributed by the Cagle Cartoons Inc. syndicate. For information on carrying his column in your publication, email Cari Dawson-Bartley or call 800-696-7561.