What’s Wrong With Republican Governors?

Did you have a great long weekend?  I spent part of mine with a Republican you’d likely recognize from TV — a sensible, moderate, deeply civil Republican (which narrows the field more than it should, sadly, but no, I will not confirm or deny who it was) — and, as always happens in a situation like this, it left me wondering how this person could not have switched parties by now.  But it also left me wondering, and not for the first time . . .

WHAT’S WRONG WITH REPUBLICAN GOVERNORS?

This Bloomberg editorial castigates them for pretending they can’t develop the health insurance exchanges mandated by the Affordable Care Act, when they clearly can (with the tab picked up by Uncle Sam, by the way).

This Rachel Maddow segment castigates them for making it hard to vote.  By doing so, she says, “they are not competing in our democracy, they are competing against our democracy.  How about competing on the merits?  Democrats have ideas, Republicans have ideas — let’s air them out and let the voters pick.”

This New Yorker cartoon has nothing to do with Republican governors (except to the extent they cave to corporate lobbyists) but it may prove to have been ruefully on point.  I couldn’t resist.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH LIBERALS AND PROGRESSIVES?

What’s wrong with liberals is that we are wusses.  Exhibit A:  Our running away from the word “liberal” in favor of the safer “progressive.”  (But with reason.  “Progressive” equals progress.  “Liberal,” though born of an illustrious tradition, can be twisted to connote laxity, licentiousness, or excess.)

What’s wrong with progressives is that we are wusses, too.  Is there any doubt that if Bush v. Gore had gone the other way, their folks would have encamped on the Supreme Court steps . . . with signs that read “THIEVES!” . . . for eight full years?

Where were our protestors?

Is there any doubt that if our side had made it difficult for their folks to vote, they would have rallied thousands to march on our governor’s mansion, chanting “SHAME!”

Where were we?

It worked out okay this time; but in 2000 it cost us Florida, which gave Bush his first term; and in 2004 it cost us Ohio, which gave Bush his second term.  Republican governors in both states were working hard in 2012 to do it again.  This is not progressive — or patriotic — in any way.