What Kevin Drum Says (With Update)

He's absolutely right -- there is a big difference between the fringe people on the Left and the "fringe" people on the Right:

[T]he conservative lunatic brigade appeared so goddamn fast. It's true that some precincts on the left went nuts over Bush, but anti-Bush venom didn't really start to steamroll until late 2002 when he was making the case for war against Iraq. Nobody drew BusHitler signs after he signed NCLB or called him a war criminal for signing a tax cut. It took something really big to create a substantial cadre of big league Bush haters.

Conversely, the conservatives who think Obama is a socialist, or think Obama was born in Kenya, or think healthcare reform is going to kill your grandma, or think Obama is going to take all your guns away — well, that stuff started up approximately on January 21st, if not before. And it's not just a weird 1% fringe. There's a lot of conservatives who believe this stuff. And there wasn't any precipitating cause other than the fact of Obama's election in the first place. * * *

I'm definitely part of the group that didn't start hating Bush until all the talk about invading Iraq started. Prior to that, I thought he was doing a pretty good job.

But the Obama Haters appeared on or before the swearing-in, much like the Clinton Haters did in the early 90s. Unlike Democrats, members of the GOP appear to believe that only a Republican has a right to be President of the United States and that any Democrat who happens to win the presidency is some kind of usurper who must be viciously attacked on Day One no matter what his policies are.

Is it just me, or is there something treasonous about wanting your commander-in-chief to fail even before he is sworn in? One would think that if you truly loved your country, you'd give your brand new president a little time before wishing him ill. But a good portion of the GOP don't appear to love their country. They are instead in love with an extremist ideology and will attack anyone who doesn't agree with it, even folks in their own party.

In any event, Drum raises an excellent point, namely, there really doesn't seem to be a right-wing "fringe." For example, as I noted in the previous post, I thought the Birther Movement made up just a small percentage of the GOP, but it turns out that most Republicans either think Obama is an illegal alien or are "undecided" on that issue:

Among Republicans, it's a much weaker plurality of only 42% who say Obama was born in the U.S., with 28% saying he was not, with a very high undecided number of 30%. Among Democrats, the number is 93%-4%, and among independents it's 83%-8%.

I find the numbers on Independents to be particularly fascinating. The Democrats seem to have a real opportunity here to further erode independent voters' support for Republicans. The Dems should do everything possible to paint the GOP as a fringe group that is out-of-touch with mainstream America. And they wouldn't even have to lie about it -- the numbers certainly support such a notion.

I know Democrats don't particularly like to do that kind of stuff. It's a weakness they have. But if the shoe was on the other foot and a majority of Democrats believed something as bat-shit crazy as the beliefs adhered to by the Birther Movement, the GOP and its surrogates would certainly be saturating the airwaves with ads that pointed out this craziness.

UPDATE: As usual, conservative columnist Kathleen Parker nails it:

* * * “We got too many Jim DeMints (South Carolina) and Tom Coburns (Oklahoma),” [Ohio Sen. George Voinovich] told The Columbus Dispatch. “It's the Southerners. They get on TV and go ‘errrr, errrrr.' People hear them and say, ‘These people, they're Southerners. The party's being taken over by Southerners. What the hell they got to do with Ohio?' ”

Whatever Voinovich's sound effects were intended to convey, his meaning was clear enough: Those ignorant, right-wing, Bible-thumping rednecks are ruining the party.

Alas, Voinovich was not entirely wrong.

Not all Southern Republicans are wing nuts. Nor does the GOP have a monopoly on ignorance or racism. And, the South, for all its sins, is also lush with beauty, grace and mystery. Nevertheless, it is true that the GOP is fast becoming regionalized below the Mason-Dixon, and becoming increasingly associated with some of the South's worst ideas.

It is not helpful (or surprising) that “birthers” — conspiracy theorists who have convinced themselves that Barack Obama is not a native son — have assumed kudzu qualities among Republicans in the South. In a poll commissioned by the liberal blog, Daily Kos, participants were asked: “Do you believe that Barack Obama was born in the United States of America or not?”

Hefty majorities in the Northeast, Midwest and West believe Obama was born in the U.S. But in the land of cotton, where old times are not by God forgotten, only 47 percent believe Obama was born in America and 30 percent aren't sure. Southern Republicans, it seems, have seceded from sanity.

Though Voinovich's views may be shared by others in the party, it's a tad late — not to mention ungrateful — to indict the South. Republicans have been harvesting Southern votes for decades from seeds strategically planted during the Civil Rights era. When Lyndon B. Johnson predicted in 1965 that the Voting Rights Act meant the South would go Republican for the next 50 years, he wasn't just whistling Dixie. * * *