Instead of coming to grips with the changing face of America, the Republican Party appears to be dead set on alienating every minority group in the country. Mother Jones writer Tim Murphy examines how the Republican Party has managed to put off Muslim Americans, who flocked to the GOP in 2000.
An informal survey conducted by the Council on American Islamic Relations found that 72 percent of Muslims in Florida voted for George Bush. After the 2000 election, Newt Gingrich joined conservative stalwart Grover Norquist in courting influential Muslim religious and community leaders.
But Republicans did a 180 after September 11. Today Gingrich fears domination by Islamic radicals in the US. Like his fellow Republican presidential contenders and would-be contenders Tim Pawlenty, Rick Santorum, and US Rep. Michele Bachmann, Gingrich sees sharia law as the new threat to American democracy. Our man Mitt Romney hasn’t been immune to Islamophobia either.
The GOP isn’t doing any better with Latinos, the country’s largest minority group. The Economist argues that although the GOP’s tough line on immigration and fierce opposition to compromise polices like the DREAM Act fires up the party’s social conservative base, it drives away Latinos. Unless the GOP moderates its stance, the only presidential candidate who benefits from this strategy is Barack Obama.
No matter how Election 2012 turns out, the Republican Party’s failure to connect with Muslims, Latinos, and African American voters over the past decade carries longer term risks. Murphy sums up the GOP dilemma this way: “…over the last few years, through harsh immigration laws, an embrace of ‘otherism,’ and rhetorical jabs at Islam, GOPers have consolidated their grip on white voters at the expense of virtually everyone else, even as that demographic reflects a smaller and smaller share of the electorate as a whole.”
–GABRIELLE GURLEY
BEACON HILL
A former top Patrick administration official testified yesterday that then-House Speaker Sal DiMasi pushed for a software contract to be included in a 2007 emergency spending package, even though the measure was intended only to include essential services. Also testifying yesterday was the business partner of defendant-turned-government witness Joseph Lally, who said he suspected the $500,000 check he wrote Richard Vitale was really meant for former House Speaker Sal DiMasi.
The Globe reports that municipal unions are largely conceding the State House health care fight, as the Senate prepares to take up its proposal today to give cities and towns authority to raise costs on workers to match the savings achieved in the system insuring state workers.
Sen. Robert Hedlund says the Legislature’s transportation committee hasn’t done enough to keep tabs on the Big Dig tunnels.
MUNICIPAL MATTERS
The chief of staff for Lawrence Mayor William Lantigua quit in the middle of budget season.
The Eagle-Tribune reports that Leonard Degnan feels he’s helped repair the city’s finances in the 17 months he’s been on the job.
Two Boston bars, Felt and Caprice, were before the Licensing Board to answer questions about why they are having a problem with women brawling at the establishments. Via Universal Hub.
The Taunton Housing Authority received a $22 million HUD grant to be used towards a $71 million project that will raze the dilapidated Fairfax Garden complex and replace it with mixed-income rental units.
Mansfield’s town meeting weighs a meals tax and a drunk fine.
North Adams residents are not happy about a proposed override.
NATIONAL POLITICS/WASHINGTON
In a stunning upset, Kathy Hochul, the Democratic candidate in a solidly Republican upstate New York House district, captured the seat yesterday in a special election. Her GOP opponent’s embrace of the increasingly unpopular House GOP Medicare plan put forward by Rep. Paul Ryan became the pivotal issue in the race, which appears to be an early warning to Republicans nationally about the perils of a sharp tack to the right.
House Republicans schedule a vote at which they’ll choose not to raise the debt ceiling. Taxes remain a sticking point in the budget talks.
Elizabeth Warren gets into a public spitting match on Capitol Hill. Meanwhile, Salon examines the apparent futility of a Warren run for Senate.
ELECTION 2012
Dan Kennedy wraps up Sen. Scott Brown’s very good bad day, or very bad good day, whichever color glasses you wear.
Fox News chairman Roger Ailes regrets not being able to save Republicans from his cable news beast in 2012.
Tim Pawlenty compares dirty politics to a hockey fight — unseemly to some outsiders, but for participants, just part of the game.
Newt Gingrich’s $500,000 credit line at Tiffany’s is the new $400 haircut.
A Tea Party Group decides that Mitt Romney isn’t The One and wants to find someone, anyone to dislodge the presumptive GOP front-runner.
BUSINESS/ECONOMY
In a trend reversal, Jon Chesto reports on his Mass Market blog that Carbonite, the Back Bay-based online computer backup company, is pulling its customer service call center out of India and moving it to Lewiston, Maine.
A New Bedford baking company is looking at restoring the shuttered Sunbeam Bread plant in the Whaling City to its former glory.
Home sales in Berkshire County are picking up thanks to the improving job market and second home purchases.
EDUCATION
Peabody is pursing 24 students from other school districts to raise $120,000 and avoid painful cuts to its school budget, the Salem News reports.
WBUR’s series on teachers continues with a report on the Dance of the Lemons, the practice of shifting bad teachers from school to school.
State education board votes to keep Gloucester Community Arts Charter School open for at least another year, the Gloucester Times reports.
The founder of a controversial Canton center that uses electric shock therapy to treat special needs children is facing charges in connection with a 2007 episode in which two teens were wrongly administered shocks, the Globe reports. Matthew Israel, 77, is expected to receive no prison time in a deal that includes his agreement to resign as director of the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center.
TRANSPORTATION
Boston, crazy drivers and all, ranks as the safest major city nationwide for pedestrians.
ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT
Jim Braude, on Broadside, uses the devastation in Joplin, Missouri, to make the case for global warming.
The Cape Cod Times explores how climate change and stronger storms may be speeding up erosion on Cape Cod.
The Air Force puts up a couple of wind turbines on the Massachusetts Military Reservation and dares anyone to complain.
The Berkshire Eagle says that Pittsfield should count itself lucky that it did not go the Superfund route to clean up the Housatonic RIver.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
The Cape Cod Times points out that Massachusetts is one of five states that have the toughest gun laws and lowest numbers of gun-related deaths in the country.
MEDIA
The Boston Globe is launching its own version of Groupon, called Boston Deals, WBUR reports.
KEEP IT TO YOURSELF
Don’t tell anyone we told you, but there’s a new study from Northeastern University that says gossip is good for you.
