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4.29.08 @ 12:01AM

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1) Hillary is every bit the "New Class" liberal Obama is. The Clintons are simply far better at concealing it than Obama is, and Hillary only looks like the direct heir to Hubert Humphrey and Scoop Jackson in relative terms.

2) All too many neo-conservatives (including myself sometimes) seriously underestimate the extent to which the ideology and the agenda of the New Class have spread to even the reddest locales. Even here in this solidly conservative slice of exurban and rural America I see quite a bit of evidence of it. I have come to believe that there is no idea too loony for "enlightened" and "broadminded" Americans to embrace: same sex marriage, partial birth abortions, "the right not to be offended," you name it.

I still think McCain will win in November, but I fear what the future holds beyond.
-- HowardHirsch
Chairman, Lyon County Republican Central Committee
Dayton, Nevada

We have to be real isolated to not recognize that McCain has called for a new war on poverty. The new deal was at least the perennial liberal move toward a socialistic America. To have McCain, the lead GOP figure now and derailer of the conservative movement in America, enter the arena of big socialism (Kyoto II, open borders, war on poverty, McCain Feingold, McCain Kennedy, McCain Lieberman etc.) at this time, coupled with Bush's big spending etc. and the GOP politicians move to the left, says the opposite -- what really is dead in America is conservatism.
-- Donald LaCroix
Connecticut

William Tucker's "Goodbye To The New Deal" is an astute assessment of what ails the Democratic Party. The hodgepodge of disparate factions could not hold together forever under the centrifugal force of contradictory tribal interests. Particularly satisfying is watching the Dems march into armed camps in the bitter culmination of 40 years of racial grievance and identity politics which they formerly used so adroitly against Republicans and conservatives. It was inevitable and is exceedingly fun watching them turn on each other. The battle preparations continue apace and I think it'll go on to their convention.

There, I believe no matter how it's done, should Hillary wrest the nomination from Barack it will be perceived as the Great Betrayal by the black base of the Democratic party who will rightly cry foul and be deeply, perhaps irreparably aggrieved. They will finally see that the party of slavery, Copperheads, Jim Crow, the KKK, segregation and Bull Connor are fine with their votes and cash so long as they remember their place. And it ain't in the front of the bus. It isn't important whether race is at the heart of Democratic primary voter's opposition to Barack but rather how it'll be perceived by Democratic blacks and Dems can thank themselves for fostering the identity worldview. Whether the Dems can sufficiently heal that breach in time for November, or ever, is an open question. Even if Barack holds on and is nominated the black base will not soon forget the flogging he took from his party masters and overseers. They will remember it was the Democratic Man (albeit in pantsuits) keepin' him down. As a bonus, after this ugly domestic quarrel spilt onto the street for all the neighborhood to see, it's going to be hard for them to point any fingers in the future.

The other good news for us, as Tucker points out, is Barack is now revealed as the shallow, elite-minded liberal he is. He is John Kerry in style without the experience. Imagine that, a Democrat shallower and of less substance than John Kerry! We can thank a ruthless Hillary and the Dem's Byzantine nomination rules, another product of their factionalism, for taking the shine off him. His rhetoric was like a mirage at a distance but get just a step close enough and it evaporates. We have gotten close enough and we now see clearly that instead of a beautiful oasis there is no there, there. Just more of the unrelieved, barren wasteland of pure liberalism without even the proven survivor qualities of Hillary. And so six months ago I was worried how we would get a handle on him in the general election without eliciting the inevitable charges of bigotry and racism but now his claims to be the Great Thinker, Great Reconciliator and Great Hope are laughable given he cannot even bring his party together, his ideas and thinking are the same old and his personal story is being told by someone other than himself and media acolytes. From here on out his rhetoric will beguile fewer and fewer normal Americans.

Lastly, a little nit to pick. I believe it was Sen. Phil Gramm (R, TX), not Newt Gringrich, who with his characteristic impish grin, said on the morning after the election in 1994, "the civil war is over." He was referring to the historic fact that the South had shifted en masse to the Republicans and if I remember also said, "the day of the southern 'yellow dog Democrat' was over."
-- Mark Shepler
Jupiter, Florida

You might enjoy FDR's Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression by Jim Powell. Far from being dry-as-dust economics and history, it makes fascinating reading. I highly recommend it to everyone.
-- Gretchen L. Chellson
Alexandria, Virginia

Only an establishment Republican figure could write an article about shifting voter patterns and not mention Latinos, who overwhelmingly vote Democrat and are the source of the cheap labor Republican business people so desperately crave. ("Goodbye to the New Deal," April 28) Republicans threw their core constituency away with insults and insensitivity to the plight of taxpayers (their former core group) forced to expend billions of dollars annually in public aid, education, healthcare and imprisonment of the criminals among the illegal alien ranks. In response to this cultural and criminal catastrophe, Republican elected officials accuse Republican voters of "not wanting what's right for America" and acting as "troublemakers" for raising the issue. The Republican Party sold out its base, which will not rally to pro-illegal alien advocate John McCain. The fracture in the Republican Party caused by Bush and Republican elites obsessed with allowing the disobedience of law based on ethnicity drove away Republicans who no longer will vote, while energizing Democrats salivating over the millions of potential new voters lured by the promise of continued government handouts.
-- Caroline Miranda
North Hollywood, California

Where were the Catholics when Kerry was running?
-- Sheldon Williams

MORE LIKE KNOW-IT-ALLS
Re: Peter Suderman's Public Know Nothings:

The article by Peter Suderman conveniently misses a few truths --

He enshrines the concept of private property and the rights and responsibilities thereof. But he conveniently does not mention the fact that the very frequencies that permit Verizon Wireless to operate at all are public property licensed to them as defined by the Communications Act of 1934 and from which all subsequent modifications and orders ensue.

Thrown asunder in this article is the historical fact that the Verizon's, AT&T's, and Sprint's of this country started out as regulated entities. Regulation was the devil's bargain that made AT&T possible and all the sister companies to follow. The first large private network was the phone system and it was and is regulated at both the Federal and State levels. Nor can the current wireless carriers avoid some level of regulation. Without it they could not be guaranteed sole private use of given transmission frequencies for cell towers.

Letter to the Editor

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