Permanent Democratic Majority
It was reported that Tom Pauken, one-time chairman of the Texas Republican Party, left an Austin GOP gathering early on election night to watch the returns in the privacy of his own home. Perhaps he didn't want anyone to see him crying. More likely he did not want to waste any time before starting the planning for the GOP attack on the new Obama administration.
Pauken's attack comes today in a Dallas Blog column criticizing Barack Obama's choice for Chief of Staff, Raum Emanuel. Pauken calls him "totally ruthless" and "with no ethical compass" who makes "frequent use of the f--- word" (oh my!). Pauken is particularly distressed that, back in the Clinton impeachment days, Emanuel took satisfaction in the revelation that Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Il), then chairman of the Judiciary Committee, was an adulterer himself. I'm not sure the logic Pauken uses to think that the fall of Henry Hyde the hypocrite is going to be viewed as a bad thing, even if Emanuel was behind it, but Pauken spends much of his column on just that decade-old subject.
Personally, I find Emanuel to be a savvy political operator, more pragmatic than ideologue, a brilliant choice by Obama to help get his agenda implemented. Pauken's comments are more of the old style politics of personal destruction rather than the politics of solving the problems the voters elected Barack Obama to tackle. The GOP is going to have to change their attitude if they want voters to give them another look in 2010 or 2012. Otherwise, that "permanent Democratic majority" that Pauken fears (that strikes me as Pauken's real objection to the Emanuel pick) is a real possibility.
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