Republican Party

Subterms

    More stories

    • 75 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Who Else Should Run for President?

      by

      Here is a second round of readers’ choices beyond the announced candidates.To the Editor:Re “More Hats in the Ring?” (Letters, Sept. 29):I’d like to see Gavin Newsom enter the presidential race.He’s intelligent and experienced, governing the most populous state in the country and one of the largest economies in the world.As governor of California, he’s aware of the important issues facing our country today: unchecked immigration, climate change, homelessness, polarization of society, etc.He’s young and charismatic, and presents an air of confidence and stability that our country and our allies desperately need.He would be an interesting and exciting candidate who could motivate voters. He could win the presidency, and many Americans would breathe a sigh of relief and have hope for the future.Mary Ellen RamirezHoffman Estates, Ill.To the Editor:If Caroline Kennedy joined the presidential race, she would receive my support. Unlike the current Kennedy who is vying for the presidency (Robert F. Kennedy Jr.), she is not mired in controversy and conspiracy theories.She served as the U.S. ambassador to Japan during President Barack Obama’s administration and is now the ambassador to Australia, showcasing her experience in diplomacy and politics. She has spent her life devoted to politics, educational reform and charitable work. She has continued her father’s legacy with class.Ms. Kennedy has never been driven by the spotlight, which proves that she would not be interested in boasting about accomplishments or putting personal interests ahead of the needs of the country.We have yet to elect a woman as president in this country. If we were to find Camelot again, Caroline Kennedy would be our leader.Kristina HopperHolland, Mich.To the Editor:Our commerce secretary, Gina Raimondo, has exceptional credentials to appeal to the electorate and to lead our nation.She earned a B.A. degree in economics at Harvard while graduating magna cum laude (and played rugby, an ideal foundation for politics, she says). She then became a Rhodes scholar, got a law degree from Yale Law School and worked as a venture capitalist.As general treasurer of Rhode Island, she reformed the state’s pension system. From there she became governor of Rhode Island, and cut taxes every year and removed thousands of pages of regulations. She is now the nation’s commerce secretary.Gina Raimondo has an excellent educational foundation, solid business qualifications and experience on the federal level as a cabinet member. Gina Raimondo checks a lot of boxes.David PastoreMountainside, N.J.To the Editor:There are numerous plain-speaking, pragmatic governors who eschew divisive culture wars and focus on results-oriented governance, job creation and fiscal responsibility. What distinguishes Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia is not only his courageous stand against Donald Trump’s election denialism, but his attention to re-establishing Republican Party unity.Only a Republican governor who can attract support from conservative Republicans, crossover Democrats and independent voters can realistically hope to build the gridlock-busting coalition the nation so desperately needs at this time. That makes Governor Kemp a most attractive presidential candidate in 2024.John R. LeopoldStoney Beach, Md.To the Editor:The best choice for another Democratic presidential candidate is Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, a progressive Democrat focusing on health care, universal pre-K and infrastructure.Ms. Whitmer knows what voters want. Her campaign to “fix the damn roads” in cold hilly Michigan helped get her elected governor. She is fearless against insurrectionists and homegrown militias, and did not back down about her government’s pandemic restrictions. She spooks Donald Trump, who calls her “that woman from Michigan.” She knows how to kick the G.O.P.’s butt, winning the governorship with an over 10-point margin and inspiring voters to elect a Democratic-controlled House and Senate.Ms. Whitmer is smart and energetic, and projects a down-to-earth Midwestern sensibility.Big Gretch for the win!Karla JenningsDecatur, Ga.To the Editor:I hereby nominate Gen. Mark Milley for the presidency. Just retired from his post as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Milley is well qualified to become commander in chief.His 43-year Army career, during which he served in command positions across the globe, was exemplary. He is well versed in the functioning of government and in the politics of Washington. He holds degrees from Princeton and Columbia.His reverence for the American system of government is unwavering — perhaps most tellingly in a speech following the 2020 election, when our system of government hung in the balance. “We do not take an oath to a king or a queen, a tyrant or a dictator. We do not take an oath to an individual,” he said. “We take an oath to the Constitution.”Arguably his biggest mistake was following President Donald Trump to St. John’s Church in Washington after protesters objecting to the killing of George Floyd were cleared from the area. “My presence in that moment and in that environment created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics,” he later acknowledged. “It was a mistake that I have learned from.” How refreshing, a public figure apologizing. We could use more of that.Henry Von KohornPrinceton, N.J.To the Editor:I would like to see Nikki Haley be the Republican candidate against a female Democrat — Amy Klobuchar, Gina Raimondo or Gretchen Whitmer. All are qualified. We would have our first woman president regardless of which party won.Arleen BestArdsley, N.Y.To the Editor:Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado.He’s engaged, honest, eloquent, passionate and cut from a cloth that might not even exist anymore. His biggest flaw is that he’s not flashy or dramatic, but he knows policy, can come up with solutions, and is in touch with the real problems facing our nation. He is the moderate and principled human being that this country needs.Ken RizzoNew YorkTo the Editor:I like President Biden’s policies and his accomplishments, but I think he’s too old. So I’d like to see Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio run for the Democratic Party nomination.Mr. Brown is a progressive, F.D.R.-style Democrat who has focused on economic policies that have improved the lives of working-class Americans. He is pro-union and helped President Biden pass the CHIPS and Science Act, which had broad labor support.He’s also principled: He was the second Senate Democrat to call for the resignation of the disgraced senator Bob Menendez. And he’s been able to win, and keep, his Senate seat in swing-state Ohio, which the Democrats will need to win in 2024.I’m not from Ohio and I’ve never met Sherrod Brown, but every time I see him interviewed I think, “Why doesn’t this guy run for president?” I think he’d stop the slide of working-class Americans away from the Democratic Party, and as president, he’d continue to advance the successful Biden economic agenda.He could definitely beat Donald Trump. And if he’s not at the top of the ticket, I think he’d make an excellent V.P. choice for Gretchen Whitmer.Charles McLeanDenverTo the Editor:Tom Hanks.We’ve had actors before as president (aren’t they all?), but none as talented, well respected, intelligent, multidimensional, centered, compassionate and, well, genuine. He projects steel when necessary and is nobody’s fool — politically astute and cross-party electable.Bob CarrChicagoTo the Editor:I believe that Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut should consider running. He has vast experience in both domestic issues and foreign policy. His passion for classic, progressive issues is based on a concern that all Americans have a high quality of life.His bipartisan efforts, especially on gun control, are impressive. Age, eloquence and demeanor matter a great deal on a world stage; he is young, composed, thoughtful and articulate.Christopher NilsonChandler, Ariz.To the Editor:For the Democrats: Jared Polis, governor of Colorado, is the first name that comes to my mind. He’s an intelligent, honest, hard-working moderate.For the Republicans: No name comes to me, but I could support anyone who’s intelligent, honest and has the courage to stop being a fearful apologist for Donald Trump.The fact that I see no one fitting that bill makes me worry for the fate of my country.Jim HollestelleLouisville, Colo. More

    • 100 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Has Support for Ukraine Peaked? Some Fear So.

      by

      The war in the Middle East, anxiety about the commitment of the U.S., and divisions in Europe are worrying Kyiv that aid from the West may wane.Clearly anxious, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine went in person this week to see NATO defense ministers in Brussels, worried that the war between Israel and Hamas will divert attention — and needed weapons — from Ukraine’s long and bloody struggle against the Russian invasion.American and NATO officials moved to reassure Mr. Zelensky, pledging another $2 billion in immediate military aid. But even before the war in the Mideast began last week, there was a strong sense in Europe, watching Washington, that the world had reached “peak Ukraine” — that support for Kyiv’s fight against Russia’s invasion would never again be as high as it was a few months ago.The new run for the White House by former President Donald J. Trump is shaking confidence that Washington will continue large-scale support for Ukraine. But the concern, Europeans say, is larger than Mr. Trump and extends to much of his Republican Party, which has made cutting support for Ukraine a litmus test of conservative credibility.Even in Europe, Ukraine is an increasingly divisive issue. Voters in Slovakia handed a victory to Robert Fico, a former prime minister sympathetic to Russia. A vicious election campaign in Poland, one of Ukraine’s staunchest allies, has emphasized strains with Kyiv. A far right opposed to aiding Ukraine’s war effort has surged in Germany, where Chancellor Olaf Scholz is struggling to win voters over to his call for a stronger military.“I’m pessimistic,” said Yelyzaveta Yasko, a Ukrainian member of Parliament who is on the foreign affairs committee. “There are many questions now — weapons production, security infrastructure, economic aid, the future of NATO,” she said, but noted that answers to those questions had a timeline of at least five years.President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, right, talking with Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III on Wednesday at a NATO meeting in Brussels.Olivier Matthys/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“We have been fighting for 600 days,” she added, “and I don’t see the leadership and planning that is required to take real action — not just statements — in support of Ukraine.”Even more depressing, Ms. Yasko said at a recent security forum in Warsaw, is the way domestic politics are “instrumentalizing Ukraine.”“Opinion polls show the people still support Ukraine,” she said, “but politicians start to use Ukraine as a topic to fight each other, and Ukraine becomes a victim.”“I’m worried,” she continued. “I don’t like the way my country is used as a tool.”The previous bipartisan support for Ukraine in the United States no longer seems to hold. “There’s less pushback against the anti-Ukrainian stuff already out there,” said Toomas Hendrik Ilves, the former president of Estonia, mentioning the Republican right wing and influential voices like Elon Musk. “It’s dangerous.”Should Washington cut its aid to Ukraine, deciding that it is not worth the cost, top European officials, including the European Union’s head of foreign affairs and security policy, Josep Borrell Fontelles, openly acknowledge that Europe cannot fill the gap.He was in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, when Congress excluded support from Ukraine in its temporary budget deal. “That was certainly not expected, and certainly not good news,” Mr. Borrell told a summit meeting of E.U. leaders this month in Spain.European Union’s head of foreign affairs and security policy, Josep Borrell Fontelles, right, with Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, this month in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital.Ukraine Ministry of Foreign Affairs, via EPA, via Shutterstock“Europe cannot replace the United States,” he said, even as it proposes more aid. “Certainly, we can do more, but the United States is something indispensable for the support to Ukraine.” That same day, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said that without Western aid, Ukraine could not survive more than a week.European leaders have pledged to send more air-defense systems to Ukraine to help fend off a possible new Russian air campaign targeting energy infrastructure as winter looms. Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands said on Friday that his country would send additional Patriot missiles, which have proved effective in defending the skies over Kyiv, according to Mr. Zelensky’s office.At the same time, European vows to supply one million artillery shells to Ukraine by March are falling short, with countries supplying only 250,000 shells from stocks — a little more than one month of Ukraine’s current rate of fire — and factories still gearing up for more production.Adm. Rob Bauer, who is the chairman of the NATO Military Committee, said in Warsaw that Europe’s military industry had geared up too slowly and still needed to pick up the pace.“We started to give away from half-full or lower warehouses in Europe” to aid Ukraine, he said, “and therefore the bottom of the barrel is now visible.”Even before the outbreak of hostilities in the Middle East, a senior NATO official said that the mood about Ukraine was gloomy. Still, the official said that the Europeans were spending more on the military and that he expected Congress to continue aid to Ukraine, even if not the $43 billion authorized previously.Malcolm Chalmers, the deputy director of the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based defense research institution, said a key issue now is Ukrainian will and resources in what has become a war of attrition. “It’s not really about us anymore, it’s about them,” he said. “The issue is Ukrainian resilience.”Ukrainians will quietly admit to difficulties with morale as the war grinds on, but they see no option other than to continue the fight, whatever happens in the West.Soldiers with the 128th Brigade repairing a broken down Carnation, a self-propelled artillery piece, before taking it back to the front line in September in the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine.Lynsey Addario for The New York TimesBut some say that they are fearful that President Biden, facing what could be a difficult re-election campaign against Mr. Trump, will try to push Kyiv to get into negotiations for a cease-fire with Russia by next summer, to show that he is committed to peace.That worry is likely to be exaggerated, American officials suggest, given Mr. Biden’s continuing strong support for Ukraine, which is echoed in American opinion polls. But there remains confusion about any end goal that does not foresee Ukraine pushing all Russian troops out of sovereign Ukraine, or any clear path to negotiations with a Russia that shows no interest in talking.As Gabrielius Landsbergis, the foreign minister of Lithuania, said at the Warsaw security forum, the mantra “as long as it takes” fails to define “it,” let alone “long.” For him, “it” should mean driving the invading Russians out of all of Ukraine, including Crimea, which Moscow illegally annexed in 2014.In private, at least, other European officials consider that highly unlikely.Carl Bildt, the former Swedish prime minister and foreign minister, suggested that NATO’s 75th anniversary summit meeting next summer in Washington will be tense because of Ukraine, as it will come at the height of the American presidential campaign. Any invitation for Ukraine to join NATO is likely to help Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican candidate, Mr. Bildt said.But while many worry about the possibility of declining American support for Ukraine, the potential for backsliding is not limited to the United States, as the costs of the war are more deeply felt in Europe.In its campaign in Poland, for elections this weekend, the governing Law and Justice Party has complained angrily that Ukrainian grain exports are flooding the Polish market, damaging the farmers who are a key element of the party’s support and underlining the implications for Polish agriculture should Ukraine join the European Union.Mr. Zelensky responded that “it is alarming to see how some in Europe, some of our friends in Europe, play out solidarity in a political theater — making a thriller from the grain.”Grain stored in Leszczany, Poland, in April.Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York TimesThe Polish government, fighting for votes with parties farther to the right, then said it would cease military aid to Ukraine, even though it has already provided an enormous amount early in the war.Anti-Russian sentiment is a given in Poland, but the animosity toward Germany, an E.U. and NATO ally, was striking, too, said Slawomir Debski, the director the of Polish Institute of International Affairs.He described the campaign as “very dirty,” with wild accusations playing on strong anti-German, anti-Russian, anti-European Union sentiments, combined with growing tensions with Ukraine.It was all a sharp contrast to Poland’s embrace of Ukrainian refugees and important early provision of tanks, fighter jets and ammunition just last year.“I warned many people, including the Americans, that this government is being accused of doing too much for Ukraine, so be careful,” Mr. Debski said.Michal Baranowski, a Pole who is the managing director for the German Marshall Fund East, said he was “disheartened because Polish political leaders know we need to stay the course in Ukraine, but they are letting emotions and politics get the better of them.”Polish division, however political, does not stay in Poland, Mr. Baranowski warned. “The effect of this on the United States and the Republican Party is terrible,” he said.Constant Méheut More

    • 175 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      How Kari Lake’s Tactical Retreat on Abortion Could Point the Way for the GOP

      by

      Kari Lake, along with other Republicans in battleground states, has come out against a national ban as candidates try to attract general election voters. Anti-abortion activists aren’t pleased.Kari Lake campaigned for governor of Arizona last year as a fierce ally of former President Donald J. Trump who was in lock step with her party’s right-wing base, calling abortion the “ultimate sin” and supporting the state’s Civil War-era restrictions on the procedure.This week, she made a remarkable shift on the issue as she opened her bid for the U.S. Senate: She declared her opposition to a federal ban.“Republicans allowed Democrats to define them on abortion,” Ms. Lake said in a statement to The New York Times about her break from the policy prescription favored by many anti-abortion groups and most of her party’s presidential contenders. She added that she supported additional resources for pregnant women, and that “just like President Trump, I believe this issue of abortion should be left to the states.”The maneuvering by Ms. Lake, along with similar adjustments by Republican Senate candidates in Pennsylvania and Michigan, is part of a broader strategic effort in her party to recalibrate on an issue that has become a political albatross in battleground states and beyond.Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, eliminating federal protections for abortion rights and handing Republicans one of their most significant policy victories in a generation, voters have turned out repeatedly to support abortion rights, even in red states.The campaign arm for Senate Republicans, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, is now coaching candidates to take the same tack as Ms. Lake — that is, clearly state their opposition to a national abortion ban, according to people familiar with the new strategy.The group has also urged candidates to state their support for “reasonable limits” on late-term abortions with exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother, the people said. Rather than trying to avoid the topic, like many candidates did last year, it is advising Republicans to go on offense. Senate Republicans were briefed last month on detailed research commissioned by One Nation, a nonprofit group aligned with Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, showing that many Americans equated the term “pro-life” — traditionally used by Republicans — with support for a total ban on abortion without any exceptions.The research also showed that while voters opposed the idea of a total ban, there was wider support for restrictions after 12 to 15 weeks of pregnancy, particularly with exceptions for rape, incest and the life or health of the mother.The nonprofit has suggested that Republicans communicate their views on abortion with empathy and compassion. Steven Law, who is the president of One Nation, is also the president of the Senate Leadership Fund, which has spent more than $1 billion on federal campaigns since 2016.Whether or not Republican candidates for Congress — and the White House — can persuade voters that they have become more moderate on abortion promises to be one of the central questions of the 2024 elections.“Voters have repeatedly rejected Republican politicians for supporting dangerous policies that deny a woman’s right to access abortion,” Sarah Guggenheimer, the spokesperson for the Senate Majority political action committee dedicated to electing Democratic candidates. “This cynical effort by Mitch McConnell and Republican candidates to mask their positions won’t change that.”The already challenging rebranding effort also carries significant risks, none more so than alienating anti-abortion activists in the party.Since the fall of Roe v. Wade and the nationwide rollback of abortion rights, the party’s base of anti-abortion voters, which include mostly evangelical Christians, has had heightened expectations that Republican politicians will push to implement the strict anti-abortion policies they have spent decades promising.Kristan Hawkins, the president of Students For Life of America, an anti-abortion organization with more than 1,000 groups on campuses across the country, said equivocating on abortion would be viewed as a betrayal by these voters.To counter the shifting views among some Republican candidates, Ms. Hawkins’s group has distributed a nine-page memo to members of the House of Representatives and the Senate. The memo, which was previously unreported, urged the members to continue their support for strict measures but also encouraged them to be personal, caring and specific in their opposition to abortion rights.Ms. Hawkins said that only “squishy Republicans” would back away from a federal ban, as Ms. Lake has, by insisting that abortion was now an issue that should be decided by states.The Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe, known as Dobbs v. Jackson, provided an opportunity to debate the issue on all levels of government, she said.“They obviously didn’t read the Dobbs decision very well,” Ms. Hawkins said in an interview. “It doesn’t say abortion is only a state issue — it says this issue can be acted upon at the federal, state and local levels.”Still, Mr. Trump has made an apparent political calculus, insisting that hard-line positions on abortion cost the party a red wave of victories last year, and that it must avoid similar mistakes in 2024.Blaming abortion allows Mr. Trump to sidestep the sense among many Republicans that it was in large part his elevation of candidates who embraced his lies about the 2020 presidential election — which ultimately proved unpopular to general election voters in key states — that cost the party control of the Senate and delivered just a razor-thin House majority. He also ignores his own role in appointing three of the five Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe. But there is ample evidence that the abortion issue mattered.Mr. Trump has refused to take an explicit position on whether he would support a federal ban on abortion after 15 weeks, the baseline position of many Republicans as well as Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a leading anti-abortion group. Last month, he criticized Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a presidential rival, for signing a six-week abortion ban into law.Republican candidates in competitive states appear to be increasingly siding with the former president, even as the shifts represent a clear break from his base of evangelical voters who care deeply about the issue.In Michigan, former Representative Mike Rogers’s platform for his Senate campaign includes opposition to a national abortion ban, even though he voted as a House member in 2012 and 2013 to enact federal abortion restrictions. In 2010, he said he supported exceptions “only to prevent the death of the mother.”But Michigan voters adopted a measure last year to enshrine abortion rights in the State Constitution. At a campaign stop last month, Mr. Rogers promised not to support national proposals to restrict abortion that were “inconsistent with Michigan’s law.”David McCormick, who is running for Senate in Pennsylvania, has also said that he opposes a national abortion ban.Jeff Swensen for The New York Times“Will I go to Washington, D.C., and try to undo what the citizens of Michigan voted for?” Mr. Rogers said last month in DeWitt, Mich., according to The Detroit News. “I will not.”In Pennsylvania, David McCormick began his second Senate bid last month and announced on the same day that he did not want a national ban.In his campaign for Senate last year, Mr. McCormick gave multiple responses to questions about abortion exceptions. At a Republican primary debate in April 2022, he said that “in very rare instances, there should be exceptions for the life of the mother.” At other events, he suggested that rape and incest should be included as exceptions.This year, he has backed all three exceptions. In a Fox News interview last month, he said that he was opposed to a national ban.“This is also an issue where I think we have to show a lot of compassion and look for common ground,” Mr. McCormick told Fox News. “We should have contraception and we have reasonable limits on late-term abortion, and that is a compassionate position and a consensus position — and that’s the position I support.”Mr. McCormick has collected endorsements from Republicans across the state, and no other serious challengers for the party’s nomination have emerged.Ms. Lake spent several minutes talking about abortion during her first speech as a Senate candidate in Arizona last week, which she acknowledged was rare for a Republican to bring up. She described her position broadly, saying she wanted to “save babies and help women.”“The Republican Party is going to put their money where their mouth is,” Ms. Lake said to the cheering crowd. “We are going to give them real choices so they can make better choices and not live with that regret.”Still, Ms. Lake didn’t mention her opposition to a national ban to the crowd, even though it is laid out on her campaign website.“Kari Lake has repeatedly said she is a pro-life candidate,” said Cathi Herrod, the president of the Center for Arizona Policy, a nonprofit group that promotes anti-abortion policies. “I think the advice to oppose a federal ban is misguided.” More

    • 113 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Republican Speaker Fight Has Parallels in the Gingrich Era

      by

      The current chaos is not the first time Republicans have found themselves rocked by a vacancy at the top.The House speaker had been unceremoniously dumped by colleagues unhappy with his performance and overly optimistic political predictions. Those who would typically be considered next in line had made too many enemies to be able to secure the necessary numbers to take his place. The House was in utter chaos as bombs fell in the Middle East.Today’s relentless Republican turmoil over the House speakership has striking parallels to the tumult of 1998, when House G.O.P. lawmakers were also feuding over who would lead them at a crucial period.Then as now, personal vendettas and warring factions drove an extraordinary internal party fight that threw the House into chaos. The saga had multiple twists and turns as Republicans cycled through would-be speakers in rapid succession — just as the G.O.P. did this week. And in the end, they settled on a little-known congressman as a compromise choice.It’s not clear how the current speaker drama will end; Republicans left Washington on Friday after nominating their second candidate for speaker of the week, Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, with plans to return on Tuesday for a vote but no certainty that he could be elected.Back in 1998, Republicans moved swiftly to fill their power vacuum in just one day, unlike the present situation, where they have let unrest fester for more than a week while struggling to overcome deep internal divisions and anoint a new leader.“That was pretty chaotic,” said Representative Harold Rogers, the Kentucky Republican who was already a veteran lawmaker at the time and is now the dean of the House as its longest-serving member. “But it didn’t last very long.”Both dramas began when a Republican speaker lost the faith of some key colleagues. Hard-right Republicans precipitated their party’s current crisis by forcing out Representative Kevin McCarthy of California from the speaker post as punishment for working with Democrats to avert a government shutdown. Twenty-five years ago, Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Georgia Republican whose closest allies were turning on him, announced he would not run again for speaker.Mr. Gingrich, whose scorched-earth tactics had returned Republicans to the majority in 1995 after four decades in the minority wilderness, was finally burned himself after predicting Republican gains in that November’s elections, only to lose seats.Representative Richard K. Armey of Texas, who held the same majority leader position then as Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana does today, was a potential replacement, as was Representative Tom DeLay, the powerful No. 3 Republican whip who was also from Texas. But both had political baggage likely to keep them from the top job, and Mr. Armey faced a fight just to remain in the No. 2 slot.Neither even bothered going through the motions of seeking their party’s nomination, as Mr. Scalise did successfully on Wednesday — only to discover quickly that he lacked the support to be elected, leading to his abrupt withdrawal.“Both of them were toxic, and they knew it,” Fred Upton, the recently retired moderate Republican from Michigan who was in the House at the time, said of Mr. Armey and Mr. DeLay.Sensing an opportunity, Robert Livingston, an ambitious Louisiana Republican who commanded a solid bloc of supporters as chairman of the Appropriations Committee, jumped into the speaker’s race and cleared the field. He won the Republican nomination without opposition in mid-November.Mr. Livingston went about setting up his new leadership operation as Republicans plunged ahead with the impeachment of President Bill Clinton growing out of his relationship with a White House intern. Many Republicans believed the impeachment push had cost them in the just-concluded election, but pursuing Mr. Clinton was a priority of Mr. DeLay, whose nickname was the Hammer, and he was not one to be deterred.Then Saturday, Dec. 19, arrived, with the House set to consider articles of impeachment even as Mr. Clinton had ordered airstrikes against Iraq over suspected weapons violations — an action that Republicans accused him of taking to stave off impeachment.Mr. Livingston, who had not yet assumed the speakership but was playing a leadership role, rose on the floor to urge Mr. Clinton to resign and spare the nation a divisive impeachment fight. But Mr. Livingston himself had acknowledged extramarital affairs a few days earlier to his colleagues. Democrats began shouting “no, no, no” as he spoke.“You resign,” shouted Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat of California. “You resign.”To the amazement of everyone present, Mr. Livingston did just that, saying that he would set an example for the president and that he would not run for speaker. The House was stunned as lawmakers absorbed the news — similar to the surreal atmosphere last week when it became clear that Mr. McCarthy would be removed as speaker after hard-right Republicans moved to oust him and eight of them joined Democrats in pushing through a motion to vacate the chair.Dennis Hastert became the longest-serving Republican speaker in history before Democrats won the House back in 2006. He was later convicted of paying to cover up sexual abuse.Doug Mills/The New York TimesA mad scramble was on to identify a new speaker candidate. Names of prominent and seasoned House Republicans were bandied about, but Mr. DeLay, a singular force in the chamber, was not about to accept one of them as a potential rival.He turned to a fairly innocuous Illinois Republican who had watched Mr. Livingston from the back row of the House, J. Dennis Hastert, a former wrestling coach who served as Mr. DeLay’s chief deputy and would not be a threat to usurp much of his influence. Mr. DeLay and others told Mr. Hastert that he needed to step up to unify Republicans.By the end of the day, Republicans had approved articles of impeachment against Mr. Clinton and coalesced around Mr. Hastert as the next speaker — a rapid resolution that Mr. Upton noted was lacking in the present speaker drama. He said Republicans should have moved much more quickly after the vote to depose Mr. McCarthy to install someone rather than recessing for the week.“It would have been over and done with,” Mr. Upton said.Mr. Hastert went on to be the longest-serving Republican speaker in history before Democrats won the House back in 2006. But his public career ended in disgrace when he was convicted and sentenced to 15 months in federal prison in 2016 for paying to cover up admitted sexual abuse of young wrestlers committed long before he rose to surprising power in Congress.Mr. DeLay, his patron, was forced from Congress by ethics issues but ultimately had his conviction on campaign finance violations thrown out of court. Mr. Livingston went on to become a successful Washington lobbyist. Mr. Clinton was acquitted by the Senate. Mr. Gingrich remains a voice in G.O.P. politics. And Republicans still struggle with speaker issues. More

    • 100 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Haley Slams Trump and Ramaswamy Over Israel Remarks

      by

      Nikki Haley on Friday knocked two of her Republican presidential rivals, Donald J. Trump and Vivek Ramaswamy, over their recent comments on Israel, underscoring the deepening divide within the party around the “America First” anti-interventionist stance that Mr. Trump made a core part of his first campaign.Mr. Trump, Ms. Haley suggested, lacks moral clarity and has not left “the baggage and negativity” of the past behind, an apparent reference to Mr. Trump’s still-simmering animosity toward Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over events that include his congratulating President Biden on winning the 2020 election. Mr. Ramaswamy, meanwhile, sounds more like a liberal Democrat than a Republican, Ms. Haley said.“To go and criticize the head of a country who just saw massive bloodshed — no, that’s not what we need in a president,” Ms. Haley said of Mr. Trump, the former president and current Republican front-runner, in a news conference in Concord, N.H., after filing to get on the state’s primary ballot.Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and United Nations ambassador under Mr. Trump who has been running on her foreign policy experience, said the next president of the United States needed to be someone who “knows the difference between good and evil, who knows the difference between right and wrong.”“You don’t congratulate or give any credit to murderers, period,” she said. Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, accused Ms. Haley of using Democratic talking points and said that “there has been no bigger defender and advocate for Israel than President Trump.” But Mr. Trump has drawn scorn from both sides of the political aisle for referring to Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group, as “very smart” while criticizing Israel’s prime minister and Israeli intelligence.His tone shifted on Friday, though, as he posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, that he had “always been impressed by the skill and determination of the Israeli Defense Forces.” A second post said simply: “#IStandWithIsrael #IStandWithBibi.”Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Ramaswamy campaign, dismissed Ms. Haley’s remarks on Friday — including Ms. Haley’s accusation that he sounded like a member of the group of progressives known as “the squad” — as a scripted attack from a candidate whom Ms. McLaughlin sought to portray as beholden to special interests.“Pre-canned quip brought to you by the Boeing squad,” she said in an email, invoking Ms. Haley’s tenure of less than a year on the corporate board of Boeing.Ms. Haley’s dig at Mr. Ramaswamy on Friday escalated an ongoing feud between the G.O.P. rivals that has pitted those with more traditional conservative positions, who believe the United States should play a major role abroad, against those espousing anti-interventionist views, who want Americans to focus on issues at home.Mr. Ramaswamy was sharply rebuked by his opponents over his conversation with Tucker Carlson on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, earlier this week.He called the Republican response to Hamas’s attacks on Israel another example of “selective moral outrage” and argued that politicians on both sides of the aisle had largely ignored other atrocities, citing fentanyl deaths in the United States and the accusations of genocide of ethnic Armenians by Azerbaijan.“It comes down in most cases — some people do have ideological commitments that are outdated that are earnest — but a lot of it comes down to money, the corrupting influence of super PACs on the process,” Mr. Ramaswamy said.In a statement on Friday, Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, another Republican candidate in the race, condemned Mr. Ramaswamy’s remarks, saying that he was “pulling out the oldest and most offensive antisemitic tropes possible.”He added: “To say that outrage is fueled by donor money and the media is beyond offensive. It is morally wrong and it is dangerous.”Mr. Ramaswamy accused critics and even conservative media outlets of taking his words out of context. Ms. McLaughlin, his campaign spokeswoman, said in an email on Friday that he was talking about Azerbaijan, not Israel.But Sean Hannity, the Fox News commentator, was not persuaded. In a tense exchange between the two men on Thursday night, Mr. Hannity said that Mr. Ramaswamy had a history of retreating from his incendiary statements and had made wild claims without backing them up.“What are the financial corrupting influences that Nikki Haley is taking a position on?” he said. “We’ve got pictures of dead babies decapitated, burned babies’ bodies. We’ve got the equivalent of what would be, population-wise in the U.S., over 37,000 dead Americans. So, how much more evidence do you need? What are you talking about?”Mr. Trump, during his time in the White House, virtually did not challenge Israel on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.As his United Nations ambassador, Ms. Haley forcefully spoke out in support of the president’s formal recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, as well as his decision to cut American funding to Palestinian refugees. She has since made her foreign policy credentials and staunch support for Israel pillars of her campaign. Her sparring with Mr. Ramaswamy over foreign policy on the national debate stage in particular helped to boost her in the polls, propelling her to the second position behind Mr. Trump in New Hampshire.On the trail and on the Republican media circuit this week, Ms. Haley has been talking up her on-the-ground experience in the Middle East and calling for the elimination of Hamas. In town halls in New Hampshire on Thursday, she ratcheted up her criticism of Mr. Trump for his reaction to the Israel-Hamas war, saying the former president was too focused on himself.In a small room crowded with reporters at the New Hampshire State House on Friday, Ms. Haley again pitched herself as “a new generational conservative leader” who knew how to negotiate with world leaders.“I know what it takes to keep Americans safe,” she said. She later added: “You don’t just have Israel’s back when they get hit. You need to have Israel’s back when they hit back, too.” More

    • 88 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      A Gaza Father’s Worries About His Children

      by

      More from our inbox:A Temporary House Speaker?Republicans, Stand Up for UkraineWork Permits for ImmigrantsIs A.I. Art … Art?An injured woman and her child after an Israeli bombing near their house in the Gaza Strip.Samar Abu Elouf for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “What More Must the Children of Gaza Suffer?,” by Fadi Abu Shammalah (Opinion guest essay, Oct. 13):My heart goes out, and I cry over the suffering of Palestinian children in Gaza. They have done nothing to deserve war after war after war.However, to ignore Hamas’s responsibility for contributing to that suffering is to miss the whole picture. Hamas rules Gaza, and it has chosen to buy missiles and weapons with funds that were meant to build a better society for Gazan civilians.Last weekend’s attack was designed by Hamas to prompt a heavy response by Israel and stir up the pot, probably to kill a Saudi-Israeli peace deal, even if it meant sacrificing Palestinian civilians in the process. We can lay the blame for the Gazan children who have been killed in recent days at the feet of both the Israel Defense Forces and Hamas.Aaron SteinbergWhite Plains, N.Y.To the Editor:Thank you for publishing Opinion guest essays from Rachel Goldberg (“I Hope Someone Somewhere Is Being Kind to My Boy,” nytimes.com, Oct. 12) and Fadi Abu Shammalah. These essays, for the most part, demonstrate the dire disconnect between Israelis and Palestinians for decades.Ms. Goldberg and Mr. Abu Shammalah describe the horrors from their perspectives (terrorists or fighters; most vicious assaults on Jews since the Holocaust or terrifying violence raining down on Gaza).Despair is a shared theme in these articles. There is also a glimmer of hope found in the similar, heartbreaking pleas of loving parents for their children. Is now the time for mothers and fathers around the world to stand together for all children? If not now, when?Daniel J. CallaghanRoanoke, Va.To the Editor:Thank you for publishing Fadi Abu Shammalah’s essay. I’m hoping that hearing from a Palestinian in Gaza at this incredibly terrifying time might help your readers better understand the importance for all of us to call for immediate de-escalation to prevent Israel’s impending invasion.Shame on those who do not do what they can to prevent this assault on humanity. Let’s end this current horror show.Mona SalmaSan FranciscoTo the Editor:Regarding Fadi Abu Shammalah’s essay, “What More Must the Children of Gaza Suffer?”:Maybe Hamas should have considered that question before deciding to attack Israel.Jon DreyerStow, Mass.A Temporary House Speaker?Representative Steve Scalise, Republican of Louisiana, announcing his withdrawal as a candidate for House speaker on Thursday night. He hopes to remain as the party’s No. 2 House leader.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Scalise Departs Speaker’s Race as G.O.P. Feuds” (front page, Oct. 13):Given the urgent state of affairs (Israel-Gaza, Ukraine, looming government shutdown), wouldn’t it be a good idea for the Republicans in the House of Representatives to pick a temporary speaker? Someone who doesn’t want the job permanently but would take the role through, say, early January.One would think that having the speaker role be temporary would make it easier to arrive at a compromise.Shaun BreidbartPelham, N.Y.Republicans, Stand Up for Ukraine David Guttenfelder for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “G.O.P. Resistance to Aid in Ukraine Expands in House” (front page, Oct. 6):Where do Republicans stand? On the side of autocracy or democracy? Dare I ask? The Ukrainians are on the front lines, fighting and dying to preserve the values of the West. Republicans, stand up and be counted!Norman SasowskyNew Paltz, N.Y.Work Permits for Immigrants Illustration by Rebecca Chew/The New York TimesTo the Editor:In your Oct. 8 editorial, “The Cost of Inaction on Immigration,” you correctly identified one potential benefit from proactive immigration policies. If Congress were not so frozen by the anti-immigration fringe, immigrants could fill the urgent gaps in the American labor market and propel our economy forward.President Biden can and should also expand work permits for long-term undocumented immigrants using an existing administrative process called parole.The organization I lead, the American Business Immigration Coalition, published a letter on behalf of more than 300 business leaders from across the country and a bipartisan group of governors and members of Congress clamoring for this solution.The farmworkers, Dreamers not covered by DACA and undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens who stand to benefit already live and belong in our communities. The advantages for businesses and everyday life in our cities and fields would be enormous, and this should not be held hostage to dysfunction in Congress.Rebecca ShiChicagoIs A.I. Art … Art?A.I. Excels at Making Bad Art. Can an Artist Teach It to Create Something Good?David Salle, one of America’s most thoughtful painters, wants to see if an algorithm can learn to mimic his style — and nourish his own creativity in the process.To the Editor:Re “Turning an Algorithm Into an Art Student” (Arts & Leisure, Oct. 1):A.I. art seems a commercially viable idea, but artistically it falls very far short of reasoned creativity and inspiration. When you remove the 95 percent perspiration from the artistic act, is it art anymore? I don’t think so.David Salle’s original work is inspired. The work produced by his A.I. assistant (no matter how much it is curated by the artist), I am afraid, will never be.I hope he makes money from it, as most artists don’t or can’t make a living with their inspired, personally or collectively produced art. They cannot because the market typically prefers a sanitized, digitized, broadly acceptable, “generically good” art product — something that has been produced and edited to satisfy the largest number of consumers/users/viewers. The market will embrace A.I. inevitably.I fear the day when A.I.-written operas, musicals, concerts and symphonies are performed by A.I. musicians in front of A.I. audiences. With A.I. critics writing A.I. reviews for A.I. readers of A.I. newspapers.Eric AukeeLos AngelesThe writer is an architect. More

    • 100 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      This Is How the Republican Party Got Southernized

      by

      In 1969, a young aide in the Nixon White House, 28-year-old Kevin Phillips, published “The Emerging Republican Majority.”Phillips had worked as a strategist on Richard Nixon’s 1968 campaign, the experience of which supplied much of the material for his book. His argument was straightforward: Nixon’s victory wasn’t just a momentary triumph, but the beginning of an epochal shift in American politics, fueled by a latent conservatism among many members of the white middle class. These voters were repulsed, Phillips wrote, by the Democratic Party’s “ambitious social programming and inability to handle the urban and Negro revolutions.”The latter point was key. “The principal force which broke up the Democratic (New Deal) coalition is the Negro socioeconomic revolution and liberal Democratic ideological inability to cope with it,” Phillips declared. “The Democratic Party fell victim to the ideological impetus of a liberalism which had carried it beyond programs taxing the few for the benefit of the many (the New Deal) to programs taxing the many on behalf of the few (the Great Society).”If one tallied Nixon’s share of the national popular vote, at 43.5 percent, and added it to the share won by the governor of Alabama, George Wallace, at 13.5 percent, then you had, in Phillips’s view, the makings of a conservative majority. “It was Phillips’s thesis,” the historian Geoffrey Kabaservice recounts in “Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party,” “that the Republicans could build an enduring majority by corralling voters troubled by ‘the Negro Problem’ and drawing in elements that had not traditionally been part of the Republican Party: conservatives from the South and West, an area for which Phillips coined the term ‘the Sunbelt.’”To some extent, Phillips was remarking on a shift that was already in motion. Both Dwight Eisenhower, in the 1952 and 1956 elections, and Nixon in the 1960 election made gains with white Southerners.Phillips was also not the first person to notice the potential of racial strife to move this process along. Barry Goldwater, the party’s 1964 nominee for president against Lyndon Johnson, became the first Republican of the 20th century to win most of the states of the former Confederacy, doing so on the basis of his vociferous opposition to the Civil Rights Act passed that year.Wallace rested his campaigns, in 1964 and 1968, on the observation that when it came to civil rights, “the whole country was Southern.” And in his attempt to parry and marginalize Wallace, Nixon aimed directly at the white voters of the South. “Vote for … the only team that can provide the new leadership that America needs, the Nixon-Agnew team,” the Republican nominee said in a radio advertisement tailored to white Southern voters. “And I pledge to you we will restore law and order in this country.”But having written a popular book about the future Republican majority — a book that would prove quite prescient, as Republicans established a durable hold on partisan politics in the South — Phillips is the man who gets credit for both seeing the opportunity and developing the eventual strategy. As he told the journalist Garry Wills during the 1968 campaign, “The whole secret of politics is knowing who hates who.”Kevin Phillips in 1970.Associated PressPhillips died this week of complications from Alzheimer’s disease. He was 82. By the end of his life, he had become a sharp critic of the Republican Party, condemning the extremism, military adventurism and free market fundamentalism of the George W. Bush years in a 2006 book, “American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century.”Phillips’s turn against the modern Republican Party he helped create gets at what made his work significant. He didn’t just identify a constellation of political, social and economic forces that could produce a durable Republican majority; he identified an actual social base for the right-wing conservatism that would, in short order, eclipse its ideological rivals within the Republican Party. The new Southern Republicans would be avowedly conservative, committed to the destruction of as much of the social insurance state as possible.You could draw a straight line, in other words, from “The Emerging Republican Majority” to the Gingrich revolution of the 1990s to the present, when Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana briefly emerged as the leading candidate for speaker of the House before withdrawing from the race on account of fierce opposition from many of the more radical members of the House Republican conference.First elected to Congress in 2008, Scalise is associated with the hard-right flank of the House Republican caucus. But more relevant to our story is the fact that he represents the state congressional district that once sent David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader, to the Louisiana State Legislature. Duke’s election, in 1989, was the start of a political ascendence that culminated in a bitterly fought campaign for governor, which Duke lost — while winning more than 60 percent of the white voters who cast a ballot in that election.Duke was a toxic figure, condemned by most of the mainstream in the Republican Party, nationally and in Louisiana. But his campaign essentially foreshadowed the transformation of Louisiana politics in the 1990s and into the 2000s, when right-wing Republicans — adopting Duke’s anti-tax, anti-welfare and anti-government rhetoric — supplanted conservative Democrats.Together, Phillips’s death and Scalise’s near ascension to the speakership form an interesting synchronicity. On one hand, we have the intellectual father of the “Southern strategy,” who died estranged from the political party he helped shape. On the other, we have the rise, however brief, of a lawmaker who represents the total success of that strategy.A funny thing has happened as the national Republican Party has rooted itself ever more deeply into the South: The Southern style of conservative politics — hidebound, populist, staunchly anti-union and devoted to the interests of capital above all — has migrated well above the Mason-Dixon Line. We’ve seen it take hold in Wisconsin, Kansas, even Maine. It should be said that Scalise’s original rival for the speakership, the MAGA radical Jim Jordan, is from Ohio.The Republican Party did not just win the white South in the years and decades after Phillips wrote “The Emerging Republican Majority.” Nor did it just become the party of the white South — or at least its most conservative elements. No, what happened is that the Republican Party Southernized, with a politics and an ideology rooted in some of the most reactionary — and ultimately destructive — tendencies of that political tradition.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

    • 75 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Airstrikes Intensify in Gaza, and More

      by

      The New York Times Audio app is home to journalism and storytelling, and provides news, depth and serendipity. If you haven’t already, download it here — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter.The Headlines brings you the biggest stories of the day from the Times journalists who are covering them, all in about 10 minutes. Hosted by Annie Correal, the new morning show features three top stories from reporters across the newsroom and around the world, so you always have a sense of what’s happening, even if you only have a few minutes to spare.Smoke rising after an airstrike in Gaza City on Wednesday, as seen from the city’s Al Shifa hospital.Smoke rising after an airstrike in Gaza City on Wednesday, as seen from the city’s Al Shifa hospital. Photo: Samar Abu Elouf for The New York TimesOn Today’s Episode:Palestinians Describe Calamity in Gaza as Israeli Bombing Intensifies, with Chevaz ClarkeBlinken Stresses Support for Israel While Urging Restraint on Gaza AirstrikesScalise Withdraws as Speaker Candidate, Leaving Republicans in ChaosAs Red States Curb Social Media, Did Montana’s TikTok Ban Go Too Far?, with Sapna MaheshwariEli Cohen More