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The Politico nabbed a major scoop by obtaining a memo that was left behind by the RNC which mocks their donor base and exposes how they plan to run against President Obama in the upcoming election.

The Republican National Committee plans to raise money this election cycle through an aggressive campaign capitalizing on “fear” of President Barack Obama and a promise to "save the country from trending toward socialism."

The strategy was detailed in a confidential party fundraising presentation, obtained by POLITICO, which also outlines how “ego-driven” wealthy donors can be tapped with offers of access and “tchochkes.”

The presentation was delivered by RNC Finance Director Rob Bickhart to top donors and fundraisers at a party retreat in Boca Grande, Florida on February 18, a source at the gathering said.

In neat PowerPoint pages, it lifts the curtain on the often-cynical terms of political marketing, displaying an air of disdain for the party’s donors that is usually confined to the barroom conversations of political operatives.

The presentation explains the Republican fundraising in simple terms.

"What can you sell when you do not have the White House, the House, or the Senate...?" it asks.

The answer: "Save the country from trending toward Socialism!”

Michael Steele went on Fox News with Megyn Kelly and was forced to answer for their hateful tactics. He tried his best to downplay it, but once again Steele looks like a buffoon and the RNC looks even worse for adopting many of the radical beliefs that the Tea Party crowd used throughout the health-care debate. Steele tried to say the images just came off the Web, but these images came from teabagger signs for the most part.

slacktivist: Rumor-panic, defined

Prairie Weather: Best one minute summary of health care summit available

PERRspectives: GOP revives the "Starve the Beast" amendment

Politics in the Zeros: Whole Foods Market "organic" food made in China

The Inverse Square Blog: The GOP War On Knowledge...or how the skids are being greased for America's decline and fall

The Come And Take It Blog: So much for rugged individualism and 'independence'. Federal spending in the budget has grown by over 100% during Rick Perry's time as Texas governor. (h/t Bay Area Houston)

If Republicans would apply the same bipartisan fetishes that the media demands of the Democratic party, I might change my mind, but you know that will never happen, so I hope we never see another "bipartisan" summit again on anything. If the GOP gets control again -- and that's very possible -- they will lead with a sledgehammer. All Democratic politicians will be called obstructionists and the party with no ideas by the Villagers if they stand in their way. That's a given.

The Village was happy to see that it was a mostly civil event -- except for Chris Cilliza, who thought that calling out Republican lies was a "loser."

The Politico called it a draw. A draw?
And why is Dan Gerstein their go-to man? It would have been nice if the Dems had pressed the Republicans on most of their falsehoods. And maybe force Paul Ryan to explain how under Republicans, they would do away with preexisting conditions that so debilitate Americans from getting or changing their health insurance. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi did a good job, but it should have been a constant theme for them throughout the summit. Otherwise you get articles like this Politico one. Is a lie a lie if it's told politely?

Digby opines.

Democrats have been far too reliant on our president's intelligence and speaking skills to magically transform the political dynamic. His mastery of the details of the job is impressive and after our last goofball it's a relief. But Obama's best moments yesterday were when he challenged Republicans on their lofty assumptions about what people can afford --- he repeatedly asked these Representatives and senators to imagine what it's like to met these expenses if you make 40k a year. It was a nice populist moment for the president, speaking on behalf of the average folks and it put the Republicans off balance.

Certainly debating is part of the job, and he's good at it. But I suspect that what people need from the president and the Democrats right now is a sense that they understand the urgency of their problems, not the details of how they're going to fix them. I recall Clinton relating a story during his "laser beam" interview right after he was elected that I always thought was clever. He said he'd understood that he had to act quickly when he saw a man standing beside the road with a sign that said "For god's sake just do something." That's effective stuff.

I hope that this summit is soon forgotten and they move to the next phase quickly. And I also hope the Democrats let go of the idea that this is a good way to deal with the Republicans. They are a lot slicker than the White House gives them credit for and it's never a good idea to give them a forum in which to appear as if they are operating in good faith. They are not, and it does the country no good to help them pretend otherwise.

There are plenty of post-summit wrap-ups all over the Internet, so have at it, but the White House needs to pass health care after this latest dog-and-pony show.

BAGnewsNotes: To Your Health

The Point: Something new to read

TPMDC: Rubio used his GOP-issued credit card for groceries and car repairs

The Grey Matter: Facts are stupid things

Erik's Choice: Bob Dylan's 'Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues'

The Pump Handle: Sickened by Service

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Chris Matthews' producers put together some footage from the Health Care Summit of the Republicans repeating the same talking points over and over again and Matthews is amused and actually seems a bit surprised that these guys all parrot the same talking points over and over. I guess he doesn't watch too many other cable news shows or he'd have discovered this long ago. You could have added footage of these guys from all of the Sunday shows and most of their interviews with them on any of the talking heads show for the last nine month or so mindlessly repeating their Frank Luntz bullet points and it would have looked about the same as this mash up his staff made.

They did do a good job of illustrating that they didn't have much new to bring to the table during this summit. They were determined to get their talking points in and that's about it. If I had a dollar for every time I've heard one of these phrases repeated I might be able to retire a little bit early.

step by step
start over
buy across state lines
tax cuts
health savings accounts
the American people don't like this bill
government takeover of health care
this will bankrupt America
Louisiana purchase
Cornhusker kickback

What did I miss? The GOP is a talking points machine. If Matthews is really just figuring that out he's been asleep at the wheel.

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Many Republican politicians have railed against the stimulus while praising or taking credit for stimulus money provided to their districts. One prominent Republican governor is calling out his colleagues' hypocrisy.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was proud to accept stimulus dollars for his state praised the program for creating or saving over 150,000 jobs. "I have been the first governor of the Republican governors to come out and to support the stimulus money because I say to myself, this is terrific," Schwarzenegger told ABC's Terry Moran Sunday.

In contrast to many Republicans, the California governor believes the stimulus has created public and private sector jobs. "Anyone that says that it hasn't created the jobs, they should talk to the 150,000 people that have been getting jobs in California," he said.

Schwarzenegger lashed out at those GOP politicians who voted against the bill then took credit for benefits provided to their states. "Well, you know, to me I find it interesting that you have a lot of the Republicans running around and pushing back on the stimulus money and saying this doesn't create any new jobs, and then they go out and they do the photo ops and they are posing with the big check and they say, 'Isn't this great?'" said Schwarzenegger.

According to the corporate media, the Democratic Party is on the way out and the GOP is a well oiled machine, poised to take back control of Congress. Of course, more Republicans are retiring from Congress than Democrats and there are plenty of vulnerable GOP seats this year too, but hey, why let things like facts get in the way of a great media narrative.

Case in point -- the Presidential Straw Poll from this year's CPAC convention. With names like Romney, Palin and Gingrich on the list, you would think this might be a close poll...but you'd be wrong. In fact, Ron Paul didn't just win, he crushed the competition.

In a strong reflection of just how strong his standing remains within the die-hard conservative community, Texas Republican and 2008 presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul won the Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll on Saturday, earning nearly one-third (31 percent) of the entire vote. The crowd, however, booed heavily when the results were announced.

Paul was far and away the most widely anticipated speaker at the three-day conference, with his base of "Paulites" streaming into the main auditorium to hear him rail against government overreach and neoconservativism on Friday afternoon. In many respects, his win in the CPAC poll seemed pre-ordained -- his band of followers having a well-earned reputation for flooding polls and forums like these. Read on...

Paul was roundly booed, and Palin, Pawlenty and Huckabee all scored in single digits. Now, I don't disagree with everything Ron Paul has to say, but I would never vote for him and boy, did he ever get destroyed by the GOP base during the 2008 Presidential campaign. Talk about the proverbial ship without a rudder. This wasn't some online poll that got freeped, this was taken in person at the GOP's biggest annual event. TPM caught another interesting stat from the poll.

Only 2,395 straw poll votes were cast by what organizers said was 10,000 attendees at this year's CPAC.

Heather already wrote a great post on this, but I wanted to add a little more. I just love conservatives because they find new words to describe the same old shit that has caused the country into a complete meltdown.

Their latest one is called Constitutional Conservatism. Digby says that Wolf Blitzer proclaimed it's a new day for conservatives.

A Constitutional conservatism unites all conservatives through the natural fusion provided by American principles. It reminds economic conservatives that morality is essential to limited government, social conservatives that unlimited government is a threat to moral self-government, and national security conservatives that energetic but responsible government is the key to America’s safety and leadership role in the world. A Constitutional conservatism based on first principles provides the framework for a consistent and meaningful policy agenda.

• It applies the principle of limited government based on the
  rule of law to every proposal.
• It honors the central place of individual liberty in American
  politics and life.
• It encourages free enterprise, the individual entrepreneur, and
  economic reforms grounded in market solutions.
• It supports America’s national interest in advancing freedom
  and opposing tyranny in the world and prudently considers what we can and should do to that
  end.
• It informs conservatism’s firm defense of family, neighborhood,
  community, and faith.

If we are to succeed in the critical political and policy battles ahead, we must be certain of our purpose.

We must begin by retaking and resolutely defending the high ground of America’s founding principles.

February 17, 2010 Edwin Meese, former U.S. Attorney General under President Reagan

Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America

Edwin Feulner, Jr., president of the Heritage Foundation

Lee Edwards, Distinguished Fellow in Conservative Thought at the Heritage Foundation, was present at the Sharon Statement signing.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council

Becky Norton Dunlop, president of the Council for National Policy

Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center

Alfred Regnery, publisher of the American Spectator

David Keene, president of the American Conservative Union

David McIntosh, co-founder of the Federalist Society

T. Kenneth Cribb, former domestic policy adviser to President Reagan

Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform

William Wilson, President, Americans for Limited Government

Elaine Donnelly, Center for Military Readiness

Richard Viguerie, Chairman, ConservativeHQ.com

Kenneth Blackwell, Coalition for a Conservative Majority

Colin Hanna, President, Let Freedom Ring

Kathryn J. Lopez, National Review

I wonder how many liberals will be signing on with Grover Norquist?
Anyway, it's more of the same bullshit. Didn't Karl Rove help George Bush to create the "Compassionate Conservative?" That was a load of crap too.

In fact, these conservatives are as "constitutional" as they are "compassionate." Which is to say: Not really at all. The giveaway this time around is their complaints that we "Mirandized" the Underwear Bomber and gave him "rights under our Constitution," as though those were only available to U.S. citizens. Except that the Constitution itself is very clear that we give those rights to everyone, citizen or not, under our jurisdiction. You'd think "constitutional conservatives" would be all over that.

We remember how bogus "Compassionate Conservativism" was. Source Watch:

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Lil' Luke told Andrea Mitchell that Mike Pence and Gov. Daniels had a great opportunity to get into the Senate election race now since Bayh just screwed the Democratic Party and decided to not run anymore. Lil' Luke was very excited about this report because it turned a bad news day into one of great excitement, but obviously he got horrible information from his village informants.

See, the problem is that there isn't enough time for Pence or Daniels to gather all the signatures needed to file as a candidate.

Howie Klein writes:

The GOP is stuck with Coats because it's too late for Pence or Daniels to file. But because Coats and Bayh did file, the state Democratic Party gets to pick a Bayh replacement. Early speculation is that Ellsworth can have it if he wants it and if he doesn't, it'll go to Evansville Mayor Jonathan Weinzapfel or ex-Rep Tim Roemer, Ambassador to India. It has now been confirmed that Harold Ford hasn't flown around Indiana in a helicopter or filed to pay taxes there.

Mike Pence came out with a statement that he isn't running. The Village loves these types of stories much more than actually informing Americans about important legislation. What the heck is Lil' Luke talking about?

As we've been witnessing, the democratic process is broken in America and movement conservatism has corrupted our ability to govern. In any party there usually are different factions within that party. Some might be more moderate than others, but when a party wins a mandate in a general election they are usually allowed to govern.

That doesn't apply when Republicans are out of power. Yes, we have terrible politicians manning the Democratic Congress, but it's almost unprecedented when one party just votes no, so that even if you have a strong majority in the Senate, one Senator from the other side has the power to stop all legislation. So even if you're in a huge minority, the filibuster can sink legislation or hold up personal appointments every time.

The media are feckless and ineffective. They love the fight game and are more interested in ratings and clashing personalities than they are in actually reporting the news. So they allow a minority party that was soundly trounced in two elections (2006,2008) to maintain their defiance to the American people. And then they blame it on the party differences within the Democratic Party.

And we can't forget the conservative media that drives their narratives to millions of people a day. Fox News and AM talk radio do have a huge influence on the American people and the politicians in Congress, and they should never be ignored.

Our old pal Steve Benen writes a nice lengthy post on this, and his solutions are ideas that the blogosphere has been touting the entire time to break the logjam.

* Start using the phrase "up-or-down vote" all the time.

* Take advantage of every opportunity. Using reconciliation as much as humanly possible should be a no-brainer. The "nuclear option" should be put on the table, too. Endorse Harkin/Shaheen. Scour the rules and procedural minutiae and figure out if Republicans who want to filibuster can't be forced to literally do so. Search for GOP statesmen -- Lugar? -- and ask if they're really willing to destroy the workings of the United States Senate.

* Go on the offensive. Organize rallies in Maine and explain that Olympia Snowe, by endorsing her party's obstructionism, is single-handedly responsible for the fact that Congress can't function, and it's within her power to put things right and let key bills get up-or-down votes.

* Give voters who elected Democrats something to be excited about. Voters will be impressed with accomplishments, so maybe it'd be wise to give them some. Dems can start by passing the damn health care reform package.

It's not too late. Finish health care. Pass a jobs bill. Go after irresponsible banks. Bring some safeguards to Wall Street. Fix student loans. Pass an energy bill. Repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." This not a fanciful wish-list; it's all entirely feasible.

Digby posts an idea from one of here commenters:

A reader writes in to Talking Points Memo with this observation:

Why do you think Congressional Democrats have had such a hard time dealing with Republican obstructionism? It's been apparent for months that Republicans are unwilling to compromise on legislative initiatives, unless by compromise you mean that they will allow Democrats to agree with their proposals. In such an environment, it is pointless for Democratic lawmakers to ask themselves whether there is a way they can craft legislation so that some Republicans will be willing to vote for their proposal - there is simply no provision that Democrats can add or remove from a bill that will make Republicans want to vote for a Democratic proposal. And yet we keep seeing efforts - like the Baucus jobs bill - in which leading Democrats tinker with or even gut their own proposals in a fruitless effort to get Republicans to sign on to the legislation.

If Democrats in Congress behaved like the Republicans have after being trounced for the last four years, the media and the Village would be screaming bloody murder at them. The Washington Post led by David Broder would be lashing out every day: 'How dare they be such obstructionists," Broder would say, and all of his colleagues would follow suit.

And like clockwork, the Dems would be afraid of a backlash from voters and would once again pass legislation like Medicare Part D, the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and the bankruptcy bill, to name a few.

They must pass health care to get the ball rolling on their side. You want a commission? I got one. They should put together a Procedure Commission to investigate every nook and cranny that is available to them to pass legislation.

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Sen. Lindsey Graham isn't willing give Senate Republicans all of the blame for their record number of filibusters in the 110th Congress. Graham implied that Majority Leader Harry Reid deserved some of the blame by allowing so many bills and refusing Republican amendments.

When asked about the GOP's use of the filibuster, Graham said, "Harry Reid put more bills in -- into the hopper and filled up the tree, shedding out Republican amendments [more] than anybody I know of but we're all in this together."

The senior Senator from South Carolina quickly changed the subject to national security. "I will meet the president more than halfway and help him close Guantanamo Bay, only if he creates a legal system to make us safe and keep this enemy off the battlefield in a transparent way living within our values," Graham told Fox News' Chris Wallace Sunday.

"So I think we need to stop all this fighting among ourselves and direct our fight toward our enemies," concluded Graham.

Republicans used the filibuster 112 times in the 110th Congress. The filibuster was used 54 times in the 109th Congress.

This is good news, because the Baucus-Grassley version was a $80 billion bipartisan boondoggle that was packed with tax breaks and did very little that would actually, you know, create jobs:

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) announced Thursday that his chamber would move quickly to pass four popular provisions aimed at creating jobs, potentially with the bipartisan backing that has proven elusive in recent months.

The provisions were plucked from a broader package of business incentives and unemployment aid negotiated by Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and his GOP counterpart, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (Iowa). But instead of advancing the bigger bill, Reid announced that he would break it into two parts, bringing the jobs-related incentives to a vote on Feb. 22. The remaining measures would move later as a separate bill.

"We feel that the American people need a message," Reid told reporters Thursday. "The message that they need is that we're doing something about jobs."

All the fast-tracked provisions have bipartisan support, but GOP senators were caught off-guard by Reid's bifurcated strategy, announced just as Republicans were releasing statements in praise of the larger bill. Senior Democratic aides said Reid made the move to quell squabbling among Democrats about the contents of the larger bill amid rising criticism that the legislation included too many special-interest perks.

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John Brennan, who isn't beloved by the left has actually been speaking up for the administration quite forcefully against the Republican bedwetter attacks on the way Obama is handling our national security. For conservatives, that's a little too much for them to handle.

mcjoan writes about the always pathetic Kit Bond, who is now calling for Brennan to be fired because they aren't used to being called terrorist enablers.

Republicans are back to their usual election year trick of fear-mongering, attacking--of all people--John Brennan, the former Bush director of the National Counterterrorism Center and current counter-terror chief. Kit Bond has called for him to step down, primary because Brennan has been taken the lead in fighting against Republicans attempts to protray Obama as weak on national security. The White House is on the offense...read on

Chris Wallace then dutifully did his part as a GOP shill to help embrace conservative criticisms of the president by feigning outrage over what Brennan had to say to his pals yesterday on Fox's Happening Now with Jane Skinner:

Wallace: Well, I don’t know if there’s a precedent or not, but it really is more a matter of the kinds of things Brennan has said. He went on one of the Sunday talk shows – not Fox News Sunday – last week, and really went after the Republicans. And then he had an article in USA Today on Tuesday, in which – and I don’t have it in front of me – he basically said, and this is pretty close to a quote, that the politically motivated criticism of opponents served the purposes of Al Qaeda.

That gets awfully, ah – and the Republicans certainly were offended, and I think there’s a question as to whether or not that really crosses a line, the idea – I mean, you can agree or disagree on the way that Abdulmutallab was handled, or the decision to try the co-conspirators, the alleged co-conspirators in 9/11 in downtown New York, but for the top counterterrorism advisor for the president in the White House to be saying that criticism of those policies serves the purposes of Al Qaeda, ah, it kind of crosses a line.

And you know, we’ve seen this crossed before. We saw the Bush administration do it after 9/11. But to somehow equate political criticism, or policy criticism, with lack of patriotism really doesn’t do much to help the debate.

Wallace does admit that Republicans used this tactic immediately after 9/11, but now that the shoe is on the other foot, it's totally unacceptable for him.

George Bush and Darth Cheney attacked our patriotism because they wanted to invade a country that didn't attack us and lied in the process of selling the Iraq war to the American people. Then they made sure that anyone who disagreed with them was labeled either a traitor, anti-American or simply soft on terrorism.

It's kind of funny watching their heads spin in shock like Linda Blair after being played by Brennan, who played by their own rules to do so.

And as usual, Fox News gets involved in an all-out smear campaign against Brennan.

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Sean Hannity and Tim Pawlenty slam the bipartisan jobs bill that the AP also criticized for not creating very many jobs, but of course neither Hannity or Pawlenty like the fact that Harry Reid is now backing away from that bill.

But instead of advancing the bigger bill, Reid announced that he would break it into two parts, bringing the jobs-related incentives to a vote on Feb. 22. The remaining measures would move later as a separate bill.

"We feel that the American people need a message," Reid told reporters Thursday. "The message that they need is that we're doing something about jobs."

All the fast-tracked provisions have bipartisan support, but GOP senators were caught off-guard by Reid's bifurcated strategy, announced just as Republicans were releasing statements in praise of the larger bill. Senior Democratic aides said Reid made the move to quell squabbling among Democrats about the contents of the larger bill amid rising criticism that the legislation included too many special-interest perks.

Pawlenty pretends that the GOP cares one iota about job creation when their party has shown themselves to react to nothing other than placating their big money donors and making sure we drive down wages in America until all of us are making the same wage as the burger flipper at a fast food chain or less. His solution to get people back to work, "broad based tax cuts" and cutting the payroll tax.

We'll see what actually comes out of this bill in the days to come, but I don't count on Pawlenty and his ilk to be honest brokers in the debate on how to fix this. Here's Pawlenty's list of what we should be doing.

Extending the Bush tax cuts

Cutting capital gains

Cutting marginal income tax rates

Cutting the employee payroll tax

How about doing something about outsourcing and our trade laws Mr. Pawlenty? I'm all for lowering taxes on most working Americans and the poor and what's left of the middle class. Somehow when Republicans are running the show, that's never what happens though. The ones who reap the benefits of the tax cuts are always the highest earners. I hope Harry Reid has got the sense to quit repeating their mistakes and thinking trickle down economics works.

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Here's your potential bipartisan cooperation, Mr. President. John Boehner's still claiming that the "Democrat" stimulus bill didn't work, even though (as Media Matters noted) he actually admitted back in June that the bill would create some "much needed jobs" in Ohio. And he's not too hip on the potentially upcoming "jobs bill" either, since he apparently just doesn't like the word "stimulus" if it means the Democrats get to take credit for anything like stimulating the economy or, in other words, creating jobs. Crying Boehner is apparently more worried about playing politics than if we get anything coming close to our economy recovering.

And Boehner is worried that if they meet with the President, he's potentially going to be walking into a "trap" or a "political event" and claims he wants a "real conversation" about how to "make our current system work better". Yeah, right. The only things the GOP cares about is what they can make political hay out of, what works for their campaign donors and saying no to anything the Democrats want to get passed.

One of Boehner's questions is whether the lobbyists are going to be invited to the summit. I think that's a really good question and I'd like to know if he means just the ones lining the ConservaDems' pockets, or the Republicans on his side of the aisle as well? I say, bring them all in if it means he and his cohorts can't use it as an excuse not to show up. Somehow, I doubt Boehner actually wants something besides artificial sunshine shown on him or his buddies in the GOP.

And then following Boehner on Greta's show we have Eric "I didn't realize my wife made all of that money from the TARP program" Cantor doing GOP redux that we've been listening to for the last year from these clowns. If the President thinks shaming them again as he did at their retreat is going to make any difference, he's seriously deluding himself. If he gets the better of them, the press will never put it on the proper context just as they have the thumping he just gave them on why all of their ideas are completely wrong or don't exist.

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