Tuesday Roundup: GOP Losing Business, Literally and Figuratively

Sure, the Republican Party is having problems with many voter blocs — they have consistently angered minorities, the middle class, and even conservative Christians. The Wall Street Journal informs us this morning of what could be the most problematic loss of them all: the business community.

This is bad news for Republicans because the ties they've built with business extend back even beyond the ties they have to social conservatives. I know that may be hard to believe, but facts are facts. As the deficit grows and the GOP continues to abandon any semblance of being fiscally conservative, business leaders are splitting from the party. Interestingly, while the GOP is having trouble hanging on to the socially conservative vote because they've been so bad at everything, the business community is edging away from the GOP because they aren't nearly as socially conservative as what the GOP views as its base and preaches as its philosophy. Irony!

And the GOP continues to be at odds with itself, on the national level. President Bush has earned the ire of many senators by ignoring their recommendations on judicial nominees and rushing ahead in an effort to stack federal benches with Republicans before he is term-limited out. This is going to create problems.

Other nominees are having problems on the other side of the aisle. Bush's pick for an FEC slot, Hans von Spakovsky, is disliked in the Senate, and many groups are urging Harry Reid to consider Spakovsky separately from other FEC nominees, which would be outside of tradition but not at all unheard of.

In other judicial problems for Bush, federal judges keep chipping away at the new expanses of executive power he's arranged for himself. In recent weeks, both National Security Letters and FISA search warrants have been declared unconstitutional. An editorial from the Washington Post wonders if, assuming those judgments went too far, did they not at least identify serious problems within the system?

Some fundraising numbers are starting to come out, and Obama is claiming $20 million in 3Q winnings. Other definitive totals among frontrunners aren't out yet, but consider this — Obama added 93,000 new donors in the last quarter, pushing his donor totals over 350,000. Other Democratic candidates are also posting really high numbers of individual donors and small-dollar donors. If this doesn't count as a groundswell of grassroots support and mobilization among Democrats, I don't know what does.

Finally today: if you were wondering or worried about how the border fence would affect the environment in and around where it is built, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff says you have nothing to worry about. In fact, he asserts that the fence will be good for the environment. And no, I'm not kidding.