Lauren Saves the GOP

I can be accused of a lot of things, but being a Republican is not one of them, so many of you may be wondering why I'm giving Conservatives advice on how not to be epic failures. But if you think about it, it makes perfect sense. I'm such a bleeding heart that my heart bleeds even for those who pick on my bleeding heart.

Here's the thing: I love being on the side that I consider to be right. However, my joy in getting high and mighty over people is lost when they can't keep their party from embarrassing itself every fifteen seconds. It's just not fun when it's too easy, and you do a much better job of making yourselves look bad, ya know what I mean? Basically, I developed this list to help the Republicans scrape their party back into respectability and get back in the ring, proverbially speaking, so that I can go back to scoffing at your opinions in a fair fight.

1. As I write this, Elisabeth Hasselbeck is on Larry King being the representative for her fledgling party and talking about all the ways that Republicans are currently attending the school of hard knocks. MISTAKE NUMERO UNO. Elisabeth is a little shrill and hyper. Nobody likes shrill and hyper, regardless of the words exiting one's face. This is the main problem with the GOP right now. You are allowing people like Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Miss California USA, Carrie "Sideboob" Prejean, to represent your party. THIS IS BAD. Republicans, you have plenty of cool-headed, smart, articulate, reasonable people with great ideas in your party. And yet you allow all the whackjobs to be your talking heads. Step one to reviving your party is to kick out all of the following people (or at least tell them to stop speaking in public):
- Elisabeth Hasselbeck
- Ann Coulter
- Beauty queens who care about "protecting" marriage but don't seem to bother to protect their purchased boobs from internet stardom
- Rush Limbaugh
- That dick with all the bowties
- Rednecks who are only Republicans because they think people are trying to take their firearms away
- All those fundamentalist ministers and anti-gay rights politicians that are perpetually involved in gay sex scandals
- While we're on the Crazy Christian topic, maybe just kick all of them out too
- Minnesota Congresswoman Michelle Bachman, whose most recent public comment was that she found it "interesting" that both outbreaks of swine flu happened during Democratic presidential administrations. She's not "saying it's a cause, just a coincidence" that it happened "under Jimmy Carter". 1. That's not true. The first outbreak was during Republican Gerald Ford's administration in 1976, and 2. WHAT DOES SWINE FLU BREAKING OUT IN MEXICO HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING. Stop letting her talk. Just stop.

2. Speaking of the gays, I gotta say - I'm not really sure what being a Republican has to do with gay-hating. Someone should explain that to me because I thought you dudes were all about the government staying out of people's bid'ness. Shall we take a moment to examine what happened to Miss California Underage Nudeyshots USA? Yeah, she "spoke up for what she believes in", but look at the backlash. She could have answered that question and still stayed true to her beliefs by saying something about keeping it a states issue or some line of comparable bullshit. Think what you want about gay people, but realize how much your outspokenness against them having equal rights angers and alienates people. You are basically telling 11% of the US population they aren't invited to your grand old party, and that's just the gays alone. You're also alienating all the friends of the gays. I am failing to understand how this is a good business tactic.

3. Speaking of alienation, how do I say this gently? You're kind of, well, complain-y. You guys don't have the greatest track record of being nice to women, black people, hispanics, poor people, really poor people, prettymuch everyone that doesn't make $300,000 or more a year, people without health insurance, single parents, teenage parents, union people, people who want abortions, low hourly wage workers, young people, people with credit cards, non-college graduates, people who aren't married but sometimes have sex, drivers of foreign cars, anyone who isn't a veteran, and a lot of people who are veterans. I guess what I'm saying is... stop being such judgey cows. Perhaps if you didn't bitch about absolutely everyone, ever, more people would like you and check off your box when they register to vote. Hey, it's perfectly ok to "disagree" with lifestyles, just disagree more quietly.

4. You guys gotttaaaa stop with all that no sex before marriage stuff. Thanks to George Bush, more than $1 billion dollars was pumped into Abstinence-only sex education programs in the past decade, which have scientifically been proven time and again to be roughly as effective at preventing teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases as just setting the cash on fire.

5. Let me say this loud and clear: NO ONE IS TRYING TO TAKE AWAY YOUR GUNS. Enough already. You all claim to be "proud Americans", and yet very few of you seem to have a grasp of how your precious constitution works (save for the second amendment). Even if someone (or more accurately, many ones) were trying to take away your guns, it would require nauseating amounts of legislation and supreme court cases, and then 38 of 50 states (3/4!) agreeing to it to pass such an amendment. This is so hard to do that it's only happened 27 times in 230 years or so, and most of them aren't even that important. We still haven't even passed the equal rights amendment that would basically add to the constitution that it's illegal to discriminate against women, which was first introduced in 1923. If the ERA can only get 35 states to agree to that in just a shade under a century, I'm pretty sure your guns are gonna remain safely racked on the back of your pickup for many years to come. There, you can stop having meetings and making obnoxious bumper stickers about it now.

6. I will gladly produce a list of Democrats who are complete and utter liabilities to all that is Democrat. But that's the difference between the left and right. We're willing to throw our own under the bus when they're being douchebags, but you guys will defend your fellow Republican beyond all reason. I have to kind of admire your team spirit, but when Bill O'Reilly is up there tearing apart every move made by Democrats but defending Republicans involved in sex scandal, you kinda have to consider that this might be undermining your credibility just a smidgen. It's ok to tell someone when they're being a jerk. If anything, that's only going to make you more popular with people from all over the political spectrum. Maybe even gay people too! Ok, well, let's not push it.

There are a lot of bright Republicans in the world that have good ideas and are competent, brilliant, wonderful people. Wherever they are (just kidding! wink wink), they need to take the reigns away from the TV reverends and borderline racist bony blonds. I truly believe that there is hope for you yet. I actually agree with you guys on a lot of things, like that we should be strict about immigration laws and be fiscally responsible and have fewer pregnant teenagers. Everybody wins when our teen uteri are not full of baby.

Sometimes I even have Republican moments, like tonight when CNN told me that the government has decided to "forgive" the $7 billion dollar loan we gave to Chrysler and I viscerally shouted a string of expletives that would make a sailor blush while almost punting my beloved Pooh Bear across the room. I got really fired up about it. If we're gonna start going on wild loan forgiveness benders, why not start by scratching a few zeros off my student loans? Those car company twats owe this country WAY more than I do or any other struggling student does. I can assure you my loans are much less than $7 billion dollars, though admittedly, it doesn't always seem like that. My statements have a disconcerting amount of commas. But I digress.

Seriously, President Barry & friends: this whole saving the crappy car companies is bad, BAD news bears. Stop trying to scoop water out of the sinking ship. The good part is that, being a Democrat, I'm very willing to tell my own people that they are dropping the ball. Dropping it HARD and dropping it OFTEN. See how easy it was? Catch on, Republicans - I think you're going to like it.