Gop

Workers from City Sign Services install a sign on South Broad Street to welcome the Republican National Convention to the city.

ALASKA GOV. Sarah Palin should have no trouble being President if McCain can't fulfill his term. There are so many Republicans that could come to her aid with advice, and they have recent experience. For example, there's George W., Cheney, Rumsfeld, Scooter Libby, Karl Rove, to mention a few. So what's the problem? Mayer Krain Philadelphia

A LOOK AT TUESDAY'S highlights from the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla. 2 p.m. * RNC Chairman Reince Priebus * Roll call of the states to nominate presidential and vice-presidential candidates. 7 p.m. * House Speaker John Boehner * Former Pennsylvania U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum 8 p.m. * Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker 9 p.m. * South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley 10 p.m. * Ann Romney * Keynote address from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie Follow @CloutCon on Twitter for more.

On Election Day, it seemed so easy. The Republican Party, out of power for 28 years in Winslow Township, swept to victory in three of four Township Committee races to forge a 6-3 advantage on the nine-member body. Euphoria was the GOP order of the day. But now, a bitter party battle threatens to engulf the Republicans as township officials prepare for tonight's annual reorganization, where the spoils of an election victory are doled out in jobs and appointments. The fight - which is over appointments but has its roots in a personal feud between Mayor Norman F. Tomasello and Committeeman James Powell - splits the Republican camp down the middle, leaving the newly formed Township Committee with an oddly fractured 3-3-3 arrangement.

SO, IF Hollywood is all "pinko commie leftists," what does that make Bruce Willis, Bo Derek, Ray Romano, Patricia Heaton, Britney Spears, Gene Simmons, the late Johnny Ramone, et al? They're Republican. Many country artists are GOP. Even former actors turned governors - Reagan and Schwarzenegger were/are Republican. Don't think all entertainers are liberal. I have discussions with conservatives who don't resort to name-calling. The venomous tone just feeds into stereotypes that all Republicans are stodgy and incapable of accepting other points of view.

TRENTON - Republicans in the New Jersey Assembly elected a new leader Tuesday. Assemblyman Jon Bramnick of Union County succeeds Alex DeCroce, who died of an apparent heart attack last week at the end of a long day of voting at the Statehouse. DeCroce had held the top spot since 2003. Bramnick, first elected to the Assembly in 2003, has served as the GOP conference leader since 2009, and was the minority whip before that. Assemblyman Dave Rible of Monmouth County was elevated to conference leader.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, the rumors of the death of the Republican Party are greatly exaggerated. Why? One need only look to the past, present, and future to find the answers: The past: The Republican Party is rightly tagged the Grand Old Party (GOP) because it is remarkably resilient. After Franklin D. Roosevelt scored a stunning reelection victory in 1936, the GOP was left with 17 senators and 89 House members. But the party bounced back. In 1946, it won control of the Senate, and in 1953, it seized control of the House.

WHY DO Republicans continue to vote Republican? Over the last 80 years, they were against Social Security, Medicare and now health care for all. Any program that helps working people, they are against. If President Obama said he would continue tax breaks for the rich, the GOP would back him 100 percent. If the Republicans know this, why do they vote Republican? Over the years, when Republicans are asked why they voted against a bill that helps working people, their famous line is, "We voted against the bill because it does not do enough for the people.

The Republican National Committee's selection of Philadelphia yesterday as host for the 2000 convention, said Jan Larimer, made everyone feel "all real good and warm and fuzzy inside. " Maybe it was the 6-foot-long cheesesteak that Mayor Rendell presented to the Republicans. Or maybe it was the $20 million line of credit guaranteeing the GOP will get what the city has promised in cold cash and services. Whatever caused that warm feeling, Larimer, who chaired the committee that recommended Philadelphia, called the city's $50 million package "unbelievable.

By the tone of House Speaker Jim Wright's session-opening speech to his colleagues last week, one would expect the 101st Congress to be bathed in sweetness and light. "Working together" with Republicans was the basic theme of the House's top Democrat, who talked about the virtues of cooperation and bipartisanship in a murmur as thick as Texas molasses on a wintry morn. "The minority has an important and constructive role to play in the legislative process," Wright said, "and I am eager to encourage that role.

One of the most bitter and longest-running civil wars in Philadelphia politics came to an end this month, and almost nobody noticed. That's the price of irrelevance, which is perhaps the most charitable adjective one can use to describe the state of Philadelphia's Republican City Committee, a barely functioning party apparatus that often struggles to field credible candidates for offices big and small. For four years, the city's GOP has been riven into two blocs: an old guard, largely content to hold on to its share of the city's dwindling patronage jobs, and a cast of relative newcomers disgusted by the party's stagnation and insignificance.

WASHINGTON - The days of fixed-rate student loans could be coming to a close, with House Republicans on Thursday advancing a proposal that would link rates to financial markets. The GOP-led House Education and the Workforce Committee sent to the full House a bill that would offer some students a better deal at first. Democratic critics warned that graduates would face steadily climbing rates and costs over the long haul if the markets change. "Our families deserve better than this bait and switch," said Rep. George Miller of California, the senior Democrat on the committee, who led the opposition.

When it comes to presidential elections in Pennsylvania, Republicans are like Tantalus, the figure of Greek mythology. The man whose name lives on in the word tantalize was doomed to stand in a pool of water that he could never drink, while grabbing for fruit from a tree he could never reach - for eternity. The Keystone State always looks winnable for Republicans, on paper, but in each of the last six presidential elections, it has slipped away. It's a strategic mirage. In 1988, George H.W. Bush cracked the code, clawing his way to 50 percent of the vote in the Philadelphia media market, home to up to 42 percent of votes cast statewide.

The Montgomery County Republican Party is looking to the courts to force Michael Paston, acting director of voter services, out of office. The GOP filed a lawsuit Tuesday alleging that Commissioners Josh Shapiro and Leslie S. Richards improperly appointed Paston and that he has been serving "unlawfully" since April 18. Shapiro dismissed the lawsuit as "laughable. It's wrong on the facts and wrong on the law. " The suit appears to conflate the positions of "acting director" and "chief clerk" of Voter Services, implying that Paston is in both roles and thus must be a permanent employee approved by the Salary Board.

Vito Canuso, the chairman of the city's Republican Party for close to 20 years, is giving up the post, one of several signs that the party is healing a rift between its old-line leadership and a faction of younger, more aggressive members. Canuso, 66, a lawyer first elected in 1995, announced his intention to resign Tuesday at the party's spring fund-raiser. His replacement - subject to approval from ward leaders - will be State Rep. John J. Taylor, 58, the sole Republican still representing a Philadelphia district in the state House.

WASHINGTON - Leading conservatives engaged in a bitter public fight Monday over the costs of overhauling the nation's immigration system, exposing a rift within the Republican Party days before the Senate is set to begin debating a comprehensive reform proposal. The Heritage Foundation, led by former GOP Sen. Jim DeMint, released a study Monday that estimated that a bipartisan immigration proposal being considered in the Senate would cost U.S. taxpayers $6.3 trillion in coming decades, mostly because of health-care and social service costs for 11 million illegal immigrants who could become citizens.

WASHINGTON - Republican lawmakers, who have spent months seeking to tie President Obama to last year's deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, are increasingly focusing their probe on a new target: former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. The GOP-led investigation of the Sept. 11 assaults that killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three others now centers heavily on the State Department and whether officials there deliberately misled the public about the nature of the assault.

President Obama got roughed up by the pundit class last week. The question is what lessons he draws from the going-over. Here's one he should take: The nation's political conversation has grown stale and many Americans have lost the sense of what he is doing to improve their lives. You can argue that this perception isn't fair. The Affordable Care Act, if it's implemented well, will improve a lot of lives. The economy is adding jobs, not shedding them. The deficit is coming down. Two front-burner initiatives, immigration reform and broader background checks, really do matter.

WASHINGTON - President Obama passed the 100-day mark of his second term facing questions about whether his political capital is already disappearing. Republicans took delight in his discomfort. But they have their own 100-day question to answer: What have they done since November to turn around their fortunes? The president has had a difficult spring. His gun legislation, though it mustered more than 50 votes, was blocked in the Senate. His advisers are more optimistic about immigration reform, but the measure still faces serious obstacles, especially in the House.

PAT TOOMEY, the U.S. senator from Pennsylvania who broke ranks with the GOP and joined with Democrat Joe Manchin in sponsoring a bill demanding universal background checks for gun purchases, had some interesting things to say this week in an interview with journalists from his home state. In a postmortem on the gun bill, which failed to gain the requisite 60 votes needed to overcome a silent filibuster in the Senate, Toomey mused: "In the end, it didn't pass because we're so politicized.