Are these guys really in charge of the GOP?
Conservative groups are splintering. The Romney campaign has dissolved into backbiting and billing disputes. A “plan B” to avert the fiscal cliff proved to be a colossal embarrassment. A teetotaling Idaho senator has been charged with drunk driving. But the most striking symptom of the GOP’s horrible moment is the party’s inability to get done what virtually everyone here knows is in its political best interest: A hasty surrender.
It’s difficult to find a Republican operative who is willing to say on the record that going over the fiscal cliff next Tuesday is a good idea. Provoking a crisis is bad politics: Republicans are resigned to taking the blame. And it’s bad for their policy agenda: They will likely be cornered into a broader tax hike than the best deal they could get from President Barack Obama today, and with none of the spending cuts that might now be on the table.
And yet, the dominant emotion among most Republicans here is one of sheer resignation.
“It’s a shit show,” one prominent Republican told BuzzFeed of the GOP’s messaging position. “Tax rates are going to go up on everyone, and we’re going to get the blame.”
Blowback
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Republicans caving in on the fiscal cliff, is the ultimate affirmative action for the Libertarian Party.
9 Republican House members lost seats in 2012 because a Libertarian was on the ballot and polled larger than the margin of victory for the Democrat.
Ha! Media types are pushing the line that the Tea Party threatens GOPers in primary battles. That’s only half the problem. The bigger threat comes from the Libertarian Party in the fall of 2014.
ericdondero on December 29, 2012 at 9:18 AM
This is what the political wilderness looks like. When you put all your eggs in one basket (GWB), and then toss that basket off a cliff (Iraq, stock market crash, ‘deficits don’t matter’) the result is an indeterminate amount of time spent blind, groping around the political wilderness in an attempt to find direction. I wished you all good luck in 2008, but it looks like you’ll be there a while longer.
ernesto on December 29, 2012 at 9:25 AM
Nice try. This is YOURS child.
CW on December 29, 2012 at 9:33 AM
What? The current state of the GOP is mine? I’m not talking about the state of the country…I’m talking political wilderness. As a party, the GOP is in a state of the blind leading the blind.
ernesto on December 29, 2012 at 9:47 AM
Do these spineless losers ever look back on what the Founding Fathers accomplished and feel shame? I doubt it.
Naturally Curly on December 29, 2012 at 9:51 AM
my heart breaks for these poor republicans.
sesquipedalian on December 29, 2012 at 9:52 AM
It’s Bush’s fault!
Vince on December 29, 2012 at 9:52 AM
I’m talking about the economy. Youi’re not real bright. Now I am not surprised that you would jump on some criticism of the GOP…not at all…but OWN YOUR SHITE .
You’re the big thinker as usual. You bowl me over with your mental prowess.
CW on December 29, 2012 at 9:54 AM
i just watched as a guy on my fantasy team committed a foul, received a yellow card and then proceeded to score an own goal from the resulting free kick. so i can empathize.
sesquipedalian on December 29, 2012 at 9:55 AM
….aaand you accomplished what, that you are naive?
Vince on December 29, 2012 at 9:56 AM
Oh and I should have added…..you and septic thought the GOP was dead after 2008…and what happened in 2010? So please. Idiots like yourself want to pretend that the GOP winning the house meant nothing….you need to read your government books
again.CW on December 29, 2012 at 9:57 AM
i clearly suck at fantasy football
sesquipedalian on December 29, 2012 at 9:58 AM
I bet you suck
a lotat a lot of things.CW on December 29, 2012 at 9:58 AM
What happened in 2010 was bound to happen. Google: “midterm loss phenomenon”. It happens with a regularity pretty much unseen elsewhere in political science.
ernesto on December 29, 2012 at 10:17 AM
The GOP has to fight for the idea of not raising taxes on anyone or fade away. If the Republicans stand for nothing, if everything is on the table – the two parties have become one. Libertarians are likely to become the answer.
Panther on December 29, 2012 at 10:19 AM
If that’s the case then why not just go over the cliff? At least we get spending cuts tha way.
NoLeftTurn on December 29, 2012 at 10:24 AM
ZOMG… So like the Rs just won in 2010 ’cause people vote like zombies based on a silly poli sci model. I’d like because the Democrats overreached and voted for Obamacare and higher deficits for 1,000.. Alex.
You suck at deep coherent thoughts as well.
Illinidiva on December 29, 2012 at 10:45 AM
As for why the Rs are where they are now.. they gave up in 2009. I think that they thought that they’d lose in a landslide in 2012 because no one thought that economy should still be as weak as it was now or that Barry would singlehandedly pass ideological legislation like Obamacare that everyone despises. If they did, then I’m sure that sure that the last four years would have been spent turning Jindal or Ryan into a credible 2012 nominee. Also, I don’t think that everyone would have been shocked if Romney had lost around Sept. But the world’s awesomest debate takedown happened after that and I think that Rs’ expectations changed after that.
Illinidiva on December 29, 2012 at 10:58 AM
That’s like saying a Tsunami is nothing special because there are high and low tides every day. The result of the 2010 election was an overwhelming landslide. Sixty-three House seats switching sides had not happened in a midterm election since 1938. At the state level the Republicans gained 680 legislative seats, more then 50 greater than the Democrats gained in 1974 (immediately post-Watergate) and the largest majority ever. Don’t pass it off as part of a trend.
Ted Torgerson on December 29, 2012 at 11:04 AM
The problem is that the GOPe leaders don’t belive and has never believed that higher taxes causes economic contraction. They never bought into Reagan economics. One of the first things Bush 41 did as POTUS was raise taxes. His lost in 1992 drove hom to the GOPe that to raise taxes means defeat at the ballot box but it didn’t make them belivers in higher taxes being the cause of economic recessions. The GOPe learned what needed to be said to get elected but they never bought in to it. the GOPe sees every election loss as a sign that they no longer have to say those things and can embrace thier innerliberal
If the GOPe really believed that higher taxes caused economic problems. they would be double dog daring Obama to go over the cliff and then blaming ever bump in unemployment every dip in the stock market, every bad economic report on the dems all while promising to restore bush Tax cuts to the country.
they would be out there today warning about the higher defiects coming with the increased taxes and tax rev dries up and goes underground. They would be saying how the Bush tax cuts brought in almost an extra $trillion in rev every year they have been in effect. How Bush made more taxpayers not more taxes.
The problem is they don’t believe. and why should they? They are taught in Havard and Yale how things “really work” They are taugght that government spending is a plus not a drag on the economy. they are taught how to buy votes and how to sell them. They are taught micro and macro economics by leftist proffessors and they see the “ramifications” of cutting spending as a loss of their employment.
unseen on December 29, 2012 at 11:37 AM
unseen on December 29, 2012 at 11:40 AM