“Sean, I’m happy for Christine O’Donnell
and I’mma let you finish, but Mike Castle
had one of the best campaigns of all time!”
Posted on 09/16/2010 7:33:42 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Is the Republican establishment losing it?
Is the party leadership capable of uniting a governing coalition as Richard Nixon did before Watergate and Ronald Reagan resurrected in the 1980s?
Observing the hysteria and nastiness of Karl Rove and the GOP establishment at the stunning triumph of Tea Party Princess Christine O’Donnell, the answer is no.
This party is not ready to rule.
Consider. In its grand strategy to recapture a Senate that George W. Bush and Rove lost in 2006, the GOP Senate leadership endorsed all its own caucus members for re-election, if they chose to run, then picked out all its favorite candidates for the open and Democratic seats.
Conservatives and tea party activists, however, had other ideas. They began to pick their own candidates. And, again and again, the Senate’s chosen were rejected in favor of tea party challengers who had the endorsement of Sarah Palin or South Carolina’s Jim DeMint.
Arlen Specter was rejected by the Pennsylvania GOP and left the party. Rand Paul routed Sen. Mitch McConnell’s man in Kentucky. Charlie Crist was challenged by Marco Rubio in Florida. Crist, too, departed. Sen. Bob Bennett was denied renomination in Utah. Sen. Lisa Murkowski lost her primary in Alaska to a little-known fellow named Joe Miller.
But Delaware was the stunner. Rep. Mike Castle, a former two-term governor who had been winning elections for 40 years, was a certain victor in November.
Challenger O’Donnell, however, ended all that.
Yet, though her conservative credentials are far superior to those of Castle, O’Donnell was made the object of a wilding attack by National Review and The Weekly Standard, Charles Krauthammer, who lashed out at Palin and DeMint for “irresponsbility,” and Rove, who on Sean Hannity’s show went postal as soon as the returns came in.
Now, on paper, O’Donnell is a far tougher sell in Delaware than is Castle. But her defeat is not certain. Not in this volatile year.
And what is the justification for the savagery of the attacks on her, from her own?
What has this woman done? Did she vote for Sonia Sotomayor or Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court like Lindsey Graham? Did she support the Obama stimulus like Olympia Snow and Susan Collins? What did she do to deserve the trashing?
The answer is not distant.
To the Republican establishment, tea party people are field hands. Their labors are to be recognized and rewarded, but they are to stay off the porch and not presume to sit at the master’s table.
And what O’Donnell did, with her amazing victory, is to imperil that establishment’s return to power. That is why these Republicans went ballistic.
O’Donnell’s conservative convictions and Castle’s social liberalism mean nothing to them. They are about power and all that goes with it.
And that raises a question too long put off.
What is the Republican establishment going to do, what are the neoconservatives going to do, if returned to power?
Are not these the same people who assisted George W. Bush in stampeding the nation into an unnecessary war that got 4,400 Americans killed to strip Saddam Hussein of weapons he did not have?
Are these not the same people who misled or deceived us about Iraq’s role in 9/11?
Are these Republican scribes and senators not the same folks who went all-out for NAFTA and GATT and the WTO and MFN and PNTR for China, those brilliant trade deals that gave us $5 trillion in trade deficits, wiped out 6 million manufacturing jobs and 50,000 factories in one decade, and put us into permanent debt to China?
Are these not some of the same folks who backed the Bush-McCain amnesty and did nothing for 20 years, as millions of illegals invaded America? Now that all America is on fire, they too want to “build the dang fence.”
Are not the National Review and Weekly Standard scribblers and their neocon comrades of the mainstream media not now drumming up another war for Americans to fight, against Iran?
Are these not the same folks who went along with No Child Left Behind and the biggest run-up in social spending since Great Society days?
Beltway Republicans say they have learned their lesson. But the tea party folks and conservatives who vaulted O’Donnell to victory are saying: You had your chance. Now, move aside for new leaders.
Why is the tea party wrong — and the establishment right?
The first tea party rebellion was the Barry Goldwater movement. When it triumphed at the Cow Palace, Nelson Rockefeller denounced the movement as riddled with radicals, baited the Goldwater people at the convention and refused to endorse the nominee.
A decade later, Vice President Rockefeller got his payback, when conservatives demanded that President Ford drop him off the ticket as the price of renomination. Ford agreed.
In its contemptuous response to O’Donnell’s victory, the GOP establishment of today looked like nothing so much as the Rockefeller Republican establishment of yesteryear. Its time is coming, too.
I agree Pat needs to drop the whole JOooOs thing, but I didn’t see any of that here.
another skunk at the picnic.
anyone being a gun...?
“Neocon” is code for Joooos.
Pat nails it. Field hands. Ha!
No more RINOs. No more corporate bailout.
Re-found America before we go the way of the USSR.
Almost identical to Malkin’s summary.
Republicans are toast.
Maybe, but Pat’s never used code words - he’s always said jews when he meant jews.
The elites (both parties) are in retreat, thanks to TEA Party, Palin and DeMint.
Pat is worse than a stopped clock. He’s more like a stopped calendar...right about 30 times a year. This is one of those times.
Bwahahahahhahaha !!!
Rove, ya bucket mouthed, bit*ch
Yes and it was Nelson Rockefeller who said that they had to destroy Goldwater as a member of the human race.
I swear that I recall a close-range photo of Rockefeller at the podium giving the Goldwater delegates the finger. As I recall Rockefeller wanted a plank that essentially labeled Goldwater a KKK member. The Goldwater delegates raised so much hell Nelson lost his temper and, I believe, gave up trying to speak.
This article is very accurate historically. RINOs are frequently disloyal whereas conservatives rarely are. Rockefeller and Scranton were the antecedents of Rove and Castle. (Krauthammer has never been a conservative and was a speech writer for Walter Mondale. I don’t give a rip about his prognostications. He probably penned the “I will raise taxes” speech for Mondale at the 1984 Dem Convention that managed to win Minnesota (by a fraction of 1% and 2000 votes), while losing the other 49 states in the most massive electoral vote landslide in the last 75 years.)
These people are rapidly becoming irrelevant. Palin and the Tea Party are doing to them what Reagan was never able to accomplish with the Establsihment of his day, that is: destroying them root and branch. That is why I stand in awe of her. She is orchestrating a political feat that even the mighty Gipper failed toaccomplish. (That is no knock on him; She is simply building on his legacy, and he no doubt is cheering her on)
It is a sight to see.
Problem here is all the country club republicans that will get toasted have the money and the connections to sabotage Conservatism so that the elite can maintain power.
We can’t just beat them. We have to destroy them. And as we saw today with Obama and Biden consoling Castle, I have a feeling that our candidates are about to be bushwhacked by both left and lefter in exchange for some givebacks.
The hit job on O’Donnell would impress most crime families.
Hey Pat!
F*&% You!
A sight to see, indeed.
This party is not ready to rule.
Excuse me? Just what the hell is that? Ready to “rule”? Come on Pat, we’re looking for good government and politicians who will govern with the interests of the American people at heart, not some mirror image of what passes for leadership now.
Mark Levin spent a lot of time yesterday saying virtually the same thing...that real Reaganites would never stab their own party people in the back like Rove did Tuesday night, before O'Donnell had even given her victory speech.
Pat Buchanan has plenty of faults but you're right on his historical accuracy in this piece. He was there.
I believe this is a necessary step, to purge Washington of the career politicians. It’s not necessarily the end game, but a transition, I certainly hope that if elected, these tea party candidates won’t get drunk with the power, if so, we’ll vote them out just as sure as the others.
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