Kent Bush
Posted on 06/30/2014 7:46:29 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Do you know why everyone loves the holidays?
It’s because we all have that one wacky uncle that does enough stupid stuff during each family get together to give the rest of us funny inside jokes that last all year. If you don’t know who that is in your family, it’s probably you.
In the GOP, it is the tea party. This fringe group has always clung to the edges of the Grand Old Party. Thanks to Barack Obama — ostensibly because of his policies and not his pigmentation — the group was able to cohere into a politically relevant force. It didn’t hurt that a couple of billionaires paid the tab for the party to put a political magnifying glass on the group.
Even tea party members have expressed disappointment that their biggest successes have been in getting Democrats elected who would have lost to more moderate Republicans in general elections. The far right fringe has gained far more momentum in defeating other Republicans than Democrats.
That’s something that Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) and his supporters noticed. They used the rules of the game to knock off a tea party candidate in a runoff. Chris McDaniel, who was a right-wing talk-show host who made some pretty incendiary comments on the air, and has since spoken to the Sons of Confederate Veterans groups, had beaten the six-term incumbent in the primary although he didn’t get the necessary 50 percent to avoid a runoff.
Cochran turned to an unlikely group to pull off the comeback. His campaign turned to black Democrats and showed them McDaniel’s questionable background and touted his own record in the Senate.
Thanks to the rules in Mississippi, those Democrats were able to vote for Cochran and sent McDaniel packing. Great minds like McDaniel and Sarah Palin cried foul.
Palin cited “voting irregularities” in the totals. I guess that is true if you find people legally voting against a candidate they don’t like irregular.
After a couple of weeks of intense campaigning in areas with large constituencies of black Democrats, Cochran turned the tide just far enough to give himself a victory over McDaniel and a chance to win a seventh term in the Senate.
The reaction from the losing team in this race, which included Palin and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and his Senate Conservatives Fund, has been pretty funny. The same team also lost in Oklahoma as Rep. James Lankford beat SCF-endorsed State House Speaker T.W. Shannon in that Senate primary.
I know it always seems like the AM radio hucksters are about one word from a mental break, even though most are generating faux outrage to keep their listeners buying tickets to the circus. But Glenn Beck lost it when he realized Cochran had outflanked McDaniel. During a break in his show, Beck grabbed his assault style rifle and fired a shot off of his porch. I’m never comfortable with anyone who is “so mad I just have to fire a gun,” but Beck reassured his Instagram followers that he wasn’t an unhinged, emotionally compromised blowhard.
“Stress release on the ranch. That’s how we do it out west!” Beck said with his best lispy tough guy voice.
I can’t imagine a more mature and appropriate way to handle stress. I guess we are lucky he works from a ranch and not in an office building.
This has been the problem with the tea party since they formed into a voting faction in 2010. They are politically intransigent and, because of that, they become cannibals within their own home party. They never consider the quality or electability of the people they use to destroy “establishment” Republicans, and end up handing almost unwinnable seats to Democrats. Palin has said that the Mississippi Senate race has her considering leaving the Republicans for a third party.
The ironic part of that threat is that without the cover of the “R” behind their names, tea party candidates wouldn’t have a chance. The Republicans would love it if Palin and Cruz took their toys and went home. They would have far more luck if the enemy wasn’t in their own convention.
Normally, eight years with a president of one party makes the opposing party’s job of capturing the White House easier. But if the Republicans keep killing each other with friendly fire, the Democrats could end up with another winner in 2016.
*******
Kent Bush is the publisher of the Butler County (Kansas) Times Gazette and can be reached at kbush@butlercountytimesgazette.com
Kent who?
Try to live without us. Just try. I dare you.
Kent Bush
He looks a little bit like a friend of mine.
“Thanks to the rules in Mississippi, those Democrats were able to vote for Cochran”
One of the problems is you can’t vote in both primaries as a lot of Blacks did. Also you are no allowed to buy votes.
Another Bush?
Pleeze, Mommy - make the bad men go away!
Before the Tea Party was born in 2009, the Senate has 60 Democratic votes and the House has a Pelosi super majority. Yep, the GOP sure was doing an incredible job before the Tea Party came along.
Then after the base won the most decisive one-sided election year in modern history in 2010, the ‘smart’ party people retook control of the party and laid an egg in 2012 at every level. GOPe Senate loses all over the country, and dreadful presidential campaign, and a lackluster House election year.
Yep...those are the go-to guys for winning elections.
What is a Kent Bush, and more to the point, how does one go about pruning it?
Not quite correct, it should read "But if the GOP keeps killing Conservatives with hostile fire there won't be a distinction between them and the Democrats even if they win in 2016."
Here’s another Bush to stay out of.
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