Posted on 09/18/2010 3:12:53 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Following her tea party-fueled victory in Delaware’s GOP senate primary this past week, Christine O’Donnell has soared to national prominence faster than you can say “Sarah Palin.” In fact, many are likening O’Donnell to the mama grizzly herself.
Let us count the ways:
• A folksy style that laughs off her party’s hierarchy. (We’re talking about you, Karl Rove). • A working class background to be proud of. (She may not be able to gut a moose, but she probably changes the oil in her car.) • A certain kind of femininity attractive to both men and women. (In a Daily Beast column headlined “Watch Your Back, Sarah,” Bloomberg’s Margaret Carlson warns Palin “not to be upstaged by the new It Girl on the block.”) • A stick-to-her-guns attitude. (Addressing the conservative Values Voter Summit in Washington Friday, O’Donnell resuscitated the “death panel” charge against health care reform.) • A meteoric rise in media attention. (She’ll be on two of the most prominent Sunday TV talk shows.) • And a tendency to colorful rhetorical flourishes like, “I can see Pennsylvania from Delaware.” (OK, we made that up.)
Liberals and Democrats are dredging up O’Donnell’s checkered past – not hard to do, since establishment Republicans already had done that in promoting US Rep. Mike Castle for the senate post. One who is not doing that is Chris Coons, O’Donnell’s Democratic opponent in the race.
“I don't think [voters are] particularly interested in statements that either of us made 20 or 30 years ago,” he said at a candidates’ forum Thursday. (Probably just as well. As a college student, Coons wrote an article titled “Chris Coons: The Making of a Bearded Marxist.”)
“I thank you for that gentlemanly approach,” O’Donnell replied...(continued)
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
I agree totally that there is a double standard. I think it is mostly to do with politics though. If O’Donnell were running as a left-wing Democrat, the mainstream media would be totally supportive of her, regardless of “class”. The reason is just that the liberals control the media, and they fight to win. They fight like junkyard dogs.
“Much of the patronizing derision and scorn heaped on people like Christine O’Donnell have very little to do with their substantive views – since when did right-wing extremism place one beyond the pale? – and much more to do with the fact they’re so … unruly and unwashed,” Greenwald continues. “To members of the establishment and the ruling class (like Rove), these are the kinds of people – who struggle with tuition bills and have their homes foreclosed – who belong in Walmarts, community colleges, low-paying jobs, and voting booths on command, not in the august United States Senate.”
The ugliness and nastiness of the entrenched rulers on both sides of the aisle comes more clearly into view. Deconstructing this little cabal is going to be a long, nasty process.
I sort of agree, but not quite. If Christine were a working class gal who made it to an Ivy League school, the GOP elite would be fine with her.
IOW, it’s not class, it’s because she didnt go to Harvard.
I think of O’Donnell were a working class RINO the Republican Establishment would love her. In fact they’d probably dump Romney for O’Donnell as the presidential candidate.
“The reason is just that the liberals control the media, and they fight to win. They fight like junkyard dogs.”
This is absolutely true, and it is the reason they win. And, in a sense, it is why they SHOULD win. Hear me out. Our system is set up to reward those who ACT in support of their views, the philosophy being that a society should be shaped by those who feel strongly enough about their views to support them with their time, talent, and money. A political meritocracy, if you will.
I fear this is where conservatives have failed. For too long, too few conservatives have been willing to devote too few resources to advancing their views. Nature abhors a vacuum, and into each space which conservatives do not CLAIM with VIGOR, will come others. In order to retain these spaces, an intelligently planned, sustained and constant pressure must be applied.
If conservatives pursued their agendas with as much devotion as liberals pursue theirs, this would be a more even battle. I am beginning to see some action now, with the Tea Party movement and this recent upsetting of established politicians (which is GREAT!), but it’s going to take a lot more EFFORT to shift the power. The liberals have their goal constantly before them. Do conservatives?
Tax payer class vs tax taker class?
It has always been that way: the Goldilocks theory of politics. The party of change, the Democrats, tends to run too hot, while the party resisting change, the Republicans, tends to run too cold.
The Democrats are like scorpions in a bottle. Anytime two of them are talking politics, they’re fighting. And Democrats on television tend to be so heated that they turn independent voters off.
Republicans though tend to go to sleep for long periods of time. They trust their leaders, and follow them. That’s how the RINO leadership was able to control most of the party for a decade. They gradually moved the party to the left until we bottomed out in 2008 with McCain running on nearly the same platform as Obama.
And really the worst sins of the RINO leadership are sins of omission, not sins of commission. They tell us to be quite about social issues, and they are quiet, which means that the Democrats win. If only one team walks onto the field, they win by forfeit.
The Republican Establishment gets as many RINOs elected as they can. Then they let the Democrats control most issues. Finally, when the “ball” is on the one yard line and the Democrats are about to score, the Republicans fight back with a big goal line stand, one that usually fails. So it’s a rigged fight, one that the RINO leadership wants to lose. They stand for the same things as the Democrats, with a few exceptions.
“This is absolutely true, and it is the reason they win.”
I agree with you on this, but with different reasoning.
They can fight like junkyard dogs *because* they control the media. If a conservative J walks, they must be thrown out of the party. If a liberal has sex with little boys and dead girls, it is not news. From the 60’s to 1994, liberals had such a choke-hold on the media and information in this country, that they could run sociopaths like Johnson and flagrant womanizers like Kennedy, and still win, because they controlled the flow of information. Reagan was a superstar who flumoxed them because they totally underestimated him, and they thought they had brainwashed the population more than they really had.
It is not the lack of desire that defeats conservatives, it is lack of a conservative media. That lack is gradually being eliminated by the Internet, talk radio, and increased competition in TV. That is why, even though liberals control the MSM, the Universities, and the Schools, we can still win. Of course the fact that liberals have false basic assumptions about the way the universe works is a great help.
That's an oxymoron. I don't know of a single RINO of working-class or lower middle-class origins. Mostly they are people of inherited wealth, which befits the term "country-club Republicans." They fear and despise pro-lifers, evangelicals, and Catholics. They have no appeal to independents, who swing elections.
Dear Siegfried:
Well said! I think you understand what I am saying.
Thanks for your reasoned reply.
The reason the liberals control the media, and can thus do as they wish, is because the conservatives LET THAT HAPPEN!
If the conservatives lack effective media, it is up to them to get out there and GET SOME! Same with the universities.
Let’s all wake up tomorrow energized and DO SOMETHING!
bttt
Good post. I think conservatives do have a good chance of claiming the Republican party back because Obama will be there for 2 more years. So the past two years of activism will have 2 more years added to it. No one is walking away with the Obamanation still going full tilt. That’s a lot of time for then suddenly a movement and all our connections, personal and political, to peter out and die in 2013, after 4 years of intense activism from 2008 thru 2012.
Exactly right. But note that the whiners are many of the same folks who complain about state and federal agencies but have never in their lives bothered to make a simple submission during a public comment period.
The Revolution was not won by WHINERS!
Ask someone how they want to die. If they say “in bed, surrounded by my family.” So be it. But a patriot will say “DOING SOMETHING VALUABLE.” It took me a long time to understand the value of dying in combat, since our society considers it a “waste.” It is not a waste. It is the VERY BEST WAY TO DIE. To everyone who doesn’t like the world the way it is - get out there and DO SOMETHING!
It's the kind of condescension both Palin and O'Donnell get from the media that serves to inoculate them from its effect. That sort of lofty disdain is so much in the open now that even media critics are beginning to notice. One can readily imagine (and we'll all be seeing pictures shortly) of the 0bamas attending one black-tie function after another during the Washington social season, whose hosts would be horrified at the idea of the Palins attending wearing camo, tramping mud into the carpets from their hunting boots. The latter wouldn't happen, of course, but something much worse might - the Palins might not attend at all.
The author cites the Clintons as an example of outsiders crashing the gates, but they were much more interested in joining the party than upsetting it, as Her Heinous has shown as (God help us) Secretary of State. I can think of a much closer example, a fellow who made the party come to him. Andrew Jackson.
Yes, hell yes, class has everything to do with this. The ruling one is about to find that out.
Media control is one thing, the other absolute choke hold is education.
There is only one correct thinking, esp. in higher education institutes.
“They can fight like junkyard dogs *because* they control the media.”
And why do they control the media, but not us? Lack of desire by conservatives. It’s the junk yard dog thing again.
Liberals ask themselves every day, “How can I win? How can I crush the conservatives?” So they realized that taking of the media and schools would help them win, so they did it.
Republican citizens on the other hand, like Senate Republicans often do nothing until liberals are at the goal line and ready to score, then fight back with a ferocious goal line stand, which looks good but usually fails.
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