on the TEA Party...no doubt about it.
...esp. w/ 0B0Z0 downward spiral.
Posted on 11/30/2011 10:23:29 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Every once in a while you need to bring yourself back down to Earth and make sure you’re prepared for hard times, no matter how optimistic you may be feeling. No, we’re not talking about the coming zombie apocalypse or the idea that the Patriots might still win the AFC East title this year. This is even more dark and foreboding. What would happen if Obama wins the election next November? That’s pretty much the point of a lengthy essay at Outside the Beltway by Doug Mataconis this week.
After noting that Obama’s prospects are certainly looking dim, Doug reminds us that nothing is ever a sure thing and it doesn’t pay to get too comfortable before all the votes have been cast. So what would happen to the Republican Party in the event of such a loss? Well, it largely depends on who he lost to.
How the GOP reacts to a loss in 2012 would depend, at least in part, on who ends up winning the nomination. If the nominee is Mitt Romney as many expect, including yours truly, then the initial spin from conservatives, the Tea Party movement, and the blogger and talk radio crowd is likely to be that the party lost because the nominee wasn’t conservative enough. This was the same argument that many Republicans made after Bob Dole lost in 1996, and after John McCain lost in 2008. In reality, of course, it’s not at all clear that it was a lack of conservative bona fides that doomed either of these campaigns…
If Romney is the nominee and he loses, it’s likely the reaction will be the same and that, at least, initially we’ll see the activists in the GOP go on another purity quest. On Capitol Hill, this would likely have the impact of making the House GOP even less willing to compromise than it has been since the 2010 elections for fear of facing trouble during the 2014 midterms. The danger this poses for the GOP, of course, is that a re-elected President Obama is likely to have at least some public opinion boost behind him in 2013, as well as the ability to claim a mandate…
What if the nominee isn’t Mitt Romney, but one of the Tea Party favored candidates, the most realistic of those being either Rick Perry or Newt Gingrich?
This may be the best alternative of all for the GOP, because while it’s likely to lead to the same kind of reassessment that a Romney loss would, it be more likely to bring about the kind of changes that would benefit the party in the long run. The Tea Party hasn’t been an entirely bad thing for the GOP. In fact, I’d say that without John McCain’s loss in 2008 and the rise of the Tea Party, we likely would not have seen the GOP take control of Congress in 2010. However, as we learned in 2010 and as we’re learning to some extent during the early month of the 2012 election cycle, the movement has also caused the party to go off on bizarre tangents at times and to take insane stands like appearing to be willing to take the nation to the brink of financial chaos back in August. The “no compromise” position that the Tea Party represents may be good for internal party consumption and it may make the true believers happy, but it’s not good government and it’s probably not a good long term political strategy. A loss in 2012 that gets pinned on the movement would likely re-energize the “establishment” and more traditional conservatives in the party and cause a backlash against some of the more radical elements of the Tea Party. In the long run, this would probably be good for the GOP.
As long as that excerpt is, there’s a lot more of it at the link, so before you draw conclusions, read the full explanation. But with that in mind, I have a couple of thoughts to add.
At the highest level, I agree that the Republican reaction (and almost unavoidable civil war) will depend entirely on who the nominee is. If it’s Mitt and he manages to lose, (which will be something of a trick since he polls better against Obama than any of his fellow candidates) then we’ll hear the same thing we heard about McCain following 2008. The finger pointing would be immediate, but we’d have to wait for a lot of data to find out if the base actually “stayed home” for a change, (they pretty much never do) or if we failed to make the sale to the middle third of the country again like last time. Beyond that, I think Doug is pretty much correct. It would likely fuel an even larger four year swing of rebellion against the perceived “establishment Republican Party” as well as another long stretch of Congress accomplishing essentially nothing.
But if the nominee turns out to be the “Anti-Romney candidate” (insert name here) and they lose, then a different dynamic plays out. The finger pointing ensues, but in the opposite direction. The conversation will run along the lines of, “You Tea Partiers! You just HAD to have it your way, didn’t you? You couldn’t just nominate Mitt. Noooooo. You had to put in another Christine O’Donnell candidate. You’d rather lose the war than win a battle!”
Of course, the third scenario is the one where the Republican wins. No matter whether it’s Romney or Not-Romney, everyone sits back down quietly for the most part and breaths a collective sigh of relief. And if that’s the case, the coat tails will likely take the Senate back over to the GOP side and then the Republicans will get to prove whether or not their theories can actually improve things before we begin the whole shooting match all over again a year later.
I have a headache already.
what matters the most to me is the judges that will be appointed in the next 4 years. We’ve already lost the media, academia, minorities, and health care. They are trying to take the internet and also hand over US sovereignty to a global authority. If they get the courts in the next 4 years I don’t see how we can recover.
“FR poster: “If XXXXX isn’t nominated, I’m staying home”.”
I’ve known people who voted for Democrats to “protest” Bush. None were known to me to be FR users. I suspect that FR users won’t stay home no matter how repugnant the RINO is. A RINO is better, though marginally, than an outright communist. The problem is, the 20% in the middle between Democrats on the left and Republicans on the right. Either side needs 11% of them to win. Those are the protest voters. They’re light on philosophy, theology and common sense.
The term “Lock and Load” would take on a whole new meaning.
More hiding of the Crimes committed by Obama’s Attorney General Read!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2814199/posts
RE: Romney loses 43 to 42 with some third party (Trump/Bloomberg) getting the rest
If Trump runs, maybe. If Bloomberg runs, what makes you think he won’t siphon votes from Obama instead?
RE: The world implodes and screams for strong US leadership but the best leader is up in Alaska carefully calculating a comeback.
By the time she comes back in 2016, she’d have to deal with a COURT (including the SCOTUS ) that will be hostile to her values.
hahaha
good one.
I got news for ya...palin will never run for prez. The tea party is losing momentum already, but even if they do keep going through the next election, they will get the same luke warm republicans elected they did last time.
The country(and the world) is craving more OWS style demonstrations. OWS is stealing the show and will continue to do so for as long as the economy drags.
The fact that the elections were close simply means that there are not enough people left in dumbed-down America to figure it out.
That is, a normal cowboy of pre-1960 America could look at these people, scratch his head and say,
Yet, 53% of the electorate voted for the Mombasa MF, a Chicago street pimp of dubious diplomas and provenance, when the drooling old fool might have been a marginally better bet! Fortunately ... and I hope ... the Republicans have apparently run out of drooling old fools (a temporary setback, I am sure). But, we do have a couple three nutjobs to worry about
Good point, but I think this only happened becasue the GOP won by such a large margin in 1994. IIRC, the GOP lost a few seats in 1996, and bled them continually until 2006, when they became the minority party.
There's already a split between the blue states on the coasts and "flyover country". This can only increase as industries move out of overtaxed, overregulated states and flow to where the new vitality is. New discoveries of raw materials and energy in red states like Texas and the Dakotas, combined with lower taxes and labor costs will drive a new recovery there, while an influx of illegals and inflexible "entitlement mentality" continue to depress the blue states. Obama is doing all he can to supress the new economies in the red states; they're waiting for him to leave rather than engage in open rebellion. If he wins another four years, they'll lose patience with him ( and the EPA, NLRB, Dept. of Energy, etc.) and force states to boot them out.
I don't know if it will be an actual shooting war, but I do know it'll take decades to sort out.
“The problem is, the 20% in the middle between Democrats on the left and Republicans on the right.”
I agree with your post, except for the number of those in the middle. I think it’s actually more like 40% now. That’s how a man with no qualifications, with no vetting could win the presidency. It’s a cult of personality for those in the middle.
Sadly, we need the folks in the middle to vote Republican or we’re toast.
Don’t foregt about welfare recipients and the free school lunch voting blocs!
Right on the money. For the same reason, I see no problem for us holding the House this time, although we may lose ten seats in districts that only go GOP every 50 years.
Look for intrastate conflict as well. California, Ohio, Virginia, Michigan, Illinois and Pennsylvania come to mind.
Look at a map of Ohio. Draw a line from Toledo in the northwest to Marietta in the southeast. In general, north and east of that line is leftist, south and west is conservative. We've battled in the state house that way for decades and I can see it getting worse as time passes. Here in Columbus, and even more so in Cincinnati, to be from Cleveland, Youngstown or Akron/Canton is often met with the same reaction as being from San Francisco or Detroit.
End of the Republic (basically because even though the GOP would hold both houses, I have no confidence they’d actually have the kahones to cut off funding to the alphabet soup of Federal agencies that are quietly staging a bureaucratic coup d’etat.
If Zero “wins” — military coup de etat and the end of the two party system for years.
The way things are, I’m pretty sure there’s going to be rioting in the streets no matter who wins. I noticed during the last local election (I’m an Election Inspector) that there was a tremendous amount of anger being bottled up, and from all different kinds of people. Some were angry over to country moving toward socialism, some were angry that it wasn’t socialistr enough yet. Some I don’t think they even knew why they were angry, they just sensed something wasn’t right but they couldn’t name it. The undercurrent was everywhere, but so unfocused. It’s going to find a way out sooner or later, it has to.
I think we’re at the point where the best, most capable, most intelligent leader in the world, if elected president, could only make what’s coming a little less bad. There’s going to be rough times ahead, there’s no way to make this transition an easy one.
(Sorry for the typos, my cat kept trying to help me type)
bttt
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