Posted on 02/19/2014 9:40:30 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Republicans are stumbling toward the 2014 midterm elections fighting among themselves again. Democrats are happy to see it, because Republican disarray is one of the few things that could prevent another very good election for the GOP. We should all know the reasons for the Republican advantage by now: Midterm voters are older, whiter and more conservative than presidential election voters. Democrats have more Senate seats to defend. Republicans have a huge, baked-in advantage in the House, thanks to redistricting and the clustering of liberal voters in urban districts. So the great Democratic hope is that Republicans will sabotage themselves, by nominating unelectable wingnuts for Senate seats, and demoralizing the base with infighting. So far, Republicans seem to be cooperating.
The element of the GOP that is dedicated to a magical thinking-based strategy of forcing the nation into default until Obamacare is repealed is not happy with Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The party leaders agreed to support a “clean” debt limit increase, so that the party could not be accused of trying to bankrupt the country (again) right before these very important elections. (The plan is to save the next major crisis for 2015, I think.) This, obviously, has been treated as a grand betrayal of conservative principles by the usual players.
Ted Cruz — whose Senate career seems to be leading toward either sabotaging the Republican 2016 campaign or quitting the Senate after one term to become a professional conservative celebrity — actually forced Senate Republicans to openly vote for the increase, and ever since he has been relentlessly trashing McConnell and the GOP leadership for capitulating. As he told conservative radio firebrand Mark Levin, “They wanted to be able to tell what they view as their foolish, gullible constituents back home that they didn’t do it.”
That is basically true! It’s also true that McConnell and Boehner can’t really blame Ted Cruz for this being an issue. As Brian Beutler explained, once the GOP leadership allowed the debt limit vote to be used to extort concessions from Democrats, they legitimized debt limit extortion as a tactic. Do it once, and conservatives will understandably wonder why you’re not doing it every time the debt limit is up for a vote.
Speaker Boehner is similarly under attack, from Georgia Senate candidate Rep. Paul Broun (who voted, in the last speaker’s election, for former House member Allen West), who is precisely the sort of candidate who could lose Republicans a Senate race in a very red state. Well-heeled right-wing pressure groups like Club for Growth and the Senate Conservatives Fund have also called for Boehner to resign as speaker.
One side-effect of all these right-wing complaints is to make Speaker Boehner and Sen. McConnell look like reasonable men.
For Republicans, the point of voting for the clean debt limit increase this time is to appear moderate, mainstream and not crazy. The party has a bit of an “image problem,” which is to say that many Americans correctly perceive the party as being essentially controlled by angry apocalyptic extremists. Ted Cruz (and Paul Broun and the Senate Conservatives Fund and all the rest) are helping — perhaps inadvertently — GOP leaders shed that image. Cruz bashing McConnell makes McConnell look moderate. Now, it looks a bit like the Republicans are a mainstream party with a small, vocal fringe element, instead of an extremist party with a pragmatic element.
Not to overstate the positive effect. Right-wing infighting could still contribute to McConnell losing his election or fringe candidates preventing the party from taking the Senate. But right now, GOP leaders can point to the ire of nutjobs like Broun and *ssholes like Cruz and tell the press, see? We’ve marginalized them! And everyone is so eager for the Republican “fever” to “break” that the fact that the party hasn’t actually moderated a single one of its various discredited positions won’t much matter.
Who knew Ted had so much power?
Why are they all raging against him if he is an insignificant punk?
Ohh... that’s right, Ted IS a threat to the status quo.
They are projecting. Ive never seen Cruz exhibit sulking rage. He seems like a DA, coldly asking questions that he already knows the answer to, and that the defendant doesn’t want to answer.
He’s extremely intelligent on his feet.
These guys are sleazy and lack loyalty. Their attachment to libs is personal and selfish
That said, they know public opinion
They sense that a lot of people are in a rage sulk.
Perhaps
Sulking rage? What you are seeing is leadership. An elected public official ran on a platform that the United states will be harmed if it continues to deficit spend and that harmful laws like Obamacare should be repealed or defunded. Senator Cruz may be fighting a difficult battle but the country is better for his efforts.
I agree.
Ted is the antithesis of sulking rage.
The Establishment is attacking Ted Cruz ... FROM BOTH SIDES!!!!
That is how you know he is telling the Truth!!!
Big time!
Whether it’s true are not, doesn’t everybody realize the left can destroy Cruz or anyone they want now? They destroyed Palin, they have the power to ruin anyone.
Well then maybe he’ll be tapping into the rage that many are feeling about what is being done to our lives by Barack Hussein Obama!
I don’t know if Ted is feeling rage but I know I am.
Sulking rage seems a more proper descriptive of McLame and his ilk. Seething with rage is a proper descriptive of what the GOP party heads are driving the party members to.
The Tea Party movement has these people soiling their trousers, doesn’t it?
Character assassination and discrediting, THAT is the name of this game.
In my experience, the more you are right and tell the truth, the more you get hammered and squashed like a bug.
There is no sulking rage on the part of Senator Cruz. The “problem” is that he is right.
UNLESS you're a RINO... hard to piss off a Rino..
they don't really care one way or the other.. i.e. no principles.. scant morals..
"A picture is worth ten thousand words.."
Rove has lots of filthy minions ready to spit on anyone Karl designates as a threat to the GOPe. Note the source of this bilge spittle.
Yeah, they destroyed her so much that hundreds of candidates, from the US Senate down to the vector control board in Kimble County, Texas long for her endorsement, she’s paid six figures to opine on the most-watched cable news network, gets $50,000 a pop for a half-hour speech, is known around the world and has a TV show coming. I wish someone would destroy me.
Is he old enough to drink?
Oh, brother. Forget about soiling his pants, he’s soiling his diapers.
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