Posted on 05/11/2011 1:34:57 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
GOP strategists and analysts sounded desperate, even panicked, when they implored Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels to toss his hat in the presidential rink. Their panic to get Daniels in the race has less to do with any special magic that they think he’ll bring to a campaign to oust President Obama then their mounting horror at how the best known potential GOP presidential candidates have turned the party into a three ring circus. The would-be candidates that have snatched the most media ink and public attention typified the clown lunacy that GOP regulars shudder at.
One (Donald Trump) was still musing over whether the birth certificate Obama released was really the real deal and whether Obama’s college performance was fake. One (Sarah Palin) was going through back flips to not even mention Obama’s name in praising the bin Laden take down. One (Michelle Bachmann) was rambling on about Obama’s teleprompter. One (Herman Cain) virtually demands that the government get out of the business of taxation. And Ron Paul back at it again, claiming that he’d back legalizing marijuana. It was beyond laughable. It was pitiable.
Meanwhile, the supposed serious GOP candidates might as well be on the far side of the moon. They have virtually no name recognition, no program, little money, and busily trash around trying to find something, anything, to get some attention. None have stirred a faint pulse among GOP voters, let alone moderate and conservative independents. Not that it would much matter, it’s still Palin, Bachmann, Trump, and Paul that the public knows best, and, to the terror of the GOP establishment, believes define who and what the GOP is and represents.
Daniels fever is simply the GOP’s front door way of saying that the party is desperate to wipe the bile in the mouths of the electorate from the clownish antics of their media known notables. But how can the GOP do it? Even if Daniels ultimately decides to go for the White House prize, Palin, Bachmann, Trump, Cain and Paul still speak for a big swatch of GOP voters, the likes of Tea Party activists, and leaders, anti-gay, anti-abortion, gun toting, chronic tax protestors, and Christian right hardliners, neo-Confederates, and assorted racist kooks, crackpots and loons. This is the bunch that bring passion, fervor, and energy to the party. They can’t be ignored. A major reason GOP presidential candidate John McCain committed what many GOP insiders still consider presidential candidate political suicide and picked Palin was because he thought that she could fire up the hardliners in a way that he couldn’t hope to. The bitter truth for the GOP is that not much has changed since then.
Palin, Bachman, Trump, Cain and more often than not Paul’s mug are seen round the clock on Fox, on web sites, blogs, and social media, cheered by the pack of rightwing talk show hosts, and Rush Limbaugh. They are heroes, even icons, to the Tea Party throngs, and they know that any utterance no matter how silly and irrelevant will be picked up, played up and endlessly talked about in the mainstream media. Their idolatrous followers love every word from them.
Palin, Bachmann, Trump and Cain could never have gotten non-stop media and public attention from their inane and outrageous quips alone. The media would have quickly grown tired of that and them and moved on to the next salacious, gossipy, trashy, celeb story. Their staying power is based squarely on their ability to stoke popular rage at and frustration with tin ear politicians among Democrats, but especially within the GOP, who’ve turned voters into invisible men and women. This translates to millions of disgruntled, frustrated voters who will be sorely tempted to push, prod and hector the GOP to give Palin, Bachmann, Trump, Cain and Paul their due. Many will be just as sorely tempted to vote for them as the maverick candidate who poses a credible alternative to Obama, and the GOP mainstream. And since there is virtually no chance any one of the media grandstanding candidates will get the GOP nomination, the fear again is that their frenzied backers will stay at home on Election Day. This would be tantamount to a vote for Obama and would be an even bigger disaster for the GOP in 2012 than 2008.
The clownish sideshow ring mastered by the fringe GOP candidates is a textbook Catch-22 for the GOP. If party leaders publicly badmouth, marginalize, or ostracize them than that almost certainly will blow the very slender chance they already have of making Obama a one term president. This would be the GOP’s nightmare and Obama’s dream. The GOP thankfully is stuck with its clowns.
They have in the past. Many within the GOP are in bed wit liberalism.
There are not any. The GOP has shot themselves again. Instead of going after the agencies and regulations that are killing us they are going after the little guys. What Bozo Morons. They are the new WHIGS! They want to cut to the bone little giveouts and leave alone the seed of the destruction. SCREW THEM!
RACISTS FOR THE RACIST in CHIEF... EFF them all... black/white/fat or tall...
LLS
People who live in glass houses shouldn’t be stoned:
Jackson-Lee, Obama, Kucinich, McKinney, sharpton, ayers, wright, Kerry, Dean, Gravel, Frank, etc, etc, etc
Zogby poll...
Who do you want for Pres?
Obama - 37%
Don’t know - 7%
Someone else - 55%
Obama is toast once a real candidate emerges.
the status quo of mixed economy economics and politics of pragmatism and eclecticism
They are frustrated because they don’t know whom to attack yet.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, Republicans are stupid, desperate, lunatics, blah, blah, Liberals are intelligent, sane, and wonderful, blah, blah, blah..
The Democrats must have some kind of outline template for all their drones to follow when writing. You could read dozens of Lib editorials and realize that you are just reading one single article written in dozens of different ways.
All the Liberal zombies say the same thing over and over and over. There is not an original thought in the lot of them.
I especially think that.
I will gladly say that 4 of those 5 represent me. The only reason these people seem so far right to idiots like this commentator is because he’s so far left.
Palin? A clown? No way.
This accuser is either making up fantasies to help Obama’s election (most likely) or he iscompletely demented, because his statememt is out of touch with reality. They don’t get any more serious or un-funny than Gov. Palin.
It sure is a wild La Mans start. The one who raises the most ‘free speech’ will be the one to beat.
The country has two top problems.
1] How to win the multiple wars we are engaged in
2] How to restore full employment before the ‘long run’
I’m looking for the one who has the ideas and leadership to solve these problems.
Why would anyone care about the opinions of a bunch of Demo activist race pimps?
They say they’re all for the blackman, I bet they’ll be the first ones to call Col. Allen West, Justice Clarence Thomas, Prof. Thomas Sowell “Uncle Tom”.
2010 was an off year election. There wouldn’t have been a party platform published. Party Platforms are worked out, developed and published at the party’s nominating convention in Presidential election years (although there’s a lot of work done prior to the actual convention) and they generally are meaningless and not worth the paper they’re written on. The last party Platform published for the GOP would have been 2008.
Any republican.
He or she is more qualified and would make a better president than the current occupant.
Seriously.
Bobby Jindal???
I just was in a meeting today with Michelle Bachmann and I hope to God she runs for President. I will work my butt off for her...and I told her so as did most of the other women in that room...and we’re the women who do the work at the State level.
2010 Republican Party Platform doesn’t exist as such. The last one was the 2008 Platform.
http://www.gop.com/2008Platform/
The 2012 will be developed at the 2012 Republican Party National Convention at which time the nominee will be officially named.
Given this opinion (with which I tend to agree), there is a book I would encourage you to read called "Who Will Tell The People?" by William Grieder. Tho it was written in the early 90s, the truths it tells are as terribly relevant today as they were then.
If you do read it....tell me what you think of it!
Amen. Bob Dole wouldn't even read it. Each candidate should set out their 'contract with America'.
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