It’s somewhat unsettling to see swine like Ken Adelman endorsing Barack Obama, but it’s telling. Yes, a lot of people are beginning to see what side of the bread the butter is spread on. But there’s more to it than that. Adelman didn’t express any disappointment with McCain’s tactics. His big concerns were with Palin and with McCain’s erratic performance during the economic meltdown. But the elites within the Republican Party are definitely seeing the race-hatred that McCain and Palin are stirring up. And they don’t want to be associated with it. They’ve tolerated the whole anti-abortion, war on Christmas, anti-science-gibberish trend of modern Republicanism because indulging those people gave them the votes they needed for lower taxes, less regulation, and bigger defense budgets. But outright calling your opponent an anti-Ameican, socialist, terrorist-coddling, welfare-king? That’s too over the top for the likes of Ken Adelman or Colin Powell or Peggy Noonan or Lincoln Chafee, or Chuck Hagel, or Dick Lugar, or the editorial boards of countless right-leaning newspapers, or George Will, or David Brooks, or pretty much anyone with an ounce of self-respect and respect for others.
It’s an excellent sign for Obama’s presidency that he has such a broad range of elite support. He will have a nice honeymoon. But, what about the rancid, snarling, remnant of the modern conservative movement? Is this it? Railing against imaginary socialism? How long will it take for the GOP to regroup and retool enough that they can begin to attract back the Adelmans and Powells and Brooks and Wills and Chafees and Lugars and Hagels?
In the short-term, I only expect the GOP’s image to deteriorate further. No longer will we see people like Schwartzeneggar, Bloomberg, Whitman, and Pataki self-identifying as Republicans. The Scottie McClellans and Andrew Sullivans and John Coles are long gone.
McCain has unleashed the dirty, ugly, secret-underbelly of the GOP’s base. It’s the base the enabled center-right rule on Wall Street and in the Capitol. It’s going to be a while before it can make a comeback. This is a total crack-up for one of the two major parties.
Jim Jeffords was a canary in a coal mine.
Why has Adelman turned to Obama? Maybe he remembers what he learned in history class, and it is beginning to worry him.
People who hate “the darkies” aren’t exactly fond of the Jews, either.
I didn’t even know he was Jewish.
Oh yeah, there’s a real anti-semitic fringe element on the web that has been upset about all of Bush’s “Jews” for quite some time.
I think I first came across one 2 or 3 years ago. Quite unhinged.
well, hopefully people won’t take offense for the wrong reasons and will take it for the right reasons.
BTW, I would remove swine since it exposes you to charges of anti-semitism by wingnuts (unfair, yes, but all too real these days). There are plenty of insults that are just as appropriate. Personally I like warmonger myself.
Ol’ John still has Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman in his corner…now there’s a team to build on…nothing succeeds like success, hmmm?
and Obama has Google’s CEO hitting the campaign trail
Ah Google, the king of data mining and invasion of privacy. Just because they make fantastic products doesn’t make it right.
CEO Schmidt is a loner
Google is tied in with the McCain campaign.
Quickly!
Wrong call there. Pataki has always been a bland GOP tool–Sarah Palin-lite, 1990s version.
You’ve got a slightly better case with Whitman, who married into that name and is not-poor-DAR by birth, and probably still would have been a Republican. (Whether she could win the nomination now–the NJ Republican Party has an extremist-oriented primary system, which is why they generally lose badly in an open election–is another question, but she willingly had Cokehead [Kudlow] writing her tax plan at the same time he was writing Macaca-man’s.)
Similarly-but-differently, Bloomberg identified as a Republican because the Dem field was too strong, not out of any party loyalty. That would still be true in NYC.
Schwartzenegger is another question. His friends and political allies are Republicans—c’mon, Orrin Effing Hatch endorsed him for President—and even Darren Issa backed down from him after engineering the California Coup. His governing style is similar to Bloomberg’s&mddash;Anything that makes me look like The Good Guy Goes. And there’s a strong argument that such an attitude works better in the Democratic Party under current conditions. But opportunism knows no party.
Schwartzenegger is hitting the trail in Ohio, set to appear with McCain himself. But he’s cut his own path, pissing off enough of the base yet surviving the fatwas it looks like he’s staying on for the long haul.
Add Susan Collins to the list with Schwartzeneggar, Bloomberg, Whitman, and Pataki. She’s our “independent” senator in all of her ads.
And she could be headed to a real independent.
The logistics don’t favor it since she’ll have a good seniority in the GOP and she’ll have just won a fresh term. But she won’t like how her colleagues behave any more than she likes McCain’s robocalls, and she may cease calling herself a Republican, even if she still caucuses with them.