Most of the time Sen. Jim Bunnning (R-KY) makes little sense. Not today. Today, he is making perfect sense. Speaking about the leadership of Mitch McConnell:
He said: “Do you realize that under our dynamic leadership of our leader, we have gone from 55 and probably to 40 (Senate seats) in two election cycles, and if the tea leaves that I read are correct, we will wind up with about 36 after this election cycle.
So if leadership means anything, it means you don’t lose … approximately 19 seats in three election cycles with good leadership.”
I actually agree with Bunning’s reading of the tea leaves. The Dems will probably net four new senate seats in 2010, including Bunning’s Kentucky seat. It could be slightly better (say, six seats) or slightly worse (two) but I can’t see anything less than two. Regardless, though, Bunning’s larger point is a no-brainer. Mitch McConnell has presided over the collapse of Republican power in the Senate. Why, then, is he still their leader? Couldn’t Lamar Alexander do a better job?
And all of this could be said with almost equal justice about House Minority Leader John Boehner. Why did he retain his leadership position? And why did the Republicans choose John Cornyn of Texas to head the NRSC and Pete Sessions of Texas to head the NRCC when the country is sick to hell of Republicans from Texas?
And why are they rolling out used-up failed leaders like Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney as the ‘new’ face of the party? Why have anything to do with a governor named ‘Bush’ even if he isn’t the black sheep of the Bush Crime Family?
Why embrace a buffoon like Sam the Non-Plumber who goes around blasting ‘queers’? Can’t anyone talk to Michele Bachmann and Steve King and get them to stop appearing on teevee? Has it occurred to anyone in the Republican Party that high-ratings for FOX News is no longer a good thing for their party?
Are there any non-lunatics in this asylum. I hope so.
good grief! why the lament about the republican party? if their brand of hate and fear were to simply vanish from the planet, who would miss it?
we already have a right wing party in the form of the current bunch of democrats. lets finally get a party of the people.
Uhh, no Dan.. you’ll not get much support for that idea (“party of the people”) here or over at the orange site.
problem is wayyyyy too many folks actually believe the democratic party is “democratic”.. they are not. they are democrats in name only, that’s it.
one not seeing the proof of this over the past 30 years need only look at what happened last week with “democrats” in the senate stomping on the cramdown legistlation, the coming defeat of EFCA and other badly needed legislation.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/12/09/democrats/
Jeebus, Booman, it’s called staying the course. You’ve heard of it, I trust. 😉
In all seriousness, this is the critical weakness of authoritarian movements: they’re only as good as their leaders, and even if they start with an effective leader, he is replaced, sooner or later, by an ineffective leader, and they have no mechanism for resolving that situation since all control is top-down. As a consequence, you eventually end up with someone in charge like John Boehner who, as you have hilariously noted several times, is less popular than syphilis.
What are the Republicans going to do? Leaders exist to be obeyed. Period.
“Are there any non-lunatics in this asylum.”
No.
Another simple answer to a simple question.
nalbar
No — because anybody with any sense has already left.
Just be thankful and don’t look a gift miracle in the sleight of hand, or something like that.
I find it extremely troubling that the Republican Party now resembles a European National Front party and I think we all have a major interest in them fixing their problems before they come back to power.
I think it is great that they are no longer able to attract the reasonable “beards” for their insane politics. It is not as if the so-called moderates managed to moderate any of their policies while in power.
I think we all have a major interest in them going the way of the Whigs and something different replacing them, something without the GOP’s history and baggage.
Agreed. Our electoral system is basically rigged for a two-party system, but nothing about it says that the GOP has to be the other party. Nor is there any inherent reason why GOP conservatism has to remain a viable political force, and there are a lot of reasons to believe (or at least hope) that it has seen its day, like Prohibition and pyramid-building. As a non-viable pariah party, it might even serve the useful purpose of siphoning off enough wingnut votes to make even sane conservatives unelectable.
I both hope and expect that the GOP will wither and die, and the Democrats will split between the centrist and progressive wings. And quite frankly, I can live with that. Both sides have something to offer there, unlike the current left-right split, where the right has entirely ceased to have any constructive role in our society.
In fact, an explicitly populist party would be ideal – a reincarnation of the Bull Moose Progressives with Teddy R. as it’s hero would be apropos, particularly for the 2012 election…
Umm, then if the 2012 election goes like the 1912 election, Neither the Progressive nor Obama would win. Instead we might get Jeb Bush.
Actually Wilson, Roosevelt, and Taft all ran as ‘progressives’. Taft was the least convincing.
Not sure what a non-black sheep of the Bush Crime Family means. I’ve long seen Barbara Bush as Ma Barker with good china. If that’s a reference to the one who just raped Florida, he too seems to be part of the program.
As far as wanting to see the Repubs change their ways before they come to power again, I am hoping that they don’t come to power again, that perhaps a sane rational party equating to the Eisenhower brand of Republicanism offers up a choice to voters, allowing the Dems to migrate left and the remaining Republithugs to part on the right.
Let’s put it like this. IF they keep going the way they’ve been going, they ain’t coming into power again.
The history of the Republican Party is tracing a similar pattern to the history of the American Mercury magazine. One reason I think this is worth learning about is that the American Mercury, once on of America’s greatest magazines, did in fact go extinct (nearly 30 years ago), so if I am right that the GOP is showing a similar path of devolution, we may be able to believe that it too can become extinct.
I agree we need an opposition party. But it doesn’t have to be the Republican Party.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Mercury
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-a-palermo/the-gop-deserves-its-curr_b_196739.html
I’ve got a dream (nightmare) ticket for the GOP in 2012: Sarah and Sam. That should just about finish off the two party system in the USA. At least for a while.