Whether Republicans want to admit it or not, their problem with “clown candidates” began when Grumpy McUnderpants chose Sarah Palin as his running mate and let The Stupid genie out of the bottle:
Longtime GOP strategist Mike Murphy was struck by the metaphorical symbolism the instant NBC cut from Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice” to what he called “the real world.”
“Trump never felt more over to me than at that moment,” said Murphy. “Maybe the market for clown candidates will now diminish.”
Palin was just an extreme example of a trend. What was it about Spiro Agnew or Dan Quayle than made anyone think they were qualified to be president? Why didn’t they get the Harriet Miers-treatment from the base? Obviously, it was because they were the kind of vapid reactionary buffoons that the base identifies with.
With Palin, they took this pandering to eleven. They opened up Pandora’s box; they let the cat out of the bag; they crossed the Rubicon of Stupid. Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall.
Now “Establishment Republicans” are hoping that the killing of Usama Bin-Laden will focus the collective hive-mind of their base and they’ll be able to start putting the pieces of their party back together again.
I’m sorry, but it isn’t going to happen in this cycle. And the reason in simple. The Republicans’ legislative agenda isn’t serious and is designed to encourage their stupid ill-informed supporters in their fever-mad delusions and prejudices.
I called their legislative calendar for this week the Chandra Levy agenda because the disappearance of Chandra Levy was all anyone in Washington could talk about in the month leading up to 9/11. The killing of bin-Laden will have the same effect of making the Republicans’ stupid obsessions seem small, petty, inconsequential, and fundamentally unserious.
For the Republican base to get serious, they would first have to be led into seriousness. And their leadership is still marching under the banner of The Stupid.
