The Weekly Standard continues to lambaste Mitt Romney:
Plenty of conservatives are pushing back against the worldview espoused by Mitt Romney in his “arrogant and stupid’ remarks at a private fundraiser earlier this year.
The conservative case against Romney’s analysis is multi-pronged. His description of the 47 percent who don’t pay income taxes as “dependents” flies in the face of the conservative view that Americans should be paying fewer, not more, taxes. And historically, most Americans have not paid income taxes. Moreover, most of those who don’t pay income taxes still contribute to the federal government in the form of payroll taxes and other federal taxes and fees. The political argument, that those who are “dependents” won’t be voting for Romney anyway, is demonstrably wrong, and the content and tone of Romney’s remarks don’t strike many conservatives (and others) as particularly presidential.
Has anyone seen a party implode like this since 1972?
Part of my earlier diary – Romney Can’t Help It – That’s how his faith defines poor people.
Bob Schrumm thinks there’s a civil war coming in the GOP. Think there’s any chance of it?
with any luck, it’ll be mutually assured destruction.
I was predicting civil war in the GOP after Obama was elected. Their strategy of sticking together to prevent anything from passing acted like a glue holding them all together, despite significant internal differences. I don’t know if the time is necessarily here yet, but at some point there is going to war within the ranks. It will happen at the point when it becomes obvious (to some) that there’s no longer a path to victory absent a major change of strategy.
The Republican primary was a pretty reasonable simulation of what a major schism could look like; one of these days a William Jennings Bryan populist might also emerge, Newt had a stab at that in South Carolina and Florida.
If one were to liken the amoral/corporatist/warmongering Newt to an historical populist, wouldn’t Strom Thurmond or George Wallace be a closer analogy. Honestly can’t think of any historical who would be less like Newt than William Jennings Bryan.
Wallace is a good example; though not a Republican he strikes me as the father of this cohort of the party, ideologically. Newt definitely “had a stab” though and it struck me at the time that he felt he could get away with it. Remember his extensive attacks on Romney as a “vulture capitalist?” It was an innovative approach which didn’t seem to dislodge support at the time. If he hadn’t expired under a mountain of money in Florida I expect he would have continued in much the same vein.
Problem is that Newt is at least as insufferable and unlikeable as Mitt. And his schtick once the primaries got to SC was nothing but an appeal to racists. As a Catholic (his third religion) with a wife (also his third) that looks/acts even more arrogant than Ann Romney, he would also have struggled with the fundies.
Wallace not being a Republican was about the times and not the man. Sort like the deep south and Texas voting for the Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1976 — the last gasp of that alignment.
About Wallace. In fact that is my thesis on the modern Republican party as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, the cohort of Wallace Democrats embraced by the Southern Strategy has effectively become their base and grown to the point of marginalising moderates.
IMHO, it was the evangelicals that marginalized the so-called GOP moderates. They were a new voting population added in 1980, propelled by the Christian Coalition (an answer to the election of Jimmy Carter)and Roe v. Wade. The racist contingent had been moving towards the GOP for over two decades by then.
I number them among the Wallace cohort. This evangelical thing ain’t completely new; he had all the snake handlers and backwoods Baptist types back in ’68.
I can’t predict what the GOP will do after they lose this fall – especially if the House goes back to the Dems (and that may happen if the Romney implosion continues to snowball). But you have to think something major like a civil war will have to happen.
This isn’t like 1964, when the GOP got blown out in a landslide and doubled down on conservatism. They didn’t walk into 1964 thinking they were shoo-ins to win, as except for moderate Eisenhower they hadn’t held the White House since the start of the depression and had only two years with control of congress in that same time.
No, this time they’ve been figuring that beating Obama would be almost automatic, especially after the 2010 landslide. A notion deeply reinforced by their media. But if they lose – and lose badly – something will have to give. Maybe they’ll reflexively argue that they weren’t conservative enough – I can’t see how, but they have proven they can convince themselves of anything. Or maybe they’ll argue that they just had the wrong candidate.
But I have to think that there are a few GOP leaders who have sat back and watched the Palin-sparked teavangelical craziness take over the party and are waiting for an electoral disaster to wrest control back. As it is they don’t have ANY candidate who could both win the GOP nomination and win the general in an economy-neutral election. The people who could win the general – people like Jon Huntsman or Christine Todd-Whitman – can’t even get 1% in the primaries.
It will be interesting. And very possibly violent.
I think this campaign will drive such a lasting wedge between their factions that they can no longer function as a single party. After all, despite Romney’s crude dogwhistles, the fact is that at least half of the 47% he despises are members of the GOP base. Will they really just ignore or forgive and forget how he and his defenders dissed them? Not over the long run. This is the kind of thing that lurks in the backrooms of the mind until it finally explodes.
So you predict something like the Southern Democrat defection to the GOP post-1965? An interesting thought. But what of the effects on the Democratic Party? Will Progressiveism be killed just as a new majority arises?
Could be further co-opted by the richies taking over, or it could build a new progressive coalition as more people see the GOP class war for what it’s been for decades. It sure smells like big opportunity just now.
The Dems will be the mismatched party then with a tension between Liberals and DLC types only more so than now. Still the two GOP factions log rolled, maybe the two (dozen?) Dem factions can also.
Wasn’t it Mr. Dooley that said “The Dimmycratic Party ain’t on speaking terms with itself”?
There are, and have always been, many wealthy people that support the Democratic Party. They just are wealthy people that don’t believe that being and becoming wealthy is the greatest aim of human life. I predict this will continue. I think Ican safely predict that neither the Koch brothers nor KArl Rove will join the Democratic Party.
“But if they lose – and lose badly – something will have to give. Maybe they’ll reflexively argue that they weren’t conservative enough – I can’t see how, but they have proven they can convince themselves of anything. Or maybe they’ll argue that they just had the wrong candidate.”
Most of them will argue they weren’t conservative enough, and I’ll explain how. They will of course argue that they just had the wrong candidate — wrong because Mitt Romney is not and never was a true conservative. And the party nominated him. So the party must not be conservative enough. There were plenty of other better choices: Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, and others too numerous to mention.
Karl Rove and the Bushes will not agree with this, of course. And thus will start the civil war.
Many Ron Paul supporters are already deserting the GOP.
Would have happened four years ago if Democrats hadn’t gotten all bi-partisany. Perhaps they’ve learned a lesson about vampires.
The dialectical process says that internal contradictions eventually have to clash. The GOP has managed for decades to bypass the contradiction of being the party of the mostly educated moneyed classes and the grossly ignorant social “conservatives”. Maybe the time has finally come when the contradiction can no longer be sustained. “Civil war” seems kind overkill, but some kind of disintegration seems unstoppable at this point. The remarkable incompetence of the current campaigns seem like an unmistakable symptom.
I’ve been reading Leon Uris’ novel “Trinity” for the first time. It strikes me that what you describe is much like the Ulster alliance of rich British industrial interests and poor Protestant fanatics that Uris describes. The rich and titled Brits secretly despising the excesses of the Orangemen but finding them extremely useful to keeping control of Ireland.
Hmm… Yeah, kind of a domestic imperialist cabal scheming to enlist their victims against the rest of the natives. Interesting.
Fanatical American Protestantism of the Scotch-Irish is closely related to and directly descended from fanatical Ulster Protestantism.
I thought there was more of a chance of it before Bob “I’ve lost every campaign I’ve ever run” Shrum endorsed the idea.
Interesting video
You must think all your birthdays are coming at once!
I can’t decide whether to laugh or throw something when I heard the Fox crew utter, “What did Romney really say that was wrong?”
I vote for “throw up”.
I didn’t read this David Brooks column but the recommend comments are golden. DAMN. These people are tearing him and the republican party limb from limb.
I liked this one in particular:
Until today I thought there was no chance that Boo’s prediction of an Obama landslide could come true. A win, yes, but closer than the last one.
But this is amazing to watch.
Just when you think it can’t get any stranger:
http://www.politicususa.com/romney-completely-implodes-claims-americans-pay-taxes.html
is it just me, or is mitt starting to get that deer in the headlights look about him?
somewhere, deep down, he knows it’s over and there’s not a damn thing he can do about it.
all that time, money and ambition wasted… just to become a footnote.
I think he always had that look — the one kids get when they’re getting quizzed on the homework they didn’t read. The look, ironically enough, of being in over their heads.
Democrats gained two Senate seats in 1972 and while losing eleven House seats, retained the majority. Mitt was always going to lose, but at the rate he’s going down, he could put AL in play.
Funny, the article says POTUS “slams” Romney, doesn’t look like he slammed him, he just said the truth, he apologized after his “guns and religions” remark, Romney so far doubling down!
“”When you run for president, you are under a microscope all the time. All of us make mistakes. That incident in 2008, I immediately said, `I regret this,
“What I think people want to make sure of is you’re not writing off a big chunk of the country.” – Barack H. Obama, 44th President of the United States of America!!!
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2012/09/18/us/politics/18reuters-usa-campaign-obama-video.html?_r=0
If the House is coming into play then maybe I’ll give to some of the candidates DFA recommended and Booman endorsed. Booman, can you please repost the list?
There were two Dean Dozen stories Booman posted, IIRC. Here’s the first one.
Great, thanks.
Found the second DFA Dean Dozen story here.
Word is that Rove & Super Pac’s moving money to Senate races. Tweet from Jim Demint, “It’s the Senate, stupid!”
And it was a nice try by Mark McKinnon to think that like 2000 the debates could pull out a win for Rep, this race is not debate fixable.
The SuperPac money started moving weeks ago.
This is worse than ’72. Back then the Democrats at least weren’t also wrong on the issues, and a lot of people who voted for Nixon knew that but the Dem just looked otherwise not ready to govern.
the election will not be close, but it also won’t be as bad as 1972 or 1984 or 1964.
Too much of this country is willing to vote for anyone as long they are not pro-choice.
The question isn’t so much whether they will vote for Obama. I agree that they are unlikely to do so. The question is whether they will vote for Romney, a protest candidate, or stay home. What this massive display of incompetence does is increase the likelihood that some of those voters will stay home and that raises Obama’s polling ceiling and lowers Romney’s polling floor. What I’m seeing in the polls is a lot of doubt in Romney. At this point his baseline number is holding but, with the numbers he is getting on a whole range of issues, his support is softening. They still tell pollsters they are voting for him, but their enthusiasm is waning. If Romney keeps messing up his support will soften so much that the floor will collapse, with luck bringing the House with it. But it will be primarily because GOP voters do not show up not because they have flipped to Obama.
What’s really peculiar is that here we have the “moderate”, “reasonable” candidate in the primaries now being pilloried by extremist outfits like NR for talking too far right. Strange times.
The GOP has been radioactive sludge for quite some time. It’s their core marketing slogan: “Toxic Waste Is Good For You.”
Mitt is convinced this is a base election, the base loves this shit, so Mitt doubles down. He needed a moment like this to solidify to them that he is with them. losing David Brooks and all the other ‘establishment” types plays into the very thing Rick Santorum said at the values summit this weekend, essentially that the ‘smart” types will never be with the true believers. Sounds nuts I know, but as we all know, as Limbaugh goes, so goes the party, and Rush absolutely loves this shit.
the fun part is that they’ll have to own their failure, can’t really say he’s not one of them now, so no excuses.
I think they’ll find a way to disown Romney. It’s the Way of the Weasel.
I’m having weird flashbacks on 1964 here.
DAMN!!! Lawrence just read a excerpt from Peggy Noonam on Romney just published online.
http://blogs.wsj.com/peggynoonan/2012/09/18/time-for-an-intervention/
If there’s a downside to this, it’s that there’s still over a full month left for the GOP to move all their resources to Senate races. I’d like to have seen them waste a lot more money on Mitt in swing states before imploding entirely.
Then again, god only knows how much worse Mitt can get in that time. There’s still hope a few more trainwrecks and Titanic sinkings on the campaign trail can depress the overall turnout.
I think The Onion may have just written the opening bit for this week’s SNL.
Romney Apologizes To Nation’s 150 Million ‘Starving, Filthy Beggars’
I can’t believe the Onion article missed this golden opportunity:
“And I look forward to serving you as your next president.”
should have been…
And I look forward to serving YOU PEOPLE as your next president.”