The Other McCain

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Republican Party Staring Victory Right In The Face, Wetting Itself

Posted on | February 22, 2014 | 25 Comments

by Smitty

It isn’t really that difficult to summarize, people. The country is on the wrong course. Technology is being used to enslave, not liberate. You want liberty, and Progressivism is producing legislation/regulation combinations that look like this, printed out: Once more, with feeling: “managed” liberty is not liberty. So, the GOP is all over liberating us from the clutches of homo bureaucratus, right? No’ so fast. The GOP is also of that ilk, and strangely incapable of putting its leadership where its rhetoric has been. Thus, we see VodkaPundit pointing out that the cause of Statism is far from a lost one this November:

It’s almost enough to make a conservative weep. While Tom rates the chances of a GOP takeover at about 55.4% (with 18 seats in play, compared to Sean’s 17), that’s still within the Democrats’ ability to hold on. Five likely or leaning R races is not a comfortable place to be, even this early on.

But it gets worse.

AK, AR, CO, VA — these should be fairly easy pickings for the Grand Old Party, but the best of them are all tossups at this stage, and Udall as previously mentioned seems likely to win in CO. Cook and Rothenberg each have only four likely or leaning R races, not enough to win control. Sabato is the outlier at six.

The IRS was used to localize and strike a blow at Tea Party leadership, and, well, the voters seem to be accepting it. The GOP elite, more interested in power than actually backing up the party platform, seems strangely comfortable with all of this. Managing a diminishing piece of the pie seems easier than expanding the pie to include those not read in to the overall Statist plan.

I’ve typically fallen on the side of those advocating working to reform the GOP from within, but perhaps a re-assessment is in order.

via Instapundit

Category: Election, Republicans

Comments

25 Responses to “Republican Party Staring Victory Right In The Face, Wetting Itself”

  1. Political Rift » Republican Party Staring Victory Right In The Face, Wetting Itself
    February 22nd, 2014 @ 9:45 am

    […] smitty by Smitty It isn’t really that difficult to summarize, people. The country is on the wrong […]

  2. Quartermaster
    February 22nd, 2014 @ 10:36 am

    For many of us that reassessment has already taken place and the result for the GOP is rather negative. The GOP has always been a statist party. Taft was an outlier and was marginalized. It’s past time it went the way of the Whigs, from whom they descended. In fact, the GOP is really just a reorganized Whig Party.

  3. StrangernFiction
    February 22nd, 2014 @ 10:46 am

    Democrats In All But Label Only – DIABLOs

  4. joethefatman
    February 22nd, 2014 @ 11:07 am

    “…but perhaps a re-assessment is in order”

    Yup.

  5. cdrusnret
    February 22nd, 2014 @ 12:10 pm

    RT @smitty_one_each: Republican Party Staring Victory Right In The Face, Wetting Itself http://t.co/8173OA6To8 #TCOT

  6. ArdvarkMaster
    February 22nd, 2014 @ 11:33 am

    Many of the establishment Republicans think conservatives and TEA partiers should (actually they demand) support the GOP even though the GOP has abandoned all conservative principles.

    Who do they think we are, Democrats?

  7. johncunningham
    February 22nd, 2014 @ 12:14 pm

    a classic!! face it, the GOP in Congress and the RNC are the Washington Generals. no desire or capacity to win

  8. Art Deco
    February 22nd, 2014 @ 12:45 pm

    Omnibus parties are bound to disappoint you.

    Ca. 1985, the GOP had both a leader and a crew of technicians sufficiently adept at public relations that they could neutralize the media. They may still in state capitals, but in the federal capital you have Messrs. Boehner, McConnell, and Priebus.

    Ca. 1985, the GOP had political leadership which had a discrete menu of principles that was generally adequate to indicate the direction of public policy, could articulate those principles, and could recruit the necessary corps of discretionary appointees to implement them when possible. At this time, you have chronic insiders like Mesrs. Boehner, McConnell, and Priebus.

    You’re problem is not that the federal Republicans are ‘statist’. It is that they are led by careerists who seem to hardly know how to proceed until Mr. Bigdonor tells them what to do and manage to conduct themselves in public in ways that make them look stupid and small.

  9. DavidD
    February 22nd, 2014 @ 12:57 pm

    “The IRS was used to localize and strike a blow at Tea Party leadership, and, well, the voters seem to be accepting it.”?

    The hell you say. I don’t see anyone around here accepting it. The Republican party should try giving us some conservative candidates and see what happens.

  10. C_Simpson
    February 22nd, 2014 @ 3:29 pm

    Smitty, your opening lines about the country being led on the wrong course by Progressivism — as well as your last post on Ellis and the need for an Article V convention, brought this quote to mind (from C.S. Lewis):

    “We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.”

    Exactly.

  11. smitty
    February 22nd, 2014 @ 4:22 pm

    I’d point to the lackluster conservative turnout, e.g. Cuccinelli’s loss here in VA, to bolster my point.

    Sure, there’s hue & cry, but where are the rallies?

  12. smitty
    February 22nd, 2014 @ 4:23 pm

    Very good!

  13. K-Bob
    February 22nd, 2014 @ 6:34 pm

    I think reforming from within (or without, depending on POV) of the party is the only viable option in the range of the next decade. Just getting on the ballot in all fifty states by 2016 would be nearly impossible.

    One slim exception would be for ALL (and I do mean ALL) of the conservative heavy-hitters to declare a new party by fiat and put forth a single candidate.

    By heavy-hitters, I mean all the radio talkers, all the pundits, all the evangelical leaders, and all the bloggers. Also all the closeted Hollywood conservatives would have to come out of the closet and get on board.

    If we could do that, a third party would have a serious chance even in 2016. But the lack of movement or talk in that direction is a strong indicator that it’s further away than a “remote possibility.”

    So my money’s on taking over the GOP.

  14. K-Bob
    February 22nd, 2014 @ 6:38 pm

    People are in disarray. I think it will take concerted effort by a few stalwarts to pull together a rally. Right now a lot of the stalwarts are fighting battles with the IRS, Deranged Cyberstalkers, and the economy.

    It’s one of those historical moments where people are busy trying to keep the water from their door, knowing the levy is nearly ready to break.

  15. K-Bob
    February 22nd, 2014 @ 6:40 pm

    That, and the fact that they are stupid and small.

  16. Adobe_Walls
    February 22nd, 2014 @ 8:15 pm

    Welcome to the correct side of the Right side.

  17. Adjoran
    February 23rd, 2014 @ 4:28 am

    One wonders what, precisely, the House GOP (the Senate being hamstrung by Reid) should do about the IRS violations that they are not already doing. When witnesses refuse to appear at hearings and information requested is withheld, it is very difficult to proceed.

    I have to wonder about the blunt assessment that Virginia – and to a lesser extent, Alaska – “should be easy pickups for the GOP.” Warner is surely vulnerable, but he has never lost a race statewide and still benefits from some voters who think he is John Warner. Sad enough, but true. In Alaska, Begich was elected and Murkowski was elected as a write-in, any presumption of ease there seems rooted in a more distant past.

    If common sense had anything to do with it, where would Democrats EVER win? And yet we have Harry Reid ruling the Senate.

  18. Joan Of Argghh!
    February 23rd, 2014 @ 8:00 am

    State-raised children expect the State to sustain them. We ceded this battleground 40+ years ago. Do we embrace the decline and modify our expectations of liberty, or are we oppressed enough to act as the Ukrainians or Venezuelans have? I don’t think so. We are still incredibly comfortable in our miseries here. It may be time to prayerfully anoint this Republic for a burial, in order to rebuild it, starting in our own families.

    Oh, and eff the GOP.

  19. Quartermaster
    February 23rd, 2014 @ 3:52 pm

    The odds against that happening are pretty long.

  20. Quartermaster
    February 23rd, 2014 @ 3:54 pm

    They are nihilists with no principles.

  21. K-Bob
    February 23rd, 2014 @ 4:49 pm

    Yeah, I’m not so much optimistic as I am determined.

  22. Bob Belvedere
    February 23rd, 2014 @ 5:10 pm

    Why, yes…yes, they do – they think we’re that Stupid.

  23. Bob Belvedere
    February 23rd, 2014 @ 5:12 pm

    I don’t know if most of them are Nihilists, QM. Methinks most are just cowardly Quislings [I know, I repeat myself] who are afraid of the Gnostics.

  24. Bob Belvedere
    February 23rd, 2014 @ 5:15 pm

    What K-Bob wrote, but another factor is at play: the disgust with the whole system has turned a lot of people off from getting in the muck of Politics and they’ve retreated to The Family. I’m not saying this is the correct approach, but I sure as Hell understand it.

  25. Bob Belvedere
    February 23rd, 2014 @ 5:16 pm

    Indeed. That is a very conservative approach to life.