But wait til 2012
Dave Weigel has a piece up about how there won’t be much Republican infighting in 2011. I’m sure he’s right. Generally, Republicans don’t argue with each other much during the legislative season because they aren’t interested in governing, they just don’t care enough to argue about the boring, concrete things that go into making laws. If things become sufficiently symbolic—flag burning, keeping brown people out, the Dubai ports deal (not that the reaction there was totally irrational), TWOC —they’ll fight to the death, but they’re not going to battle with each other over whether the CBO estimate for that is $100 billion more than the CBO estimate for this.
But when the presidential campaign season starts, they’ll go for each other’s throats. I remember reading in 2008, on Ben Smith’s blog, I can’t find the link, that he was astounded by Republican presidential candidates routinely crotch-kicking each other in ways Democrats never did (for better or worse). The details are a bit Inside Baseball— I remember the oppo report on Giuliani judicial appointments and lots of nasty stuff directed at Romney—but ask yourself if you’ve ever seen Democrats do anything like the push polling Bush did about John McCain’s “black baby”.
The Republican party of today is built on winning elections by fighting hard over imaginary issues. I don’t think there’s quite as simple an answer for what the Democratic party is built on but there is more interest in bloodsport over policy details and less on bloodsport during elections.
November 30, 2010 10:04 pm
Posted in: We Are All Mayans Now
60 Comments
60 Responses
joe from Lowell - November 30, 2010 | 10:12 pm · Link
The fighting in the GOP isn’t going to be between different wings of the Congressional caucuses. They’ll march in lockstep like good little drones, just like they always do.
The fighting is going to be between the officeholders, and those voters/political activists who will start shrieking “sellout!” Trust me, I’ve seen it with Scott Brown’s supporters.
You think the lefties who don’t like Rahm Emmanuel are hard-line and uninterested in the practical side of politics? The teabaggers are going to lap them.
Midnight Marauder - November 30, 2010 | 10:19 pm · Link
I’m all in against Dave Weigel.
+3
DonkeyKong - November 30, 2010 | 10:22 pm · Link
Norm McDonnell told a joke on Weekend Update years ago that will come to characterize the 2012 republican primary skull fucking contest.
“Several prison inmates escaped from prison today, but didn’t get very far because they kept stopping to rape each other.”
Tasteless, but accurate.
NobodySpecial - November 30, 2010 | 10:22 pm · Link
@Midnight Marauder: My gods, they couldn’t throw the election to Obama harder if they attached it to Roger Clemens’ arm.
Do they seriously think a year plus of them mauling each other is going to do anything other than make them all look like clownshoes by the time the election rolls around?
Alex S. - November 30, 2010 | 10:27 pm · Link
As much as I detest it, it comes down to Sarah Palin. For a long time, not even the core of the Republican Party knew if Sarah Palin was going to run – she was just that erratic. And no one wanted to take a position for or against her. They need her to fire up the base, but they also know that she is unelectable (probably). However, recently, there have been some signs that she is in fact, going to run (she’s assembling a staff in Iowa, for example). For a few weeks, they attacked her, to sink her candidacy before it has begun (especially Karl Rove). But lately, there are some indications that people are beginning to coalesce around her (Karl Rove calls her Iowa book tour “smart” now).
There is a chance that she might just run away with the nomination and any attempt to stop her would just alienate her rabid fan base. And if the GOP knows or thinks that Sarah Palin is the inevitable candidate, they will do best by avoiding any kind of brutal primary. The republican primaries might actually be the only place where a republican candidate can’t avoid talking to the press.
Tom Levenson - November 30, 2010 | 10:27 pm · Link
I was at a local Democrats thank you party for volunteers in teh election earlier tonight. Our gov., Deval Patrick spoke—really well (he can both stem and wind)—and finished off with a quote from Barney Frank (paraphrasing): Government is what we choose to do together. Democrats, Deval said, are practical, looking for the solutions to social problems that work—but they do so with the understanding that you don’t have to sacrifice their humanity to do so.
That’ll do for a starting point for me as we work towards 2012.
Hawes - November 30, 2010 | 10:28 pm · Link
No.
Democrats argue whether the lack of a public option was a poorly thought out compromise to win 60 votes in the Senate or THE WORST BETRAYAL OF AMERICA SINCE THE
ROSENBERGSJOE MCCARTHY.We plunge knives in each other over whether a policy is truly progressive or merely “eyewash”.
But we don’t give a damn, apparently, about winning elections.
Nellcote - November 30, 2010 | 10:29 pm · Link
@Midnight Marauder:
I wonder if it will be considered a diss on St.Ronnie or Nancy if a “candidate” declines the invitation.
Anya - November 30, 2010 | 10:31 pm · Link
Speaking for GOP presidential primary, I wonder when will Tim Pawlenty realize that he ruined his state for nothing? He is at the bottom of every poll. Maybe he’s hoping that he’ll be the winner’s VP pick.
Brick Oven Bill - November 30, 2010 | 10:34 pm · Link
Please allow me to correct the Deval quote.
Democrats, Deval said, are practical, looking for the solutions to social problems that work—going forth under the illusion that the Laws of mathematics, physics, and economics do not apply to them.
Anyway, a photo of Dave Weigel.
Just because.
ItAintEazy - November 30, 2010 | 10:36 pm · Link
@Midnight Marauder: I’d suggest a drinking game, but I fear the body count.
robertdsc-PowerBook & 27 titles - November 30, 2010 | 10:37 pm · Link
What’s the point when he enacts what they want?
Tom Levenson - November 30, 2010 | 10:44 pm · Link
@Brick Oven Bill: You think you are clever. You are not.
WyldPirate - November 30, 2010 | 10:48 pm · Link
@robertdsc-PowerBook & 27 titles:
Now that’s funny.
And everyone will be pissed because you “ruined” the thread. Good thing it’s getting late, ;)
Corner Stone - November 30, 2010 | 10:50 pm · Link
Everyone, it’s not really BoB.
Someone’s running the spoof and just throwing a salute shout out to the good old days with the electrified train stuff.
Midnight Marauder - November 30, 2010 | 10:53 pm · Link
@ItAintEazy:
As a great band once sang, let the bodies hit the floor.
I am so giddy for the train wreck that will be the Republican presidential primary.
So giddy.
+6
Greatbear - November 30, 2010 | 10:54 pm · Link
@Nellcote:
It depends on whether or not they at least stop by to lie prostrate at Saint Ron’s tomb. As long as they the proper obeisance to His Holiness, all will be forgiven.
jacy - November 30, 2010 | 10:57 pm · Link
@Midnight Marauder:
It will be Elmer Gantry by way of the Ministry of Silly Walks.
Dennis SGMM - November 30, 2010 | 10:59 pm · Link
The simple minded side of me thinks that the extent to which the GOPers savage each other depends a lot on how much oxygen Palin sucks out of the process early on. If, as is very possible in this idiocracy, she’s the runaway lead then the others may be a bit more collegial.
The pragmatic side of me knows that no matter how much or how little the candidates savage each other it won’t cost them a single vote in the General election.
joe from Lowell - November 30, 2010 | 11:00 pm · Link
@Brick Oven Bill:
That’s a very polite stuffed animal thingy on his desk.
Offering to go first like that. Thoughtful.
Cat Lady - November 30, 2010 | 11:04 pm · Link
Re the Republican primaries – There Will Be Blood. and tweets. And popcorn. Palin will have to participate in the debates, or will she? The thing about her, is that as big a dumb fuck as she is, and she’s the biggest, she will diminish all who have to wrassle with her, and as a Romney watcher, I will be the most interested to see what tack he takes with her. It’s going to be mind bogglingly surreal.
Midnight Marauder - November 30, 2010 | 11:04 pm · Link
@Anya:
I have a book to option. It is entitled Always A Bridesmaid, Never A Bride: Chronicling The Vice Presidential Aspirations of Tim Pawlenty.
The first stop of my book tour will be in Saint Paul.
Nellcote - November 30, 2010 | 11:07 pm · Link
@Cat Lady:
LaPalin will boycott if NBC is involved.
Redshirt - November 30, 2010 | 11:08 pm · Link
Speaking of Mayans, I wonder if any of their glyphs can be read as a Sarah Palin symbol? The Mama Bear? And if yeah, how apocalyptic would it be if in Nov. 2012 Palin wins the Presidency, and then the precession happens and the conjunction of all the Astral Planes on 12/21/12 and and… well, that’d be the end, I reckon. Your Democrat crystals won’t save anyone.
bluemeanies - November 30, 2010 | 11:08 pm · Link
Who other than S Palin has everything on winning the Republican nom in 2012? (She can’t run the people mag/Twitter/reality show gammit to 2016 can she?) I think Romney and if I recall correctly he wasn’t afraid to run dirty. The Huckster probably isn’t going to run for elected office again if he’s not the nominee (or will he try challenging Pryor at some point- but if he wanted to be a Senator he would have challenged Blanche). Ron Paul, if he runs, does not restrict himself to the R mainstream and has the cred with the Tea Party crowd to attack anyone. And Gingrich plays mean.
If it is a Sarah Palin frontrunner situation vs the field there are enough nasty pieces of shit in the field with nothing to lose to go pretty negative on her.
General Stuck - November 30, 2010 | 11:12 pm · Link
I think historically, you are largely right Dougj, and especially after the wingers were out of power for a long time, like with the House in 94, they pretty much fell in line like good lil sheeps. But I also think something is different this time. In 94 they came with some bright shiny new ideas, and some of them, about ethics and stuff looked good on paper.
Well, those new ideas went all to electoral shit beginning 2006, as did all the blather about ethics and personal responsibility, ending up in one big steaming pile of fail.
This time they got elected with no ideas, and all ideological froth supplied mostly from the teatards, along with a heaping dose of racial backsliding, and what can only be described as a form of nihilism toward the entire system.
The elected officials now belong to no party remotely holy, or sane, and are captives of a particular brand of mean spirited quasi insane populism. The old bulls welcomed the teatard energy, the same way they did welcoming the southern strategy and it’s racist fuckwits. This is but a distilled version of that, on a last gasp rebound, like a focused beam of destruction on the status quo that is insatiable and offers nothing but nothing to replace that status quo. It is a rage virus movement, and dumb as a fucking fencepost.
Left Coast Tom - November 30, 2010 | 11:12 pm · Link
@bluemeanies:
I think Gingrich only ever pretends to “explore” a run as a vehicle for personal fundraising.
MikeJ - November 30, 2010 | 11:14 pm · Link
What on earth besides xenophobia was wrong with the Dubai ports deal?
Cat Lady - November 30, 2010 | 11:15 pm · Link
@Redshirt:
a/k/a The Wingularity. We may have already entered the event horizon – there’s no going back to where we were BP (before Palin).
Jim, Foolish Literalist - November 30, 2010 | 11:18 pm · Link
@Left Coast Tom: I used to think that about Palin, but I’m starting to wonder if the applause of the howler monkeys isn’t going to her head and she might think she actually has a chance.
God, I hope so.
Dennis SGMM - November 30, 2010 | 11:18 pm · Link
@bluemeanies:
They’ll need to be pretty creative about it. Their party has expended too much effort on building the “proud to be ignorant” bit to do a 180 and attack her for her manifest ignorance.
Peter J - November 30, 2010 | 11:21 pm · Link
@Redshirt:
Either the election of Palin is a sign of the apocalypse, but not the trigger (Trig!), or Obama gets relected, republicans freak out, secede and start World War III hoping that Jesus will come back and save everyone from the s-word.
Left Coast Tom - November 30, 2010 | 11:22 pm · Link
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I see it the same way…earlier I thought she was in it because she wanted some new clothes, now I think the same thing but also think she’s dumb enough to not know when to quit.
freelancer - November 30, 2010 | 11:22 pm · Link
OT: Did you know John McCain was a POW?:
Sadly, No:
FUCK YOU, John McCain.
mclaren - November 30, 2010 | 11:25 pm · Link
Don’t have much of a memory, do we? Not familiar with the savagery of JFK’s dirty tricks against Hubert Humphrey in the 1960 primaries, are we?
Or, for that matter, LBJ’s meathook-in-the-face tactics involving bribery and hired enforcers to beat people up if they tried to vote for the wrong person during the 1964 election.
Once upon a time, Democrats knew how to break a beer bottle and grind the jagged end into their primary opponents’ faces. Now only the Republicans know how to do that.
Which is why they win elections.
Dennis SGMM - November 30, 2010 | 11:26 pm · Link
@freelancer:
The senile old fossil also seems to have forgotten that Gates was a Bush appointee.
Suck It Up! - November 30, 2010 | 11:30 pm · Link
@freelancer:
John McCain is complete trash. Someone needs to put him on blast.
mclaren - November 30, 2010 | 11:37 pm · Link
In case no one else wants to say it, I will: John McCain should be sent back to the Vietnamese so they can finish the job.
And Robert Gates should’ve been sentenced to assrape prison for life for his high crimes against the constitution in the Iran-Contra sedition.
Bnad - November 30, 2010 | 11:41 pm · Link
Working my way backward from the 2012 Apocalypse, I see Sarah Palin rehabilitated as a serious figure in late 2011, preceded by an astute advisor finally getting through to her and convincing her she needs to tone it down, hit the books, and act presidential if she ever hopes to get elected. A Palin rehab is going to be surprisingly easy.
Linda Featheringill - November 30, 2010 | 11:41 pm · Link
Slightly tangential:
I wonder if Boehner is planning to run for president.
If he is, then maybe the Republican-led House won’t be full-out crazy, as he will have an eye on folks are aren’t part of the Tea Party.
We’ll see.
MikeJ - November 30, 2010 | 11:44 pm · Link
@Linda Featheringill: Once a black man was elected it just opened the door for the orange.
El Cid - November 30, 2010 | 11:44 pm · Link
And there was bitter, bitter, angry opposition by conservatives that John McCain was likely to be the candidate.
Rush Limbaugh repeatedly denounced the disaster that McCain would be for the party and would fail to do the things the nation needed to do.
And the moment, the instant that McCain became the nominee, all of them shut up and began in unison to denounce the Democrats, whether it would be Hillary or Obama.
Dennis SGMM - November 30, 2010 | 11:46 pm · Link
@Linda Featheringill:
I think that the prospect of having to remain sober for more than a few hours at a time precludes a Boehner bid.
JWL - November 30, 2010 | 11:47 pm · Link
Barack Obama has proved himself a worse-than-enfeebled leader of the democratic party rank and file.
Confirmed paraphrase (11/30/10): “I didn’t reach out to the GOP during my first two years”.
He has got to go.
General Stuck - November 30, 2010 | 11:51 pm · Link
@JWL:
Then find yourself a dem primary candidate for 012, and let’s have at it.
Unabogie - December 1, 2010 | 12:44 am · Link
@JWL:
Can I take a moment to lump you in with all the other stupid dumbshits who think like you and say go fuck yourself, you motherfucking retards?
If a large enough group of stupid shits like you manage to stage a primary in 2012, the bloodshed of Palin’s 9 wars will be on your hands.
Now go shut the fuck up. You hurt my ears.
WyldPirate - December 1, 2010 | 12:49 am · Link
@Unabogie:
Little touchy, huh, Unabogie? Everything isn’t so Rosie in Hope and Change land is it?
Your fucking island of delusion is shrinking, even on this blog.
Unabogie - December 1, 2010 | 1:00 am · Link
@WyldPirate:
My island is not of delusion. I’d save that for dumb motherfuckers like you who just woke up to find John Boehner in charge and instead of rethinking things, decided that doubling down would be a bright idea.
What kind of asshole does this?
Fuckheads or Republicans. Not sure which one you are or if there’s a difference, come to think of it.
WyldPirate - December 1, 2010 | 1:07 am · Link
@Unabogie:
Damn, but you’re angry.
I’m neither a Republican nor did I “double down” on anything. Unlike, you, though, I can recognize complete political ineptitude which is on glaring display in DC.
Unabogie - December 1, 2010 | 1:19 am · Link
@WyldPirate:
You’re right that I’m angry. I’m angry that stupid motherfuckers like you are around in great enough numbers to enable the Teabaggers to win the last election, and possibly the next. So you claim you’re not a Teabagger, but you’ve got common cause and frankly you sound just like one. So fuck yourself in the eye with a rusty pitchfork.
WyldPirate - December 1, 2010 | 1:26 am · Link
@Unabogie:
good FSM, but you are a stupid fuck.
I had nothing to do with the Teabaggers winning the election. I haven’t voted for a Republican in almost 20 years. The Teabaggers won the election because the Democrats absolutely suck at messaging. They cannot communicate a single, simple fucking coherent message to the public. They can’t even stick together to wrap the economy around the necks of the Rethugs or explain a simple concept like the fact that fact that rich people and Wall St. are raping and pillaging the country.
Fucking Rachel Maddow’s staff of interns are better at communicating a coherent message than the entire White House Communications team.
Matt Osborne - December 1, 2010 | 2:03 am · Link
“The Republican party of today is built on winning elections by fighting hard over imaginary issues”
See, here’s where the ‘sphere goes wrong. Instead of stupid Sarah Palin thing of the day, we ought to be telling a different story and making our issues as concise as that sentence.
Green. Jobs. Now
For the record, I have tried to tell a different story.
JWL - December 1, 2010 | 2:26 am · Link
@Unabogie: That’s your best shot?
Unabogie, you’re a bigger wuss than Obama.
You need a big daddy to admire.
I don’t.
bob h - December 1, 2010 | 6:28 am · Link
Which is why I am confident Palin is going to tear the Party apart and take it down to defeat with her in 2012.
Suck It Up! - December 1, 2010 | 6:39 am · Link
@JWL:
Wow! This from a group that hands out “you’re my hero” tags for free. This from a group who can’t seem to get off their ass to counter the tea party or take action on the issues they claim to want until “Obama leads” – yeah, I don’t think Una is the one that needs a daddy.
Suck It Up! - December 1, 2010 | 6:40 am · Link
@WyldPirate:
you get dumber as the day passes don’t you?
joe from Lowell - December 1, 2010 | 8:04 am · Link
@mclaren:
Democrats won the popular vote in 4 out of the last 5 elections. The only time the Republican candidate outpolled the Democratic candidate in the past two decades was when he was an incumbent wartime president, and even then, he did so by the lowest margin of any wartime president ever to seek reelection.
joe from Lowell - December 1, 2010 | 8:07 am · Link
@Unabogie:
There isn’t. A handful of internet weirdos can’t stage a primary.
The just make a lot of noise, and pretend to be more than a fringe of a faction of a minority of a fringe.
joe from Lowell - December 1, 2010 | 8:09 am · Link
@Unabogie:
The teabaggers won the elections because independents swung to the opposition in a lousy economy, and because the electorate in mid-terms is whiter and older than the electorate in presidential years.
Don’t puff up these freaks’ already-inflated sense of their own significance.
On the likelihood of Republican infighting | Library Grape - December 2, 2010 | 3:06 pm · Link
[...] Balloon Juice is a divisive source of content in these parts, but I think this piece of analysis from DougJ is spot-on: Generally, Republicans don’t argue with each other much during the [...]