.
Notorious suck-up Ben Smith, currently of Buzzfeed, published an unbelievably up-sucking ‘beat sweetener’ on “How Reince Priebus Reinvented The Political Party“:
… Priebus — a careful, trim 42-year-old from Kenosha, Wisconsin — will run unopposed for a third term this week at the RNC’s Winter Meeting in San Diego. When he is done with that term, he will be the longest-serving RNC chairman in modern history. (His staff has done the math.) He has done this with almost no personal profile. Most people in Washington still can’t pronounce his first name. (It rhymes with “pints.”)
Yet Priebus has transformed the RNC from an organization whose reach and braggadocio regularly exceeded its grasp into a trim, effective piece of party infrastructure — in his terms, “the common denominator of the political universe.”… The RNC’s salvation is, ironically, the campaign finance regime that many Republicans oppose. And its pillars are data — the law gives it a singular role in passing voter data to other party groups; its remaining influence over the primary process whose outcome it no longer controls — and, above all, money…
Because of complex laws around coordination, the resources the Republican National Committee buys can be used and reused, passed around among Republican campaigns. Soft-money groups cannot share and coordinate like this. So instead of going to war with deep-pocketed outsiders like the Koch brothers, Priebus has found a role in their ecosystem. When it comes to data, for instance, the committee has — through an arrangement involving a new private company — essentially made itself the partner of a Koch-backed data company, i360, initially seen as a rival…
So, Priebus has proved his genius-osity by… selling his party to the Kochs directly, without all that fan-dancing burlesque of propriety common to lesser mortals. Truly, you can’t spell “Reince Priebus” without “RNC PR BS“!
And now comes the first result of this strategery, as reported by NYMag:
For some reason, the Republican party wants to limit the amount of time its colorful cast of 2016 candidates has to attack each other on the national stage. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus has said, “We’re not going to have a 23-debate circus,” and on Wednesday the committee announced its next convention will be held a month earlier. While candidates are usually nominated in late August or early September, in 2016 Republicans will gather in Cleveland from July 18 to 21. “The convention will be held significantly earlier than previous election cycles, allowing access to crucial general election funds earlier than ever before to give our nominee a strong advantage heading into Election Day,” Priebus explained…
This also gives the Democrats an extra month to point out the specific flaws of the Repub candidate chosen to ride on the hood of the clown car, but then: spoilt for choice.
Apart from contemplating the delights of Cleveland in mid-July, what’s on the agenda for the day?
Another Holocene Human
This is quite the snow job, or blow job, Reince Priebus being a really terrible leader of a really terrible RNC, desperate to remain relevant in the face of super PACs and their own choice to paint themselves into a corner.
But it makes sense–in the era of the super PAC the RNC head must now become a media star. No more rotating between geriatric loyal servants who chair the committee of important men in quiet rooms.
Schlemazel
The Koch whores are not stupid, the do learn from their mistakes. You can see that in their attempts to limit the damage exposure to the public does to their choice. It scares me that they might pull it off one day & we have a President Frothy mix or even The Marquis with control of both Houses. They have a very large number of people who have swallowed their BS for a very long time.
I thought back in the 90s when it was obvious things were going well under CLinton, “this is the moment, the fever will break & we are done with the wingnut crap”. Boy s I wrong. I do not consider the 2016 race a gimme no matter how big a loon the RNC excretes so I am not taking any pleasure from their squirming orlaughing at the miserable shit-show they are producing.
Arclite
Jeez, Anne Laurie. Only 3 hours of sleep?
Great story tho. “RNC PR BS.” Heh.
Baud
@Schlemazel:
I agree. Anyone who gets the nom has a fair shot at winning.
TheMightyTrowel
Ugh. Republicans. Gross. In fun Australian news: last year the PM’s party (the ultra right wing) tried to introduce a mandatory co-payment for doctors visits (we have a public-private system a bit like canada’s). There was uproar. People were outraged. The senate (which is balanced on a knife edge with lots of non-major party ‘cross-benchers’) voted it down. Then last week we found out that Abbott et al were trying to re-introduce the co-pay through sneaking back door avenues, specifically by cutting govt compensation to GPs so that they’d have to charge a fee to cover their costs. The senate – which is not in session yet – threatened to cancel it as soon as they’re back in session. GPs revolted. People were so outraged that today the govt health minister had to publicly back pedal and cancel the payment change hours before it was supposed to go into effect. High drama, down under. Also, fuck Tony Abbott in the eye with a rusty spork.
Mustang Bobby
I don’t know exactly what it is about Mr. Priebus that makes me want to reach for a baseball bat. Even Michael Steele, at his most bullshitting best, didn’t come off as smugly smarmy as this guy.
I realize it’s all a PR front — “Oh, no, Mr. Astor, the ship just brushed that iceberg; we will arrive in New York on time” — but still. I would find it difficult not to burst out laughing maniacally in his presence.
Keith G
@Schlemazel: The Fever Meme is a bit of rhetoric that has always bothered me . It reduces to a gross over simplification important socio-economic realities. People do not change their minds just because someone else tells them that they are wrong.
Re: Priebus. He seems to be a completely vile critter, but he shows up to play. He is no good at reaching beyond his base, but he does focus it’s id.
TR
Preibus is only 42?
I guess selling your soul ages a man.
Schlemazel
@Keith G:
I would not expect someone to change their minds simply on someones word but having demonstrated over 12 years that Republican policies failed, followed by 8 years of successful (marginally)Democratic policies followed by Boy Blunder and his Super Friends would have been lesson enough for anyone capable of rational thought. I do not think Obama has had the economic success of Clinton but more than enough given the environment that the GOP should be dead as hell. Instead they are not only alive they are taking control of both chambers & still have a 50-50 shot at a return to the glory years at the dawn of the new millenium.
Sherparick
Actually, the “out” party holding its convention first July appeared usual way things were done in the 1960s through the 80s, up to the 1992 election year (Bill Clinton and Al Gore were nominated in week of July 13). But in both the 1988 and 92 election cycles, it was observed how the Republican Party used that long space between the nomination to “Labor Day” to “define” the narrative of the Democratic nominee. (Clinton and Gore countered this somewhat by their “pre-campaign bus trips. Dukakis left the 1988 convention with a 15 point lead and went back to doing whatever and by Labor Day found himself behind and sinking.) Hence the pattern since 1996 of both parties holding their conventions back to back and as close to labor day as possible.
The party conventions, which actually were choosing nominees as late as 1980 (Carter did not clinch renomination over Kennedy until the Convention, Kennedy and and the “progressive wing” doing their bit in electing Reagan, Remember, “Heighten the Contradictions,” I guess) have to be rethought as they are even losing their purpose as long TV ads (again, up 1980, you basically had 3 networks covering the things for four straight days in prime time, and they were hard to ignore. Now, not so much with people dropping out of Cable and broadcast TV for streaming.
kindness
$2 prostitutes have more integrity than Ben Smith.
JGabriel
Ben Smith:
… job with so little power and influence that no one else in the GOP even wants it.
(Fixed for accuracy.)
Central Planning
Just saw this on the Onion. If only wingers believed it
U.S. Government Offers 100 Million Americans Generous Severance Deal To Leave Country
JGabriel
Schlemazel:
Give it another decade or two.
Republicans have been running against Jimmy Carter (or, more accurately, their straw man projection of Carter) since 1980. Right now, barely anyone under the age of 40 is old enough to have personal memories Carter. In another decade or two, such people will be the majority of voters.
Then the fever won’t actually break, but the remaining voters possessed by it will be too few to be relevant anymore – unless the GOP finds/creates another bogey man to feed the fever.
Snarkworth
“a careful, trim 42-year-old…”
“a trim, effective piece of party infrastructure…”
typed Ben, glancing at his Word-of-the-Day calendar.
Baud
Wonkette is much more preferable to Newsmax. I hope Wonkette replaces Newsmax on the mobile site soon.
Mustang Bobby
@JGabriel:
That’s about right; the GOP ran against Roosevelt well into the 70’s and 80’s, and they’ll be running against Obama well into the centennial of the Roosevelt administration.
bemused
I’ve just dug into the latest Vanity Fair issue. Editor Graydon Carter weighs in on Michael Kinsley’s piece, The Anger Games saying the hated culture of Washington is an accurate reflection of Americans’ attitudes in general.
Kinsley: (Washington) bitterness, ugliness and stupidity wouldn’t exist if voters didn’t respond to them.
Most angry voters’ opinions are bizarre, ignorant or contradictory.
Politicians have either decided their true beliefs are unacceptable to the public or they have no true beliefs.
It’s not good enough to say you’re liberal on social issues and conservative on economic issues. What’s the unifying principle between these two things?
Kinsley says a good citizen needs a framework to help sort through all the ideas and candidates out there. (Of course, but I sure don’t know when most voters will get motivated to do that.)
Graydon Carter: Voters have resentments but not a workable framework for making sense of reality. Instead they send people to Washington who look and think an awful lot like themselves. The exception is Mitch McConnell. No American looks like McConnell.
Baud
@bemused:
I don’t like Kinsley, but that sounds right to me.
danielx
@Mustang Bobby:
Any bets as to how long they’ll also be running on the rep of St. Ronnie, who couldn’t get nominated on the Republican ticket today because he’d be considered a RINO at best?
Mustang Bobby
@danielx: About as long as they ran on “The Party of Lincoln.”
hells littlest angel
Rachel Maddow is the only person who has ever been able to pronounce his name correctly. You gotta rrrroll those Rs.
Elizabelle
I like that cartoon. I wish more people saw it.
Although a lot will say “both parties are like that.” It’s the mantra. Because then they can go back to not thinking.
I wonder if people say that because they’re not ready to change, but they have noticed the craziness of the GOP. (Thinking of a loved extended family member here.)
debbie
The RNC will be in San Diego and the Republican Congress will be on a retreat in Hershey, PA. I say we change all the locks before they get back!
Tommy
@danielx: For the rest of my lifetime and I am 45 and hope to live many more years. I was living in DC when they started to name everything after him in the mid-90s. Changed the name of the airport from National to Reagan National Airport, although I don’t know anybody that lived in DC, even Republicans that ever called it that. They built a huge, I mean huge Federal building right downtown, I think it might be the largest government building outside the Pentagon, named it after Reagan. Then the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier. And roads. And this and that.
You name it. It was kind of made me sick to my stomach. Pretty sure they would have renamed the White House, Washington Monument, and every Smithsonian Museum, and the District of Columbia itself after him if they thought they could get away with it.
So yeah, they will keep running on his name for many, many more election cycles.
Elizabelle
@Tommy: I’m hoping we can quietly change the airport’s name back to Washington National airport once Nancy Reagan has left this mortal coil.
That was a name change imposed solely by Congressional Republicans. There was no local groundswell for it. Washington National is descriptive (you can see the city, across the river), and honors our first president, whose home is just a few miles south along the Potomac.
I never ever call it Reagan National.
Elizabelle
@Tommy:
PS: great! You got rid of the “P”.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
It’s becoming increasingly difficult not to see this as the root cause of people’s behavior.
Tommy
@Elizabelle: Yeah the locals, and I was one, were not happy with the name change. And you are right, it was all Republicans. Us liberals joked, and I forgot the amount, to change all the signs on the roads and at the airport costs millions and millions. Republicans only seem to like to spend money on things they support, then it is an “open cheek book.”
But then again nobody I knew in DC even uses the airport. The ticket prices are 2-3x (if not more to be honest) then that of BWI and even far cheaper than Dulles, which has to be one of the strangest airports in the US.
You get to the main terminal, the one you always see in movies and TV shows. Go through security, then get on this huge “thing” that looks like something you might trek across the South Pole in, to another building where the actual boarding gates are.
But then again I lived there 95% of the time pre-9/11 and almost weekly I flew out of Dulles to NC. Prop plane. They dropped us on the tarmac and we carried own luggage up to the plane to have somebody load it.
Thinking that is not happening today post-9/11.
Citizen Scientist
So, I get the impression that Rand Paul is running for both senate and pres in 2016. Couldn’t find a court ruling or anything that said he could after Grimes said that state law doesn’t allow it. Does anyone know what the deal is?
Also, thinking of going down to the Republican retreat today (just a few minutes from my house) and hanging out with an Obama shirt on or something.
Elizabelle
@Tommy:
Yeah, and then when Metro was strapped for funds (it always is) the GOP brayed about the extraordinarily long name change not being up on the signs quick enough. Bastards.
Southwest picked up some gates at DCA and I’ve even found flights out of National for less than, or comparable to, Dulles and BWI. Yea! Progress!
bemused
@Baud:
I think he’s got the problems with voters right but no workable solutions. Just telling voters to develop a rational framework is as ineffective as Nancy Reagan’s mantra Just Say No to Drugs was.
A vicious circle of media, voters and politicians keep feeding and escalating each other’s rage and bitterness. I don’t know how that cycle breaks if ever.
Buddy H
@Elizabelle:
At first I didn’t notice the little detail on the bottom right of the cartoon: “Me!” “Me!” They both start fighting over who gets to take mr. moneybags’ order.
BBA
@Tommy: Dulles finally built a tunnel with a moving walkway from the main terminal to the gates. It only took them four decades. (My understanding is that those “mobile lounge” vehicles were intended to shuttle you directly to the plane, but with the growth in air travel it didn’t scale.)
Mustang Bobby
Quote of the Day from Pope Francis:
Wrong, wrong, wrong, and really wrong, dude.
It’s a good thing he’s just some guy in a long white dress and not a Supreme Court justice.
Elizabelle
@Baud: This particular person is not racist. He’s a college graduate tradesman, raised in the South.
The women in his family support Democrats, the men support GOP. He voted for Obama in 2008, then Romney in 2012 because O didn’t fix everything fast enough. (!)
He’s not a stupid man, but he refuses to see what he’s seeing, and he’s just going cynical instead. Probably a glibertarian pickup this round.
Tommy
@Elizabelle: I’ve never liked Dulles, but flew out of there maybe 100 times. BWI is kind of a “dump” but always felt it was an efficient operation. It would be about as positive of a “flight experience” as you can have as long at the Parkway isn’t a parking lot, which it often is in the early AM and the afternoon rush hour.
I always tried to fly out, going home to St. Louis late morning or early afternoon and then it was a breeze.
That is progress. I lived on Capital Hill about 3 blocks from Union Station and if I could have flown out of National, well that would have been a dream come true.
Honestly I only flew out of National once, and I swear I can’t make this up, it was one of the last flights out on 9/10/01. I was running late coming from my job in Tyson Corner so I actually parked at the airport.
Not only did it take me some time to get a flight back home, it took much longer to get my car out of the parking garage. I would say it wasn’t a pleasent experience, but of course many, many other people had it FAR WORSE then I had it. I just got an extended vacation with my parents in St. Louis.
Tommy
@BBA: LOL. Been more than a decade since I’ve been in Dulles. About freaking time they did something. And as you said, it only took them four plus decades.
Baud
@bemused:
I think conservatives do a better job than liberals in marketing a worldview (“at least it’s an ethos!”). Until liberals settle on a competing framework, I don’t think there is much of a solution.
Elizabelle
@bemused:
Is this the Michael Kinsley article? Vanity Fair. How Voters Can Fix Washington.
It’s got a comments box.
Kay
This is how it goes, though. They don’t stay behind forever. In 2004 Bush was the genius with direct mail and micro-targeting and Kerry was the designated mess.
That flipped in 2008, but I knew Republicans weren’t going to just accept that as a permanent state of existence. The “data edge” or “turnout edge” for Democrats wasn’t going to last, because competitors catch up.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
He doesn’t have to be a racist in a traditional sense. But if his social network is predominantly white, he’s going to conform to some degree to that group culture.
Cervantes
@debbie:
!
Kay
I thought Democrats “fought the last war” in 2014 because they assumed they could take advantage of GOP extremists like they did in 2012.
But Republicans ARE capable of learning and they did learn that :)
Elizabelle
Oscars: song first … Glen Campbell got a nom
visual effects: the usual suspect movies
Good documentary noms.
Boyhood gets its first nom, for editing. As did Grand Budapest Hotel.
American Sniper on second nom; Interstellar also … third for Sniper …
Elizabelle
Announcing the nominations are JJ Abrams and Alfonso Cuarzon (sp — Gravity)….
A lot of competition in animated film; good ones out this year.
Elizabelle
@Kay: But why did Democratic voters stay home? Was it the pervasive air of disrespect?
Colorado was disgusting. Cory Gardner, what me a record?
Elizabelle
Birdman and Boyhood racking up supportings in both categories.
Elizabelle
cinematography: Birdman, Budapest Hotel, Eda, Mr. Turner, Unbroken
Elizabelle
Mr. Pope was announced as Mr. Poop.
They need to step up pronunciation practice; lots more foreign directors and talent helming big movies.
(Does not apply to Pope/poop.)
Elizabelle
Not a great actress category.
Steve Carrell gets nod for Foxcatcher for Best Actor. Woo hoo.
American Sniper’s done well, Birdman, Boyhood, Grand Budepest, Imitation Game.
First for Selma, for best picture.
danielx
@bemused:
This is true. His reptilian heritage is all too evident, both in his appearance and his public pronouncements. He’d stand out even in a Walmart or a state fair midway.
“He walks, he talks, he crawls on his belly like a reptile!”
Paul in KY
@TheMightyTrowel: A rusty fpoon as well!
bemused
@Elizabelle:
That’s the one.
bemused
@Baud:
Yes. Periodically people have written about this. Republicans perfected how to sell a “story” to the rabble and have been all too successful. Recently, Edwin Lyngar wrote about this, Angry Right’s Secret Playbook, how to peddle an agenda. He was a conservative and has written about finding his way into the liberal light quite a bit at age 39. Interesting columns.
Kay
@Elizabelle:
I think it;s because Democrats can’t replicate a giant presidential campaign every two years. My own personal opinion is that “sporadic voters” become aware of elections and candidates through giant media campaigns and then the follow up is the specific turn-out mechanism- finding them, canvassing, etc. Without the giant media campaign around a presidential campaign that first step doesn’t get done.
The “data/organization edge” is what Democrats have relied on in presidential years, though, that’s how they identify “sporadic voters” so that’s why they would have to be aware of Republicans figuring it out going forward.
They catch up. It won’t be like 2008 or 2012.
Elizabelle
@bemused:
Ah, that Edwin Lyngar. I remember his Salon article about how, as a working white guy, he suddenly woke up about the GOP. Wish he’d get more company.
Link to Lyngar’s Salon articles.
I seem to be your librarian today.
Balloon Juice. Come for the political cartoons. Stay for the article links.
Elizabelle
Edwin Lyngar: Why I fled libertarianism — and became a liberal. Salon again.
me
People around here have said that Reince might come back to run for office. I said no way because he is on the gravy train.
danielx
@Elizabelle:
Also too, foremost and everlastingly, for the snark.
Fixed.
Speaking of advice, have you gotten anywhere on the vinyl ripping project?
Rex Tremendae
Did the Reince Priebus article include “Michael Steele’s” quote about a Brett Favre text?
Elizabelle
@danielx:
My main thought on the vinyl ripping is that I might buy the Pro-Tex turntable (?) boatboy suggested, and then beg like hell for boatboy to come over for dinner and teach me how to do this!
You’d had what seemed to be some less pricy suggestions, so maybe a tryout of a few methods. The turntable would seem to be returnable …
Vinyl’s a project for late spring, but have been thinking on it for a while.
At present, my iPhone 3GS is pretty elderly and have to think on that first.
Thanks for asking!! How are you today? You are in the grip of icy winter?
Ruckus
@JGabriel:
One word.
President Obama.
OK two words.
bemused
@Elizabelle:
Yes, I wish more would too. For so many suspicious and distrusting conservatives, it’s odd that more of them don’t start wondering if their own brand is playing them for chumps.
Elizabelle
@Ruckus:
So all depends a bit on how long it takes until Obama’s presidency is commonly accepted as the success it has been.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
RNCPRBS should simply endorse UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH! (RMoney) Right now. Edited for clarity.
Patricia Kayden
@Elizabelle: I hope you’re right. I always call it Washington National too.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Schlemazel
If you examine their respective starting points, Obama arguably has had a better economic record.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@bemused:
They can’t. If they start realizing that their own side is working against them, their whole world falls apart. That’s one reason con artists are most effective when they can convince you that they’re just like you. Cons are rampant in conservative Christian and Mormon circles because people don’t believe that someone “like me” could do that.
catclub
@Kay: and I thought they fought the last war by rumblings that there would be a surprise Democratic turnout machine.
bemused
So many Christian cons. Christian banks, Christian health insurance, Christian investment advisors, etc. Any kind of endeavor with a Christian label particularly if it involves money would send me running in the opposite direction. Even those who get badly burned by the cons don’t seem to readily learn some skepticism. Pretty sad when they are more willing to be fleeced than lose their delusions.
danielx
@Elizabelle:
I hear tell it’s going to actually go above 32 degrees today, but so far it’s just a rumor.
fuckwit
And WHY THE FUCK did Howard Dean not serve as the longest-serving DNC head. If he had, and we kept the 50-state strategy we wouldn’t have lost all the damn statehouses to the Rethugs, and we’d have had a continuous run of Speaker Pelosi, and possibly even narrowly held on to the Senate this year too.
Biggest mistake the Democrats have made in the last decade, is not re-electing Dean over and over again to the DNC.
Quaker in a Basement
Pierce always says he’s an obvious anagram.
Bob In Portland
Because poor BJers don’t get the news from the NY Times. I guess Nuland’s “Fuck the EU” has been taken to heart.
chopper
@Bob In Portland:
HODOR!
Jake Nelson
@Quaker in a Basement: It does anagram easily to “I, Prince Erebus”. Which totally seems like a plot in a dodgy CW show or something.
I’m still a fan of this one.
Sondra
I guess outsourcing all of that information saves the party having to do all of the heavy lifting and messy business of actually running campaigns.