Normally, I wouldn’t care that some teabagger is going to ride to victory in Utah on the strength of the St George sister-wife demographic. Unfortunately, the new Club for Growth candidate will replace Bob Bennett in the Senate, and probably join Rand Paul there. Expect a blizzard of holds, hours of filibuster on the floor, and support from Republicans like Hatch and McConnell, who are now more than a little afraid of being reduced to tears at post-convention press conferences.
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joe from Lowell
Don’t be a defeatist. Things are turning around. The GOP nominated extremist candidates who could eke out narrow victories in a very pro-Republican climate, but the climate is changing.
When the parties chose their presidential nominees in 2008, it was going to be a foreign policy election. Things change.
Brian J
1. Sadly, it makes the most sense that they do this in a state like Utah. Is there even a Democrat willing to take on the Republican candidate? If so, I have no idea who he or she is. It’s much riskier in a state like, say, Pennsylvania, where there’s a deep bench of people willing to try to get the seat.
2. Are we so sure Paul is going to win in Kentucky? Sure, he may have deep advantages if/when he wins the primary, because it is Kentucky, but there a couple of Democrats who seem to make a run for it. It’s red, yes, but it’s not, um, Utah.
chowkster
Wow. Republicans are going to obstruct Obama’s agenda? That’s terrible. This reminds me of when I lost my new Rolex watch and was really bummed about it until I realized when I never owned a Rolex watch.
Guster
@chowkster: Exactly.
And maybe these guys will help the Senate hit bottom. Like some sort of nightmarish intervention.
Thomas
@joe from Lowell: I would ratify Joe’s comment and add that the more extreme the GOP gets from the echo chamber these people put themselves in (epistemic closure anyone?), the more likely they are to nominate someone who’s essentially unelectable in 2012.
Brian J
@Guster:
I try to take a long-term, things-eventually-even-out view of things like this. I figure that if people like Jane “Pay your doctors with chickens” Norton get into office, and then ramp up the crazy, it won’t be long before the Democrats take back most, if not all, of these seats. That process will be even easier if the Democrats minimize the losses in 2010, particularly in the House, I believe.
But what worries me most is that these clowns get into office, and then things start to improve despite the fact that they had virtually nothing to do it with. I realize that both sides benefit from natural changes largely outside their realm of influence, but only three Republicans in the Senate voted for the stimulus, after making it weaker than it otherwise would have been–and one is now a Democrat. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any Republicans in the House who did the same. Many of these people not only did not want stimulus spending, they wanted to cut any natural deficit spending to bring the budget into balance, which would have likely made a recession into a depression. Now, the economy is finally starting to show some legitimate signs of like where voters care the most–in the job market–and if it continues but they make significant gains, I suspect a lot of people will associate Republican wins with better employment numbers.
The Grand Panjandrum
This really is terrible news. Without Bennet’s vote the Health Insurance Reform bill would have never passed. Oh wait, um …. never mind. I’d be worried if he were a Democrat in a blue state but this isn’t all that surprising. If the FSM exists,then that obsequious cocksucker, Orrin Hatch is next. Please make it so, your noodleliness.
azlib
I wonder if Bennett will run as an independent. Anyone have any idea if this is in the cards?
Zifnab25
@Brian J: Well, they try this shit in bluer states, but those candidates always get washed out. See Katherine Harris in Florida or ex-Senator Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania.
True extremists can’t survive on the ballot outside the deep red states.
For those people who hate the filibuster, this is nothing but good news. Watching a Randroid or a religious nutter try and drag the entire Senate to a halt at every vote is going to have even Republicans gunning to strip the lone wack-job from power. Bob Corker (R-Tenn) was elected to prop up the banks. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-Tex) exists to line up more money in earmarks for her state. Saxby Chambliss (R-Georgia) isn’t getting reelected if he can’t keep cash coming into his military contractor friends.
None of these people want to see filibuster after endless filibuster.
El Cid
If this guy gets in I’ll bet the Republicans will block 150% of legislation than the 100% they do now.
Violet
@azlib:
From the link in the original post:
Doesn’t sound like that’s a possibility.
Aimai
First they came for those who had a 100% rating from the NRA and I said nothing.
Aimai
dmsilev
So, status quo then?
dms
mistermix
So, let me see if I have this right:
The current obstruction in the Senate has caused the public to understand that Republicans are the real problem, they’ve suffered greatly in the media and in the court of public opinion, and they’re almost certainly going to lose seats because of it. The presence of two even more retrogade obstructionists is therefore not a problem at all, because it will further inflame the public, who, with the help of a pliant media, will fall into the arms of Democrats, and we will all live happily ever after. The end.
Is that about it?
Cynicor
I like this line from the article:
Identifying Count Chocula as if he’s a “club president” with a lower-case C because the lobbying group is called “Club for Growth”.
Hal
Just wait until we start hearing about Obama’s Birth Certificate on the Senate floor. That should be fun.
Forgive me for not worrying, but while I may underestimate the ability of the American public to keep electing the same idiots over and over again, I don’t think someone who is to the right of Pat Robertson is going to win anywhere but Utah.
Napoleon
Bingo – this is the reason I don’t think it is all that bad of a thing. At some point even the clueless Dem leadership will realize they have to do away with the filibuster, holds, the whole system of stupid rules the House blew up over a century ago.
Napoleon
@mistermix:
Your have it backwards. The party that you have to focus on is the Dem leadership. If they realize that from now until the end of time they will never get the Reps to vote for anything they propose AND that the Rep will suffer no consequences they will realize they have no choice but to do away with the antimajorian rules.
kommrade reproductive vigor
You missed a step. Bridgewater and Lee have to face off in mid-June. I checked their websites last night and their issues are (or were) almost identical. So between now and June they’ll spend their time trying to out ReaLAMErican each other to the rightest of the right.
By the time the winner gets to D.C.* he’ll be so radioactive very few Senators will want to work with him.
Nuh-uh. No way.
*Still don’t think any amount of crazy by these two will give a Utah Dem. a chance in Hell.
kay
Both candidates in the run-off support taking both Social Security and Medicare private.
Makes sense, because that’s the central premise and purpose of the Club for Growth, and always has been. That was always the end game. That’s where the money is, and they need a huge transfer from public sector (no finance and insurance middleman) to private sector (finance and insurance middleman).
Incumbent Republicans avoid speaking this basic truth, and now they won’t be able to. If they do, the Club For Growth will go after them, as here.
I generally think it’s better when Republicans can’t hide the ball.
We found out last week that the Best and Brightest in finance cannot even explain why the stock market dropped 1,000 points in an hour. They had no fucking idea what was going on. I think we should have an honest discussion about whether it would be smart to give them Soclal Security to play with.
rachel
No, the only places Utah Dems have a chance lie along parts of the Wasatch Front. Well, just Salt Lake City proper, really.
demo woman
Information that you already know..David Gregory is an idiot.
kay
I just don’t know that it’s this big shocker. The Club For Growth have been trying this for years, and a caucus was the best way to succeed.
They were eventually going to succeed. They weren’t going away.
I see your point, that it will be portrayed as a grass roots victory for the Tea Party, but every news report I’ve seen has featured the Club for Growth prominently. Grover Norquist wasn’t going to quit. The only place finance and insurance can find any new money is Social Security and Medicare, and they just took a substantial set-back on taking Medicare private, in the health care bill. They had captured 20% of Medicare, since 2002. They aren’t going to let that just go. They want the whole thing.
mistermix
@Napoleon: I’m actually slightly hopeful that Democrats will do this, but only slightly. Don’t overestimate their love of the traditions of “the world’s greatest deliberative body”.
@kommrade reproductive vigor: Last polls I saw had Paul way up over either Grayson or Mongiardo, but I realize there’s plenty of time before the election.
MikeJ
@mistermix: It’s not just love of tradition that keeps filibuster alive. It’s a built in excuse for not accomplishing anything.
Napoleon
@mistermix:
Well then if they go with tradition it will be with even the blindest of the blind of them knowing that there is a pretty good chance it will result in them loosing their majority because they will get blamed for not being able to do anything. Politicians tend to be able to focus their minds on a problem when it means a loss of their perks and status.
Plus with more nuts being elected on the right I think the press will go easier on the Dems if they blow up the current system.
At least that is what I hope.
Boudica
I am happy to report that the Teabagger candidate for mayor in the town I work for lost the election 30% to 70%…in extremely conservative Texas, no less!
NobodySpecial
Sorry, once we got below 65 seats, nothing could be done anyways.
azlib
@Violet:
Is this true also for the general election in November? Sounds like a pretty draconian filing deadline if it is.
Corner Stone
And if Bennett had squeaked by and still been the presumptive nominee?
He’d have pissed his pants and moved even further right ala John McCain.
It actually doesn’t matter what the outcome of the convention was – the R nominee was going to be nuttier than when Bennett entered the rabbit hole. If he’d survived he’d be an even more pandering rightwing SOB.
Corner Stone
I love it that one guy in the article I read said he was mad because Bennett had promised to only serve two terms if elected.
And the guy was miffed that Bennett was trying to go back for fourthsies!
jimBOB
Plus with more nuts being elected on the right I think the press will go easier on the Dems if they blow up the current system.
1. There is nothing that Dems can do which will prevent Mark Halperin et al from serving in their traditional role of GOP Amen Corner.
2. The good news is it doesn’t particularly matter.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@mistermix: I hear you, I just don’t think he will do well in full sunlight.
If he were running for Congress, no problem.
Well. Maybe.
Little snafus like this would still make me uncertain.
Corner Stone
And considering what Bennett was up against at a severely far right convention, I doubt this was really the closer material he should’ve went with:
David
Maybe Chris Matthews can ask “Will the Republican nominee be able to overcome the smelly taint of the Tea Party?”
feebog
Assuming Democrats hold the Sentate this should give them the impetus to eliminate the filibuster and change some of the arcane rules in the Senate. If they don’t there won’t be a single signigicant piece of legislation passed in the next two years.
Michael
@Hal:
Thats where I think this is headed. I can also imagine some weird action on the part of a military unit on it, too, probably USAF, as it has become the most corrupted.
The Moar You Know
@Michael: Not gonna happen.
All this talk from Gates over the last few days about reducing the defense budget has one target and one target only in mind – the Air Force. And they know it. You can count on them being well behaved, at least as long as Gates is around. And I think he’s going to serve Obama’s entire term.
Brett
That’s uncalled for.
A)The polygamists aren’t in St. George – they’re farther south, and
B)St. George is a decent-sized party town. It’s where a lot of the Utah kids go for Spring Break and associated craziness.
Bill Murray
@Brett: The green jello is greener during spring break? Otherwise isn’t St. George mostly snow birds. But it is no Colorado City/Hildale, fumarase deficiency FTW
jake the snake
@Brian J:
It is Kentucky. Our current senators are Mitch McConnell and Jim Bunning. QED,
Glen Tomkins
Creative destruction
This is all good news, in all its ramifications.
The central problem with politics in this country is that successful politicians of all stripes have been so successful at neutralizing ideological differences so that incumbents can ride to easy victory on all the perks and advantages of incumbency. Short term and for individual races, this helps incumbents across the board, but long term and overall, it throws away a definite advantage for the Democrats.
Nothing but good, overall and long term, could come of tea-baggers ousting Bennet. Maybe Utah is so far right-wing that even a bagger will beat the Dem there, so yes, we end up with an even worse nut holding that seat. And yes, the prospect of a tea-bagger firing squad will scare many of their incumbents into even worse behavior in Congress.
Good. Let everyone get a good look at what the Republican Party has become. Even long term, yes, fewer half-way sane Republicans from Republican strongholds, because they won’t have that luxury now in this era of shrillness. But you know what, even that will be good, even that shrillness will have its place in the new order. Because there are enough constituencies that aren’t Republican strongholds, that, after the better look this now shrillness gives them at the Republicans, will never vote Republican again for a good long time, and will give us a comfortable, stable majority. The remaining Republican strongholds will keep on electing an increasingly embittered and irrelevant fringe whose continued antics will keep ever fresh to the sane majority of the country the memory of what Republicans were in power, what they would be if ever allowed out of UT and ID again.
It’s about time we see some of that creative destruction, whose great benefits we keep hearing about, actually applied to people who need destroying, rather than to workers and small businesses. Who knows, with the Republicans having consigned themselves to oblivion, maybe the unfettered, ideologically charged, new Dem majority will further the trend by ending crony capitalism. The we’ld see the folks who really need destroying get the “benefit” of some of that creative destruction.
Paul in KY
IMO, if Trey Grayson beats Rand Paul, then Grayson will probably be Senator. However, if Rand Paul wins primary, then either Jack Conway or Dan Mongiardo can pick up that seat.