Is Jeb Bush in his ear, warning him that it’s safer politically to brand yourself “center-right” and “civil” than to get all that TEA Party stink on you? Is he watching what the media and the left have been able to do to a female former Governor — turning her “toxic,” even among those who call themselves conservative, despite her being one of the most forceful advocates of conservatism and conservative policy — and he’s hedging his bets? Is he a right-wing version of Obama — a con artist who road a wave of public sentiment to political power and is now working his next maneuver to position himself for a higher office…?
Or is it something else? Something less conspiratorial, say?
I have questions.
update: Trust, but verify. Is all I’m saying.
If he joins up with a new “Gang of 14,” we’ll know.
I think that article spun the truth a bit. On the other hand, one would think he would have decided on all caucus memberships by now. Perhaps the more recent hit jobs on Palin and the Tea Party have shaken him. It’s very difficult to put up with getting a beating like that, especially when one is not used to it.
On the other hand, he might have started believing his own press releases. If so, he can be unelected soonest. There are going to be some bad apples in every election. I hope he doesn’t turn out to be one of them, but the only way to be sure for any of them is to see what they actually do once they take office. I don’t think joining or not joining a caucus matters that much. All that matters is what he proposes, what he supports, and how he votes.
Given this NRO headline, A Roadmap Not Taken?: Republican freshmen hesitate to embrace Paul Ryan’s budget plan, it would appear that Teh Squish is steering the newbies away from committing to ANYTHING.
Which, I kinda understand not wanting to commit to something when I can’t guarantee delivery.
But could you guys show some signs of life, somewhere?
I’m going to post that link in a separate post, dicentra.
so Rubio doesn’t join a Tea Party caucus and he’s a squish but Palin endorses and campaigns for Meghan’s coward daddy and she’s a “forceful advocate” of conservatism?
Confuzzling.
Rubio’s staffing announcement as of Jan 4, 2011. Backclicking around his Senate site will take us to his other contact sites, Facebook, twitter, etc. as well as his paltry few press releases. It’s a pretty quiet collection on the whole.
I don’t know that he’s a squish. And I do know that Palin is a forceful advocate of conservatism despite campaigning for McCain.
The only thing “confuzzling” is your insistence on dragging Palin down at any and every opportunity — so worried are you about appearances. You ARE the perfect useful idiot, in the eyes of the left: They’ll tell you who is and who isn’t palatable as a conservative candidate.
bosh. I’d be happy enough with Palin if she’d stop with her silly pretentions of being qualified for the presidency. Conservatism doesn’t need forceful advocates it needs forceful practitioners. You’ll note that Mr. Rubio can yet be that, because he hasn’t let himself be run out of office.
Palin meanwhile has to play softball with Sean Hannity trying to convince people she’s not violent or something.
I’m on record as being confused and unhappy with the McCain endorsement and active campaigning. Yet, you have to be fair.
Look at the next post. Palin has strongly endorsed Ryan’s plan. That’s a small group.
Politicians have pluses and minuses. Having one in column A doesn’t erase all the others in column B. (And vice versa.)
I don’t agree with that. I’m not sure you do either.
We need both, obviously.
…Says the guy who determines people’s political viability by marketing matrices.
Forgive me if I think you’re wholly full of shit. And then stacked on top of containers stuffed with shit — all of which has been covered in shit.
FUHF.
To be fair to ‘feets, there are a few tasty gumballs in amongst all the excrement.
Their used to be. Not so much any more.
Thor traveled much the same route here.
Conservatism has no dearth of advocates it lacks a media environment where those advocates can gain traction I think. Conservatism has a decided dearth however of people who walk the walk. Whether it’s Meghan’s coward daddy, Princess Lindsey, Dick Lugar, Lamar Alexander, John Cornhole and on and on and on.
This is where the problem is. And it’s not for a lack of articulation of principle I don’t think.
Says the gerbil who faults Sarah Palin for getting a job in conservative media.
prior to Sarah Palin becoming a fox news babe it was often the case that conservatives would criticize the “revolving door between politics and media.” Team R can no longer credibly do that can they? No they can’t.
It was a major concession to the left.
Trying to reason with the electric hamster on the subject of Palin is futile. It may be possible for other subjects, but not this one.
I’m sure he feels the same way about us, cranky. We’re just a bunch of know-nothing failshits who cannot or will not see through her facade.
Fortunately, there are too many of us to fit in a short bus.
It doesn’t reason. It asserts.
related: Althouse on Fish on Palin.
I’m thinking there’s one advocate of conservatism that the media, and certain pw commenters, simply can’t get enough of. Sarah something or other, I think her name is.
Part of the problem, ‘feets, is that the classical liberal message is by definition harder to sell, because it makes demands on people rather than flattering them. It requires that politicians refrain from acquiring more power, requires that they say NO to people who would fill their campaign coffers, requires that they be profoundly unpopular not just in the eyes of the press but also their peers on the hill.
Few people can walk that walk, and politicians, who tend to crave approval anyway, are going to fold like lawn chairs in a gale the first chance they get.
Leftism, on the other hand, tells politicans that they have the power to fix society just by appropriating other peoples’ money to create constituencies who will love them and honor them and fill their campaign coffers with gold and silver and diamonds.
Which is what explains the popularity of Chris Christie, who does not possess the “I must be popular” gene. And neither does Sarah Palin, who–in case you’ve forgotten–told the GOP Old Boys Club in Alaska to pound sand. Do you see her falling all over herself to ingratiate herself to the beltway types? Is that what makes her “unpresidential” in your eyes? Or does she just not have a star on her belly?
I can’t honestly say that I’d be resistant to the D.C. siren song even though I don’t possess the “I must be popular” gene, either. And YOU, ‘feets, are far too beholden to the good opinion of your peers to begin to pass the test. Even tied to the mast with strong cords, you insist that you aren’t seduced by the sirens even as you break your bonds and clamber ashore to enjoy their sweet embrace.
What dicentra observed, really.
JHo always say: Politics, like human nature, are inherently, rationally, and morally asymmetrical. Official thieves break through and steal. The responsible are always eventually turned into villains. Parasites overwhelm their hosts. A republic like ours has a limited lifespan.
This is why the statist left is a bald-faced laughingstock to anyone with half a brain and a functioning common sense gene. They are evident, historical prevaricators, thieves, and liars. It is, ultimately, to laugh. Sneer; disdain.
Fine. There are only two entirely shitty ways to organize society: By immediate lying force or by eventual lying force. Be born into one or the other and do what you can.
THAT PESSIMISTIC BASTARD JHO! Ok, just how is our Republic salvaged while it visibly and inexorably ratchets itself into half a dozen kinds of bankruptcies?
Ok, just how is our Republic salvaged while it visibly and inexorably ratchets itself into half a dozen kinds of bankruptcies?
How should I know? How should anyone know? A country like ours has never existed before, so we don’t know what can and cannot be done.
Short of divine intervention, I don’t know what can reverse this kind of decline.
Rhetorical Q, di. We’re on the same side and all…
Please, salvaging the Republic requires courage the political class lacks.
20% across the board spending cuts. (That includes Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, Welfare)
Reduce capital gains taxes to 15%.
Eliminate all death taxes.
Eliminate the EPA.
Open up off shore oil and gas drilling. Allow the coal in Utah to be exploited instead of being locked up in a stupid national monument or whatever it is.
Sit back and watch investors and business fight to move into the US.
Watch the value of the dollar skyrocket, thereby offsetting above mentioned entitlement cuts.
The Republic is saved, I think.
We, in Texas, were asked if there should be a Tea Party caucus in Austin. I said no. I say there shouldn’t be caucii for the Tea Party at any level. I think this is the way to preserve the movement as a grassroots movement. Letting the pols get together and deciding what the Tea Party means, says, or wants is a recipe for disaster. They shouldn’t call us, we’ll call them.
And perhaps Seantor Rubio gets that. Were I in his place, I woudn’t join such a caucus either.
Well, Rand Paul is onboard, and it’s difficult to get more Tea Party than him.
Their caucus is more to show support to the grass roots movement — and to present themselves as listening to those voices. Were this Lindsay Graham we were talking about, I wouldn’t want him to join…
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