As Morton Blackwell noted last evening on Mark Levin’s radio program, there is a natural impulse from those in power to try to secure and consolidate that power — and in essence, that’s what the RNC and Mitt Romney, with the cynical and dishonorable aid of Speaker Boehner (who had literally to pretend to be deaf and blind), did yesterday with their rules changes, assuring that the national Party establishment can now effectively control, thanks to their power of the purse, the various state parties and their delegates. That is, they’ve established a top-down, crony system that will be run through a centralized national Party, and in so doing, have set up a system that neuters state challenges to its authority — voting themselves the right to use rule changes in between conventions as needed to manipulate various aspects of the nominating and primary processes. That’s the what: the changes retain the same appearance of traditional GOP convention rules, but because the RNC establishment has granted itself permission to change rules with a supermajority — and because the RNC wields tremendous power with respect to money sent to state parties, creating a mechanism for the potential withholding of funds and other support, should state parties not “get their asses in line” — they have created what is, in essence, a process that mimics bottom-up power while effectively using a top down model run from the shadows.
Which brings us to the question of why. Is it purely an instinctual move to consolidate power — and to do so at the expense of the grass roots and conservatives? Because if that’s the case, one wonders why such rule changes are not more common. Or is there something else operating here — some signal being sent that the national party is looking to insulate itself from some potential challenge down the road?
That is, what is the Romney camp — and the non-existent GOP establishment — trying to insulate itself against, particularly if it wins the election? Or rather, going back to interest in why rather than what, why, if they are preparing for an election win, would they be working preemptively to weaken the state delegations and the grass roots movement?
And the answer that keeps occurring to me is that the GOP must already fear a challenge to its authority from the TEA Party and the movement conservative base — they can see what’s happening at the state levels to any number of incumbents who have been defeated by upstarts and political outsiders — and they are concerned enough about such a challenge going forward that they were willing to alienate the conservatives now, at a time when We Simply Must Defeat Obama, essentially daring the base to walk away and give Obama another term, which they’ve calculated the base won’t do.
Or, to put it another way, never let a crisis go to waste.
But again, why? Why, if Romney wins, would the RNC be so insistent on giving itself power to change the rules and centrally control the nominating process in the runup to 2016? What are they anticipating, and why are they anticipating it?
Sadly — and here comes the cynic in me — I believe that they’ve done this knowing that, when elected, much of what they plan to do will prove remarkably and vocally unpopular with the various Hobbit factions, whose knuckle-dragging, purist insistence on following principle runs afoul of the very pragmatic GOP establishment, which never meets a fight they won’t run away from, and who has never seen a losing compromise that they will not embrace, if doing so gives the appearance that they are willing to compromise.
Repeal ObamaCare? Okay. But why has Romney been running around lately touting RomneyCare? — which he’s said before he wouldn’t impose on the national level? That is, what tweaks has he and his advisors made to that program that will become the “replacement” for ObamaCare, should they be forced to keep their promise and try to repeal it? What plans are in the work to combat the imperial institution of the quasi-DREAM act, now that we see Jeb Bush and John McCain so prominently featured at the Romney convention? What, if anything, is Romney planning to do about questions of religious liberty, when such runs afoul of government “fixes” to “problems” in the private sector? Recall, he was very loudly silent on the Chick-fil-A issue — and his abortion positions over the years have, let’s say, evolved in remarkable lockstep with his political ambitions.
So what are we in for? And more importantly, why are we being actively weakened by the very man and his team who wishes to represent us?
Discuss. Or don’t. Some of you counsel that we don’t sweat the small things, and to you, this is a small thing. While for me? I think there’s a reason why a conservative country never seems to be able to get a conservative candidate on a national ticket, unless it’s a VP beard. And I think that, because we were getting close to upsetting the applecart, we’ve been very forcibly shown our place yet again.
I don’t trust Romney, Christie or Boehner at all. Of course it is about power. And Ryan was picked for being popular with conservatives, yet towing the Party line. The election in November is just the start.
As for Romneycare, it could be Mitt anticipating the flip flop attack that Axelrod has planned. While Romney will be better than Obama, Romney has to be watched and called out when he strays.
http://thecampofthesaints.org/2012/08/28/the-spot-on-quote-of-the-day-235/ Operation Whig starts on November 7.
I think it’ll be a fine day when a candidate stands up and says,
I think it’s a message that would resonate. The fundraising would be that much harder, of course, but we have better tools every day for messaging and fundraising, and I’m confident that the right candidates could enjoy a great deal of support. And even an unsuccessful campaign could do a lot to push the message that people are fed up with the feds.
Besides, everybody loves an OUTLAW!
There’s only power in the purse if there’s money in it.
Boehnerfag has no business being speaker anymore but he’s been carrying Romney Ryan like such a good little orange whore what’s a little pikachu to do?
Romney Ryan *water* I mean sorry I forgot a word
There will always be some money in it. Enough to go around? Hells no. Which is why we need to pick who gets the money. Now, who can give me the reason to allocate them some cash? You may begin your pander….now!
I think he has been pretending so long it has become reality for him.
And I agree with the rest of your post completely. I see this as the first step in the final chapter of the process of essentially merging the two parties.
There will always be money in the purse once campaign finance becomes mandatory.
Though the GOP establishment may believe they’ve hit on a means to consolidate their power, I suspect they don’t see — didn’t foresee — the predicable reaction, simply because that establishment is out of touch. Out of touch not alone with the minds of the people they may believe they represent, but out of touch with the political philosophy that places America apart from the world and further, out of touch with the very real human interaction (which does not change in the main) which was itself the source of the development of that political philosophy. Which in turn, I think, is partly to account for how the country has come to this pass in the first place.
I already do that. More should follow suit. Why do we need the RNC?
I believe that they’ve done this knowing that, when elected, much of what they plan to do will prove remarkably and vocally unpopular with the various Hobbit factions…
I really hate you sometimes, Jeff. Stop being prescient and stuff.
::off to jump in front of the freight train that runs not a block from here::
Part of me thinks this is the Establishment taking it’s pound of flesh for ’06 midterm, which set up ’08 [bracket out ’10 b/c we know better than you why you voted the way you did] and leaves us where we are. Ostensibly desperate enough to get Obama out of office and control of both chambes of Congress back that we’ll put up with anything rather than risk seeing the Democrats win.
We’re back, bitches. Enjoy the taste of our collective ass
…[thanks] to their power of the purse…..
– You’d be surprised how quickly that can dry up.
– But don’t tale my word for it. Ask Obama.
I don’t believe we do, Pablo. But the fact is, most people don’t follow this stuff anywhere near as closely as we do. And I’m sure they think that writing a check to the RNC to get that horrible Marxist Obama out is doing the lord’s work.
The RNC, for its part, has learned that always having a crisis brings in more money. That is, they’ve learned to act just like the left, because the left, having stopped really worrying about the fate of its actual constituency, is getting rich, getting its friends rich, and is positively rolling in cultural and political power.
Get some of that on us, screams the establishment “right”!
There are over 200million taxpayers in the US. All they need do is mandate a $10 or $20 donation a couple times a year, and something to make sure the corporations pay their fair share, and the parties will be swimming in cash.
The Dems have been pushing it for years, the Reps money start to dry up and they will be all for it.
Roberts gives it his blessing and its done. For the fairness.
I think Rush explained it best yesterday, for us it’s about ideas and letting the country work. For the establishment, like the Democrats it’s about controlling the power and the money for the sake of controlling the power and the money. We’e a nuissance to them becuse we know damn well that they’re trying to bribe us with our own money and we want it stopped. So yesterday they took their shot at swatting us.
We don’t have a two party system. We have a one and one half party system.
– Your party can have more cash than god, but if you can’t get your cronies elected all you’ll end up with is a lot of money that won’t buy you love.
Squid, I really wished J.D. Hayworth would have gone around Arizona starting every speech with “Hi, I’m J.D. Hayworth, and I’m the Republican running in the Republican primary.” Awkward against the most recent Republican presidential candidate, sure. But sooner or later we’re going to have to have this fight about what the Republican party stands for. Again.
Either that, or we go third party because the Republican party doesn’t stand for anything except the power of the Republican Party, just like the Democrats.
Once the country figures out that Romney and his robot army scheduled this convention to coincide with the biggest hurricane EVER in order to force the poor, black victims out of the safe harbor of the stadium and back into the streets filled with sewage and snakes, a welfare work requirement, rapists and racists, Obamacare will never be repealed.
At least that’s what I learned from my first ( and probably last) week on Facebook.
“. . . people are fed up with the feds.”
Said Squid. And I think Squid is right, but that the people are at least in part, wrong. To the extent we look predominantly toward the Federal government as the cause of our troubles, or even to the extent we look to a State government as the cause of our troubles, we part with the fundamental premise of American political thought. Abe Lincoln saw, and harped on, this aspect of our idea from one end of his political career to the other.
That is to say, it’s themselves the people ought to be fed up with. But people by and large are not easily willing to engage in self-criticism.
They will though, sometimes (most times, in fact) when they find themselves dissatisfied with, or in crisis with, the lives they’ve made for themselves. Coming to be fed up with our own poverty, for instance, we’ve seen or done, these necessary self-straightenings, ourselves of ourselves. For ourselves. Reordering our lives. Re-prioritizing our objects. Happens a lot, in fact.
For we say, in America the question is whether a people can rule themselves, govern themselves, against the standing tide of all human history? But in its simplest measure, what does it mean for a person to govern himself? And compiling association upon association, what then would it mean for a concerted people to rule or govern itself? It’s about taking responsibility. It’s about owning blame. It’s about choosing better over against worse.
Chris Christie wants to truth talk? Let him start here.
You left out the part where Romney led his robot army in the robot dance while black peole drowned in those sewage and snake-filled streets.
Hew Hewett snuggled his microphone this morning to intone that ORomney’s wife’s tits assure us all that bullshit she delivered yesterday wasn’t just empty platitudes.
No, that was them swooning how after two sunny side up eggs every morning, Oromney was positively rarin fer a chance to show us all what a hard worker he is.
Conservativism cannot possibly survive a game show climate such as Team R has brought to Tampa.
I think they just insured that there will be a 3rd party no later than 2020. Maybe sooner depending on how stupid they are and what they do.
I have always been suspicious of Boner. He has been at the center of every capitulation and phony compromise.
He has been a disaster for conservatives. Wait’ll Romney’s in, then you’ll see some real eye opening things happening.
I have said on other sites that Romney and a Republican majority in both houses does not mean Obamacare will be repealed. I’ve been called “troll” etc. for my troubles.
Obamacare will not be repealed. It probably won’t even get replaced or changed much and a bunch of legislation worse (in the long run) than what Obama has helped happen will be made into law.
I’ve watched this process now for 55 years and there hasn’t been any radical change in the direction we are headed. (no, not even during ST Reagan’s Presidency PBUH)
Even a third party has only a limited chance of changing anything. And that’s only if they don’t manage to either screw thing up so bad that the system fails or they make it impossible to have a 3rd party.
– I would really like ro see Jeff do a piece, or even a series, on ‘what if McCain/Palin would have won’.
– Because really folks, the assumption to a lot of current thinking is assuming things would be a lot different were that the case, and quitw honestly I’m not seeing it. In fact the point is that real lack of any choice in how we’re governed is most probably the reason for the widespread angst and the Tea party movement in the first place.
– Some thoughts:
* The economy: McCain might have been more favorable toward free markets but that’s not a sure thing. He was in fabvr of a lot of the open borders trading rules that were already in place during Bushes administration. The Housing bubble was already a fact from the CRA/Fannie-Fredie/ACORN/Framks ripoff, and McCain couldn’t have done a damn thing about it and its effects on the economy. It was too late, the Democrats got their vote scam. Maybe he wouldn’t have gone off the rails with the stimulus bullshit, but who knows. Many of the forces, the car industry colapse, the Banking scams, the stock market/futures frauds were pretty much behind the scenes and happened because they could. So other than maybe a lower deficit, the economy and unemployment would probably look pretty much the same as it does.
* Immigration: McCain is an open borders/amnesty pinhead for starters. His advisors would have more than likely doubled down and gone after the hispanic vote the same as Obama has. Maybe he would have stopped short at attacking States, but other than that he would have had his own version of the dream act.
*The Iraq/Afghan wars: Obana has let Hillery run the foriegn policy front, both because he knows he doesn’t know shit about it, and because he’s a closet tyrant that likes him some American military power, particularly if he can take credit for any successes and blame any failures on Bush. He’s followed the Bush/Chaney doctrine to the letter, or rather let Hillery do that. McCain was a brolen man after Nam. He might well have made some really dumb assed dicisions, so that isn’t a profitable alternatine to Jug ears. He couldn’t lead a boyscout troup, much less conduct an unternational conflict. Obama gets the nod on the war, if for no other reason than, like Nixon, he was willing and eager for the State Department to run the show, although in Nixon’x case the reason was because he was busy with his ‘enemies list’, fighting his own idiotic war with the hippies.
– History may yet show that Obama’s win in ’08 handed the Left and Democrats a living breathing train wreck that no one, even Lincoln or Reagan could have made work, and set the Progressive movement back 50 years.
Now, if this rules change was done in order to make the entire primary process/mess more logical and responsive to the base rather than weighted both for the establishment insider to get on the ballot and for Democrats and “independents” to determine just who the [R] Party runs for office then I could understand that it would have to be “deemed” passed over the heads of many from the State delegations, however to believe this would require a great “leap of faith” which I can’t see any evidence that I, or others, should take when in fact all the evidence says, that those same people who ran roughshod over us to “pass” this rule change, for some reason fear that conservatives will take something more precious from them than anything the most radical of Democrats can steal from them.
Funny that.
– On the hope front, I would guess that the GOP brain trust is well aware that this may be their last bite at the apple, and hear all to well footsteps.
– They’ll either be sharp and aware enough to adjust accordingly, or they won’t. I think they’ll try plastering over the problem and come up short, and the Tea party, or some incarnation of the movement will manifest, its almost inevitable.
Conservatism will be just fine. Republicanism on the other hand….
They’ve said that we can’t talk this out. So now we have to hit somebody. They don’t think we’ll hit back. They think we’ll smile for the camera.
Sweep the leg.
Either that, or we go third party because the Republican party doesn’t stand for anything except the power of the Republican Party, just like the Democrats.
Fortunately, that third party won’t attract the same class of charming sociopaths that populates the two extant parties.
O_o
If you want to get rid of the ants, sweep up the sugar. Secede from Washington D.C. and don’t centralize that much power EVAR again.
You left out the single most important element of any such counterfactual:
The Affordable Care Act
Interesting the stupid snowbilly kept pushing for competitive primaries along with questioning Romney’s conservative credentials.
Meanwhile, in what should be a cake walk election for Romney, the electorate seems to have a problem with the GOP inevitable frontrunner.
Of course, the GOP will never question Romney the messenger, because it’s always about the message.
Here’s a hint to the GOP: Repackaged crap is still crap.
Agree with the sentiment Darleen, but I think I’d rather be lied to by a party that ran on and was united behind the idea of devovling power to the states and restoring the limited, federal and constitutional to limited, federal, constitutional government before I break out the long knives.
Because then we’ll know (instead of merely suspecting) that the problem is soluble by democratic means.
naive as that might seem
That was a long way of saying I’m still at the soap box/ballot box stage, wasn’t it?
The Affordable Care Act
– I don’t have any formed thoughtd on what McCain would have done in that arena, other than I suspect the Democrats would have passed it in congress anyway, and knowing McCain is a broken weak politician and a member of the GOP establishment in good standing, at least at the time, I’m pretty sure he would have ‘compromised’ it into law.
– Or as Jeff would say – Staunch!
[…] From the decision: For his troubles, Embody has done something rare: He has taken a position on the Second and Fourth Amendment that unites the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence and the Second Amendment Foundation. Both organizations think that the park ranger permissibly disarmed and detained Leonard Embody that day, notwithstanding his rights to possess the gun. So do we. […]