Don’t think it’s lost on us that you are the same people who were saying that a vote against debt ceiling increases would be a vote for Obama, and that to hold the line against further increases marked us as naive and unnuanced (right before the credit downgrade you pretended your capitulations would prevent); the same people who called us Hobbits for demanding the GOP stay good to its word on spending cuts, rather than fold yet again in the face of pressure from an activist media working on behalf of progressive Democrats; the same people who chide us about our desire for “purity” and a “True Conservative” when the fact is, all we really want is a nominee who, say, hasn’t implemented socialized health care or spoken earnestly about the necessity of regulating human exhalation or engaged in a full-throated defense of ethanol subsidies or warned against the heartlessness of not providing illegal aliens tuition waivers or or blamed the US for the deaths of 3000 citizens or joined in the populist attacks on capitalism such that they sound like caricatures from an Oliver Stone movie.
That is, for all of you “electability conservatives,” don’t think it’s lost on us that you have once again taken our support for granted — that in your desire to win over “moderates” and “independents,” you’ve marginalized, diminished, and demonized your party’s base, sneering at those who won’t join you in rallying behind a man who rejected Reagan; that you’ve spent months since the 2010 elections chiding principled conservatives for their “extremism” and “fringe” beliefs in an effort to convince unprincipled middle voters that you really aren’t so bad and icky and heartless as the media is going to depict you no matter the Republican nominee; that you’ve chosen party over principle yet again.
You’ve sold us out. And while you can offer any number of earnest rationalizations for doing so, the fact of the matter is, when push comes to shove, you simply aren’t prepared to fight for conservative beliefs — assuming you ever had them in the first place (some of you do, some don’t, and many, I’ve come to believe, haven’t the first idea what conservatism even is).
And though you’ll work to shame us for saying so, that won’t change the underlying truth.
Have a nice day.
I hate Electability Nazis.
http://evilbloggerlady.blogspot.com/2012/01/some-republican-candidates-and-their.html
And the brothers in the amen corner commenced to shoutin’…
This is what it felt like to be a Democrat in the ’04 cycle, isn’t it?
We’re nominating THIS guy? REALLY?
Back in the days when I wanted to be a novelist, one common bit of advice was to start off writing Christian fiction. It has a very tolerant reader base, it’s a small market, it’s not overly competitive, but all the big houses have Christian imprints. Ditto for musicians — start off in Christian or country, get a following, and crossover. (Cf. Katy Perry, Amy Grant, Mandy Moore.)
I think that’s the GOP. It’s the place where you don’t have to be principled, and (sadly) a bunch of unthinking drones will vote for you because they love America! Then you crossover to the real world.
Newt was the only viable not-Romney that emerged and he’s too busy expressing his profound and fundamental distaste for capitalism to make a serious run for the presidency
zamoose, I guess it does smack of Dems in 2004. I hadn’t thought of that.
It also smacks of the GOP in 1988, 1996, and 2008. :/
There you go with your viability bullshit again.
The problem with the viability metric is the biased instruments we use to measure it.
One of the benefits of leaving the GOP is leaving behind this kind of bullshit.
No fucking marketer is going to tell me what’s “viable” and what isn’t — then work his ass off to fulfill the prophecy, even if that means sabotaging those who may have proven viable but had to be put in their place just to so the marketers could hold onto their position as kingmakers.
Or what Ernst said.
Nobody has to rally around Romney. I sure won’t. But, you know, the electability conservatives haven’t exactly forced the more principled conservative candidates to go out and fuck barnyard animals. One by one, they’ve managed to do that all on their own.
The entire political class is
a) willing to scream “CHAOS! END OF THE WORLD! GLOBAL COLLAPSE!”
b) exploit the predictable reactions to a)
c) completely unconvinced, on a personal and/or philosophical level, that a) is actually true
We are being governed by deeply unserious people on both sides of the aisle. It’s depressing in the extreme.
Santorum opposed TARP and has rejected class warfare appeals. But, you know, Jesus fishes.
State run healthcare = viable
Not keen on on-demand abortions = fringe
We’ve lost our way entirely.
I don’t sabotage anyone and I certainly don’t work my ass off
I just make comments
I supported almost every not-frothy not-Romney in turn but like Mr. Abe says – that’s been a most unrewarding thing to have done
and you Mr. Jeff, you were very eager to castigate Mitch and you were very eager to castigate Perry and you were a little less eager but still willing to castigate Newt, who were all three way more better conservatives than what we’ve ended up with I think
If by ” managed to do that all on their own” you mean “with the help of tons of money poured into negative ads by 1) the guy who gave us state-run health care and 2) the guy who really really mistrusts “neocon” “bankers” and doesn’t believe Iran a threat” — not to mention with the entire GOP establishment machinery selling us, since day one, on the inevitability of Mitt Romney, and working to trash and minimize any competitor who gained steam,” then yes, you’re right.
I don’t agree with many of Santorum’s economic stances (being from his home Commonwealth, I’ve been annoyed from up close by many of his betrayals [ref. Snarlin’ Arlen vs. Toomey, etc.] but he has the wonderful characteristic of thinking one thing, sticking with it and being able to communicate said thing well.
Meanwhile, Perry, Newt, et al, continue to pour kerosene over their heads and then gleefully grasp the handfuls of matches the media has on offer because, hey, if there’s one thing a man fully engulfed in flames warrants, it’s attention.
What’s “unrewarding” is having people like you ostensibly on “my” side, bigots who believe in lower taxes and are more sensible about spending than the bigots on the left with whom you otherwise share your bigoted worldview.
And that’s true whether or not Mr Abe says so or not.
pickles
No. What the electability conservatives have done is to stand back, tut tut and finger wag when actual conservatives are accused of being livestock fuckers so as not to appear pro-livestock fucking. As opposed to weighing in with a hearty “That’s a goddamn lie and you’re a goddamn liar.”
“Mitch” never entered the race; Perry I’ve said on numerous occasions I’d happily support — that his immigration problem wasn’t a deal breaker, and that his tax plan and economic plan were both to my liking; Newt I “castigated” by suggesting he would be just as good a progressive as he would be a conservative: that is, I don’t know that I trust him not to blow with the political winds, and because of that, I fear his familiarity with the instrumentalities of government. Which is why he’s third on my list.
Whereas you? Well, we know about you.
Right, because you wouldn’t want to get sideways with a degenerate ass bandit.
Gosh, Pablo, remember when Newt Gingrich used to do that at the debates?
Those were good times, good times.
And now he’s rallying with Jim Clyburn and does anyone else smell burnt toast and tires and*(Y*(YHDFNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
Funny how, and how quickly, that one turned out. OCCUPY ROMNEY!!
zamoose, I liked him a lot better at the edge of the stage. He was very useful there.
I remember Newt saying that he was a “Teddy Roosevelt” Republican. What I didn’t realize was that he meant “TR in full Bull Moose mode ready to throw an election to a modern day Woodrow Wilson”.
I need a drink.
d) has no problem asking an outsider “do you think fucking goats is wrong?” and when outsider says “yes, I do,” screaming “OMYGOD! THE WORLD IS COMING TO AN END AND THIS NUTTER IS WORRIED ABOUT GOAT FUCKERS! PRIORITIES PEOPLE!” if that’s what it takes to protect the insiders.
Just to tie 11 & 12 together.
Depressing thought:
What if this crop of candidates really is the best our country can currently offer?
One of the worst aspects of the Gingrich-Perry anti-Bain anti-Romney rhetoric isn’t simply that they’ve used it in the first place: it’s that they’re utterly tuned out to our appalled reactions to its use. How Perry or Gingrich imagine self-immolation wins followers is beyond me. Which in turn merely reminds the Tea Party people of the deafness they’ve encountered everywhere in the halls of government. Few in power listen, let alone act on an understanding of Tea Party sentiment.
On the other hand, they have managed to distinguish Rick Santorum from themselves on at least these principled grounds. Though I doubt that was what they had in mind.
Ernst #326:
I used to pin some small hope in the deepest portions of my brain that somehow, some way, the American electorate would/could/should/have the capability to/will see through these transparent schemes and vote for Serious People willing to tell us hard truths, buck us up, and lead us into a brighter future.
Sadly, my hypothesis is having counter-evidence piled up against it on a daily basis.
If by ” managed to do that all on their own” you mean “with the help of tons of money poured into negative ads by 1) the guy who gave us state-run health care and 2) the guy who really really mistrusts “neocon” “bankers” and doesn’t believe Iran a threat” — not to mention with the entire GOP establishment machinery selling us, since day one, on the inevitability of Mitt Romney, and working to trash and minimize any competitor who gained steam,” then yes, you’re right.
There’s either a sea of principled conservatives out there, or there isn’t. It’s hard to say that on the one that hand conservatives are having their will thwarted by the establishment, and on the other hand suggest that they’re being manipulated by people that they don’t particularly respect.
It isn’t, but it may be the best our system can produce.
Ironically, the people who say we should concern ourselves with the spendings and not, say, abortion, are the very people who will embrace a candidate who is all about big government, state-run health care, and corporate bailouts — that is, rather unconcerned with the spendings — if only because he doesn’t speak about abortion.
Ironically.
With irony.
Romney nailed it in his speech last night: They’re desperate. Desperation is not what I’m looking for in a President.
The problem is, the net effect is the same. It, by very merit of being the case on the ground, is actually true. Our country can’t produce better because we’ve fundamentally altered the process by which better would be produced.
There’s an extra “that” in #30. One of these days I’ll read a comment before hitting send.
who besides that lapdoggy Hewitt person and Meghan’s coward daddy’s slutty-looking daughter is “embracing” Romney?
he’s just the last man standing I think
Again I say: self-immolation attracts attention. Much like my younger brother, the actual kind of attention seems largely immaterial — it’s the very fact that it attracts attention in the first place that seems to offer comfort and justification.
Now if only there were a father figure with a leather belt available in this situation, we might benefit from some lesson learnin’. Alas.
I just make comments
You spit out words to see where they spatter.
You’re the Jackson Pollack of the low art of bullshit.
“Our country can’t produce better because we’ve fundamentally altered the process by which better would be produced.”
Sometime back I suggested we make an attempt to design a better plan on principled grounds, whereby we, as “the people”, as sovereigns in fact, not remain passive as selectors, taking whatever self-selected candidates step forward from out of their own interests, but choose instead candidates from out of our interests. Didn’t get very far. Which in turn, I think, says something about where we are.
People want to be seen as voting for a winner. You saw that in 2008 with the election of Obama — and the reaction to that of a whole host of “conservatives” who were very very quick to try to bridge the gap between their conservatism and Obama’s basic goodness and patriotism, and those poor losers who were being harsh on the historic President should shut up shut up shut up because they’re being unhelpful and making us look bad.
These same people then waited awhile and eventually became, once again, many of them, full-throated in their disgust with Obama — and outward in their support for the TEA Party during its ascendancy.
Only to now again stick their fingers in the wind, and tell us that Romney is the only “viable” candidate.
I think too many people would rather win than be principled — and I think rather than nurture the latter, the former is exploited by the permanent governing class.
Except for the others.
Apologies: My #34 should have contained “net-net effect”.
Those responsible for the oversight have been sacked.
Jeff (#40):
I’m wishing there were a combination (wincipled?) available to us.
Except for the others.
anyone of which I would happily vote for to replace our rapey little president man except for the frothster and even him I would vote for just not happily
I would grouse
zamoose,
Newt’s decided that Mitt Romney cost him his chance to be President of the United States, and now he’s going to return the favor. It’s as simple as that. The thing to regret, it seems to me, is that he’s going about it in a way that so damages his own credibility that he’s unlikely to succeed in taking out Mitt
—damnit
#36
No. He’s just one handing out the most shit. All you got to do is not show up with a bucket.
What surprised me most, personally, when going through the stories after putting Bobby to bed, was how a CNN exit poll seemed to indicate that Romney managed to get the majority of self-identified Tea-Party voters yesterday.
Now, admittedly it’s CNN, and a Tea-Partier in NH may be, well, more RINO-liscious than one in, say, Tennessee. But still…
Either it’s a ridiculous outlier, or there’s an effin’ marketing jeen-yus “selling” Mittenz to the Tea-Partiers. Or maybe, owing to the MSM reinforced public perception of an all-inclusive weak GOP field and all, folks are focusing more on electibility in this year’s primary than any of us would care to…
Should you need any proof of that, here it is.
O_O
The list is long and disturbing.
link
Most of you are smarterer than myself. Could some kind soul please remind me why we can’t – or at least, haven’t yet – demanded a “none of the above” option on the ballot?
According to Rush just now, Mr. Electability EXPLICITLY compared his actions at Bain to Obama’s bailout actions in re: car dealer shutdowns, layoffs, etc.
I think I just had an aneurism.
Such, zamoose, is Romney’s judgment of the state of the electorate, that they simply wouldn’t know the difference, nevermind what Romney himself may know. But yeah, stomach churningly disgusting from where I’m sitting. Michael McConnell’s warnings in the WSJ yesterday take on an awfully ominous tint in the light of such stuff from Willard.
But he’ll take judicial appointment advice from the likes of John Sununu! That’s always worked out well for us in the past!
he’s just the last man standing I think
ie. President by Default.
President of default no doubt to follow.
The establishment wants Romney v.s Obama because that means all the same chess pieces stay on in DC and on Wall Street.
Romney’s Bain problem is not a problem about Bain, it is a problem about Romney.
Sad to see that even Rush missed that.
I heard that too, zamoose, and damn if I didn’t know that Romney was going to play the “save GM card” before Rush said he played it.
Now, that doesn’t say so much about my perspicacity as it does about how much Romney’s instincts and inclinations are on display for anyone to see.
So long, that is, as they aren’t looking through the electibility lens our establishment betters and the media deciders have so thoughtfully provided.
(Apologies for being all about me)
Careful, newrouter — you might get some Jesus cooties on happyfeet.
Project Veritas stings New Hampshire Voter ID-less laws.
I can’t recall hf’s support of Newt; all’s I can recall is unrelenting memtion of his tarty tarty wife .
There are a number of ways, or arguable importance, in which the entire GOP field is bucking history, such as Newt is trying to become only the second Speaker of the House to be later elected President (James K. Polk was the first). In the last election we talked about McCain’s generational identity. This time Ron Paul has to consider that he is not only a generation removed from the current President, but two generations removed. Only two Presidents have been elected that were of a preceding generation, Zachary Taylor and James Buchanan. None of the GOP contenders are Gen X’ers as President Obama is and all but Paul are Boomers.
And now, Romney has won both Iowa and New Hampshire. Based on history we now have a more compelling argument not to support him than to do so. Only Gerald Ford won both contests and went on to win the nomination — how’d that turn out? Granted the sample set is still extremely small the Iowa Caucuses only gaining the current stature in 1976–one result is that until 2008, the nominee had “always” been one of the top three finishers–McCain finished fourth in ’08–so really the outcome of Iowa, much less Iowa and New Hampshire, means nothing.
[…] Robert M: Regarding your post “A note to the GOP leadership and all the establishment conservatives who will now begin telli… I agree with you a more conservative/classic liberal would be the best way to go, but none of those […]
I thought the Xers were supposed to be the children of the boomers, and that Obama was one of the youngest of the baby boom generation.
Obama is Generation Jones. Not a Boomer.
There’s plenty of room for interpretation. Using Strauss and Howe’s dates for generational cohorts, Obama, born in 1961 is an elder Xer. Similarly, Clinton, born in 1942 is a last minute Silent generation member as well (same as Paul) which leaves GW Bush as the sole Boomer Pres. However, Strauss and Howe also say that any given individual may not be a member of a generational cohort strictly on the basis of birth date–one has to look at their personality and attitudes–in which case, I’d be willing classify both Obama and Clinton as Boomers–if that’s the case, the GOP field. minus Paul, is less encumbered historically. However, it does make me wonder where the Gen Xer candidates are.
All my life I have understood that the Boomer generation extended into the early ’60s, and that I — four months younger than Obama — was one whether I liked it or not.
Never heard of any Generation Jones.
Bill Clinton was born in 1946. Boomer.
To be fair, the youngest of the Xers are only really constitutionally eligible for a run as of the 2016 race. The eldest could qualify and Obama’s birth date places him within the acceptable X range.
I remember encountering an article in 1994 in Time or maybe it was Newsweek about Gen-X. According to the article boomers were born after WWII but and before 1960 and Xers were 20 somethings. Now you might attribute the gap between the two to the author being an innumerate twat which I’m sure was true but I think they were on to something.
I like that. There’s only a month between Barrys birth date and mine. I was usually the only eldest child in a class full of youngest children (one of many things contributing to my not sharing my gens outlook). My sub-gen was a bunch of wannabe boomers excluded because of our age from participating in all the cool activities of our elder siblings and jonesing to be cool like them.
As for Barrys outlook it looks entirely to be unreconstructed generation Jones to me. You could take the speech given by the valedictorian at my graduation or any or statement from that person put it on the ‘prompter and nobody would notice any difference. This is one of the things that has always rubbed me wrong about Barry, he’s my age and he sounds like a rather dim highschooler.
Am I the only one who finds these appellations positively moronic? I mean, yeah, baby Boonmers can reasonably be characterized as self-involved human excrement, but there was something quite perverse about being young and having the media inform you that everyone your age is Ethan Hawke in Reality Bytes. Having met him before, I can say that even Ethan Hawke wasn’t Ethan Hawke.
That should be Reality Bites I think.
Ouch–yeah.
Cause that did shock me–I’d been under the impression that the Silent Generation had foregone Presidential leadership, and unless Paul wins, they have.
Just so everyone can see the standard I’m working from (if anyone’s really interested) go here to see the dates. Nothing wrong with Generation Jones–it’s kind of an overlay on S&H.
I’m the last of the boomers, and Obama is older than I am.
When you are born isn’t absolutely determinative but it still has an influence. I also think there’s something to considering those born too late to participate in what they were told were momentous events – Woodstock, summer of love, anti-war protests, but old enough to observe and perhaps even having an older sibling that did participate as being a different sort of group than those just a little older and able to actually participate. My little age group had way too much hero worship for the boomers.
Mainly attended middle/upper middle class suburban schools where my classmates were all the babies of their families and all had elder siblings the idolization of the younger sixties radicals was off the charts. When I spent the last two years of high school in a poor sorta inner-city school where few of my classmates had parents born before 1940 the attitude towards the younger sixties radicals was much more meh.
McGehee:
Generation Jones is a term coined by Jonathan Pontell to describe the generation of people born between 1954 and 1965.
Spork is right on the money; it is about jonesing.