Obviously, this being the most important election ever — so much so that we have to stop all our Hobbity “True Believer” nonsense and get behind the Romney Technocrat Express — the RNC is going to do everything it can to pick up this Senate seat in Missouri, yes? After all, we need all the seats we can get if we’re going to repeal ObamaCare. Right?
And this would seem to still be a winnable seat, correct?
So what’s it going to be? Do we really need to win, or is it only acceptable if we win with the right kinds of candidates — a position that, from my perspective, seems ascendant, particularly in light of the convention rules power grab, and John Boehner’s surreal refusal to acknowledge the minority report and the dissenting delegates who were literally jumping up and down in front of him?
Seems to me some of the most quickly OUTRAGED of the Akin critics may have had a different agenda than the rest of us. Either that, or there are a whole lot of useful idiots out there or our side.
Oh, and just to forestall the inevitable response that I’m some sort of Akin apologist, let me say it again: For me, this was never about Akin. It was about the swarming, thoughtless, PC groupthink that helped damage one of our Senate candidates far worse than he needed be damaged by some inelegant phrasing in a local interview. It’s about a willingness to declare a controversial assertion made in the context of an exchange dealing with very complicated ethical and moral issues with their roots in the question of when exactly life begins,”unacceptable,” rather than wrong on the science — particularly when that declaration of finality comes from people who are displeased at being called climate deniers. It’s about the kneejerk effort to shun and shame and disavow — to adopt anti-intellectualism as a show of intellectual sophistication.
This was, and for me always has been, about how a fear of mockery by serial relativists and anti-foundationalists posing as our moral and intellectual betters, even as they’ve adopted a worldview that necessarily ends in some sort of totalitarianism, has come to control the public reactions, and the public stances, of many on the right — almost always to the detriment of classical liberalism and the Enlightenment’s epistemological paradigm. Which are the bulwarks against “progressivism” and the tyranny it demands.
Our willingness to publicly scapegoat those who press uncomfortable issues, be it Derbyshire in a pointed rebuttal essay that touched on racial unpleasantries, Bill Bennett in a discussion on Freakanomics, or Akin, grasping for a way to navigate the political minefield that requires devoted pro-life politicians to justify themselves with respect to gotcha questions about babies conceived through rape, shows that we have surrendered much of the rhetorical playing field to the left, which is able to dictate what comes to constitute the legitimate — ahem — topics for public discussion. Or at the very least, compel us to speak of such things in such strained generalities that we can’t muster a clear or forceful argument.
Most disturbingly, at least to me, is that this capitulation is so ingrained, particularly on certain controversial subjects, that the left rarely has to push the issue these days. And that’s because those on our side don’t just have a tendency to self-censor, but now they will attack those on our side who don’t — just to get out ahead of the accusations and mockery they believe will be forthcoming, offered by those they know to be acting in bad faith, in order to save themselves some temporary political discomfort.
For a group of people who are always claiming an need to reclaim the country, they seem content to do so on the left’s terms and under the left’s rules. That to me represents a Pyrrhic victory. Unless, that is, politics has become just another team sport — and what matters are wins and not principles.
— Which might not be so bad, pragmatically-speaking, if we used one of those wins to push those principles, rather than consistently hiding them and tempering them in order to appeal to the “moderates and independents” who we insist will otherwise reject us. And we can’t win re-election if they reject us. So.
(thanks to geoffB and EBL)
no one will mind if he wins as long as he remains in quarantine
Dead solid perfect.
Seems to me some of the most quickly OUTRAGED of the Akin critics may have had a different agenda than the rest of us. Either that, or there are a whole lot of useful idiots out there or our side.
That there’s one o’ them false dye-cot-o’-me thingies, ain’t it?
Why do I think if Akin had unexpectedly come out as pro-choice, he would be choking on funnels of NRSC cash?
Nah, that’s just crazy tawk.
I hope Akin wins, and I hope he remembers exactly who stabbed him in the back and kicked him when he was down. I hope he nurtures that grudge and teaches an entire generation of up-and-coming pols that the national apparatus is not just unnecessary, but counterproductive.
I’d love a guy who could draw a clear distinction between playing for the Missouri Team R and the Beltway Team R.
After you worked so hard to become sane in the first place, the only thing harder is giving up your sanity again
I assuming there will be new Missouri polls soon. If the trend is true, we will see it confirmed in the next week or so. If Akin is alive, the establishment GOP will still avoid him (especially since they just publicly trashed him two weeks ago). But Akin will likely benefit from his pro life outlaw status and will probably get more individual donors contributing. Rove and the GOP Establishment should just shut up and stay out of the way.
I want McCaskill to lose.
“[grasping] for a way to navigate the political minefield that requires devoted pro-life politicians to justify themselves with respect to gotcha questions about babies conceived through rape,….”
– Well, um, no, he didn’t, and that, in fact, is what gets pro-lifers in trouble in the first place.
– “Faith” needs no explaination or justification. Easy to say, very true, and hard to do when some aggressive Lefturd asshole is in your face spoutting totally unsubstantiated hateful claims at you, or, as in Akins case, you’re doing an interview that seems harmless and local, and forget for a moment how insideous and vicious the enemy really is.
– Faith is a beutiful weapon against the vampires of the Left. When you refuse to let them argue things on their terms, it drives them bat-shit crazy.
– God gave you that gift, use it early, and often.
Make sure to check the internals on any new polls.
And like Murkowski; if Akin wins on his own, he won’t be beholden to the very party that stabbed him in the back and that will now need his help.
Some Missourians may get this. By sending Akin, they INSURE that Akin will be given better treatment than he would’ve otherwise after how the Estab’s tried to make him into a pariah.
Now he’ll be working ONLY for Missourians and for PRO LIFE ideals.
Way to go Republican Estab.’s. You’ve put a hole through your foot.
TRS links Akin’s latest commercial.
Well I have to admit that if Akin is still winnable in Missouri then the whole RNC and punditry mass spit at him DIDN’T damage him though not for lack of trying. So it was dumb but ultimately harmless or at least the harm was minor.
Kinda bittersweet?
I hope Akin wins, and I hope he remembers exactly who stabbed him in the back and kicked him when he was down. I hope he nurtures that grudge and teaches an entire generation of up-and-coming pols that the national apparatus is not just unnecessary, but counterproductive.
This.
So it was dumb but ultimately harmless or at least the harm was minor.
Surely you know better than that, palaeo. In terms of short-term tactics, it was damaging enough. What was a 12-point lead turned into a dead heat. How is that harmless?
What’s worse is the long-term implications, those being that the RNC will not support any candidate who holds an “unhelpful” belief and dares speak it in public. And that the talking heads can gin up a fake controversy and make it stick. And that certain subjects are and ever shall be “unacceptable” and off-limits to reasoned discussion.
So yeah, apart from the short-term damage and the long-term damage, there was hardly any damage at all.
PPP: McCaskill 45, Akin 44 in Missouri
You have to think of the RNC and all the other pile-oners as Jack Woltz and Akin as Johnnie Fontaine. Akin’s hanging around after everyone told him he was dead and buried and should get out has made them look ridiculous. With all that implies.
They’re probably trying to figure out a way to sabatoge him because they’d rather be right than have the Senate seat.
Or is that too cynical?
Dude, Johnny Fontaine had Don Corleone hacking off a horse head and tossing it Jack Woltz’ bed when he didn’t get the hint.
Akin is doing this under his own steam. Or so it appears.
Since we’re going with the Godfather idiom, can we all agree that Joe Biden is Fredo?
Yes. Now, who wants to take him fishing?
“Surely you know better than that, palaeo. In terms of short-term tactics, it was damaging enough. What was a 12-point lead turned into a dead heat. How is that harmless?”
I’m not at all happy about the behavior squid but I’m glad that the roughest RNC shot at their own is not quite the death sentence I had feared. It means that the stealth Establishment is not as popular or as powerful as they’d try to have us believe. I’m glad that the crossbow bolt left a chest bruise instead of a skewered heart.
“Yes. Now, who wants to take him fishing?”
I’m not gettin’ anywhere near that nutty muther effer in a boat. I like the water OUTSIDE’a my lungs.
Well, Missouri did elect a dead candidate to the Senate once, so an Akin win wouldn’t be the strangest election result ever.
Re: PPP Poll.
Close to the same makeup as the other one.
chicago voters?
Sixty percent of Milwaukee’s black voters have disappeared.
Democrats have feared for years that one of the particular challenges of running campaigns in 2012 would be simply locating their voters.
link
oops wrong thread
But Gingrich said it was all overreaction.
“This is a good example of why the power structure in Washington should sometimes take a deep breath, count to ten, and go on vacation or something,” Gingrich told an audience at a Politico-sponsored event in Tampa. “Todd Akin made a mistake. He’s an honorable guy, he’s a sincere guy. He said something stupid.”
Gingrich said Republicans had an “unfortunate tendency” to rush to judgment against members of their own party, and that Akin now faced the end of a lifetime of public service over six seconds of foolish commentary.
Whether he chose to drop out now, Gingrich said, was up to him.
“ The polls show that the people of Missouri by a majority do not want him to get off. Neither Democrat, Republican, or Independent want him to get off the ticket,” he said. “…I think he’s got a big decision.
link
JOHN MCCAIN: And the fact is, people care what Mitt Romney’s position is, which is the exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother. That’s what they care about more. The third thing is I think it’s important to keep in mind that what Mr. – Congressman Akin was talking about was not abortion, it was about rape. And all of us find – that’s why all of us find that totally unacceptable, what he said. We were offended that he should state such a thing. And by the way, getting the nomination of your party for the senate or the presidency is a privilege. He has abused that privilege. That’s why he should no longer be the candidate of the Republican Party in Missouri.
link
Just out of curiousity, why don’t you want to become an Akin apologist? You agree with him on many things, and admire him for standing up to both the media and mainstream Republicans.
Has anyone recommended lately that Arizona Senator John McCain go forth and rape himself with a McCullough-brand chainsaw? If not, allow me!
Oh! David Weisman too!
You’d have a man raped with a chainsaw over reading comprehension?
What kind of sick sonofabitch are you?
Which one’s the man ?
Question? Was Meghan McCain anywhere to be seen at this week’s convention? Or is her appearance scheduled next week?
David Weissman
Meghan McCain is the Hot Republican Of The Day
“On a side note from all the political discussion—one of the pluses of being at the RNC are all the cute republican guys around,” Meghan tweeted from Tampa earlier today.
she’s getting boned in Tampa!
good on her I say at some point she’s gonna lose her looks so girlfriend needs to make hay while the sun shines
one of the pluses of being at the RNC are all the cute republican guys around,” Meghan tweeted from Tampa earlier today.
her father is a semen
that’s senator semen to you buddy
She looks like Moochelle Obama in that pic.
she looks like Pam Bondi on oxycontin
miss meghan maybe full of semen
Megan is getting even bigger. Wow.
Megan needs to get a gig with NutriSystem.
I don’t live in MO, firstly. And secondly, I suspect there’s quite a bit we don’t agree on. Which is why I likely would have chosen a different candidate. That’s quite a bit different than me noting that what he said isn’t out of the realm of “acceptability,” except to those who have already either surrendered, or those who have already assumed they have free rein to control the parameters of discourse.
Neither of which camps I fall in.