I know this because I read the political media. And if you can’t trust the political media, whom can you trust?
First, National Journal, which has become the Queen of GOP concern trolls (the King being either Jennifer Rubin or the entirety of the GOP establishment, depending on who you ask), with one of its bi-monthly stories suggesting the waning of the TEA Party and its influence. Framed as a question, of course, because that’s what makes it neutral and objective, you see. “Has The Tea Party Peaked?”:
[…] signs abound that the tea-party wave of 2010-2012 has peaked. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., up for reelection next year, is openly taking on the conservative base on immigration without facing any retribution from a conservative challenger. Sen. John Cornyn, who took conservative flak for supporting moderates as NRSC chair from 2010-2012, is expected to cruise to another term without primary opposition in Texas. The Club for Growth, agitating for intraparty challengers, has rallied behind only one GOP target so far. Alaska Senate candidate Joe Miller, the erratic tea-party insurgent in 2010, isn’t polling as well among Republicans in his second go-around.
All this is a far cry from the deeply antiestablishment, anti-incumbent sentiment that swept Washington for much of the last decade. Despite polling that shows Congress is as unpopular as ever, the intensity that drove Republican primary challengers seems to be abating. Over the last two elections, three sitting Republican senators were defeated in the primaries. Four House members apiece lost primaries in each of the last three House elections (not including the member-versus-member redistricting matchups). As significant is the fact that in the last two elections, at least 20 representatives (20 in 2010, 20-plus in 2012) won less than 60 percent of the vote in primaries—unusually high numbers that illustrated the anger at Washington across the country. Those numbers don’t look like they’ll be matched next year.
Oh, well, then. I guess it’s time to write the epitaph on conservatism. Unless, of course, what the TEA Party has figured out — which dovetails perfectly with what TEA Party favorite Mark Levin (among others) has pointed out — is that DC is not the place to concentrate TEA Party money or efforts, and that the GOP establishment is a lost cause. Trying to change DC was tried in 2010, and it gave us Boehner and endless Republican surrender, from tax increases to the march toward implementation of ObamaCare to raises in the debt ceiling.
And now TEA Partier Mike Lee, along with other TEA Party favorites like Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, are seeking to unmask GOP pseudo-conservatives in order to shine a light on just how broken is our increasingly phony two party system. This, too, will have the effect of rallying the conservative base. Just not where we’re used to seeing their efforts.
Lindsey Graham exists because of the open primary system in South Carolina. It’s that simple. So his taking on conservatives headlong is hardly an example of bravery or of conservative weakness. Instead, it’s an example of the brazenness and arrogance of professional politicians who, once elected, no longer feel the need to represent their constituencies (unless you count Democrats who vote for Graham in primaries as part of his constituency, in which case, I stand corrected). And because the US Congress, with its carefully rejiggered districting system gives it a larger re-election rate than the British Parliament, perhaps the TEA Party isn’t waning so much as it is ready to take aim at new targets: rather than trying to change DC from within, they’re hoping to do so from without, inside state and local governments and using the amendment process, among other tools supposedly available to states in a constitutional republic formed under a federalist framework.
I’m not surprised National Journal hadn’t considered any of this, however. Probably why their erratic insurgent quasi-journalism isn’t selling well this time around.
Onward, though, to the inevitable Clinton Dynasty, which will be pitted (we’re hearing) against the inevitable Bush Dynasty, in what will be a battle of inevitable candidates. Andrew Malcolm, IBD:
Well, it looks like we won’t have much to write about here for the next three years.
The media, which knows all and tells some, has proclaimed Hillary Clinton the definite Democrat nominee in 2016.
And who dares argue with that? Joe the Delaware Gaffer? Are you kidding? He’s the one on video from 2008 saying she’d have been a better Obama VP choice than he was.
Martin O’Malley? Who? That’s what most Americans would say. Bing him if you care.
Clinton had breakfast with Biden this week to break the news. And lunch with Obama to get their stories straight about the lethal Benghazi screw-up. He wanted to go over what’s not to be in her upcoming book. And as a Chicago native, she wanted to assure him that she won’t be trying to critically distance herself from his administration for another two years or so.
A number of his experienced campaign functionaries have signed on to the Clinton campaign-that’s-pretending-not-to-be-one-yet.
And some senators already say they like her. But they’re keeping that quiet because the way Americans feel about Congress these days, who wants that kind of endorsement? And who needs a reminder that not so long ago Hillary was one of those useless clowns with the fake smiles and baggy pants?
The longer Clinton can appear above the putrid partisanship that infests Washington nowadays, the better for her. She need do nothing for a couple of years. Nothing except make a boatload of speech money. And read her ghostwriter’s chapter drafts.
And bask in the same sense of inevitable primary victory she had back in 2007-08 — until Iowa happened and she finished third behind a guy who was cheating on his cancer-stricken wife. Now, that’s losing!
There’s always a chance those House Republicans might find her fingerprints on the bungled Benghazi affair. But Obama’s gang and the complicit D.C. media have shown themselves deft at letting sleeping scandals die.
And Obama has become amazingly good at dodging responsibility for anything except the Bin Laden raid, while acting like an innocent bystander in the cascading failures of his five-year reign of error.
Speaking of Republicans, that vast right-wing ineptocracy is showing itself deft at not doing a whole lot to groom a skilled field of alternatives to third Clinton or Obama terms.
A powerful sentiment has swept the conservative movement that its members, like all Americans, are being played by posturing establishment pols with more allegiance to their own career perpetuation in that former swamp. And less, if any, adherence to ideological goals or purity.
Of this you can be certain: somewhere on the ticket for the GOP in 2016 will be wedged in Chris Christie. Whether it’s with the next Bush Prince as a VP, or whether he somehow manages to overthrow royalty and claim the top spot, using a conservative as a VP candidate to try to bring the base along, Christie is the new “inevitable.”
Which is what makes President Hillary the real inevitable. Because more and more of the base is likely to stay home and put effort into strengthening the states.
And honestly? I don’t think the GOP establishment would mind one bit if Hillary took the crown. I imagine it will be easy to fund raise against her, historic though she’d be. We already know the GOP is engaged in a war against women, after all. At least this time they won’t also be racists.
Huzzah for small victories!
It makes me sick in my stomach to think of Hillary winning.
Almost as sick as the thought of Chris Christie.
When I saw the “wedged in Chris Christie” line, I was thinking that you’d need a really large crowbar to wedge him anywhere.
I wonder whether this will be the election when they don’t even try to bring the base along. I figure at some point they won’t bother any more. I don’t think it will work anyway, since I won’t vote for any ticket with one of their candidates at the top.
My Eye doctor is retiring in October. Guess why? Heck of a job Barry!
My eye doctor is rich as Croesus. He tells Obama to drop dead and takes cash.
In this mornings news, about which no one in the “news” business seems aghast, is that the Wan is to take Executive Action to correct the inadequacies of the Congress who fail to have his “vision”.
For a constitutional scholar, he seems to have skipped all those chapters about the balance of powers.
Establicans sold us McCain by playing on canklephobia. They must still think people are as afraid of her as we seemed to be in the ’90s.
Still fighting the
lastwar they lost 13 years ago when they couldn’t keep her out of the Senate.“But Obama’s gang and the complicit D.C. media have shown themselves deft at letting sleeping scandals die.”
It isn’t just the Obazmite “gang and the complicit D.C. media” that’s the problem: it’s the GOP establishment working hand in glove with the Obazmites and the D.C. media to let the scandals die.
And what’s the pay back? An alliance of the Obazmites, the Democrats, and the complicit media (which extends well beyond D.C., right into the office of Roger Ailes et al.) to fight off the grassroots danger to their collective powers. Any attempt to “take back” the GOP will have to fight them all at once, because all of their skins are attached to one and the same object of power retention.
Hill is old and she looks old. She will be nearly 70 in 2016. Not only that, she is incompetent and doesn’t play well with others. She lies. A lot and about anything and everything. She lies as much as the Wan. They both lie even when there is no reason to lie and they aren’t good at it. Look how quickly she was caught out about “dodging sniper fire in Tuzla.”
Surely, there is someone else who will have the stones to thrown down against Herself? Perhaps several someones. Hill has burned bridges across the globe since she became SoS in addition to the bridges she burned in the US as she and Bill took their act on the road to the WH.
The Devil’s second best trick was convincing the world classical liberalism wasn’t both original and structural. Today it’s just another of the Urbanist’s plethora of hippest bounty over at Whole Paycheck, and since it’s the plainest of vanilla on the Media’s bottom shelf, understandably it’s not a very trendy selection.
In related news, Secret Sex Tape: Monica Lewinsky Caught On Explicit Recording Telling Bill Clinton, ‘I Could Take My Clothes Off…’
Said tidbit will pass before the week’s out, never to be heard from again, except maybe as a B-level meme about spectacular unbridled Democrat virility and the noble, visionary, concomitant spine of a soon-to-be Secy of State broadcast from a doddering Diane Rehm’s show, twisted beyond logical and moral recognition by some ball-less halfwit with a goatee, a liberal arts degree, and his first opportunity to don his kneepads on national public radio and transfix his unisex hipster eyeglasses on the MSNBC studio.
Career opportunity!
A sock puppet comment on Ace of Spades just won the internet. Lock stock and barrel.
“14 Nobody says “Detroit is alive and al-Qaeda is dead” any more.
Posted by: Joe Biden at July 31, 2013 10:28 AM (e8kgV) “
Unless wedges he way in to the Democrat ticket.
And maybe conservatives will be at home strengthening their states come election day.
My guess is they’ll be hardening their well-stocked bunkers.
OT: re: the just completed Mike Lee appearance on Rush
Good policy is only good politics in a world where words mean things, and ideas have consequences, not one where concensus reigns with bad luck for his consort.
>>Hill is old and she looks old. She will be nearly 70 in 2016.
She also had that head injury last fall that she kept quiet (fingers crossed her lifestyle catches up with her).
I think she’s working overtime trying to convince us of her inevitability in order to prevent a young up-and-comer from even considering a run in 2016. Because it’s her turn.
She is breathtakingly incompetent, as demonstrated with her SoS mismanagement, and not just Benghazi.
Unfortunately, Leigh, we’re filled with a majority of people in this country that either are comfortable enough to keep or desperate to keep it going because they’ll lose their imaginary lobsters and false sense of entitlement if they don’t.
A strong voice espousing American principles might win enough over… if they were willing to crack through the Media’s narrative.
Instead, it’ll be Chris Christie taking on Big Bird as Big Bird. Oh man, that’s actually so inspiring. Hold on, I’m going to go dig my GOP fundraiser letter out of the trash.
At the beginning of the month, I had seen this story, about Sarah Palin considering a Senate run in her home state of Alaska.
And then yesterday, they had this story, showing the big support she has among Alaskan Republicans.
However, when listening to Ben Shapiro on the radio this morning he said that he is hearing that Palin is not interested in an Alaska Senate run but would rather run in Arizona against John McCain. He said that’s why Palin bought a house in AZ (noted here) and that she apparently has huge support there.
I hate to get my hopes up, but replacing McCain with a real conservative can’t come a moment too soon.
And I swear that this comment is NOT meant to deliberately draw the electric hamster out of his hiding place.
Last week, Sarah Palin was in Baltic, S.D., keynoting a local farm fest, much to the bemusement of Meredith Jessup of The Blaze.
If she knew what lay on the opposite bank of the scenic Big Sioux river, she might not be so bemused.
Palin has a house in Arizona because her daughter and grandson live there. I’m not sold on Palin and don’t want to piss off her followers so I’ll move on to what Libby said.
I think it is possible to strip the veneer off the Clinton mythology and kill her presidential bid. Bill was president 20+ years ago and many voters today were children or infants when all their shenanigans went down (so to speak). My own kids don’t know anything about Hillary and only know about the scandalous stuff with Monica as per Bill. Their memory of presidents begins with Dubya and the Wan. NBC is in the midst of filming a hagiographical four part series about Hill, starring Diane Lane (!?!) of all people as Hill.
Further, oldsters (like myself being 50+) hate her guts and we have long memories and vote. Thankfully, the election is three years out and Hill could drop dead, have a stroke or some other thing that will kill off her “inevitability”. Her competition is going to be the problem. Standard bearers, depending on where one is on the continuum of Conservatism range from Rand Paul to Chris Christie who are already in a pissing match that is more personal than policy driven. Let’s just hope the Right doesn’t decide to eat its own the way it usually does.
Does Biden wonder when they are going to do the mini series based on his life?
Are there any decent intelligent Democrats out there? I mean someone I would not dread much as president. It is quite bizarre how bare the cabinet is(even here in California where we are stuck with Jerry Brown redux). The governor of Oregon and least seems like an intelligent person, don’t know if he is interested in national office.
decent intelligent Democrats
This would be the Winning Oxymoron of the Day.
I can’t think of an honest democrat since Christopher Hitchens shuffled off this mortal coil.
Don’t forget the factor that this country might be hungry for real leadership after we’ve finally hit the drain on all this soft-focus nonsense.
In that, we might finally be at the point where people realize there is a serious problem on 2016, and we can’t keep going on all this inertia.
I think that will happen, William. Of late, since I am not working and prospects look bleak, I’ve been watching/listening to the news more. This last week and early part of this week has shown a real discussion going on about race relations in the US. It seems that white people are becoming fed up with being the bad guys–even do-gooders are starting to question the vast amount of monies we throw at the inner cities and the Grievance Industrial Complex. We are starting to have the “conversation” (gad!) that Eric Holder claimed we are too cowardly to have. Not only that, it is a reasoned conversation wherein many people, black and white, are saying the sun has set on the Sharpton’s of the world. It isn’t 1965 anymore. Persons who have dedicated their careers to being aggrieved are, of course, screeching that “Ya’ll are rasiss!!” and getting answered back “So? So are you.”
Striking a pose isn’t going to be worth a warm bucket of spit in three years time.
Definitely one of the things I’m keeping my eye on too, Leigh. One of the messages lost in the current babble is the leaders you want in times of Peace (those that throw good parties and will talk your ear off but never attempt to actually get anything done) and those of War (those that throw out the bad and try to get the most done possible).
Still too many factors, but at the least I know I’ve no interest in trying to climb the establishment ladder. Cause it just looks so dumb at this point. I can understand compromising some of your principles, but all of them? For this?
William & leigh,
I hope you’re right. I really do. But I’m afraid that we’ve already gone past the tipping point, where the number of people who are capable of waking up and seeing things as they have become (and actually doing something about it) have finally been outnumbered by the people who continue to mindlessly believe the lies, half-truths and distortions fed to them by a willing media and power-hungry politicians and react accordingly.
Which means in 2016 we’ll get whichever lying sack of crap (D or R) is the the best at selling the most attractive BS as our next El Presidente.
And the death of the American experiment and steady slide into despair and tyranny will continue apace.
Which is ironic to me because I used to be such an optimist back in the day.
I hear you, Dave. I was quite the optimist, too. I lost that optimism when it became apparent that no one seems to give a damn that the president is a lawless mutherfucker who will do as he pleases and no one will do anything about it. D or R, I never want to see the like of it again.
Too true, Dave. And I know too many of my generation (born in the 1980’s, I don’t really go for all the bizarre labels) that have absolutely no idea why they should have freedom, or why they should fight corruption, or why fast food workers shouldn’t be paid twenty dollars an hour. Handing people food is just the toughest job ever, you guys!
Still, I just really feel like the average person is still allowed to get away with not having any skin in the game, one of the main reasons Obama gets away with so many horrible policies (and why he spends most of his time trying to keep their natural consequences from happening). We’re allowed to obsess about whether gays get federal benefits for announcing that they’re now married. And Republicans can push Democrat agendas to more neatly destroy the country, cause whatever, American Dreams and such. And the average person still argues that if we just gave Obama more power, then we’d really have smart grids! Do they wake up? And do they wake up to become monsters or citizens? I run across both types a lot in my life.
Man, I truly don’t know. Optimist, pessimist, or otherwise. Wherever we’re going, we’re not going to be back where we are, that’s the only thing I’m truly sure of.
It’s funny reading how the Clinton’s are upset with the Weiners. Huma Abedin knows far too much to be thrown under any metaphorical bus. The 2016 election season is only days away.
no one seems to give a damn that the president is a lawless mutherfucker who will do as he pleases and no one will do anything about it.
This right here is what I base so much of my opinion on. It constantly amazes me that no one other than us unhelpful hobbits way over here on what is apparently the distant far right is calling BS on the lengthy and ever growing list of Obama lies and overreaches. If the so called “Silent Majority” hasn’t risen up and demanded their representatives impeach this blatant Marxist a-hole by now, I find it difficult if not impossible to believe that they ever will.
William,
My kids, both born in the 80’s, get it. But my son (born in ’89), currently attending college here in the Democratic Peoples Republic of Kalifornia, tells me that people his age that think like him are pretty few and far between on campus. The vast majority are of the “pay poor unskilled workers a living wage!” and “Obama is teh awesome!” deep thinking variety.
I guess it matters how you raise your kids. There seem to be a hell of a lot of parents out there who have failed that basic responsibility.
It really and truly does. Cause that’s the deepest question. Do they realize that this system won’t be able to support them, or do they fall deeper down the hole?
That’s what frustrates me the most about the GOP, that we aren’t offering a clear voice on other possibilities, only a compromised voice. Because if we aren’t the alternative, than the alternatives are all dark ones, as we have seen in history time and time again.
America was founded to be an alternate to those choices, but when we don’t realize that, of course we fall into them again.
porky porky chris christie is the jerseytrash piece of shit what assfucked Mitt Romney
up the ass
my goodness
But the average person does have skin in the game. It’s the metaphorical “pound of flesh” the government has carved off from those who can afford it to give to those in need of a fair share.
missionary work in New Jersey, is a position…frankly
my dear..that has recently, gone to the dogs
missionary work in New Jersey, is a position…frankly
my dear..that has recently, gone to the dogs
This.
eff cops
New Jersey police officer indicted with first-degree murder in Gambrills road rage killing
piggy piggy copsluts especially jersey trash ones are NOT part of the solution
and you know what that means
Martin Brodeur/Frank Sinatra for Pezdent and the guy who holds the football
Hope you aren’t residing in one of several states where the licensing boards are considering requiring the acceptance of government insurance to remain licensed as a doctor.
I’m just waiting for the DEA to announce that taking Obamacare patients is required to demonstrate the moral fiber needed to prescribe drugs.
Black market ophthalmology? Heh.
It may well happen that the Dust Witch becomes our next prezzidint. Because once a majority of soft, complacent, expectant ‘Americans’, their votes paid for with entitlement spending, get hooked and multiply (Community Organize) their numbers enough to dictate to the rest of us, we will all be dragged along with them, down their failing path until the lack of sustainability tears this Republic apart.
Those Copybook Heading Gods are stirring…
Dave, my elder son, also born in 1989, graduated last Spring and he reported much the same about his classmates. Worse, his roommate was a complete moron who was a Political Science major and continually spouted off about Obama being teh awesome. And he went to OU. Now he is working for an e-vil company who makes niche products for steel production and is on his way to being a 1%er.
Younger brother, born 1996, is practically a Bircher. Most of his friends seem to be the same way and the funny thing is, in the great American tradition of the melting pot are from all over the globe. Two of his friends are 2nd generation Mexicans, one is from Zimbabwe and one is an Arab. They are all hard-liners about the Constitution and hate teh Wan and what he is doing to the country. They are all planning careers in the hard sciences and are wrestlers on top of that, so I don’t know if it’s those choices or the fact that their parents are immigrants and still sold on the American Dream or they are just kids who still see everything in black and white.
They give me hope.
Leigh,
Maybe there is hope after all that as the boomers die off and are replaced by Generation Z (or whatever they decide to call the generation after the Millenials) like your younger son.
Full implementation of Obamacare ought to speed up that process.
Thanks for the inspiration.