I have noted before how the GOP Establishment in the pursuit of short term gain helped empower the Christian Right's and Tea Party's control over the party. It was all about short term expediency combined with perhaps a dose of hubris on the part of the establishment folks that they could control the crazies they had helped to unleash. Now, some seem to be realizing that the inmates are taking over the asylum and that the longer term future of the GOP may not be what they'd envisioned. There's a certain level of satisfaction to be found in the angst now gripping the GOP establishment. However, the insane and dangerous forces they helped let loose are a frightening prospect for those who truly care about America. E.J. Dionne looks at the phenomenon in the Washington Post. Here are excerpts:The Republican establishment is said to have grave qualms about Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s presidential campaign. Here’s the problem: There is no Republican establishment. It squandered its authority by building up the Tea Party’s brigades and then fearing them too much to do anything to check their power.
Worse for those who think Perry would be a general-election disaster is the growing confidence among conservatives that President Obama will be easy to beat. This feeling will be bolstered by Tuesday’s special election that sent a Republican to Congress from New York’s 9th District for the first time since 1923. If Obama is going to lose anyway, many conservatives reason, why not go with their hearts?
[I]f Perry is to be defeated, he will have to do the job himself. . . . His vulnerabilities were certainly on display at this week’s CNN/Tea Party Express debate. Perry still hasn’t disentangled himself from his past suggestions that Social Security is unconstitutional. He will also be hurt by his humane position on immigration. He should be praised for it, but it will only bring him scorn among GOP primary voters.
His biggest problem, however, is his executive order requiring preteen girls in Texas to be immunized against a disease that causes cervical cancer, a decision that the religious right didn’t like and that Perry now says was a mistake. The dangerous charge here is influence-peddling.
It turns out Perry has received almost $30,000 in contributions from Merck over the years (not just the $5,000 he mentioned in the debate), and his ties to Merck have been documented to run deeper than that.
This helps Mitt Romney. It also cheers most Republicans who pass for the establishment these days and who worry that the Tea Party crowd will get Perry nominated. Yet these Republicans have only themselves to blame for abdicating to the far right.
Moderate politicians have been drummed out of the party or silenced as its leaders have played ball with the extremists throughout Obama’s term, rarely calling out their most outlandish and mendacious attacks. The theory was that anything that weakened Obama was good for the GOP. When Tea Party commentators proffered conspiracy theories straight out of the old John Birch Society playbook, Republican officials either stayed mum or nodded sagely as if their new allies were referencing Edmund Burke or Milton Friedman.
The Republican triumph in a New York City district that uses a lovely stretch of water to connect white ethnic neighborhoods in Queens and Brooklyn will aggravate the party’s overconfidence and prevent a showdown with the Tea Party.
[I]f conservatives see New York’s 9th as further evidence that Obama is a pushover, Rick Perry — if he doesn’t self-destruct — will be able to tell them he is the guy who can destroy the Great Society, the New Deal and the Progressive Era with one decisive blow. And no establishment will be there to stop him.
Unfortunately, if Perry should be elected in 2012, all of us will ultimately pay a high price. Emigration anyone?
3 comments:
I had to think about it to figure out if I wanted to write this comment. I decided I'll do as I always try to do and come down on the side of intellectual honesty. It's a type of honesty we see less and less of these days in the United States.
People on both sides of the political spectrum sacrifice intellectual honesty daily to take cheap shots at their political foes and to reap political gain.
E.J. Dionne is a pathetic liberal dolt. Even from my view as a political moderate, the guy makes me want to puke. It is probably difficult for Mr. Dionne to be intellectually honest with himself because he has sacrificed his intellect on the alter of left wing radical thought and practice for so long that he has no real intellect left.
That said, to be intellectually honest myself, I have to give even a poltroon liberal apologist such as Mr. Dionne his due. When he's right, he's right. Right wing radical Republicans led by so-called Christians have hijacked the Republican party and stripped it of many Republican moderate politicians and effectively silenced the few who remain.
In the Republican Party at the grass roots level, the radicals have made it abundantly clear that moderate Republicans whom they derisively label RINOs (Republican in name only) are not appreciated and not welcome. Moderate Republicans who choose to think about issues and make decisions about issues are abhorred by the right wing Radicals who drink the kool aid and expect everyone to be in lock step with their views, no matter what.
As far as Gov. Perry is concerned, whatever missteps he may take to hinder his chances of gaining the Republican nomination are fine with me. As a Texan and a Republican voter. I don't want to see him win the nomination. He would not be good for the country.
The fact is the Obama administration is done. Any one of the Republican candidates will be able to defeat him by the time November, 2012 rolls around. As a liberal Christian. I'd rather not have Obama and his incompetence replaced by Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann who are stupid enough to claim the world is only 6000 years old and who would willing impose that and their other radical right wing ideas on others given the slightest chance.
Given their brand of Radical Right Wing Christianity, they are either stupid and anti science or they are intellectually dishonest and willing to appear stupid to attract the votes of the Radical Christian Right.
Either way, neither of them is good for the country, and there are other choices, anyone of which can beat Obama and do a better job.
Finally, concerning Obama, its time for Democrats to admit they drank their own kool aid in November of 2008. They bought into a dream of hope and change and a chance to be a part of history by making the first black man a president. It hasn't worked out. Obama blames everything and everyone for what, in reality, is his own personal failure. The truth is, he is the failure and left wing radical democratic ideals are also a failure.
This country excels when it is governed by and from the moderate center. In fact, the country was built, by the founding fathers, to function in the moderate center. The founding fathers were acutely aware that radicalism whether from the left or the right was incompatible with democracy and the functioning of a proper republic. The United States needs to find that center again and reclaim the American exceptionalism which has been the hope of both America and the world.
Jack Scott
Jack,
I concur that we need to get back to the moderate center. I don't know how we do that as things seem to become ever more polarized.
As a regualr reader, you know that I am none to pleased with Obama. That said, Perry and Bachmann scare the Hell out of me.
I am an immigrant, and made that decision before this election.
It is not without its challenges by the way. I secretly want things to turn around at home and return, unfortunately I know better, but what I see happening is frightening, and makes absolutely no sense. It sadly seems as though there could be the perfect political storm to watch one of these people ascend to the throne. I pray for us.
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