GOP Asks The Age Old Question - "Our bling bling be off da hook, dawg?"

AngelHedgie

At a national conference, the Republicans struggle with an identity crisis.

Raise your hand if you didn't see this coming.

The GOP has painted itself into an ideological corner, and it's not sure of the way out. To be fair, this is completely a mess of their own making, stemming from their attempt to create the Permanent Republican Majority, and the resulting collapse when the financial underpinnings were found to be illegal and the philosophical underpinnings found to be bankrupt. Making matters worse is the fact that the new Democratic President is very popular and has a shrewd skill with the bully pulpit, making an aggressive opposition stance dangerous. Also not helping matters are their conservative fellow travelers, who are itching for a fight where they don't have to put any skin in the game.

The result is a party with no clear identity, and a conflict over where to go to get one. Me, I'm going to just sit back, and watch the elephant-shaped fireworks.

OptimusZed

I just want to see some Goldwater boys throw down with some bible-beaters.

Let's settle this thing like white males.

wwtMask

OptimusZed wrote: »

I just want to see some Goldwater boys throw down with some bible-beaters.

Let's settle this thing like white males.

I thought they were already doing that by demonizing minorities and hijacking religion for political purposes.

But yeah, I'm praying so hard that the hard right wins the day. I'd pay to see the Republican party destroy itself from the inside.

OptimusZed

wwtMask wrote: »

OptimusZed wrote: »

I just want to see some Goldwater boys throw down with some bible-beaters.

Let's settle this thing like white males.

I thought they were already doing that by demonizing minorities and hijacking religion for political purposes.

I meant more in the semi-tribal, falsely macho "look how relevant I still am when I flex" sense.

I wanna see some WWE-style posturing from white guys who somehow still manage to think they're important.

PantsB

OptimusZed wrote: »

I just want to see some Goldwater boys throw down with some bible-beaters.

Let's settle this thing like white males.

Goldwater was a bible beater, plus an openly a [strike]segregationist[/strike] "states right advocate." His later conversion as a social liberal when he had lost importance in the party doesn't change that he brought Bible beating and hard right positions to the forefront of the GOP. The rest is revisionist history - Goldwater was basically a Paultard with more evangelical rhetoric.

edit

RNC chair vote so far

*** RNC chair count: Our latest numbers on the RNC chair race that takes place tomorrow: Duncan 44, Steele 30, Dawson 18, Blackwell and Anuzis 16 each, Saltsman 1, Undecided/Not Reached 43. The Web site, YourRNC.com, which also has been tracking this race, updated its numbers as well: Duncan 36, Dawson 20, Steele 18, Anuzis 17, Blackwell 13, Saltsman 0.

Duncan is the sitting RNC chair, who clearly did a great job.

Steele is a one term Lt Gov of Maryland who lost to Cardin in an open Senate race by 10% in 2006. Along with Blackwell, the former (massively corrupt) Secretary of State in Ohio and failed Gubernatorial candidate in 2006 (lost to Strickland by 24%), are the token African Americans that were put forward as candidates to try to say the Republicans are not the old white racist man party.

Dawson and Saltsman represent the old white racist faction.

OptimusZed

PantsB wrote: »

OptimusZed wrote: »

I just want to see some Goldwater boys throw down with some bible-beaters.

Let's settle this thing like white males.

Goldwater was a bible beater, plus an openly a [strike]segregationist[/strike] "states right advocate." His later conversion as a social liberal when he had lost importance in the party doesn't change that he brought Bible beating and hard right positions to the forefront of the GOP. The rest is revisionist history - Goldwater was basically a Paultard with more evangelical rhetoric.

Yeah, but people who call themselves "Goldwater Republicans" today generally mean "I'm still conservative, but I'm not as much of a religious nut as those other guys." Is there a better term for that that I'm missing?

Gosling

wwtMask wrote: »

OptimusZed wrote: »

I just want to see some Goldwater boys throw down with some bible-beaters.

Let's settle this thing like white males.

I thought they were already doing that by demonizing minorities and hijacking religion for political purposes.

But yeah, I'm praying so hard that the hard right wins the day. I'd pay to see the Republican party destroy itself from the inside.

Only if the Dems are willing to provide some shelter for the Goldwaters. I don't want to see reasonable people with good ideas trapped in a party where they're shouted down by throngs of idiots.

chaosbear

OptimusZed wrote: »

PantsB wrote: »

OptimusZed wrote: »

I just want to see some Goldwater boys throw down with some bible-beaters.

Let's settle this thing like white males.

Goldwater was a bible beater, plus an openly a [strike]segregationist[/strike] "states right advocate." His later conversion as a social liberal when he had lost importance in the party doesn't change that he brought Bible beating and hard right positions to the forefront of the GOP. The rest is revisionist history - Goldwater was basically a Paultard with more evangelical rhetoric.

Yeah, but people who call themselves "Goldwater Republicans" today generally mean "I'm still conservative, but I'm not as much of a religious nut as those other guys." Is there a better term for that that I'm missing?

A "Rockefeller Republican" maybe?

PantsB

chaosbear wrote: »

A "Rockefeller Republican" maybe?

That would be a lot more logical and was used in the past. Or an "Eisenhower Republican"

OptimusZed

PantsB wrote: »

chaosbear wrote: »

A "Rockefeller Republican" maybe?

That would be a lot more logical and was used in the past. Or an "Eisenhower Republican"

Isn't an Eisenhower Republican basically a moderate/conservative Dem at this point?

geckahn

The republican party is straight up fucked for at least a decade. When your active base consists of a bunch of fucking fundies and nutters your chances of successfully becoming non-retarded is very low.

nexuscrawler

geckahn wrote: »

The republican party is straight up fucked for at least a decade. When your active base consists of a bunch of fucking fundies and nutters your chances of successfully becoming non-retarded is very low.

This is how you end up with a platform that says nothing but "Tax Cuts and Jesus!"

Cantido

nexuscrawler wrote: »

geckahn wrote: »

The republican party is straight up fucked for at least a decade. When your active base consists of a bunch of fucking fundies and nutters your chances of successfully becoming non-retarded is very low.

This is how you end up with a platform that says nothing but "Tax Cuts and Jesus!"

LONGER!

Causing a second Great Depression'll do that to ya.

If these Obama generations ever recover to a point where we'll want to marry and make babies, they're gonna grow up knowing who did it.

OptimusZed

nexuscrawler wrote: »

geckahn wrote: »

The republican party is straight up fucked for at least a decade. When your active base consists of a bunch of fucking fundies and nutters your chances of successfully becoming non-retarded is very low.

This is how you end up with a platform that says nothing but "Tax Cuts and Jesus!"

As it is written in the New Testament; "Fuck Caeser. Keep your own damn money. He'd just spend it on universities and aqueducts anyway."

Quid

OptimusZed wrote: »

PantsB wrote: »

chaosbear wrote: »

A "Rockefeller Republican" maybe?

That would be a lot more logical and was used in the past. Or an "Eisenhower Republican"

Isn't an Eisenhower Republican basically a moderate/conservative Dem at this point?

Only because the Republican party has continued to appeal to the crazy.

Cantido

OptimusZed wrote: »

nexuscrawler wrote: »

geckahn wrote: »

The republican party is straight up fucked for at least a decade. When your active base consists of a bunch of fucking fundies and nutters your chances of successfully becoming non-retarded is very low.

This is how you end up with a platform that says nothing but "Tax Cuts and Jesus!"

As it is written in the New Testament; "Fuck Caeser. Keep your own damn money. He'd just spend it on universities and aqueducts anyway."

Don't forget Palin's comments on God commanding we drill Iraq.

Plainview 3:16 - And God said "I drink thy milkshake" and many skulls were cracked

nexuscrawler

There's just no depth to their ideas. There's other ways to be business friendly than low taxes. You don't have to be openly hostile towards working class people. Social programs can be wasteful but the kneejerk "welfare queens" argument is 20 years old and needs to die.

common sense needs a home in the GOP

SyphonBrue

Quid wrote: »

OptimusZed wrote: »

PantsB wrote: »

chaosbear wrote: »

A "Rockefeller Republican" maybe?

That would be a lot more logical and was used in the past. Or an "Eisenhower Republican"

Isn't an Eisenhower Republican basically a moderate/conservative Dem at this point?

Only because the Republican party has continued to appeal to the crazy.

And the media.

geckahn

This guy gets it:

I think conservatives would better spend their diminished political capital figuring out how to finance the welfare state at the least cost to the economy and individual liberty, rather than fighting a losing battle to slash popular spending programs. But this will require them to accept the necessity of higher revenues.

It is simply unrealistic to think that tax cuts will continue to be a viable political strategy when the budget deficit exceeds $1 trillion, as it will this year. Nor is it realistic to think that taxes can be kept at 19 percent of GDP when spending is projected to grow by about 50 percent of GDP over the next generation, according to both the Congressional Budget Office and the Government Accountability Office. And that’s without any new spending programs being enacted.

If conservatives refuse to participate in the debate over how revenues will be raised, then liberals will do it on their own, which will likely give us much higher tax rates and a tax system that is more harmful to growth than necessary to fund the government. Instead of opposing any tax hike, I think it makes more sense for conservatives to figure out how best to raise the additional revenue that will be raised in any event.

Will this happen? fuck no.

OptimusZed

Quid wrote: »

OptimusZed wrote: »

PantsB wrote: »

chaosbear wrote: »

A "Rockefeller Republican" maybe?

That would be a lot more logical and was used in the past. Or an "Eisenhower Republican"

Isn't an Eisenhower Republican basically a moderate/conservative Dem at this point?

Only because the Republican party has continued to appeal to the crazy.

Well yes, but that's kind of the point isn't it? If you keep believing the same things and the party you identify with doesn't anymore, you're not really a member of that party in anything but name.

ElJeffe

Cantido wrote: »

nexuscrawler wrote: »

geckahn wrote: »

The republican party is straight up fucked for at least a decade. When your active base consists of a bunch of fucking fundies and nutters your chances of successfully becoming non-retarded is very low.

This is how you end up with a platform that says nothing but "Tax Cuts and Jesus!"

LONGER!

Causing a second Great Depression'll do that to ya.

If these Obama generations ever recover to a point where we'll want to marry and make babies, they're gonna grow up knowing who did it.

Pubs didn't cause the financial mess. Everyone caused the financial mess. It's just that the Pubs are keen on continuing to do the same stupid shit that got us into this, while the Dems have woken up and realized, "Oh, hey, were we ever retarded."

Speaker

I think the Republicans will have to lose with a pure hard right candidate that the evangelical south loves before their leaders have any room to experiment or maneuver.

OptimusZed

Given the level on which the Republicans who still hold office are letting the blowhards call the shots, I'd be very surprised if the GOP didn't look more and more like something that Rush conceived of while dryhumping Reagan's corpse on shredded chunks of the Constitution over the next couple of years. I mean;

GINGREY: Well, Rush, congressional Republicans and our leadership need you and other conservative giants to galvanize the millions of Americans who don't live in Washington. They may not even live in Republican districts. Maybe they're in Democratic districts. But we've gotta have your support, and of course I know you reach millions of people across the country. I'm telling you, I heard from quite a few of them (laughs) since my foot-and-mouth disease yesterday, and I just thank you so much for what you're doing, and we're with you 100% -- and we know that you're with us a hundred percent, more importantly.

Full text of the on air blowjob. (Rush's site, be warned).

ElJeffe

OptimusZed wrote: »

Given the level on which the Republicans who still hold office are letting the blowhards call the shots, I'd be very surprised if the GOP didn't look more and more like something that Rush conceived of while dryhumping Reagan's corpse on shredded chunks of the Constitution over the next couple of years. I mean;

GINGREY: Well, Rush, congressional Republicans and our leadership need you and other conservative giants to galvanize the millions of Americans who don't live in Washington. They may not even live in Republican districts. Maybe they're in Democratic districts. But we've gotta have your support, and of course I know you reach millions of people across the country. I'm telling you, I heard from quite a few of them (laughs) since my foot-and-mouth disease yesterday, and I just thank you so much for what you're doing, and we're with you 100% -- and we know that you're with us a hundred percent, more importantly.

Full text of the on air blowjob. (Rush's site, be warned).

Liebot, what is the saddest thing?

VeritasVR

There's not enough in the world.

nexuscrawler

Rush for RNC chair

he apparently has as much power as one already

wwtMask

OptimusZed wrote: »

Given the level on which the Republicans who still hold office are letting the blowhards call the shots, I'd be very surprised if the GOP didn't look more and more like something that Rush conceived of while dryhumping Reagan's corpse on shredded chunks of the Constitution over the next couple of years. I mean;

GINGREY: Well, Rush, congressional Republicans and our leadership need you and other conservative giants to galvanize the millions of Americans who don't live in Washington. They may not even live in Republican districts. Maybe they're in Democratic districts. But we've gotta have your support, and of course I know you reach millions of people across the country. I'm telling you, I heard from quite a few of them (laughs) since my foot-and-mouth disease yesterday, and I just thank you so much for what you're doing, and we're with you 100% -- and we know that you're with us a hundred percent, more importantly.

Full text of the on air blowjob. (Rush's site, be warned).

I'm surprised he managed to get that out intelligibly. It takes a lot of skill and practice to enunciate with a dick in your mouth.

SyphonBrue

Speaker wrote: »

I think the Republicans will have to lose with a pure hard right candidate that the evangelical south loves before their leaders have any room to experiment or maneuver.

Palin/Huckabee 2012!

OptimusZed

wwtMask wrote: »

OptimusZed wrote: »

Given the level on which the Republicans who still hold office are letting the blowhards call the shots, I'd be very surprised if the GOP didn't look more and more like something that Rush conceived of while dryhumping Reagan's corpse on shredded chunks of the Constitution over the next couple of years. I mean;

GINGREY: Well, Rush, congressional Republicans and our leadership need you and other conservative giants to galvanize the millions of Americans who don't live in Washington. They may not even live in Republican districts. Maybe they're in Democratic districts. But we've gotta have your support, and of course I know you reach millions of people across the country. I'm telling you, I heard from quite a few of them (laughs) since my foot-and-mouth disease yesterday, and I just thank you so much for what you're doing, and we're with you 100% -- and we know that you're with us a hundred percent, more importantly.

Full text of the on air blowjob. (Rush's site, be warned).

I'm surprised he managed to get that out intelligibly. It takes a lot of skill and practice to enunciate with a dick in your mouth.

If there's anyone with that level of dicksucking skill, though, it's going to be a Republican Congressman from the coastal south.

OptimusZed

SyphonBrue wrote: »

Speaker wrote: »

I think the Republicans will have to lose with a pure hard right candidate that the evangelical south loves before their leaders have any room to experiment or maneuver.

Palin/Huckabee 2012!

Huckabee still scares the shit out of me.

"Aw shucks" fascism is dangerous stuff.

Scalfin

I think the biggest problem the Republican party is having right now is that most of my generation takes "republican with good ideas" to mean "Democrat."

Henroid

All the Obama love in the air isn't helping their moods, either. Jim Bopp, a committeeman from the Great State of Indiana, grumbled before coming into town that "there's kind of a 'Kumbaya' feeling in the country."

Well, I'm glad they don't like the fact that people are actually cheering up. Maybe they can work this out at their group therapy session.

nexuscrawler

Henroid wrote: »

All the Obama love in the air isn't helping their moods, either. Jim Bopp, a committeeman from the Great State of Indiana, grumbled before coming into town that "there's kind of a 'Kumbaya' feeling in the country."

Well, I'm glad they don't like the fact that people are actually cheering up. Maybe they can work this out at their group therapy session.

They thrived for a good 6 years on the gloom and doom strategy it's hard ot change

wwtMask

When you make your living on dividing people, naturally you'll be pretty pissed that someone is hurting your livelihood.

OremLK

SyphonBrue wrote: »

Speaker wrote: »

I think the Republicans will have to lose with a pure hard right candidate that the evangelical south loves before their leaders have any room to experiment or maneuver.

Palin/Huckabee 2012!

My first thought was Huckabee for the landslide loss.

Palin won't be at the top of the ticket though. That faction of the GOP may be that crazy, but they aren't that stupid. They know what a pounding she took. She's finished.

Edit: She won't be anywhere on the ticket

Quid

OremLK wrote: »

Palin won't be at the top of the ticket though. That faction of the GOP may be that crazy, but they aren't that stupid. They know what a pounding she took. She's finished.

Not if they want to continue to the crazy right they won't. Palin was loved by far right conservatives. I could very much see her making another run on the ticket as pres or VP again.

SyphonBrue

I have this terrible feeling it will be John Boehner running. I do not like it.

OptimusZed

SyphonBrue wrote: »

I have this terrible feeling it will be John Boehner running. I do not like it.

That would be awesome. Obama v Boehner. It would be glorious, in much the same way as all of Caligula's gladitorial matches.

OremLK

Quid wrote: »

OremLK wrote: »

Palin won't be at the top of the ticket though. That faction of the GOP may be that crazy, but they aren't that stupid. They know what a pounding she took. She's finished.

Not if they want to continue to the crazy right they won't. Palin was loved by far right conservatives. I could very much see her making another run on the ticket as pres or VP again.

They've got to realize on some level that she played a huge part in triggering the landslide against McCain. They might love her, but that doesn't mean they're willing to put the gun in the mouth and pull the trigger for the love of her.

Scalfin

OremLK wrote: »

Quid wrote: »

OremLK wrote: »

Palin won't be at the top of the ticket though. That faction of the GOP may be that crazy, but they aren't that stupid. They know what a pounding she took. She's finished.

Not if they want to continue to the crazy right they won't. Palin was loved by far right conservatives. I could very much see her making another run on the ticket as pres or VP again.

They've got to realize on some level that she played a huge part in triggering the landslide against McCain. They might love her, but that doesn't mean they're willing to put the gun in the mouth and pull the trigger for the love of her.

They're convinced that it was McCain reigning her in that made her lose.

OptimusZed

OremLK wrote: »

Quid wrote: »

OremLK wrote: »

Palin won't be at the top of the ticket though. That faction of the GOP may be that crazy, but they aren't that stupid. They know what a pounding she took. She's finished.

Not if they want to continue to the crazy right they won't. Palin was loved by far right conservatives. I could very much see her making another run on the ticket as pres or VP again.

They've got to realize on some level that she played a huge part in triggering the landslide against McCain. They might love her, but that doesn't mean they're willing to put the gun in the mouth and pull the trigger for the love of her.

You're implying a rationality here that hasn't really been evidenced in voting patterns or polling of the Republican base.