K-LO:
I also think that there’s been some disagreement in The Corner, which indicates where conservatives are. Debate is good and healthy. There’s been a post or two that I do think was inappropriate, and I’ve said so. But generally speaking, I wouldn’t caricature the state of the debate. Fact is, there’s no rally to one candidate. Though one certainly has the mo right now — and yes, he may keep it, but it’s certainly not a sealed deal.
The debate at the Corner has been whether John McCain winning the nomination is the end times for the GOP and the Republic, or if Mitt Romney losing the nomination is the end times for the universe. Seriously- that is the “debate” that has taken place at the Corner. You decide if that is “good” and “healthy.”
Ed Drone
No, thanks. For my mental health, not to mention my blood pressure, I think I’ll avoid “the Corner,” along with most other wingnut sites. I won’t give them the time of day, not to mention the Internet traffic.
Ed
calipygian
Plus they have no idea what the Simpsons are, arguing about if Rush was kidding or not when he said, “I for one welcome our McCain overlords”, failing to realize that Rush was referencing a famous Kent Brockman line.
cleek
it’s not just the Corner. Coulter and Limbaugh are convinced McCain is the end of the party, too. Coulter has even said she’d vote for Clinton over McCain. WTF?
i don’t know why they think that, and don’t care to know – anything that threatens to destroy the GOP is fine with me. but, i have no doubt they’ll all fall in behind McCain come November; rigid and lasting dedication to principle in the face of electoral defeat is not something Republicans are known for.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
hmm…
Shorter K-Lo: Sure, you say your teddy bear is nicer than mine, and sure all your friends say your teddy bear is nicer than mine, but I say your teddy bear is stinky and has cooties! So there!
(I’m not sure if that has the right K-JO jazz, yanowhutimsayin?)
scott
They’re not the only ones. First Buchanan, then Coultergiest, then Malkin, then Oxylimbaugh and now Novak in the “let’s pile on McCain and kick the crap out of him” game. Clearly these important members of the Right Wing Noise Machine forgot that maxim of their hallowed St Ronnie “thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican”.
I just don’t get it. McCain is a *conservative*. Okay, he’s not from the christopathic part of the party but then, none of the above wingnuts are either. Is it cuz of campaign finance reform? C’mon people, if that’s as librul as McCain gets, you clearly have a messed up idea of what it means to be librul. His stance on immigration? If that’s the major objection to his conservative credentials, then once again, the Republican party reveals the underlying bigotry and racism of many of its adherents.
Here’s a link:
More Nutjob Hatin’ on McCain
Scroll down to the last entry. It’s telling in that it’s from a FL primary voter who voted for McCain and can’t understand the vitriol about immigration. Hmmmm, doesn’t sound like a RINO to me. Also interesting is a theory raised that perhaps the right wing windbags are losing their authoritAH over the flock when it comes to their shrillness regarding McCain. Perhaps the rank and file people of the party, yunno, the ones who vote, see what a lot of us on the left see, namely a conservative candidate for President.
I’m not the only one mystified by all of this. One of the wingnuts over at the Free Republic is asking this very same question:
Freepers Scratching Their Heads
so clearly it’s folks from both sides of the political spectrum who are scratching their heads about high profile conservative opposition to McCain.
Heh heh, which is fine come November. Nothing like running against a party who’s nominee is always looking over his shoulder to see which member of his party will knife him in the back. Reminds me of Bush I.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
I’ll tell you anyways:
The dreamy days where the “pundits” could demand anything they wanted and get it are over, and now they’re having a tantrum that the Red candidate is doing what the country needs, not what the children want.
Svensker
I think it’s really great that Mark Levin argues that McCain is buying the antiwar crap that waterboarding is torture “which it clearly isn’t”. So, yeah, look for posthumous pardons of those Japanese guys convicted after WWII, not to mention some get out of jail passes for the Khmer Rouge.
Whoever thought that the party of Eisenhower would be the torture party?
Republicans: Where we’re proud of vicious creeps, endless war, and the Surveillance State. Yay!
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
Keep feeding the addict vicodin for years, and McCain starts taking the candy away…
(My drug of choice right now is schadenfreude. Oh, sweet Republican karmic suffering, how I love you.)
Jen
I’m cribbing shamelessly from the comments at S,N, but some variation on this cracked me up:
Vote Republican. We can ruin a country in 8 years, but it takes 12 to really kill it off.
scott
Or as they say over at Sadly, No:
“The Republican Party: Vote for us so we can sit on our fat asses and get rich off of kickbacks and slush funds.”
Now, how to get all of this to fit on a bumber sticker or magnetic ribbon.
ThymeZone
Well, both of these positions are pretty close to being right. But the GOP faces end times because it squandered its political capital for 8 years, not because of these two gentlemen. They are just the quarterback candidates on a football team that can’t find its ass with both hands and a GPS device.
benjoya
whether John McCain winning the nomination is the end times for the GOP and the Republic, or if Mitt Romney losing the nomination is the end times for the universe. Seriously- that is the “debate” that has taken place at the Corner. you decide if that is “good” and “healthy.”
destruction of today’s GOP = “good” and “healthy”for america.
The Other Steve
If Mittens loses, Socialism Wins!
The Other Steve
Maybe we could get this on a bumper sticker?
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
Easily. But you just know a 14-year-old Young Republican is going to trash your car for mocking his religion.
The Other Steve
That’s ok. My BMW is six years old. :-)
The Other Steve
I should add, I was thinking I ought to get a Volvo anyway. They come with better latte holders.
Jen
Got a cafepress.com account? My former neighborhood association had one. You could buy a thong with the neighborhood logo on it. I don’t think it was their top seller.
scott
If we turn that around a bit, “If Mittens wins, Socialism Wins!”, don’t we get another criticism of Mittwitt from the hard right of the party?
I’d like to say I feel sorry for Repup voters this time around……BUT I DON’T!!!!!!!!!
NonyNony
Even better. Coulter said she’d CAMPAIGN for Clinton if McCain gets the nomination.
That is a true head explosion moment right there. What’s more – my still Republican family members (who have all grudgingly decided to rally round McCain) have decided that the right-wing gasbags are full of crap for backing Mittens over Straight Talk. My (I guess ex-) Dittohead brother told me that Limbaugh was “full of shit” and called him “that asshole” the other day – I was floored. And he made some Oxycotin crack about him that could have come from a liberal blog.
I’m starting to wonder if the right-wing noise machine may be doing more damage to its long-term self than I might have thought.
(And I still don’t get the “pile on McCain” thing from the talking heads – they’re supposed to be the ones able to turn on a dime and start a new lie at a moment’s notice. What about McCain has them so entrenched in getting him axed from the nomination?)
RSA
This is some weird, paranoid stuff. Some posters seem to believe that McCain is going to go after talk radio, to shut it down, and then move on to Web sites like Free Republic. Oddly enough, these kinds of observations don’t lead to any thoughts about FISA violations.
The Grand Panjandrum
Sweet! Do they have a model with a retractable silver tray for my tofu burger? Oh, that, and a spot on the bumper for my “Hate America First” bumper sticker? (OK. I ran out of extremely clever things to add to my list of wants.)
Jesus! I’m not sure my wife wants to see me in thong, much less my friends and neighbors.
And now I’m off to see Barack Obama! F-A-N-B-O-I!!! (Ha! Beat you to it.)
The Other Steve
Maybe he will? Do you know for certain?
See! We started a new rumor.
scott
Yeah. I mean it’s akin to the wingnut screed out here in red, rurl Misery “Hillary Clinton will take away your GUNS!” It’s truely bizarre to see the same kind of behavior directed at one of their own.
That’s why, the FL primary voter sounded what would seem like to me a warning sign that the noise machine and Party Elders should pay attention to.
As for the lack of FISA violations, hmmmm, wingnuts not being able to connect the dots. I’m shocked, shocked to discover that little tidbit. Of course around here, people ‘splain that away with the standard right wing justification “well, if you’re not a terra-ist, you gots nothin’ to worry ’bout”.
Jamey
Debate on The Corner:
Some wouldn’t fuck K-Lo with Jonah’s dick. Others wouldn’t fuck Byron York with K-Lo’s dick.
Vive le choice!
NonyNony
I heard that the first thing McCain will do after inaguration is have both Limbaugh and Fox News yanked off the air for revenge.
Then he’s going to send the black UN helicopters to take away our guns!
You know it’s true – it’s on the Internet!
The Other Steve
Here’s how the exchange should go.
Wingnut: Hillary Clinton will take away your guns?
You: And McCain won’t?
Wingnut: He said he won’t.
You: And you trust him?
This is how you sow FUD.
Ned Raggett
The whole meltdown on these sites like the Corner over the past few days is just astonishing. I do a brief bit of muttering about it here but really there’s nothing like just watching it unfold.
Personally I want more of them to keep posting and talking and saying all these things so they can’t escape what they said later. It’s all terribly amusing to me.
(Also, whoever out there has a chance to quote “Suck. It. Up.” to Malkin to her face, assuming McCain earns the nomination, gets my undying love. But make sure it gets on YouTube.)
dslak
You’re all taking the right wing’s protestations of having the vapors too seriously. When McCain wins, they’ll christen him St. McCain and forget all about his past mistakes in order to focus on Hillary’s lesbianisn and Bill’s latest infidelity’s, or else Obama’s abiding Muslim faith.
We’ve all seen this game before.
The Other Steve
Amen, it’s the same with the complaints against Hillary.
I heard the same complaints against John Kerry back in 2004 from the leftwing.
Jen
Kerry lost, right? We don’t want Hillary to blow this for us, right? What am I missing?
dslak
I don’t expect Hillary to take personal attacks lying down, like Kerry did. Obama’s also been good at letting Hillary shoot herself in the foot, which will be useful when it comes to the general.
Should Obama win, it’ll be entertaining to see the racists come out of the woodwork, and the GOP candidate having to deny any sympathy with them.
NonyNony
Is it the same? I don’t know how to compare it. Who is the liberal version of Rush Limbaugh? Of Sean Hannity? Of Roger Ailes?
The left-wing talk radio Air America folks seem to be talking up Obama and ragging on Clinton – but I don’t listen a whole lot. Are they reaching the levels of vitriol that Limbaugh is spewing at McCain?
I really think Limbaugh especially is going scorched earth. – he’s burning all of his bridges behind him. I don’t get that same sense from anyone over on the Dem side. Most of them seem fervently supportive of their chosen candidate but not to the level that these guys seem to be reaching.
searp
Well, I tend to think of syndicates and cabals. The Bush syndicate will be on the outs if McCain wins. It is the end of time for them, not sure about the end of times.
Zifnab
I don’t know. Some of the party loyalists flipped to Bush pretty fast, but they were “moderate” McCain supporters coming back into the wingnut fold. You are asking the wingnuts to move back into the independent-liberal herd and that’s going to take a bit more doing.
McCain is the media darling of the MSM. This does tend to piss off the right wing noise machine, as anyone hearing McCain praised on CNN or ABC isn’t listening to Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity. In that sense, this could be a sort-of underground media war, with the die-hard conservative establishment throwing a hissy fit over being denied the chance to monopolize content.
Also, McCain-Feingold pissed off a very large number of people with money. I’m not sure why, as it doesn’t seem to have had any serious effect. See: Swiftboats, et al. But it pissed them off all the same. Those people with money were all backing Romney. And while McCain did the slow walk-of-shame back to Bush’s camp in ’06 and ’07, he continues to buck the Party Elders when he doesn’t want to put up with their shit.
I think this may be a genuine split, and I really do hope Obama takes the Dem nomination. It’ll be just that easy for a Republican to back Obama in ’08 and declare that he’s been washed of his sins.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
I’m with Zifnab.
There’s no reason to think that a candidate with a brain is going to get support.
Bush got backing because he was a Doppelganger. He became what they wanted him to be, and they rallied around their messiah.
McCain has principles, and they’re not going to like that. He’s going to get less financial support, and if the right-wing net wakes up, it’ll be sluggish at best.
They overdosed. I think they’re done. Obama or Hillary FTW. I’d prefer Obama.
tBone
Really? I thought those were the first things he threw under the Straight Talk Express, followed by his pride and his credibility.
4tehlulz
Fixed.
NonyNony
Now hold on there, pardner, I wouldn’t go THAT far.
McCain as the nominee may not “fire up the base” to get out there and work for him, but he has a strength that the rest of the GOP clown car doesn’t have – the perception that he isn’t a batshit loon.
McCain’s strength is going to be drawing the votes of self-described “moderate” (or “independent”) voters who will say they want “change” as their top concern – but who just can’t bring themselves to vote for the Democrat/woman/black guy/Clinton.
Of all the clown car, McCain has the most perceived independence from the GOP establishment – and so he’s the GOP candidate most likely to attract people who really, really really want to vote for a Republican (or a guy, or a white dude, or a Clinton) but just can’t bring themselves to vote for “more of the same”.
So I wouldn’t go declaring a “win” for the Dems yet. McCain is actually in a position to make a real threat to their chances. And in my lifetime the Dems have shown an amazing ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
LiberalTarian
The game of “WTF is up with Republicans,” while entertaining, isn’t really that hard.
These are stupid people. I mean knuckle dragger, slack jawed, drooling, low IQ stupid. When they decided anti-illtectual was a good thing, they didn’t do it because it was expedient. They actually believe it. Limbaugh is a deep thinker to these folks.
Ah, sweet, sweet schaudenfruede. The best part is watching them eat Limbaugh. :D
NonyNony
Ahem – that should be “or NOT a Clinton”.
Bah. Stupid brain – you die now!
SteveinSC
Goddamit, if we’re going to have those kind of people in our country they’re going to have to learn English. Ur,ur, OTOH maybe it was just a Freudian slip?
Tara the anti-social social worker
“Coulter has even said she’d vote for Clinton over McCain.”
Yeah, but since she doesn’t vote in her own precinct, it won’t count.