The nutters are getting their panties in a wad:
The Republican National Coalition for Life and the Rev. Donald Wildmon’s American Family Association both have came out against Mr. Steele because he and former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman were co-chairmen of the centrist Republican Leadership Council and because of his unclear comments about abortion on “Meet the Press.”
A separate e-mail being sent to RNC members notes that the Log Cabin Republicans, a group that advocates for same-sex marriage and other homosexual issues, has embraced Mr. Steele’s candidacy.
He’s black, sympathetic to gays, pro-life, but not not rabidly so – exactly what the Republican Party needs, right? Well, I hope they don’t choose him. I hope they choose the most fucking right-wing lunatic they can find so that the rot that has become the Republican Party can fester in the wilderness for a couple decades or so. (via)
JR
Why should the Republican Party fester in the wilderness "for a couple decades or so"?
I’m not that pessimistic. Why not just have the Republicans simply rot away forever?
Okay, if that’s too cruel, I’m sure the Whigs are ready for their big comeback from teh Wilderness. They could join the modern Republicans and be the KnowNothings2. That would REALLY be super-duper "conservative!" Sarah Palin would know just what to do with that.
I just don’t see the necessity of Republicans anymore: if "conservative" ideas work so well, why didn’t they ever?
Dennis - SGMM
Isn’t that precious? They’re still pretending that they have principles.
RSA
Both have came [sic] out? The Log Cabin Republicans has [sic] embraced Steele? The Washington Times is a newspaper and not just a wingnut blog?
r€nato
I hereby declare Obama’s first (and hopefully, second) term as, "The Popcorn Years".
DrDave
I think Ralph Reed is available. He would be the perfect candidate.
Dennis - SGMM
@DrDave:
(Jeb)Bush/Palin 2012: twice the stupid and all the rabble rousing. The dream ticket for the old Confederate states.
Punchy
Something tells me the Log Closet Repubs are about to be the next group excommunicated.
Punchy
Where’s Krista? Can someone explain just what the hell is going on in Canada w/r/t their gubbermint?
dmsilev
Sarah Palin for RNC Chair!
What could possibly go wrong?
-dms
Josh Hueco
OT, but Chuckie Johnson looks like he’s going to cry in that PJ media ad on the left.
4tehlulz
You know, the last person that Republicans called a celebrity, they ended up calling him "President-Elect Obama."
Just sayin.
RAM
Allan Keyes: He’s black, rested, and ready–and crazy as a bedbug. Therefore a shoe-in for head of the ‘new’ GOP!
low-tech cyclist
I’m delighted that significant groups in the GOP base have examined Michael Steele’s conservative bona fides and found them wanting.
A party that finds Steele insufficiently conservative is a party groping its way towards the edge of the cliff. I have faith in their ability to ignore the edge when they get there.
Fritz
Can we all stop using the word "pro-life" when we mean "anti-abortion" or "anti-legal-abortion" or, better yet, "anti-choice"? It feeds the nutters.
Zifnab
:-p So yeah. This surprises me absolutely not at all. No way, no how will the GOP let their party get taken over by a minority. I mean, that’s really pissing on the base.
Incertus
I’m torn on this, really. I mean, I’d love to see the Republicans wallow in their pile of stupid for a while, and while Steele is no great shakes of a human being–that Oreo bullshit he pulled showed how callow a person he is–it would at least mark a willingness on the national level to put a person of color in a party leadership position. That might cause the hardcore racists to leave the Republicans for a while, and the nation as a whole would moderate as a result.
Then again, if they choose him and the Republicans continue to shit the bed for wholly unrelated reasons–and there’s no reason to believe they won’t–they’ll have a convenient scapegoat. Partisan as I am, I still believe we need at least two strong parties in this country to keep us from going off the rails. The current Republican party is doing no one any favors.
Conservatively Liberal
Yes, but they were honest and referred to them as "Republican principles". In other words, they have 168 Republicans who are ready to lie, cheat and steal their way to the top and blame everyone else for the problems that will result from it.
It’s business as usual for them. Nothing new, move along. ;)
Shygetz
@Incertus: The Democratic party is currently large enough to supply two parties. Were the Republican party to slide into oblivion, I would fully expect the Democratic party to fragment rapidly into a "pro-business" majority party and a populist minority party.
BC
I have begun to think that abortion as an issue will go the way of temperance. Remember, the Temperance League even got a Constitutional Amendment to outlaw liquor. They had it in force for about 15 years. Then, we repealed it. Temperance faded from the scene as an issue on which to base your vote. These anti-abortionists, including the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, are seeing the handwriting on the wall and are trying to keep it from coming true. But it will – in 20 years time abortion will no longer be an issue for people when choosing a candidate to vote for. In 30 years, gay issues will fade away. There will be other wedge issues, but none with the salience of these – at least for awhile. Remember, you heard it here first. End of crystal ball reading.
Incertus
@Shygetz: I would love it if that happens, and if race ceases to be a major issue inside the Republican party, it just might. But as long as the Republicans rely on racists for their margins of victory in the South, and as long as the South as a bloc remains a jumping off point for a Presidential run for their party, that’s not going to happen. It just might take 20 years in the wilderness for that to happen.
AWJ
@Punchy:
(How do I do the thread-internal hyperlink thing?)
I may not be Krista, but I am Canadian, so I’ll give it a shot.
Basically, our just-reelected minority Conservative government, amid widespread demands for a stimulus package to deal with the global economic crisis, introduced a package that was highly short on stimulus and highly long on partisan red meat–including, most audaciously, abolishment of (one type of) public funding for political campaigns, a move which would literally bankrupt every political party in Canada except the Conservative Party (to give you an idea of what I mean, the type of public funding that they wanted to abolish comprised ~30% of the Conservative budget in the last election campaign, but ~70% of the Liberal Party budget)
Normally the way minority governments work in a parliamentary system is that the governing party makes deals and compromises with one or more of the opposition parties to get things done. However, compromise isn’t in our current prime minister’s nature–he’s very much a movement conservative in the Norquist/Gingrich/DeLay/Rove "divide and conquer" mode. So since long before the last election, the Conservatives have effectively been governing as if they have a majority and daring the opposition to stop them. This financial kick in the teeth seems to have finally convinced the opposition to take up that dare. Since it’s so soon after the last election, and since all three of the other parties represented in Parliament are quite a bit more compatible with each other than any of them is with the Tories, they’re planning on trying to form a coalition government rather than hold yet another election.
Dave
The problem with all this glee about the GOP’s supposed imminent demise is that if Obama does not have a successful first term we could end up with a Sarah Palin as president. Remember that it took a near flawless campaign from Obama, a god-awful campaign from McCain, an economic meltdown, and a horrible year for Republicans in general for Obama to win by 6.5 points. Now, maybe he wins by 10 points plus if he were white, but I have trouble understanding how anyone except the religious right voted McCain/Palin.
I would prefer that this country have a viable GOP, one that a thinking person could possibly vote for or at least not worry if they were in power.
As someone once said, nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.
The Moar You Know
@low-tech cyclist: No doubt. I had to double-check the name. "Steele? Michael Steele? The lunatic Michael Steele from Maryland? Not conservative enough?"
Good times are here.
Svensker
@RSA:
Ye gads! Our children is NOT learning, apparently.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@Punchy: Something tells me the Log Closet Repubs are about to be the next group excommunicated.
Will they notice? It’s not like the Party has been all that welcoming to gay people before this.
Doctor Science
Thank you, AWJ! I have not seen such a succinct summary before, of what the tipping point was. Very understandable, now.
Calouste
@Dave:
Last time before George W. Bush the GOP had both houses and the Presidency? 1921 – 1931. Result: The Republican Great Depression One.
You do have to worry when the GOP is in power. Or you can just short stock long term.
low-tech cyclist
@Moar: Yep, that would be Maryland ex-gov Bobby Haircut’s old lt-gov that we’re talking about, that’s not conservative enough for the GOP base.
Sweet, huh?
Calouste
@RSA:
After the Log Cabin Republicans have embraced Steele, you would expect other Republicans to come out in support of him as well, notably Larry Craig, Charlie Crist and Mitch McConnell.
Jen R
I can’t agree with this. If the Republican Party can reform itself into a semi-reasonable group of people, we should encourage that. Your way sounds nice for revenge (keep them out of office for a generation, mwahahaha), but having a bunch of lunatics at the helm of one of our two major political parties just gives them unwarranted credibility and gives their lunatic beliefs a lot more press.
Oh sure, now the Republicans are against outsourcing.
Jen R
….and, I screwed up the edit. That timer is a lot of pressure, man.