Some new polls show Obama up by 7 points nationally. Whatever one thinks of economic determinism, it would be remarkable if Obama won easily (by 5 points or more) in this economy.
Mistermix’s hothouse piece is one of the smartest that I’ve read on the dynamics of the Romney campaign fuck-ups. The whole Republican machine has atrophied after years of loving, gentle treatment from the Foxosphere.
But the flip-side is that the suffocating love of the far right is that it can turn into a blinding hate, not when a Republican candidate says something idiotic and politically suicidal, but when a Republican candidate takes a politically pragmatic position. Romney wouldn’t be down 40 points among Latinos if teh base hadn’t convinced him to take a hard anti-immigrant line. He’d be better off with a focus on the economy than on vouchercare, too. But the base wanted Paul Ryan.
Chuck Schumer says that non-Tea Party Republicans plan a resurgence if the November elections go badly for the GOP, but I don’t see how they’ll do it. Republican primary voters love right-wing nuts and there will always be plenty to challenge any “mainstream” Republican who goes off the reservation. The only way non-Tea Party Republicans can win primaries is to pretend that they are Tea Party Republicans. The way Romney did.
Update. Which is the best version of this great song that I like a little too much? Bill Evans trio or Bill with Tony Bennett. There are those who say Jimmy Scott.
EconWatcher
I don’t see how the Republican Party can charge as long as a critical mass of their voters rely on Fox News and Rush for their information. And neither of them seem to be going anywhere.
Zifnab
@EconWatcher: Well, FOX and Rush could turn it down a peg and lead the audience out of the wilderness. Or they could just flip all the way around the back of the ideological spectrum and go full-blown radical Marxist because fuck you that’s why.
Their audience would follow them off a cliff at this point. No reason to believe they wouldn’t follow them back to sanity.
Citizen Alan
Personally, I think Schumer is just being a useful idiot for Republicans who want the filibuster preserved for another term. “I promise you, Chuck, if you will just leave us the filibuster option as a sign of good faith, I promise you we’ll be reasonable and won’t abuse it this time. Cross my heart and hope to die.
ranchandsyrup
Schumer is projecting/fantasizing. Most non-teaparty conservatives I know want the same results (or at least debates) that the tea party types want, but don’t want to be tied to the movement. They want the benefits but not the baggage. Not enough intestinal fortitude to have the courage of their convictions.
Hill Dweller
Because thy’re so invested in the Obama-is-a-moron nonsense, they completely misread him desperately trying to elevate Paul Ryan for the last couple of years. Obama wanted Ryan to be the face of Republican economic policy, and the rocket scientists went right along with it.
Chris
I agree. Both parties have historically had a conservative and a liberal faction, even when one of them was clearly dominant, but the Republicans/conservatives of today have so thoroughly exterminated the moderates, not only at all levels of politics but as a voter base too, that I just don’t see where the non-teabaggers would come from. Even on the East Coast there just aren’t enough voters there for them to make it through a Republican primary.
danielx
And these non-Tea Party Republicans would be which Republicans, exactly? At this point the Tea Party is the Republican Party, and the Tea Party voters will not accept candidates who don’t toe the line on their favored issues. They’ve tasted power, they don’t plan to give it up and they’d see their candidates go down in ideologically pure electoral flames than to compromise in order to win elections.
Actually I’m starting to suspect they actually prefer it. Governing is hard work, while bomb throwing is relatively easy.
Zifnab
@danielx:
There are the Republicans that Koch Industries own, and then there are Republicans that AT&T own. The Koch Brothers have a vested ideological interest in driving us back into the Gilded Age. The AT&T guys just want an improving quarterly report.
Mitch McConnell isn’t going to keep his troops in line after two consecutive Presidential races. Senators aren’t going to pass on pork 8 years running, just to stick it to a rival administration.
slag
@Zifnab: Exactly. That’s why it never occurred to me that being both nihilistic and conservative was a dichotomous position in which to be. It’s why I never felt we had to actually solve this problem:
At this point in time, being “severely conservative” is the same as being a “coreless, ‘etch-a-sketch’ opportunist.” Jon Stewart points this fact out almost daily.
c u n d gulag
The Teabaggers are the tail that will wag the dog Republican Party to death.
It just can’t happen fast enough for me.
But FSM forbid, if they ever really do get any control of this country.
Think “1984” meets “The Handmaid’s Tale” meet “Fahrenheit 451.”
MattF
Remember what happened in the Republican primary elections? The majority of Republican party regulars actually voted for people like Perry, Bachmann, Cain, Santorum and Gingrich before finally giving up their ‘druthers and settling on Romney. So, no, Republicans aren’t going to become moderates any time soon.
catclub
@EconWatcher: I think Obama should thank Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch in his victory speech for making his opponents so useless, by coddling them,
AND for keeping him on his toes. (With any luck, it will trigger the stroke for Roger Ailes that he seems to be waddling towards.)
catclub
@Zifnab: The sane versus the insane billionaires.
stephenfrug.blogspot.com/2012/04/quote-of-day-what-passes-for-hope-these.html
Petorado
Not seeing the R’s changing. Their whole MO is to never admit they are wrong and to double-down in the face of defeat. The money is behind the angry nutjobs because they’re useful idiots. No moderate has the pull with either cash or constituency to change things from the top down. The Republican’s mantra is “we destroyed this.” They tear things apart in hopes their minority can win if everyone else is a minority too. You don’t act constructively when your only tool is a wrecking ball.
Roger Moore
The obvious solution would be to admit that the party had left them and become Democrats. Barring that, some decent good-faith gestures would be:
1) Agree to end the filibuster, at least on appointments and preferably on all votes.
2) Nominate and vote for more moderate Republicans for leadership positions.
3) Vote to permanently end the limited debt ceiling and treat any deficit voted for by Congress as permission for the Treasury Department to incur any debt needed to fund it.
JGabriel
__
__
DougJ:
Remarkable, certainly, but maybe not too surprising.
There are two dynamics the President has going for him right now:
1) The economy is recovering, albeit slowly. Whether or not you think it’s recovering more slowly than it should, most people recognize that GOP policies were responsible for the financial crash that cratered the economy, and don’t want to return to them under Romney/Ryan.
2) The extremism of the Republican party has become apparent to all but the meanest (in both senses) observers. A five percent or greater margin for President Obama at this stage — when the economic recovery has not yet reached many of the people who were hurt by the crash — could well be read as a rejection of the GOP’s advocacy of JOB CREATORS! and a rejection of the GOP’s contempt for those in need during the country’s worst economic crisis since the Great Recession.
.
Enhanced Mooching Techniques
The problem with 8 % unemployment = loss for the incumbent is both, 8% is down from the peak when Obama took office AND the Republicans have been doing their best to screw everything up.
As for the future of the GOP, see California. So yes, the Republicans are going to be big defenders off the filibuster.
vawolf1974
If Republican politicians are interested in winning statewide races in purple states or in closely divided districts (not to mention the White House), they need to push for open primaries. They need a more moderate electorate in their primaries, and an influx of Dems and independents in their primaries may be the only way to get that.
Napoleon
@Citizen Alan:
You know I have been trying to figure what he was up to with that comment and I bet you are right that it is related somehow to the filibuster. The question is is he a useful idiot or is he running interference for Reid? It could just as well be Reid intends to push a change if the Dems retain control with Schumer on board with the idea, but publically Schumer makes sounds that would make you think that there are high profile Dems who maybe disinclined with going along, without actually saying that, just in case the Dems lose the Senate,
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Zifnab:
__
Frank Rich was a Rachew Maddow show guest several days ago and talked about his observations from monitoring “grassroots” conservative media (i.e. blogs and AM talk radio) the week of the RNC. He noted that there was a divergence between Fox (which went all-in supporting the Romney campaign) and the other folks who were overtly skeptical of and/or hostile towards the Romney campaign, and he noted signs that Fox is not trusted so much as tolerated by movement conservatives.
If he is on the money, then I don’t think Fox can pivot away from crazy-land without losing audience, and the 64,000 dollar question is how far can they go before another competitor springs up to the right of them. With their aging TV-oriented audience that probably won’t happen because of the huge cost associated with launching a new TV network, but with younger conservatives who are more internet than TV oriented it strikes me a real problem for Fox, etc., that they can’t change without being outflanked.
Roger Moore
@Zifnab:
No, they couldn’t. The moment FOX, Rush, et. al. let up on the crazy, the extremists in the party will denounce them as
traitors to the revolutioncapitalist roadersRINOs and stop listening to them. That’s what happens when you reach the point of epistemic closure; you can’t self correct anymore because anyone who tries to do so is denounced and cast out.Forum Transmitted Disease
Schumer is a fucking imbecile. The Tea Party will have him dangling from a lamp post right beside Boehner and McConnell if they try any of that “compromise” shit.
catclub
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: So is there any initial news on the Fox Latino network?
Nina
Republicans hate losing more than anything else. They’ll probably latch onto some imagined failing and claim that’s why they lost.
This imagined failing may be Romney’s Mormon faith, in which case hello theocracy. Or it may be imperfect adherance to Randism, and they’ll try to promote Eddie Munster as the new defacto party head.
Either way, the long knives are already being sharpened.
catclub
@Forum Transmitted Disease: Schumer is a Democrat, so is not beholden to the teaparty, unlike McConnell and Boehner.
So I am not sure who exactly you meant by ‘they’.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
DougJ,
I’m curious what you think of Larison’s argument, which boils down to: the GOP royally fucked up with the Iraq war and has yet to own that failure and reform itself, and the public won’t trust them again until they fess up and show signs of rejecting Bush-ism.
how can a republican be losing this election
Roger Moore
@Nina:
Daniel Larison made some interesting points on this. His basic idea is that a Romney loss will fail to give the Republican Party any course correction because he’s just too bad a candidate. He fails so many different ways that everyone will be able to blame his failure on their particular hobby horse, rather than picking up on any larger lesson.
Gin & Tonic
Aren’t you cheating by having Bill Evans in there twice?
For me, it’s without the vocals. Hard ever to go wrong with the Bill Evans trio.
danielx
@Zifnab:
All true, but I didn’t notice too many of the latter type being elected to Congress in 2010 – rather the opposite. Mitch Daniels (to name one) is one of the latter type, standard issue corporate/corrupt Republican, and the Republican base can’t stand him. Enthusiasm from the Republican base is almost nonexistent; Romney is a corporate Republican if there ever was one and they can’t stand him, either. They would rather lose with an ideologically pure candidate like Santorum or Perry, even if they are dumber than a barrel of hair, than win with somebody they regard as a RINO. And, of course, anybody to the left of Genghis Khan qualifies as a RINO at this point. When Romney gets his ass handed to him, the base will double down on teh crazy, because (for them) the loss will be due to Romney being a lousy candidate rather than the Republicans having completely lost their marbles.
Let’s hear it, class:
Conservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed.
Note: all this actually suits corporate Republicans pretty well, because they’ve pretty much got everything they want at this point. Record corporate profits, no new regulation of the financial sector, no real investigation of the financial crash, their guys in Congress castrating the SEC and CFPB, Justice Department giving everybody a pass, Big Pharma having government approval for price fixing…what’s not to like? Best of all, their party doesn’t have to take responsibility for anything; all the bad stuff is because of that Kenyan interloper in the White House. Who, us? Nobody over here except for us producers and job creators!
LanceThruster
Glory Road Sinkhole pr0n.
Hoodie
@Forum Transmitted Disease: You’re an imbecile. If you weren’t already aware by now, everything that comes out of Schumer’s mouth is for public consumption. He’s reinforcing a meme that the nuts are currently in control of the Republican Party. Schumer knows party allegiances are tribal for a lot of folks, i.e., folks are Republican or Democrat by acculturation, not ideology. Schumer is implying to such folks that it’s ok to vote Democratic this time, even if you are a Republican, because that will help things get better later and you can go back to being a normal Republican.
gogol's wife
Nancy La Mott. When I saw the post title I heard her voice singing it before any other reactions appeared in my brain.
ETA: The late, great Nancy La Mott. Listen and weep.
youtube.com/watch?v=EeM-a3oC-Ws
scav
Minor detail thrown into the Faux Future debate, and I’m not even going to pretend to understand what direction it might push things off toward. James Murdoch might soon lead Fox Networks. This being from the Guard, it’s more about the backlash to same, but I’m lazy and it’s only a grace note to the discussion in any case.
max
Whatever one thinks of economic determinism, it would be remarkable if Obama won easily (by 5 points or more) in this economy.
No, it wouldn’t be, actually. People keep trying to tell me the economy is terrible, but the economy isn’t terrible – unemployment is terrible, and the lack of increasing wages is terrible, but in terms of economic growth its adequate enough.
The Republican upper-crust is not only not doing badly, they’re doing great, and merely wish more money for themselves, so when the R’s criticize Obama, it’s because he is black and spent too much money on black people (that is, any money on black people). They wouldn’t do anything else differently, except maybe run the deficit higher and stack on some upper-class tax cuts. This economy is your neoliberal success story.
However, Democrats are supposed to care about normal people, so they have to be concerned about the economy, even while accepting the upper-crust’s economic ‘solutions’, which mostly involve screwing poor people. So we are in the ridiculous situation of Republicans criticizing Republican economic policy and Democrats agreeing because they ‘found common ground’ on bitching about the deficit, which has absolutely nothing to do with anything.
All of which leaves us with the situation of Democrats winding up saying that incumbent Presidents are hard-pressed in an expanding economy. Which is manifestly untrue. Incumbents Presidents are hard-pressed when their base revolts, which Obama has deftly avoided. (Measuring what constitutes a base revolt is kinda difficult, but it usually involves bunch of angry voters going over to a 3rd party.)
And incumbents, for 200 years, when reelected, improve their popular vote count. (I can do the math in front of your face if you want.) Abraham Lincoln got reelected in the middle of a civil war and he initially won election with 39% (!!!) of the vote.
Why that happens is an interesting question, but doesn’t matter too much at the moment. What matter at the moment is, is that we’ve got the advantage in the election and goddammit I want the House back, so what we need to do here is go brawl with Karl Rove.
I am having a bit a bit of problem figuring out where I should kick the money. I’ve got the President, Daily Kos, the DNC and what have you all up in my email box and I wish my money to go to House & Senate candidates I like. Which I guess means I’m going to have to figure out how to give directly to people who live halfway across the country. (I expect I’ll trust Digby here, but this vague ‘donate to the cause’ (as opposed to the candidate) stuff makes me twitchy.)
max
[‘Blah.’]
Calouste
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
The Republicans can grasp that W. and his legacy are a problem for them. They’re just hiding it and don’t want to talk about it. There is some kind of implicit acknowledgement of the problem, but no explicit acknowledgement or even a discussion about the Bush years. They’re just waiting for it to go away.
Bokonon
Where it comes to policies, there isn’t much of a split between the Tea Party and the “moderates” – except maybe on passing highway bills and farm bills with less drama. But the substance is pretty much the same. This is the source of their current unified front against the Democrats. The main issue is tactics, and whether members of Congress are going to obstruct by the rules (like Lindsey Graham) or obstruct by any means necessary (Jim DeMint).
Wishful thinking to think the “moderates” will break with the Tea Partiers. They can’t. They are in the back seat, and benefitting both from the triangulation against the radicals AND from the political spoils that come from the slow-motion government strangulation engineered by the radicals.
cmorenc
@Zifnab:
Roger Ailes is astute enough that he’s entirely capable of seriously considering dialing back the tone of Fox as being in the overall long-term interests of attracting a sustainably broad conservative majority in this country. However, he faces a substantial problem inhibiting any such change of course in that Fox has increasingly become identified by the tea-party faction as an allied mouthpiece of the GOP establishment and the Romney campaign. A Romney loss in November by any substantial margin will tend more to alienate than to prime the teahadists toward a more sober mindset, and they will be filled with resentment at the establishment for supporting Romney against his rival more insurrectionist tea-party flavored candidates.
AS TO LIMBAUGH: His base of listener support, financially and politically, is mainly angry white middle-and-older age white men, attracted to him by how well he channels, focuses, and expresses their resentments and knee-jerk reactionary impression of current events. They might briefly give Rush the benefit of the doubt and lend him a curious ear if he changed to a less hard-edged direction, but before very long they would start to perceive that the changed recipe Rush is trying to feed them doesn’t satisfy their gut-level appetite, and a substantial portion of them would move on to other harder-edged shock jocks. Besides, Rush strongly gets off on being the pied piper of older white male assholes and the fabulous income it brings him; it would require a basic personality transformation for Rush to dial it back.
Suffern ACE
So who are these moderates going to rally around? Koch has money. Adelson has money. Petersen has money. The one who doesn’t spend I guess is Bloomberg. Are they counting on Bloomberg to start funding moderate republican radio shows, book tours for radio personalities and Values Voters summits? What civil society orgs can these moderates create or take over? Episcopal churches? They already have NPR and Forbes magazine.
Carl Nyberg
In normal times, when the Ds or Rs take a drubbing at the polls, it’s the “moderates” who get whacked. So the remaining caucus is more ideologically pure.
However, the GOP “Tea Party” set won a bunch of swing seats in 2010.
So, it is conceivable that the 2012 results will produce a GOP caucus that is smaller and more moderate.
But, as has been noted, GOP voters reliably punish Republicans viewed as deviating from orthodoxy.
I suppose a few Republicans could retire and give speeches.
Is any Republican likely to switch parties? Susan Collins?
SatanicPanic
The party is not going to change. The grass roots are idiots and like their anger. The billionaires are morons too, but this is just a hobby for them; politics is their equivalent of model trains. The politicians are getting rich from said hobbyists, and so they’ll say whatever stupid shit they have to. It will moderate only when FOX news stops scaring old people and the old people that have already been FOXified have died off. But I don’t see any reason for FOX to change yet.
Matthias Neeracher
Re your update: Try Kurt Elling.
WereBear
I agree that the present-day Republicans have painted themselves into a corner.
As popular support for their outlook has waned, they were forced to pick up the easily lured Looney Vote to make up for it.
Yet, like any deal with the Devil, extricating themselves form the snares the Looneys toss out are not easily accomplished.
Hoodie
@max:
You’re dead on about the economy, which is positively booming in comparison to what Carter faced. This is why comparing this election to 1980 is a joke. In 1980, the gloom and doom were on Carter’s end (“malaise”); this time it’s on the Republican side, in the form of inchoate fears of a fiscal catastrophe some 20-30 years out that somehow require us to put granny on an ice floe today. As you point out, this is just bullshit to justify giving some* rich folks more money to clutch to their black little hearts, instead of investing in a future that would probably make them even richer. The reason Obama’s not far ahead is because he doesn’t look like Mitt Romney.
*a lot of rich folks aren’t asking for the favor
catclub
@Calouste: Why should they? Was there ever any apology for Nixon? They will just wait
until people forget.
Tom Q
@max: Completely agree — and I’ve thought for some time that, while Dems wanted FDR as Obama’s model, Lincoln comes closer (team of rivals, underestimated by even those in his own party). Lincoln, it might be remembered, was thought a potential loser in 1864 (he even wrote a letter saying “if, as seems probable, this administration is not re-elected”), but ended up getting a ringing 55%).
I know I’ve said this in several threads, but I’m waiting for one of the “Obama should be getting crushed in this economy” folk to answer me: if 8% unemployment should be lethal, how did two of the greatest landslides in American history — 1936 and 1984 — take place with 16% and 7.5% unemployment?
Berial
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: I think Larison is only partially correct. His focus on foreign affairs colors his opinion. I think he’s put too much focus on the Iraq war. A LOT of dissatisfaction with the Republicans is their domestic agenda. Tons of conservatives/Republicans simply hate the president(for all sorts of reasons both real and imaginary), but those that aren’t totally wingnut must be seeing that the ideas (if you can call them that) coming out of the Republicans is just totally unhelpful to both themselves and the country.
Matt T.
The best version of My Foolish Heart was the one played in 1961 by the original Bill Evans Trio, just ten days before bassist Scott LaFaro died tragically at age 25. As perfect a jazz trio recording as exists.
...now I try to be amused
@Tom Q:
Looks like voters have longer memories than some politicians give them credit for.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Berial:
__
I agree completely with this. I think that like the one of the blind men in the Hindu/Buddhist parable, Larison has ahold of one end of the elephant and is giving a reasonably accurate description of the part he is grasping, but not the whole beast.
Berial
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Exactly my point of view on it as well.
JS
I think that’s more of a symptom Larison is describing, not the disease that’s infected the American conservative movement. The disaster Bush presidency is an obvious legacy problem, but what happened there? Disastrous Cowboy Diplomacy (Iraq), ignorance of any power of the Federal Gov’t to do good (Katrina), and a blind-faith belief in tax-cutting, supply-side economics (The Great Recession).
None of those Bush macro-theories of government have changed under a potential Romney administration, nor were there any primary candidacies with a different message. At least none that ever reached ‘frontrunner’ status, something Donald Trump could do while Jon Huntsman could not.
The Republican mantra of Tax Cuts, Deregulation and Less Government – with Defense Hawkism and Social Christianism on the side – is what the conservative movement took away as “The Reagan Legacy” (Reagan’s actual apostasies aside, this is a myth I refer to), and I think that is the take-away of what the Republicans are today. It’s not apologizing for Bush, it would be apologizing for *Reagan – which the Republicans will never do.
What happens if Obama beats them? Mostly I think the Congressional GOP begins with more of the same obstructionism. But by 2014, Republicans will be staring at the demographic cliff:
In 2000, Bush won 56% of the overall white vote, and lost the popular vote by ½ percent nationally.
In 2008, McCain won 55% of white voters, and lost the popular vote 53-46.
In 2012, Romney is generally assumed to need 61% of the white vote to beat Obama. He’s been polling 58% at best, and currently trending lower.
In 2016, The non-white share of the vote that was 26% in 2008 will be approaching 30% of the American electorate. It’s been conceded by some in the Republican party that this is the last national election they can contest solely by appealing to ‘old white voters’.
The problem is how does the Republican Party unwind itself? Can they collectively see that they must change? If they seriously play for Hispanic votes, what do the Joe Arpaio Xenophobic White Republicans do? If they seriously play to narrow the gender gap, what do the Mike Huckabee Evangelical White Republicans do? If they play to the youth freedom/stoner vote, what do the Rush Limbaugh Blowhard White Republicans do?
The conservative movement/Republican Party has doubled down on white resentment so often, they’ve tied itself into a Gordian Knot of rage. It’s quite possible the only way to extricate themselves now is by slicing the knot in half. And thus, the Republican Party of Abe Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower could go the way of the Whigs.
And you can trace it back to movement Republicans turning a myth of Ronald Reagan into a demi-god. Talk about your empty chairs filled by a President that exists only in your imagination.
Chris
@JS:
Nobody who seriously plays for any of those votes will make it through a primary process. I do think that at some point in the future the GOP will calm the fuck down to the point that it’s possible to integrate Latinos, or a large portion of them (the same way Catholic and Jewish immigrants, at least the white, European ones, became considered “white” in the mid-20th century). But that’s not going to happen any time soon. That’s the Democrats’ window of opportunity to take power long enough to change the system for the better.
This campaign and the last one have been right out of Miss Congeniality:
“Ronald Reagan.”
“Ronald Reagan.”
“Ronald Reagan!”
“That would be harsher sentences for parole violators, Stan.”
[shocked silence indicates that that was not the right thing to say]
“And Ronald Reagan!”
[crowd goes wild]
Donut
I am sure Chuck Schumer thinks he is doing a solid for his supposedly moderate buds in the Senate, but I call total bullshit. That fucking train left the station in 2009 when DeMint made his infamous “Waterloo” comment vis a vis healthcare. They all had their chances to speak up then, to put their country and its best interests ahead of their party, but they failed. Utter, complete failure. They are cowards and their craven-assed assfaces cannot be trusted, ever again.
Oh sure, occasional divergences have occurred, but the GOPers in the Senate have all been remarkably disciplined in carrying out the GOP’s medium1term strategy goals. Fuck them all, may they burn in hell and/or die in a hot, gruesome fire. The extreme right wing rules the GOP, and they are never letting go. That dog gets its tail wagged for it, forevermore.
Donut
Also, too – if any if these supposed moderates were willing to play along on at least some stuff with the Obama Admin, then where were the fucking votes on the VETERANS job bill this week? Why not step up now, shitheels? People who’ve put themselves in harm’s way on our behalf are owed non-partisanship when it comes to shit like this. It’s basic. Patriotism 101.
Oh, wait, I know why they didn’t step up.. Because they’re all lying sacks of shit.