Since I’ve been following politics, every time one party has achieved a major political success, some group of politicians and/or campaign/manager types has gotten a lot of credit: Newt in 1994, Rove in 2000 and 2004, Dean, Pelosi, and Rahm in 2006, the Obama team in 2008. Why isn’t this happening in 2010 (beyond a few half-hearted paeans to the orange one)? Dave Neiwert (via Upper Left):
So who WAS the mastermind of the 2010 Election? If anyone, it was Roger Ailes — a reality that hardly anyone seems to want to acknowledge, including Democrats. Indeed, this was the Fox Election in every respect. Nearly every candidate who won got major a push from Fox. The most energy came from a Tea Party “movement” almost wholly engendered by Fox’s relentless and unapologetic propagndization campaign.
This is so clearly correct that it’s not worth discussing further.
It’s natural to ask if this weakens actual Republican elected officials. The answer is complicated. Matt Yglesias:
Suppose there’s some sellout that John Boehner wants to implement. Boehner recognizes that he needs to pair this with a symbolic but meaningless gesture. Now suppose he sits down in a room with Rupert Murdoch, Rush Limbaugh, Tom Donohue, and David Koch and persuades all three of those people that this is the right way to proceed. Then the next day, Boehner unleashes his symbolic gesture and his compromise, and the coverage of it on Fox News, The Rush Limbaugh Show, and the fox-affiliated radio shows is all positive. That alone gets you the three most popular talk radio shows, the television network, The Weekly Standard, a dose of influence at every single conservative think tank in America, and the important organizing efforts of Americans For Prosperity.
[…..]In essence, coordinated action among a very small number of people can cut the oxygen off from the tea party fire any time they want to. So the question becomes not how “the tea party” will react, but how a relatively small number of influential conservative media figures will react.
(my boldface)
I think this is mostly right. Yes, the relationship between teatards and Murdoch media is symbiotic, but if some (non-Palin) teahadist got too big for his britches and did something Murdoch and Koch really didn’t like they could suffocate him and replace him with the Tea Party equivalent of one of those fake Dali Dalai Lamas the Chinese are always installing.
There are issues where conservative elites can’t control the grassroots, most notably on immigration, but outside of that, all that really matters for Republicans in Congress is keeping Rupert Murdoch, Rush Limbaugh, Tom Donohue, and David Koch happy.
As they pulled you out of the oxygen tentPost + Comments (98)