In Which Turdblossom Plants Ice & The Republican Party Harvests Wind
he was left for dead at the checkout counter at Tiffany’s. ~ DAVID AXELROD
It is tempting to argue that the ongoing cage match between Karl Rove and the men who would deny him a Mitt Romney nomination is a battle for the soul of the Republican Party. Tempting but demonstrably false because the party lost its soul years ago and the man most responsible is Rove himself.
Rove, who is a terrific tactician but a lousy strategist, launched the 
GOP on a course of short-term gains at the expense of long-term viability when he engineered the nomination of George W. Bush, an empty vessel into which Dick Cheney and the neo-con brain trust poured their ideas. Ideas like going to war in Iraq while engineering massive tax cuts for the wealthy and shredding the social safety net.
With Rove continuing to be the man behind the curtain, Bush was re-elected in 2004 by making promises to the party’s burgeoning Christianist wing that he could not keep and because the Democrats nominated a weakling in John Kerry, who ran a campaign so awful that the attacks on him by Bush-Rove surrogates weren’t even really necessary.
In 2006, Rove was still the GOP’s mastermind as it tacked harder to the right, and it is likely that when he awoke on the morning after a Democratic mid-term sweep — a sweep so complete that no congressional or gubernatorial seat held by a Democrat was won by a Republican and six Senate incumbents were ousted — he may have had the first inkling that he was losing control of the party.
The 2008 presidential election would not have been a Republican win no matter who the Democratic candidate was. In fact, either John Edwards or Hillary Clinton would have beaten John McCain by a more sizable margin than did Barack Obama, but that reality does not obscure the fact the party was tacking harder still to the right and its whackadoodle ideas as epitomized by the selection of the vacuous Sarah Palin.
By 2010 Rove had, for all intents and purposes, lost control of the party as a Christianist-Tea Party jihad engineered sizable House gains which it, but surely not Rove, took as a mandate for their ideas and not what they really were — the result of an anger against the Washington establishment fueled by the lingering effects of a recession engineered by Rove’s prodigal child.
And so Rove is now reaping what he sewed — a GOP openly hostile to blacks and immigrants (something that he has repeatedly warned that the party will rue) and the middle class and poor — that has become whiter, older and crankier, a reality reflected in a field of presidential wannabes who are short on ability and long on wacky ideas.
The former mastermind is well aware that only Romney stands a snowball’s chance in hell against an incumbent president who has governed with twin albatrosses around his neck — the hangover from the recession and Republican congressfolk so obdurate that they are willing to let Americans to continue to suffer rather than hand Obama a victory – but has not-bad approval ratings.
But Romney, like Donald Trump, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry and Herman Cain before him, is in free fall and it is possible that he will go into the all-important Iowa caucuses in third place behind a surging Gingrich and Ron Paul.
Rove had been working behind the scenes to grease the skids for a Romney nomination, but Romney’s free fall and the unholy alliance of Trump, a horse’s ass of the first water, and Gingrich, would be sitting duck for Obama, has compelled him to grab the Fox News megaphone to attack the host of the next Republican debate and his new pal, the ultimate Washington insider and only House speaker in history to be disciplined (with his own party in the majority) for multiple ethical breeches.
While the Democrats in general and Obama in particular have their own problems, today’s Republican Party is an extraordinary mess. It is not only possible but likely that it will blow an opportunity to take back the White House, and you need to look no further than the man whom Dubya fondly called Turdblossom to understand why.
12 Responses to “In Which Turdblossom Plants Ice & The Republican Party Harvests Wind”
You overlook the influence of FOX news and the Koch brothers. They were the ones who empowered the Christianist-Tea Party.
Ron:
Good point, but it was Rove and his ilk who considerably helped that empowerment by gladly giving away the keys to the party car (or pick-up truck) in the service of short-term gains.
Don’t be so sure Shaun. This Gingrich adoption is, by appearance, grass roots. Republicans are clamoring for an opportunity to vote for Newt. At face value, Independents will join them with glee.
Written as if the election of 2010 never happened. But, that’s par for the course for BDS liberals. If you had any amount of either pride or self awareness, you would probably keep these posts to yourself.
em>PWT:
I quote:
“By 2010 Rove had, for all intents and purposes, lost control of the party as a Christianist-Tea Party jihad engineered sizable House gains which it, but surely not Rove, took as a mandate for their ideas and not what they really were — the result of an anger against the Washington establishment fueled by the lingering effects of a recession engineered by Rove’s prodigal child.”
Shaun, good piece, you reaped what you sowed.
(Yes, it’s really me.)
I honestly thought that the Republican Party would not exist in 5 years (following the 2008 elections). Then, the Democratic administration failed to prosecute all the criminals and evil people who had hijacked our government. The 2010 elections were a back-lash to that idiocy. Now the Republican Party has once again shown that it cares not one whit about the vast majority of the voting public.
Will this spell the doom of the GOP? I’m not holding my breath. A better question might be, “If the Republicans take the WH and some congressional seats, will the Democrats hold lock-step the way their counterparts did and block all legislation?” Part of me would like to see the “payback is a bitch, m***********s” attitude (it would show that testosterone does exist in some of the Democrats). In the end, though, it would mean more gridlock and more hardship. Of course, it might mean less hardship depending on just how idiotic the Republicans chose to get with their policies…so there is that.
Great post, Shaun and right on the money too!
Its sad to see the GOP’s race to the bottom– but at the same time, I find it quite entertaining to watch these candidates twist themselves into human pretzels trying to say and be what the right wing base wants despite long histories of being and saying anything but.
Its getting more and more difficult for party bigwigs to convince a majority of voters that they still represent their interests. There just aren’t enough galvanizing social issues to make Americans turn out for someone like Gingrich or Romney. Rove is correct (and ok this is the first time I ever remember agreeing with him on anything) that the Republican base is shrinking because they keep offending large segments of the population.
Democrats are just salivating for Gingrich to get the nomination and see that big fat mouth of his alienate more demographic groups of voters.
Newt looks so ill, I wonder if he will last until next November. Hoping that’s not true. He looks bloated and gray and literally can hardly get his breath sometimes. Doesnt anyone notice he seems to be struggling with his health? He looks like he has heart trouble. I hope I’m wrong.
He always looked like a disheveled Humpty Dumpty, but now more so.
Sorry Dr. E but I couldn’t resist—
Maybe its his diet– too much red meat??
Dr. Estes, seems to me you might be right about former Speaker Gingrich’s health-but then, he didn’t look all too healthy back in ’94, ’96, OR ’98. With many months left to go, I rather suspect that Gingrich’s intent in this run, is to make noise, then toss his support to one of the other GOP candidates, citing his poor health.
I suspect this, because he’s too smart to think he’s got a chance in hell of winning a national election with his baggage, after losing his Georgia seat in Congress.
Further, I don’t think he’ll pick Bachmann, or Perry, he definitely isn’t in the Romney Fan Club, so that doesn’t leave a lot, Paul’s just got no magic, and what with Cain dropping out…
I think Gingrich is going to drop out of the primaries, or he’ll stick it to the Convention, then toss his support to either Huntsman or Johnson-because Gingrich IS a historian, and he’s not dumb-he knows that Romney’s got about the same chance in 2012 that Dole had in 1996-a sacrifice candidate too liberal for Conservatives, and too Republican for Liberals (who’ll vote for Obama-because if you’re a Lib, you’re going to vote for the real Liberal, it’s kind of a “Coke vs. New Coke” choice-that’s just how elections shake out.)
Reason I think this, is simple: Romney’s the choice of the GOP Establishment, and Gingrich has been on the outs with them for over a decade now-and the GOP establishment, when they GET their way (1996 and 2008) lose elections, sometimes rather brutally. (Dole and McCain both had voting records in the Legislative branch more attuned to their putative opponents, and people don’t forget that just ’cause they mouth some rove-concocted Neo conservative rhetoric come the big show.)
The only chance the GOP has this time around, is the same thing that slew Bush 1:
They need a “dark horse” candidate that their enemies either haven’t heard of, hadn’t heard much about, or didn’t and don’t take seriously, who isn’t eight kinds of creepy in today’s culture.
That’s Huntsman or Johnson.