Ditch Mitch?

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Who was ultimately responsible for the evil Mississippi primary campaign that smeared supporters of Chris McDaniel as racists?

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, that’s who.

The GOP Establishment Incumbent Protection Machine and the big-money donors who fund it have been determined to eradicate the Tea Party movement in the 2014 campaign cycle.

This is McConnell’s formula for Republican success: Destroy all primary challengers, whatever the cost, and ensure that only Establishment-approved candidates win primaries in open-seat races or against vulnerable Democrat incumbents. It’s a cautious, risk-averse strategy, and if Republicans capture the Senate majority in November, McConnell will be congratulated on his success.

On the other hand . . .

What if it all goes sideways? What if this political equivalent of the NFL “prevent defense” turns out to be a formula for GOP failure?

What if all the big money and all the shrewd consultants turn out to be less valuable to Republicans than the grassroots conservative supporters who have been alienated by McConnell’s strategy?

What if Mitch McConnell loses his own Senate seat?

Manu Raju and John Bresnahan of Politico examine that scenario at some length today, and it’s not as far-fetched as it may seem.

Look at the polls: McConnell leads Democrat challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes by 5 points in the Real Clear Politics average, but the race has only been polled four times in the past two months, so we don’t know how solid that lead really is. Most importantly, McConnell is consistently polling below 50% — as low as 42% in a May poll — and that’s always a troubling sign for an incumbent.

As the Politico article says, if McConnell can’t defeat Grimes, the prospects for a GOP Senate majority are pretty remote. And if Republicans can’t take over the Senate this year — when they have every possible advantage, by ordinary calculations — it’s possible to argue that Republicans can never win a Senate majority, that the GOP is doomed to permanent minority status.

This scenario, the de facto triumph of Democrats as uncontested rulers of America as a one-party centralized state, would be a complete reversal of the “permanent Republican majority” Karl Rove promised in the wake of George W. Bush’s re-election.

After all the evil deeds perpetrated by the Republican establishment in the Mississippi primary, some of my conservative friends respond to this possibility with calm: “Let it burn,” they say.

It’s becoming harder to argue that these friends of mine are wrong.

 

342 comments

  1. They’ll turn towards marriage after they’ve humped their brains out and been left with only an empty feeling
    (liberalism/libertine-ism isn’t very good at providing meaning to life beyond short-term gratification).

    No pregnancies will result from said humping, because Republicans are generally NOT against birth control, as you inaccurately imply.

    The backlash against “hook-up culture” has already started, from within the demographic.

  2. After all he did call us racists in those Mississippi ads didn’t he? Or at least paid for those ads.

  5. A Senate led by Progressives is still a Senate led by progressives. Doesn’t matter what letter comes after their name.

    If this was still the Seventies, you’d be spot on, and I’d be lambasting Conservatives right along with people like George freaking Will (as Stacy calls him). But this is an entirely different political world.

    A) It’s Post-Constitutional in hard actuality, versus the more “virtual” lamentations of the hard right going clear back to Goldwater.

    B) The left used to be pro-American as recently as 2005. Not any more. They see their chance, and the gloves have come off. We’ve never seen the likes of this in America.

    C) From the close of WWI till 2012, the world’s leaders feared American power. It was a very real fear, and even the other Superpowers worked tirelessly to be ready to deal with American power. For the first time in nearly a century, that has changed.

    D) You know the economic situation. Unprecidented barely covers it.

    E) The Fourth Estate is openly supportive of all of the above, to a degree unseen in modern history.

    F) The destruction brought by the scandals, the rise in racial animus, the overbearing government agencies, and the level of polarity it’s all caused… these are all at unprecidented levels.

    G) OBamacare, while supposedly “damaged” is still there, sinking its tentacles further and further into the structure of government.

    Any one of those things would be an indictment against the GOP leadership for allowing it.

    ALL of those things together mean that we went over that famous cliff people yammer on about. It’s a past event, not some thing to be avoided.

    We are now in a rebuild-or-declare-defeat position.

    1970’s political wisdom in this reality is as pertinent as the long-simmering debate over crossbows and longbows over at Ace’s.

    We either elect Constitutionalists, or we find some other path. Electing RINOs and Progressives, and entrenched Republicans is part of the problem, and is most definitely light years away from any solution.

  6. I’d rather have fifteen “nutjob O’Donnel’s” in the Senate that fifteen re-elected, idiotic party tools like Cochran.

    As bad as you portray the people you listed, everyone knows that any single one of them would be far better to have in the Senate than McCain, McConnell, Cochran, Graham, and on the list goes.

    The only thing that made those fools “better” candidates was two things: incumbency and money. It had nothing to do with them being better choices or campaigners. (negative campaign ads are what money buys, and they work.)

    The fact is, tea party challenges have removed a few of those Cochran-types, and will continue to do so. The rest of the elections the Tea-party types lost were mostly very close. And many notable tea party candidates won. Taken together, that’s a strong indicator that incumbency and money aren’t going to save the Republicans.

    They can either get with the program, or get lost.

  10. And by “pride” you mean “pork”, right? Because I can’t imagine anyone other than Boehner’s mother thinking he’s of any use to the human race at this point.

  13. If we had one-hundred Conservatives in the Senate for the next two years, you wouldn’t see anything change while Obama’s still in the White House.

  14. You need to step out of the time capsule, bunky. 1973 called. It want’s it’s “conventional wisdom” talking points back.

    Come join us here in the post-Constitutional “utopia” that you “just win at any cost” Republican clowns have brought us to.

    At the very least, you’d finally be free of flair pants and disco.

  15. Mmmm. More like your conventional concern troll. moby’s like to pose as right-wingers so they can act like cartoonish, racist, death-wishing, anti-homosexual warmongers.

  16. Well, it’s already on fire. So that part’s covered. The problem is that the “conventional wisdom” fools refuse to see the conflagration right in front of them.

    “Win the Senate!”

    With what?

  17. I’ve gotten three or four calls from live people on behalf of the Republican party in the last six weeks. I just laugh and hang up.

  18. Quartermaster is mostly right.

    The South had the power to secede. Any U.S. state still has the power to secede for any reason, up to and including the color of the latest M&M candy.

    Governments and agents of governments have powers. People have rights that are shared equally all people.

    The two must never be confused.

  19. People should take a little break and find a copy of the Paul Newman/Patricia Neal classic movie, Hud, and watch it.

    When the herd becomes infected with Hoof and Mouth disease, you have to put them all down.

    The point is, despite this being a rancher’s worst nightmare, many ranchers have survived it. The ones who thought there was another way to deal with the disease were the ones who lost the most.

    Sometimes you have to put up with the biggest loss you can imagine in order to be rid of the disease.

  21. They gave up on me years ago and I used to GOP office holder in Ohio. After what they did to Blackwell back in the 90s, I washed my hands of them.

  22. Or here’s another “what if”. What if a whole lot of us are sick and tired of being attacked by the establishment rePUBICans and refuse to vote? Or go one better, and vote for the democrat? If we do the latter, then Mitchey-poo needs to find 2 new voters to overcome each of our votes. One new voter only cancels another out. It would take 2 to make any gains. Who’s in?

  23. Doubtful Evi, considering what I saw him doing with McConnell, Boehner and Thad Cochrane behind the Rayburn building last night. Talk about your “air-tight”.

  26. Bottom line, expressed so beautifully by Milton Friedman. We need to make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing. Continuing to reward the GOPes with re-election is rewarding the “right” people for doing the wrong thing. That’s stupid and it must stop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEVI3bmN8TI

  27. Look, we lost 2012, because people who should have voted for Romney sat on their couches, because Romney was too rich. Let’s not make the same mistake again.

  29. First, why are you yelling? This is a disagreement among like-minded conservatives.

    Second, I don’t have any mental illness. I just think that we must put this country back on track, as soon as we can. With both houses in GOP hands, we can force Obama to face some very difficult choices in his last two years.

    Third, I don’t trust the GOP to always do the right thing. It disappoints me regularly and often makes me angry. I think I’m pretty clear-eyed about it all. I just know that we — the whole country — would be better off with a Republican Senate.

    Let’s not screw this thing up again.

  30. Sorry, I disagree. Sure Mitch shades things far too often. And many of his legislative gambits are too clever by half. But I want Reid out, desperately.

  31. Dear Escher, An R Senate would be nice, BUT: with these RINOs NOTHING and I mean ABSOLUTELY NOTHING will change.

    You WANT change?…then change the “agents” (i.e.Senators and Representatives). If the GOP prevents this, BURN THE GOP DOWN.

    I “scream” when I see such DENIAL, particularly when it follows such a malignant-yet-easy-to-avoid/cure pathology.

  32. Voting for McConnell over and over is “making the same mistake again.”

    Voting for Boehner over and over is “making the same mistake again.”

    Voting for Cochran over and over is “making the same mistake again.”

    SEEING A PATTERN?!

  33. There are VERY GOOD ODDS of enough Tea Partiers/Tea Party Sympathizers that IT COULD VERY EASILY HAPPEN.

  35. Not defeating Barack Obama is making the same mistake again.

    Not defeating Harry Reid is making the same mistake again.

    Not defeating Tim Kaine is making the same mistake again.

    Not defeating Terry McAuliffe is making the same mistake again.

    Not defeating Tammy Baldwin is making the same mistake again.

    See the pattern?

  36. So a ruined GOP and the continuance of Harry Reid as majority leader is preferable to you?

    The personal insults are unnecessary and inappropriate.

  37. There may even be an advantage for the Republican Party in 2016 in failing to win the Senate in 2014. It’s not like Obama would sign any Republican legislation anyway, and having the Democrats hold the Senate in 2014 would allow the Republicans in the House to point fingers.

  38. The Democrats could win both Houses of Congress this fall by introducing and passing a repeal of Obamacare now. Then they would have the votes for single payer.

    The GOP is entirely too cocky about this election.

  39. Thanks Sherlock, Perhaps we shouldn’t continue to work to bring that about because it’s treason.

  40. Setting the patriotism bar pretty high, huh. Who are you going to measure your treason agains next, Bradley Manning? The Unibomber?

  41. Nope, one enemy at a time though, Reid is a bigger enemy. We defeated the Nazis before the Soviets.

  42. Apologize? IS that what it would take to get you to stop helping socialists destroy the country? Maybe you ought to get over your butt hurt and stop being such a crybaby, people died to give you the best country that they could and you want to help those who want to destroy it because you haven’t been apologized to? Are you really that small?
    On behalf of non communists everywhere -I’m sorry-. Now stop working with the enemy.

  43. You need more exclamation points and caps to make your stupid ass rant even more unhinged.
    Find somewhere else to live, you are a lousy American. At least the libs, socialists and dems have deluded themselves into thinking they are doing what’s best for the USA, you are just a parasite.

  47. 4) Or you could find some other country to deliberately trash since you have given up on bing a patriotic American.
    5) Embrace your irrelevance as even the people who agree with most of what you want write you off as an unreliable cockgobbeler.

  48. Yes, I don’t think anyone is going to kowtow to Obama.
    Letting the country burn is an act of laziness and cowardice and a crime against your history. You should have gotten off your butt to see that McConnell was replaced the right way, you failed. Now all you can do is empower the socialist scum wrecking the USA.

  50. Insisting on Sharon Angle over Sue Lowden is what caused Harry Reid to be elected. That was done with both the tea partys and harry reids blessing.

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