by Smitty

We don’t really have explicit proof that John McCain threw the 2008 election, like Butch Coolidge was supposed to do in Pulp Fiction. I’m sure McCain must’ve felt a little sting at some point, but the old chap is far beyond pride.

The 2010 Tea Party uprising seems to have caught the GOP by surprise. The GOP leadership’s body language to the base seems to be: “Shut up and get back to manning the oars; navigation input from the rowers is neither necessary, nor desired.”

Thus we saw no significant rallies in 2011, and 2012 was a reversion to McCain form. Again, I’ll fall short of explicitly saying that Mitt Romney himself deliberately wasted everyone’s time. But if BHO gets to own the demise of Ambassador Stevens, then Mitt owns the failure of his campaign. Why might these failures be occurring?

For starters, Daily Pundit chides Stephen Green over being willing to vote for Zombie Nixon over Udall, pointing out that, on the issues, the two are about as distinguishable as chicken-fried steak and schnitzel:

Sure, some elections matter, but what matters even more is why we are electing people, and what they do after we elect them. If, as is the case with Udall and Nixon, the party label is a distinction without a difference, then advising people to crawl over broken glass to vote for one or the other may result in a lot of eviscerated voters, but no material changes.

On a related note, we have Joan of Argghh’s feedback to Sowell on Ted Cruz, where the normally awesome Thomas “expresses concern” over Cruz’s popularity, and Joan responds:

As if we on the Right are no better at evaluating an ideal from reality than the mascots of the Left. I take strong exception to that aspersion. I’m listening to Ted Cruz and find him interesting in that he seems to know what it will take to grab attention in a Media stronghold, not that his ideas leave me breathless. He has moxie and he has solid values and he’s unafraid. Will he be a good leader if given the chance? Ah, there’s the rub.

Now, I’m as reasonable as the next person, even willing to be shown a better way, but if Mr. Sowell is asking me to seriously consider the possibility that Ted Cruz is promising me things that appeal to the same crass envy that Obama gleefully cultivates in his own followers I must scratch my head and wonder if his disconnect with his own supporters can be so vast. It may simply be an emotional ploy, wrought by an old man’s fears. If so, I share them and sympathize. But either way, it’s obvious that the GOP hit squad is starting early with the Palinization of Ted Cruz. Instead of being cast as an air-head, they’ll demonize him as dangerous to their plans. Those “plans” that will work this time, they swear!

Over here at the navigation plot, I can tell you that our current Progressive course is breeding collapse. Herbert Stein is kicking in. If the Vichy GOP have some kind of reform plan, they need to circulate it STAT!

Karl Rove and the High Priests of Progress are already trying to circulate dead fish such as Chris Christie and Jeb Bush. If the goal is to serve up a third un-inspirational piece of work, to complete some sort of Tri-f**kta of Fail, then we need only listen to what the Really Smart Guys and the codpiece media are saying.

And I’m not trying to sound like some kind of Cruz sycophant. It is entirely possible that, for all he seems a guy sticking to his principles, his soul could be devoured by Cthulhu. Truly, we need adherence to principles, not hero worship. It is not enough that Ted be Cruz; we all need to be our own variations on Ted Cruz.

But the broader point here isn’t about Ted Cruz. Rather, that the vacuum left at the top of the GOP by the lack of leadership like that of Cruz is truly devastating. You can love or hate McConnell and Boehner all day long, but if you took them both to court, you could not convict them of having any vision. They’re both just caretakers of the Progressive regulatory State, here to make sure that we’re only buried in 9,000 pages of new regulations, instead of the Democrat’s full 10,000.

Dump that noise. It’s high time for reform.

Update: Hot Air’s quotes of the day post is timely:

Notwithstanding the Republican establishment’s campaign to marginalize them as what the Journal obligingly labels a “rump kamikaze caucus,” their ranks are swelling. Without them, the Republicans would not have recaptured the House in 2010. Increasingly, they mount primary challenges against Beltway relics. They don’t win all the time, but they win quite a few — like long-shot Ted Cruz’s stunning primary rout over the party’s preferred candidate. And there is a more serious danger for GOP leadership: The conservative base increasingly wears the establishment’s disdain as a badge of honor.

Beltway Republicans do not seem to grasp how ominous this is.

We’ve trusted the GOP’s words, and will now set about using those words on the GOP elite as a suppository.

So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.

by Smitty

Via the Examiner comes the news of 32 possibilities in a GOP.com straw poll.
(a) The next election is in 9 1/2 months, dudes. It’s both more important to focus on the next election, and to understand that how this November goes will inform what happens in 2016 in a major way.

(b) 32 names? Let’s bin them.

Yes:
– Sen. Ted Cruz, of Texas
– Nikki Haley, South Carolina governor
– Bobby Jindal, Louisiana governor
– Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor
– Mike Pence, Indiana governor
– Sen. Rand Paul, of Kentucky
– Scott Walker, Wisconsin governor
– Former Rep. Allen West, of Florida
– Rick Santorum, former Pennsylvania senator

Maybe:
– John Bolton, former ambassador to the United Nations
– Ben Carson, author and neurosurgeon
– Rick Perry, Texas governor
– Condoleezza Rice, former secretary of state
– Sen. Marco Rubio, of Florida
– Sen. Rob Portman, of Ohio
– Sen. Tim Scott, of South Carolina

No:
– Sen. Kelly Ayotte, of New Hampshire
– Haley Barbour, former Mississippi governor
– Chris Christie, New Jersey governor
– Mitch Daniels, former Indiana governor
– Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas governor
– Susana Martinez, New Mexico governor
– John Kasich, Ohio governor
– Former Rep. Ron Paul, of Texas
– Tim Pawlenty, former Minnesota governor
– Brian Sandoval, Nevada governor
– Sen. John Thune, of South Dakota

I will vote Libertarian:
– Jeb Bush, former Florida governor
– Rep. Peter King, of New York

Special mentions:
– Herman Cain, a radio host–Health concerns
– Newt Gingrich, former House speaker–Be an advisor, sir.
– Rep. Paul Ryan, of Wisconsin–You soiled yourself on the budget deal.

by Smitty

I don’t run around wishing mayhem on people, but I bet a cage match between Star Parker and David Brooks would sell some tickets. Brooks begins an interesting exchange beginning around 9:00:

(emphasis mine):

There’s been a lot of calls for Republicans to change. And we have seen that from everybody to Paul Ryan to Marco Rubio. Now we’re beginning to see the donor class really begin to change. There is some question, are they trying to change just the candidates, so they don’t get Todd Akin, or they trying to actually change some of the substance?
And, so far , it seems to be just the candidates. One of the interesting things — and I can’t say I know the answer to this — is, how much will the Tea Party fight back? There has been some effort that they are saying, oh, the establishment is taking over.
But my own sense of things so far is that there is not the will to fight among the Tea Party and that a lot of people in the Tea Party are, frankly — they’re not — they are also Republicans. And a lot of — say, Rush Limbaugh, for example, who is not Tea Party, he’s more an establishment Republican who wants the Republican Party to win.
So I have a feeling that the establishment is going to have maybe an easier time of it than some might think.

Star Parker takes completely the opposite tack (emphasis still mine):

Karl Rove would like to weed out candidates like former Missouri Rep. Todd Akin. Akin, who was defeated by Democrat incumbent Claire McCaskill in the Senate race in Missouri, was a six-term Republican congressman with a flawless conservative record. For most of 2012 he was ahead of McCaskill in the polls. Then, in August, he expressed himself poorly in an interview about abortion. Despite his apologies and efforts to clarify himself, his own party abandoned him.
McCaskill ran ads, over and over, showing Mitt Romney questioning Akin’s qualifications. This race could have been saved. But the party elite wasted not a second to dump Akin because they were not comfortable with his conservative values to begin with.
We’re living in a deeply troubled country today. Americans are looking for answers, not a political class feathering its own nest. There are tens of millions of conservative American patriots who seek an opposition party to represent their conviction that America will not get back on the path to strength and prosperity without restoration of freedom, limited government, free markets and traditional values.
Today’s big question is whether the Republican Party is going to be that opposition party. If not, it is not conservative values and convictions that will be abandoned. It will be the Republican Party.

My thought is that the GOP heads view the Tea Parties as sort of a warmed-over collection of malcontents, a la Perot voters in 1992 (and I was one) who can be gently herded back into the fold. Flock you, GOP: we’re not sheep!

The technology has shifted to the point that the GOP elite commitment to Progress in lieu of limited government is painful, obvious, and not being tolerated at the polls, 2008 and 2012 mean much. Hint to GOP elite: if you want to go for a three-loss trifecta, all you have to do is heed Karl Rove and run Jeb Bush.

by Smitty

Let’s face it: the IRS tax code is still a nightmare. It is too complex, too costly and too unfair. There is something fundamentally wrong when roughly 60 percent of hardworking taxpayers have to hire a professional just to do their taxes. You shouldn’t need an army of lawyers and accountants to understand our tax code. We need a simpler, flatter, fairer tax code that’s designed for taxpayers.
That’s why we have to start to work on real solutions to return accountability to our tax code by eliminating special interest loopholes. I believe in a simple principle. When it comes to the tax code, everyone should play by the same rules. Your tax rate should be determined by what’s fair, not who you know in Washington.

If the GOP wants to continue getting crushed in elections, just continue coloring within the Progressive lines, accepting the consumption of liberty by Leviathan. The tax code has long since ceased to become a means of funding legitimate government budgets. We don’t pass budget legislation anymore, and the taxes that are collected are pit into which all too small leap over shall fall. Way to go, DC: you’re as oppressive as King George III ever was.

But where is the reform? GOP candidates just repeat “Jobs! Jobs! Jobs,” as though the Federal government somehow isn’t shot through with rot and in need of a tear-down and retooling. We all know it does. So, if the GOP ain’t got the sack to:

(a) Articulate the real systemic issues,
(b) Lay them at the feet of the Body-surfing Hawaiian Orator,
(c) State what major chunks of the Federal Government are getting lopped off,

then just what good is the GOP, anyway?

via Insty

by Smitty

Breitbart talked to Jim DeMint on the cusp of ejecting from the Senate.

The Republican Party used to be very good at targeting voters. We asked the Senator what he thinks happened to the party’s ability to do this well:

Well, I think we tend to put political people into positions where we should have CEOs who know how to run things. When you’re running a big organization its not the time for red meat for the grass roots. Its the time to make good people around you with good data. And, there are some groups out there beginning to do that…the expertise is out there.

In general, and the Sandy Hook reporting fits my amorphous theory: appeals these days are purely emotional, as though our leadership has either

• lost faith in the ability of the people to reason, or
• is deliberately undermining the ability of people to reason, as this may make them more docile.

So, what I crave from Mr. DeMint at Heritage is a renewed emphasis on reform. Put the facts out there, make the case for a responsible government, in contrast with the current clown car on parade.

We The People are deeply aware that we have, as a whole, shanked it badly for decades. Let’s have a dispassionate, non-hormonal come-to-Beavis meeting, and set ourselves on a course to fix it, knowing that we’re talking about a decades-long project.

via Jewish Odysseus

by Smitty

Via American Freedom, truly an excellent personal story, excellent ideas, and excellent delivery:

Contrast Rubio’s don’t-scare-the-horses delivery with William Kristol at the Daily Standard

And the conservative movement?—?a bulwark of American strength for the last several decades?—?is in deep disarray. Reading about some conservative organizations and Republican campaigns these days, one is reminded of Eric Hoffer’s remark, “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.” It may be that major parts of American conservatism have become such a racket that a kind of refounding of the movement as a cause is necessary. A reinvigoration of the Republican party also seems desirable, based on a new generation of leaders, perhaps coming?—?as did Ike and Reagan?—?from outside the normal channels.

What’s not in question are the basic principles of conservativism that go back to our founding documents: liberty, equality before the law, private property, free enterprise, &c.
What’s coming into question is whether the GOP elite has snorted so much Progressive cocaine as to make their heads ‘splode and forget those basic principles.

It’s not fair to rip Rubio over this weekly GOP address speech and call him a milquetoast. The weekly address is not CPAC, where Rubio can be expected to arrive with some sort of bacon gun and shoot pork product pellets into the sea of meat-craving conservatives. The weekly address is certainly an occasion for something short and vaguely positive that colors within the lines.

However, for 2014 and 2016, this blogger wants to see some recognition that those lines mark a Progressive pit into which the country has sunk, and correctly identifies the systemic issue for the problem: our government has shifted from being representative to redistributive over the last century. Both parties have been buying votes with entitlements and turning a country of opportunity into some sort of neo-feudalism.

Hopefully the GOP can glom onto the reality of 2012, which is that the Gradual Onslaught of Progressivism is not going to attract voters anymore. If the GOP is merely saying tom-ay-toe to the Democrat’s tom-ah-toe, then the losses will continue to mount. It’s time to put on the Big People Pants and talk hardcore reform.

Update: linked by Nathan J. Martin