Posted on 11/04/2010 4:30:30 AM PDT by Dr. Scarpetta
There is a singular event that shoved the Republican Senate car over the cliff.
That event was the primary victory of Christine O'Donnell. This morning she used a phrase that is right on the money. That description is "Republican Cannibalism."
I personally hold Karl Rove to blame, followed closely by Senator John Cornyn. Rove is an establishment Progressive Republican of the first order.
Following O'Donnell's message of values victory in Delaware, Rove started slinging mud in her direction because he realized she was a woman that couldn't be bought & sold on a D.C. street corner.
It was Rove who almost exclusively undermined an untested Republican. When challenged, he became entrenched, making it a media story.
Coming out of a surprise primary victory, everyone would obviously be questioning O’Donnell’s candidacy.
It's the "Man Bites Dog" story. Rove turned an opportunity to help create an up-and-coming political star into much less.
The bottom feeder Rove chose for his personal aggrandizement to put blood in the water. The sharks had a feeding frenzy.
The result was that yet another "Traditional Values Candidate" was beaten by her own political party, & the momentum of several other races was slowed.
It gave Reid & others the chance to further paint traditional values candidates as kooks. The Republican cannibalism resulted in the Senate leadership failure to get behind Republican nominees.
The cannibalism by a self-professed REPUBLICAN strategist, wrapped up is his own glory led to lost momentum by MIller, Fiorina (albeit her real defeat was the unfortunate infection), Buck, Angle & Rossi.
His poor choices contributed to a decay of no less than 15 percent-point in Delaware. Had Delaware been advocated by Rove, rather than diminished, today we would be looking at a three-seat Senate majority, & a Republican Governor in CA.
(Excerpt) Read more at stgnews.com ...
I don’t know Rove’s true beliefs, but I do believe he is motivated primarily by his drive to win.
He believed that O’Donnell couldn’t/wouldn’t win. I would have voted for her, but I also agreed with him.
Voting for O’Donnell in the primary may have won a battle, but it lost a war. (in a metaphorical sense)
On the contrary, I think that the O'Donnell race may have been a lost battle, but a first step in winning the real war for the soul of the Republican Party.
Elections should be about competing visions, not about which gang gets its turn to plunder the taxpayers. A politician who is only about his gang "winning" should have no part in the Republican Party. A political consultant who is only about "winning" should have no role in the Republican Party.
If somebody is "electable", but once elected will simply work to advance the socialist agenda, then what's the point? Better to TRY to get actual conservatives into office than to succeed in electing another socialist.
As a candidate running for election, yes. He followed the “when your opponent is losing, get out of the way and let them lose” philosophy and it worked fairly well (17 points I think).
Karl Rove's PAC "American Crossroads" spent over $15M this election cycle to help stop Obama's agenda.
Christine O'Donnell allowed herself, and TEA party supporters by extension to be branded as bobbleheaded morons. She spent $3M dollars (incl. on "I'm not a Witch" which Christian Science Monitor rates as the #1 gaffe of the Top Ten Worst Moments in the Campaign....)which other TEA Party Candidates could've used to further our cause.
That is the final, real bottom line.
I win the primary. How likely are you to endorse me??
As a candidate running for election, yes. He followed the “when your opponent is losing, get out of the way and let them lose” philosophy and it worked fairly well (17 points I think).
Karl Rove pushes his establishment line.
That’s the real, final, bottom line.
Why does your list stop at 2004?
True, but they're all at some point along the "5 stages" trail.
We saw "denial" by the stout refusal to believe those lying, liberal polls showing O'Donnell losing by 15+ points.
Here we see "anger" -- it can't possibly be as you say, that O'Donnell was a poor candidate. It's got to be somebody else's fault.
There's not much "bargaining" to be done on this race, but you can look at the "we'll prove there was fraud" folks in the Nevada race for that.
"Depression" will come soon enough.
"Acceptance" may never come ... but if it does, perhaps the Delaware Tea Party folks might use the experience to find a good candidate next time.
What will COD do next to advance Conservatism?
Has she said?
If you were a RINO, the whole of the GOP establishment would be telling me I needed to for the sake of party unity.
That is not necessarily true.
Murkowski lost her primary and may still win the Senate. Lieberman has already done it. Losing a primary doesnt make you a weak general candidate, just makes you a weak party candidate.
In Delaware they beat the establishment, but with a candidate handicapped with tons of bizarre baggage.
Three out of four is pretty good.
She’s never trashed conservatives that I know of... Tokyo Karl has quite a history on that one.
Whatever happened to Reagan’s 11th Commandment?
Rove = FAIL.
“but if it does, perhaps the Delaware Tea Party folks might use the experience to find a good candidate next time.”
That is the key.
We lost the House in 2006. It was more important for conservatives to make a statement than to help Rove and the Republicans remain in power. Similar to the O’Donnell race.
WORST MISTAKE EVER! !!
--Said as chastisement to his staff for canceling an opponent's meeting with then Governor Reagan. Quoted on KCBS radio in 1972 by Reagan's gubernatorial chief of staff.
Other than that, he would have voted with the democrats.
What do you think COC will do next to advance conservatism?
Ooops. I meant COD of course!
Sorry, folks Rove was correct, and ya’ll are just shooting the messenger.
The Tea Partiers focused too much on “purity” and not enough on electability. Extremely bad candidates got chosen in some races that should have been cakewalks during this election cycle.
The Tea Partiers literally wrecked the GOP in Colorado, nominating a Republican candidate (Dan Maes) who was so bad he couldn’t garner 10% of the vote, thereby relegating my party to minor party status in my state, a very troublesome development. (Dan Maes was so unpopular, that that fool Alvin Greene in South Carolina garnered over three times as many votes, percentage wise than Maes.)
In addition, The Colorado Tea Partiers brought us that fool Ken Buck who repeatedly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by his inability to stay on message and who continuously waxed poetic on dozens of divisive issues of little central importance to most voters. With her experience from previously winning state elections, Jane Norton, who Buck defeated in the primary, could have handily beat the unpopular Bennett.
Sharon Angle was a weak candidate too. Either of her two opponents would have waltzed over Reid.
And the really sad thing is that Senators are far more valuable than Congresspersons, since it requires a two-thirds majority of them to govern, and there are so few of them.
I’ve written repeatedly about the importance of electability, and not just being “conservative”. I was just commenting to my wife that the naive and starry eyed liberals get bad candidates like Obama who get elected, but the naive starry eyed Tea Partiers get bad candidates who don’t get elected.
Conservatives who have done well like Scott Brown, Marco Rubio, and my own newly elected Cory Gardner here in CO-4 on the eastern plains of Colorado first paid their dues in the state legislatures. It gave them time to mature as candidates, learn the ropes, and make their big mistakes in small ponds first. The military does not promote privates directly to generals for a reason, and unfortunately the Tea Party promoted way too many privates into generals who were essentially clueless about how to lead their troops to victory.
I admire and appreciate the enthusiasm and energy of the Tea Partiers, but this purity nonsense is totally self-destructive. It is simply not possible for a candidate to perfectly represent exactly ALL of the positions of more than a very few voters, maybe none, actually. Therefore, in addition to electability, it is necessary to agree upon a small number of core issues amongst the support group. Over hundreds of years (not just in the U.S. mind you) political parties formed to formalize this platform-building process to avoid the bloody self-destruction that results from a no-rules, no-holds-barred, hand-to-hand combat over “purity”.
Personally, I simplified this election to a single issue, namely, were you staunchly opposed to the Obama agend, would you follow through on your word to repeal Obammunism and were you the most electable candidate with the preceding two attributes. This greatly focused my thought processes and made my decisions easy about who to support with my energy and money.
People can whine all they want about Rove, but Rove did not cause a single loss by a candidate, he merely made predilections that unfortunately turned out to be correct.
In my book, the only thing that counts is results, not simply giving it the good ol’ college try. That kind of thinking is the same kind of false self-esteem-building nonsense in the public schools: it’s ok to fail as long as you try real hard.
Hopefully, the Tea Partiers will grow up, learn from their mistakes, and focus more on winning in the future rather than purity.
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