Free Republic

A new CNN poll finds that about half of Republicans sympathize with the tea party movement. The other half either remain aloof or (5%) even express hostility. That second group of Republicans has received remarkably little media attention this cycle. Yet their man -- Mitt Romney -- has held steady in first or second place for the past three years. Meanwhile tea party Republicans have bounced from Sarah Palin to Donald Trump to Michele Bachmann to Rick Perry to (now) Herman Cain, transfixing the media every time they lose faith in one messiah and search for another. Yet sooner or...

In this debt-ceiling fight, I'm having horrible flashbacks to the Republican debacle over health care. Then as now, what could have been a negotiated deal turned into all-out political war. Then as now, Republicans rejected all concessions by the president as pathetically inadequate. Then as now, Republicans refused any concessions of their own, instead demanding that the president yield totally to their way of thinking. Then as now, Republicans convinced themselves that they had the clout to force the president to yield. With health care, Republicans calculated spectacularly wrong. They pursued an all or nothing strategy and got -- nothing....