GOP gripped by paralysis, madness, incompetent leadership.
Forget the Republican Party’s need to rebrand itself. Forget party elders’ promises that they will start reaching out to minorities. And forget the supposed soul-searching that is meant to sweep over the GOP as it undergoes a serious reexamination of its future.
Right now, Republicans are having trouble even getting out of their own way.
Conservative groups are splintering. The Romney campaign has dissolved into backbiting and billing disputes. A “plan B” to avert the fiscal cliff proved to be a colossal embarrassment. A teetotaling Idaho senator has been charged with drunk driving. But the most striking symptom of the GOP’s horrible moment is the party’s inability to get done what virtually everyone here knows is in its political best interest: A hasty surrender.So far, not anything too earthshattering, right? Post-election “GOP in civil war!” stories are a dime a dozen.
But then things get interesting:
It’s difficult to find a Republican operative who is willing to say on the record that going over the fiscal cliff next Tuesday is a good idea. Provoking a crisis is bad politics: Republicans are resigned to taking the blame. And it’s bad for their policy agenda: They will likely be cornered into a broader tax hike than the best deal they could get from President Barack Obama today, and with none of the spending cuts that might now be on the table.
And yet, the dominant emotion among most Republicans here is one of sheer resignation.
“It’s a shit show,” one prominent Republican told BuzzFeed of the GOP’s messaging position. “Tax rates are going to go up on everyone, and we’re going to get the blame.”Everyone agrees that going over the fiscal cliff would be a political disaster for the marty, yet no one seems to be able to steer their boat around and away from the falls. That would take some sort of leadership and McConnell and Boehner — especially Boehner — don’t lead. They march out in front of their crazy-pants caucuses and pretend they’re leading. They’re actually following from the front.
As a result, the party’s a runaway train, headed for disaster. Remember this when the smoke clears — Republicans knew they’d get the blame, yet they went ahead and crashed anyway. This will all be their fault and they’ve admitted as much.
(via silas216)
![quickhits:
Romney says his campaign ‘doesn’t need a turnaround.’
CBS News:
Scott Pelley: You are slipping in the polls at this moment. A lot of Republicans are concerned about this campaign. You bill yourself as a turnaround artist. How are you going to turn this campaign around? Mitt Romney: Well, actually, we’re tied in the polls. We’re all within the margin of error. We bounce aroun — week to week— day to day. There are some days we’re up. There are some days we’re down. We go forward with my message, that this is a time to reinvigorate the American economy, not by expanding government and raising taxes on people, but instead by making sure government encourages entrepreneurship and innovation and gets the private sector hiring again. Scott Pelley: Governor, I appreciate your message very much. But that wasn’t precisely the question. You’re the CEO of this campaign. A lot of Republicans would like to know, a lot of your donors would like to know, how do you turn this thing around? You’ve got a little more than six weeks. What do you do? Mitt Romney: Well, it doesn’t need a turnaround. We’ve got a campaign which is tied with an incumbent president to the United States.
Meanwhile, reality disagrees.
NationalJournal:
After a summer in which he routinely posted larger fundraising hauls than President Obama, Mitt Romney was supposed to march into the home-stretch of the campaign accompanied by a war chest so massive it would induce insomnia at Obama headquarters in Chicago. But the GOP presidential nominee’s deflating fundraising numbers this week suggest that Team Obama might get some sleep this fall after all.
Romney’s campaign, in a report filed to the Federal Election Commission this week, showed $50.4 million cash on hand — nearly $40 million less than Obama’s reported $88 million. Romney’s joint fundraising operation with the Republican National Committee and other party committees still has a bigger bank account overall. But that advantage –$180 million on hand compared to President Obama’s $120 million, according to The New York Times – is hardly as large as Republicans hoped it would be when the former governor reported hundreds of millions raised this summer.
[…]
[Relying on] larger donors also [presents a] problem for Romney: Contributors offering $5,000 checks might have boosted his summer fundraising totals, but because they’ve reached their maximum contribution, he can’t return to them for more money. Obama, meanwhile, can continually ask his small-donor pool for more cash.
“There’s a practical problem there” for Romney, said Neil Reiff, a Democratic campaign finance lawyer. “The momentum is going to die because it’s a pyramid scheme to some extent. You’re claiming all this credit but you can’t go back to same well.”
And Mittens is talking about national polling — we know this is a swing state election. Swing state polling isn’t going all that great for Romney.
If Romney doesn’t think he needs to turn this thing around, that’s fine with me. Because if he doesn’t, he’ll lose for sure.
He doesn’t think he needs a turnaround? Uhhh. Mmmkay.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mara1hFgmE1qfengno1_500.jpg)
