I would rather attend the public hanging of a good friend

[malaise]

ReTHUG Will Ritter on not attending Don the Con's convention - quoted by Rachel Maddow

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. What a terrible thing to say!

I am appalled.

[malaise]

2. Very strange indeed

Many GOP regulars are skipping Cleveland entirely. (“I would rather attend the public hanging of a good friend,” says Will Ritter, an up-and-coming Republican digital strategist who worked on the three previous conventions.) And among those who are making the trek, there’s an overwhelming sense it won’t be fun at all. At a time when many Republicans are deeply dissatisfied with their nominee, pessimistic about their prospects for victory in the fall and alarmed about the direction of their party, there’s a reluctance about attending the convention more typically reserved for going to the DMV, being summoned for jury duty or undergoing a root canal.

“This is the first year in the past two decades that Republicans aren’t excited about attending the convention. Normally, we’re all jazzed up about getting together and celebrating our nominee,” said Chris Perkins, a GOP pollster who has attended every Republican convention since 1996. “There’s nothing to celebrate this cycle. I’m going because I have to, not because I want to.”

Those who are going often say they’re doing so out of a sense of obligation — to meet with clients or to hold meetings before making a beeline back to the airport. As the Republican Party prepares to nominate a figure who is registering historically high disapproval ratings, some don’t want to advertise their presence in Cleveland. “Don’t use my name,” said one senior party strategist. “I don’t want anyone to know I’m there.” (A few days after the interview, the strategist got back in touch, having decided not to go, after all.)

“What’s there to celebrate?” asked Jay Zeidman, a Texas health care executive whose family has been a major benefactor of the Republican Party. “The party has hit rock bottom in terms of leadership.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/republican-convention-trump-operatives-225393#ixzz4EFb8enLU
-------------------------------------
Read and laugh

[NBachers]

6. Depending on what happens, I can see the media fools promoting one of two responses:

1. Republican Train Wreck in Cleveland, or:

2. REPUBLICANS UNITE! REPUBLICAN ELECTION MACHINE NOW UNBEATABLE!!

[PNW_Dem]

13. Disingenuous Outrage

What a bunch of fake, disingenuous outrage (which got his name mentioned on the TV machine). After standing by silently and reaping the benefits of the “Southern Strategy” for fifty years, all of a sudden these Republican assholes are outraged. We like to say that not all Republicans are racists, but they all certainly try to gain from it.

[Gabi Hayes]

3. is that real? that's as good as the fake trump/serena williams tweet exchange.

is there video of that?

ANNNNDDDD.... did you watch the culmination of tonight's unhingement in Indiana?

it was truly something to behold make sure you see it....start at ten or fifteen minutes in. check my thread on it for some highlights. I could NOT believe my eyes/ears. it was truly AWEsome. I do not exaggerate.

did you see that 50 year old rum clip I posted, btw?

[zz-la]

4. Don't be a friend of Will Ritter

That is the message I would take away from this.

[gopiscrap]

5. wow

[63splitwindow]

7. I give guy major props for that comment!

[jtuck004]

8. Oh that is really good. I'm saving that to my quotes file. lol. n/t

[pnwmom]

9. I wouldn't want to be his friend. nt

[retrowire]

10. DAMN

that is the coldest line I have ever read and I cannot stop laughing.

[malaise]

15. Same reaction here

A genuine ouch moment.

[Hekate]

11. Sucks to be him. But we now have a new definition of abyssal existential pain....

May it spread so widely among Republicans that the majority curl up into the fetal position and don't even go out to vote in November.

[Jopin Klobe]

12. Anybody notice ...

... that they're treating this political morass as though some dog just crapped on the carpet ...

... instead of the absolute collapse of the actual, what-was-once-real Republican Party? ...

... oh, yeah ... I forgot their mantra ... "They did it." ...

[malaise]

20. Enjoy this

http://www.salon.com/2016/07/13/poor_jeb_is_right_for_once_his_brand_of_conservatism_is_dead_and_hes_partly_to_blame/
<snip>
When people talk about “white privilege,” you have to think Bush’s actions are a prime example. In an election when poor people around the country, a disproportionate number of whom are minorities, are being denied the right to vote thanks to voter ID and other laws pushed by Republican governors and legislatures in an effort to suppress mostly Democratic voters, here is a member of perhaps the most visible wealthy Republican family in America saying he will not vote in the election because his choices make him too sad.

But the big takeaway from this interview was this admission.

Conservatism is temporarily dead. I mean, if you look at it, we have two candidates. Donald Trump is barely a Republican. He’s certainly not a conservative.

No, Trump may not be a conservative in the sense that Bush thinks of the term. But he is a conservative as the word relates to the way the Republican Party has evolved over the last couple of decades, and particularly during the Obama administration. The GOP has become a white reactionary party, paranoid and delusional, jumping at the shadows of Muslim terrorists, gay activists, and angry black people it seems around every corner. Trump is the culmination of years of the party tolerating and even encouraging these sorts of fears

[nikto]

14. The GOP is finding out ...

That you can't continuously walk on the edges of racism/fascism/chaos
without eventually falling right in.

[Mendocino]

16. Who is going to show up?

Trump's kids and Official Donald Lapdog Chris Christie perhaps. David Duke, Chuck Norris, Mike Tyson and Kid Rock? Maybe Clint Eastwood the renowned Furniture Whisperer?

[Laura PourMeADrink]

17. Oh lord, please tell me it won't be Mike Pence too. Just heard a bit of his

rant. The man seems to have zero percent humor and zero percent warmth. Even his pallor is scary.

I want entertainment. Bat shit crazy entertainment. The more the better.

Who is the funniest of all the VP choices.

Kid Rock is a repuke??

[malaise]

18. Well the media is parked outside Pence's house

The Con and his family are there

[JHB]

19. Then he should go...

...since his beloved party is hanging itself, with cameras rolling.