Steve Schmidt sure has been down to earth lately. (with a Bachmann aside)

[silvershadow]

Saw him twice in the last couple of days on MSNBC. Rachel had him on and gave him the business regarding Bob Dole's rather blunt assessment recently of the state of the Republican party. Just an observation of my own about Schmiidt's demeanor. What do you all think of 2014/16 at this time? Also, regarding Bachmann's departure, do you suppose the state of the Republican party is such that they will field someone equally as extreme or even more so for that race? I just don't see how the Republicans can possibly coalesce around anything meaningful or solidly centrist anytime soon. Thoughts?

[Cosmocat]

1. They will continue to devolve

They tend VERY strongly to wear out past practices, so they will continue to do what has worked for them in the past ...

Scream about the liberal boogyman.
Wave the flag.
Pose false choices.
Lie, cheat, steal, do ANYTHING to win.

They also are repeating Clinton with Obama, so it will continue to be a desperate and never ending attempt to destroy him.

They will go god, guns and gays, cause that is who and what they are.

The Scorpion and Frog, they just are who they are.

THAT SAID, does not mean they can't win.

People are people, and while they decry negative campaigning, it wins more often than not. Further, they have VERY SUCCESSFULLY gerrymanded congressional and state level districts.

I suspect we will continue to see the general trend - they say and do a lot of things that hurt them in the Senate and state wide races, but because it won't be an epic turnout they will hold the House ...

[silvershadow]

3. Gerrymandering needs to be dealt with, somehow. It is utterly absurd the ways it used as a cudgel

(if I understand that word correctly). The campaigning rhetoric has devolved, as has campaigning in general. Do they not know that they breed radicals among us? Or care? Shaking my head.

[Cosmocat]

4. no

They don't care one bit. The average republican 1) truly believes in the liberal boogyman. They very much believe what has been LONG driven home in talk radio and just generally have an us v them mindset. 2) has a moral superiority that justifies all actions and thoughts. There is nothing they can do , say or eben think that is not perfectly acceptable in trying to defeat Democrats.

[Major Hogwash]

2. They are going to fight to the death . . of the Republican party.

Schmidt isn't stupid.
But, what we are witnessing here is the end of the Republican party, as we know it.
They have already broken into 2 major camps of thought.
However, the tremendous amount of racism that exists within the Tea Party faction of the Republican party is going to cause them to split completely into 2 separate parts -- until one is no longer able to get any more support from their base.

The Tea Party faction was based on racism, hating on the fact that a Black man was the President in the White House.
5 years later, and their hate is just as fiery today as it was back in 2008.
If the Republican party can not channel their hate into some kind of workable agenda -- other than just repealing Obamacare -- the GOP will lose power.

Which is basically what Schmidt said this week.
I think he underestimates the level of radical hatred caused by racism in this country . . it is systemic, in other words, it is "built into" the political system itself.
It is easy for (some) white people to hate people of other colors, or other creeds, or other religions, because a lot of them did it silently and quietly in their homes for the last 50 years.
They were raised as racists, so they don't think it is wrong.
They were taught that white people are better than anyone else, especially since they are Christians.
It's a really warped concept to begin with, but that is what they believe.
They eat, drink, and dream about it every day of their life.

So, what has happened in the last 5 years, is that some of them got elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.
And that threw the doors open just enough to be able to see what they were saying and thinking for all of those years.

The Republican party can't shame them into silence, because they are a larger part of their base than they first realized.
When Mitt was trounced in November, hardly any people of color, or creed voted for Romney.

And that panicked the shit out of the Tea Party coalition.
So, now they are on "a crusade" to save "White America", as was first suggested by noneother than Pat Buchanan.
They have their cause, but they haven't been able to put together a workable agenda yet.
At least not one that will sway enough Americans to keep electing them in to office for very long.

Bob Dole was right about the state the Republican party is in today.
But, whether anyone from the Republican party was paying any attention to him, is a whole 'nother ball game.