OLBERMANN: After years of writing their own reality, you might forgive Republicans for their reaction to a reality they no longer control, the passage of an actual health care reform bill. Our third story tonight, the Republican party's message: Americans are so outraged with President Obama, who they like, that they will punish Democrats next year the way they did last week, when they elected only Democrats to the only two national seats up for grabs.
The Republicans calling Saturday's health care vote a watershed moment that will lead to Democratic losses, presumably the same way the Democrats were tossed out of power in 1994 after they passed Medicare in 1965. Congressman Mike Pence, chairman of the Republican caucus, explained yesterday that while Democrats actually won the two Congressional races with health care reform explicitly on the line in both Congressional districts, it was the statewide races that the Republicans won that revealed the national mood.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MIKE PENCE ®, INDIANA: I think the message from last night is that the Democrats didn't get the message in August or last Tuesday. I think from this past summer, we saw the American people express overwhelming opposition to a government takeover of health care. They attended town hall meetings, rallies across the country.
And then this last Tuesday, I mean, the historic reversals the Democrats saw in just 12 months in New Jersey and Virginia, again, was an effort by the American people to send a message to this party.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OLBERMANN: Never mind the exit polls in which six out of ten voters in Jersey and Virginia said explicitly, this is not about national stuff. And the other four were split between registering support for the administration and voicing opposition to it. No, it was uninformed yahoos yelling, keep the government hands off my Medicare, who to Mr. Pence speak for America.
Forget Republican Senator Lindsey Graham's wishful response to them, quote, "we're not going to be a party of angry white guys. We're going to be a party of center right politics."
Too late, senator. Mr. Pence is one, because a new party has registered in Florida, the Tea Party, for real, comparing itself to the Tea Partiers who just cost Republicans that district in New York. Nice work, guys.
But it was Mississippi's Governor Haley Barbour who had perhaps the most incoherent read, explaining that Obama, the target of open racism from the right, remains popular not because of his policies, but because in this Donovan McNabb way, because of his color.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. HALEY BARBOUR ®, MISSISSIPPI: We shouldn't confuse the president being personally unpopular. Americans want our presidents to succeed, particularly the first time we ever elected an African-American president. I think there's great sentiment in favor of him. It's his policies that are unpopular.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OLBERMANN: Let's turn now to MSNBC political analyst Richard Wolffe, senior strategist at Public Strategies, author of "Renegade: The Making of A President." That one in particular. Thanks for being with us, Richard.
RICHARD WOLFFE, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Thank you, Keith.
OLBERMANN: Thank you, Keith.
OLBERMANN:
Do they, A, think that the Tea Bag crowd speaks for America? Or is it B, that they're desperately trying to convince the Tea Bag crowd that they do speak for America?WOLFFE:
Well, what they're trying to do-forget the delusions of grandeur here for a minute. What they're trying to do is face up to the reality that nobody feels enthusiastic about the Republican party. That people don't even want to tell pollsters that they're Republicans.
So what you have here is an effort to sort of capitalize on the only energy there is on the right, this independent movement, people who were waving the tea bags, and appropriate that for themselves. It's just not going to work. This is not a group of people who are going to fall in line. Otherwise, they would be calling themselves Republicans.
So never mind what they think about their real popularity. They know the only energy and momentum lies with this unruly tea bagging group.OLBERMANN: So let's pretend for a moment that Mr. Pence knows that gubernatorial races are not referenda on Congress, especially when the exit polls are as blunt as they were. And we can pretend that Mr. Barbour knows that members of his party hate the president for being a black Democrat, no matter what outsider status they try to use as a euphemism. What's the point then of again creating their own reality about 2010? Is this the individual Republican politicians trying to preserve their jobs in the face of this enthusiasm, as you described it, coming only from this ultra right wing of their party?
WOLFFE: Well, I don't know how much respect we need to show for Governor Barbour's comments. It's crass and it's stupid and it's simplistic and it reveals a lot. But what they're really trying to do here it's not about 2010. It's about now.
They're trying to erode the authority of the president, to stop him in his tracks right now. to say, this guy has no authority. You don't have to respect him. There's no downside to opposing him. And to reframe the landscape right now.
Because they know that over the next several months, the president has the chance to really establish a framework to go into the 2010 midterms. If they can stop him now and say he doesn't represent change, he's not done anything, as well as obviously being a radical socialist Nazi-you know, if they can do both of those, then they tie Democrats up in knots. If, however, the White House, the Democrats go into 2010 with a record of change, with a record of accomplishment, it's a very different proposition.OLBERMANN: But is this not ultimately what we long ago used to hear described as false feedback?
don't you eventually have to break it to people that they are not the majority? When Lindsey Graham confronted his own town hall and he asked people there rhetorically how many senators there were, and only a few people even answered 100, and then he asked them how many of them were Republicans, and even fewer of them could answer, 40 -- there's a reality check that does come into play eventually, one way or the other, doesn't it?WOLFFE: Well, you would think so.
But if the Republicans cared about reality so much, then why is Sarah Palin so popular? What they have here is two old scripts. One is the Nixon script of the silent majority. The other is the Reagan script of this is really a Republican country, and the pendulum is just swinging in our favor.
The problem is since 2006, it hasn't been a Republican pendulum at all. So they're stuck with two out-of-date narratives. And tracking that with the current policies is extremely hard for them. All they can do is live with the stories their grandfathers told them.OLBERMANN: But now. when you hear that
there is this actual Tea Party being registered in Florida, this is-Dick Armey just created supposedly a conservative movement that is now decided to eat the Republican party alive first?WOLFFE: Yes.
I don't think Dick Armey's intentions are in line with the Republican leadership. I've said for some time this is headed for a third party grouping. And ideologically, they are much more interested in being pure and true to whatever they think their ideals are than getting elected.
That for the Republicans is really dangerous. Never mind what they think about health care.OLBERMANN: The irony is they'll wind up with the same percentage of votes that the Socialist Party used to get in the 1930s. Richard Wolffe of MSNBC, Public Strategies, author of "Renegade," as always, thank you, Richard.
WOLFFE: Thank you, Keith.
OLBERMANN: Saturday, I didn't realize "Saturday Night Live" was trying to be funny, because to me-mind you, just to me-it looked like a regular night on Fixed News.
Worsts, Orly Taitz Limbaugh says he can almost blame Obama for the Ft. Hood tragedy. Wow, such restraint.
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More on this new party:
http://cbs4.com/politics/tea.party.florida.2.1303226.html">Tea Party Registered As Political Party In Florida
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