The GOP is going for double or nothing.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

They are the poster child for the gambler's adage "scared money never wins".

If you lost half your life savings at the craps table, an honest reckoning of the situation would lead you to conclude that gambling was a degenerate vice, that you needed to give it up, and figure out a way to build up your savings again, which might take years.

The hopeless degenerate shrugs his shoulders and puts the rest of his savings down for more chips, desperately hoping to get it back with a roll of the dice.

An honest reckoning for the GOP, even if somewhat cynical and self serving, would conclude that the GOP CANNOT continue to simply be the party for older Southern Christian white people and expect to do well nationally. It's already failing and demographics show it likely to do much worse in the future. The math is simple, the GOP simply MUST do a better job appealing to Hispanics, youth, even African American voters if it is to be viable nationally. With a new direction, the GOP might indeed lose a little support from the rabid wingnuts and perhaps even do a little worse in the short term, it might take an election cycle or two to start seeing any concrete benefits. But even in the short term some loss of wingnut enthusiasm and turnout could at least be balanced by a bit of crossover votes from the mushy middle, or apathetic people who vote for Democrats now because they find the GOP appalling, returning to apathy and not voting.

NOBAMA haters on parade isn't going to get that done. Michael Steele is so fucked, talking about how he's going to craft some sort of superficial "hip hop" appeal and broaden GOP appeal without any change whatsoever in the substantive content of GOP message or policies, now he's throwing in his lot with the teabag haters. Good luck with those Hispanic and "hip hop" voters, Michael.

They ran into a ditch with George Bush at the helm, and the rest of us with them unfortunately. Bush was really their ultimate champion though they disown him now. He is what happens when the GOP gets entirely its way for about a full term. He had the White House and Congress and used war to bully the rest of us, and had his complete way for a few years. Unilateral war waging, incompetent cronyism and contract spending and upper end tax breaks run amok. The results were disastrous and thankfully the election institutions are still functioning to the point where we could remove this type of government and we did. Decisively.

The thing of it is, this "teabag" type of strategy, and yesterday's Astroturf bullshit completely typifies the whole GOP propaganda operation of the last 20 years or so, is likely counterproductive. It doesn't even seem smart at all from a strategic standpoint in terms of being likely to net you more voters and win future elections. It seems that the GOP and FOX are simply acting out of instinct and old habits, they refuse to even consider anything else to do but their old ways.

The majority of America, who voted for PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA and more Democratic Senators and Congressmen/women, aren't going to look at that sad group of angry, bitter pudgy pasty people, basically engaged in a petulant howl of rage that a majority of the country rejects their mindset, and think "Yeah! I want to be a part of THAT movement!" They see douchebags, holding teabags.

We're moving forward. Fuck these people, and fuck Fox News.

[FrenchieCat]

1. You are correct....

Negativity is not a solution.

[AndyA]

2. Amen.

A fool will lose tomorrow looking back at yesterday.

Bush is gone. The remnants of his bad policies, corruption, and irresponsibility are still with us, but they will not keep us down for long.

Out with the hate, bigotry, and bullshit of the Bush era.

The only thing we need to do is make sure this can never happen again, and to do so we must look back long enough to investigate and prosecute. The values from the past are dead, the majority of Americans have spoken and they do not share those old, outdated, hateful values with the minority.

[Arugula Latte]

3. I was pleased to see so many of the tea baggers were older folks.

(If I were cruel I'd call them " tea saggers" but I will refrain. :evilgrin: )

That's not a good sign for their movement. I mean -- look:

[Stuart G]

4. I agree too. nt

[tridim]

5. I was worried back when these people filled the seats at Palin rallies

Because at that time Palin had a slight chance of becoming VP. That possibility caused me lots of stress.

Now I'm not worried at all. These people are the backwash-iest of the backwash, they represent a tiny percentage of the general voting public and I believe even a minority of Republicans. Palin will be lucky to get 5% of the primary vote in 2012.

[CrispyQ]

12. "the backwash-iest of the backwash"

:rofl:

As for the OP, I agree. The GOP has to shake off the religious radicals & the neocons if they want any chance of being relevant again.

[lyonn]

6. They are desperate, yet their ideas got us in this mess we are in

While watching Obama this a.m. discussing our rail system and plans to improve it, once again I feel so confident in our new leader - he gets it. It still amazes me that we have a black President. A President that shows he has the brains to see the whole picture, not just the party BS that Bush exhibited. Had Bush been black and spoke and acted the way he did while in office the bible thumpers would have come unglued.

The GOP is in misery watching Obama doing the right thing. Bullies do finally get their comeuppance and it sure hurts. It's way sad that there are troops still dieing in Iraq and Afghanistan due to bush's insanity/arrogance (the bottom line on what was in bush's Head is still up for discussion).

[smoogatz]

7. That's why the Repukes have to lie about their agenda.

If they told the truth--that they're the party of unchecked corporate power and zero taxation for the rich--nobody would vote for them. Not even southern white people.

[lyonn]

9. I am surrounded by people that make less than $50,000 per yr

and they are diehard repubs. They grab that Big Gun (Ak47??) and can't wait to shoot that sucker, preferably with a group around them to admire their poweress. They use god when it is to their benefit. The men think child support is not their responsibility. Our local media feeds them daily.

Must insist that not all Okies are in this caliber! Just way too many.

[imdjh]

8. The worst thing George Bush did to America

In my opinion of course, the worst thing George Bush did to America was destroy the illusion of the innocence of a people governed by the guilty, even if the guilty were elected. I don't know if it was farsighted propaganda or cultural connection and natural affinity, but even the German people escaped being one with Hitler. We conquered Hitler, we liberated Germany.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

10. And I think they got nothing.

The Tea Bag Protest revealed a lot of things they would probably prefer to leave concealed:

1.Despite weeks of promoting what is essentially an anti-Obama protest as much as they try to make it an anti-deficit protest, the turn out was lackluster in the extreme. Liberals and anti-war groups have done a lot better with no media support or involvement, mostly because their protests were based on reality and real issues. Here we had some bizarro world protests where people who had recently just gotten a tax reduction were protesting for: lower taxes? they just got them. Lower taxes for the wealthy? Why? Higher taxes to pay the deficits? In other words, I don't think they knew what exactly they were protesting.

2. The protesters turned out to be an older group of non-diverse people making old arguments against old and already dispatched enemies. Why are they fighting Lenin, Marx, Engels, Stalin and the like? They're dead, they're gone, their ideas have already been dismissed by history and even by entities like the Soviet Union itself. They are fighting boogey men and they just look really stupid. They fling around words like "Fascist" and "Socialist" because those are the trigger words that their corporate overlords like Hannity, Limbaugh and Savage have trained them to salivate at.

3. They are an amalgamation of splinter groups: your gun nuts who are terrified that Obama is going to take away their guns with no basis in fact for this belief, your old timey racists, your just general know-nothings who long for a return to the 1950's suburbia of their youth. Should someone tell them that welfare reform happened years ago in the Clinton administration and they can forget the old Reagan fairy tales about "welfare queens"? In a nutshell, they appear to be the Palin coalition.

All in all, very bad news for Republicans and the MSM hatemongers like Hannity, Limbaugh, Savage and the like who should read this as a huge diminishment in any broad appeal they may have once had.

[DCKit]

14. Very nicely said Phoebe. I was going to K&R anyway...

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

15. Thank you. OP was a winner for me and crystallized some thoughts

I love how that works here. :hi:

[Froward69]

11. NOBAMA haters on parade

is an apt description.

[Danascot]

13. Remember "Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade"?

The bad guy has to choose the Holy Grail from among several vessels. He chooses an attractive one, dips it into the water and takes a drink. The keeper of the Grail says, "You have chosen poorly.", whereupon the evildoer crumbles to dust and blows away.

The GOP has chosen poorly.

[tabasco]

16. Great post!

Hear hear!!

:toast:

[deacon]

17. Very true. And fox news yesterday, cemented they are a propaganda outlet with their coverage of

the tea parties. Glen beck and ted nugent??? What a combo. beck complaining about the media and he is the media sponsoring such an idiotic event. They incite violence.