remember michael steele throwing out the possibility (later he backtracked) of “punishing” the three senators that voted for the stimulus bill? another beauty:
The Louisville Courier-Journal has another bombshell about Sen. Jim Bunning, the embattled Republican who is increasingly going rogue in an effort to hold onto his seat.
In recent weeks, Senate Republican leaders have walked right up to the edge of declaring open war on Bunning. Minority Leader (and fellow Kentucky senator) Mitch McConnell and others reportedly believe Bunning is likely to lose his reelection race in 2010, and so are trying to nudge him into retirement by sending signals that the party establishment will not back him.
Bunning has responded aggressively, threatening to sue the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm if it doesn’t fully back his reelection.
And now the latest: Bunning “reportedly said privately that if he is hindered in raising money for his re-election campaign he is ready with a response that would be politically devastating for Senate Republicans: his resignation.”
and seeing how kentucky has a democratic governor, it looks like bunning wants to go nuclear with the threat of a senate supermajority
Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele took umbrage Saturday night when CNN’s D.L. Hughley referred to radio host Rush Limbaugh as “the de facto leader of the Republican party.”
“No he’s not. I’m the de facto leader of the Republican party,” Steele said. The RNC chief went on to call Limbaugh, who that very day delivered the keynote address to the Conservative Political Action Conference, a mere “entertainer” whose show is “incendiary” and “ugly.”
On his radio show today, Limbaugh fired back, calling the RNC and Michael Steele “so-called Republicans” and saying that they “need a little leadership.”
“So I am an entertainer and I have 20 million listeners because of my great song and dance routine,” Limbaugh said. “Michael Steele, you are head of the Republican National Committee. You are not head of the Republican party. Tens of millions of conservatives and Republicans have nothing to do with the Republican National Committee…and when you call them asking for money, they hang up on you.”
“I hope that changes,” Limbaugh continued. “It’s time, Mr. Steele, for you to go behind the scenes and start doing the work that you were elected to do instead of being some talking-head media star.”
Taking the conservative project as a whole—limited government, fiscal prudence, equality under law, personal liberty, patriotism, realism abroad—has talk radio helped or hurt? All those good things are plainly off the table for the next four years at least, a prospect that conservatives can only view with anguish. Did the Limbaughs, Hannitys, Savages, and Ingrahams lead us to this sorry state of affairs?
They surely did. At the very least, by yoking themselves to the clueless George W. Bush and his free-spending administration, they helped create the great debt bubble that has now burst so spectacularly. The big names, too, were all uncritical of the decade-long (at least) efforts to “build democracy” in no-account nations with politically primitive populations. Sean Hannity called the Iraq War a “massive success,” and in January 2008 deemed the U.S. economy “phenomenal.”
Michael Steele, titular head of the GOP, looks like he is trying to unbuckle the party from Rush.
On the same night he was offering the keynote address to the Conservative Political Action Conference, Rush Limbaugh drew criticism from an unlikely source: Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele.
In a little-noticed interview Saturday night, Steele dismissed Limbaugh as an “entertainer” whose show is “incendiary” and “ugly.”
As a long term strategy the GOP cant keep letting these guys define their agenda, but I have to imagine that will come with a lot of short term pain. I’d bet the “ditto heads” represent at least 30% of self identified “Republicans” (30% figure taken completely out of my ass btw).
It wouldn’t last very long, Bunning represents rural Kentucky. If we can’t ditch Mitch, there’s no chance of a Dem staying in power after the election.
Hard to imagine this article appeared in the American Conservative.
It’s not that surprising, The American Conservative is a paleocon magazine and mostly appeals to conservatives with an anarchistic/libertarian streak. They hate the neocons and have long been critical of “low-brow” conservatism. I was actually surprised with how lightly they treated the Limbaugh/Hannity set in that article, I thought they were going to tear into them as charlatans.
Michael Steele, titular head of the GOP, looks like he is trying to unbuckle the party from Rush.
The first indication I’ve seen that Steele is smart enough to see where this is heading.
I thought Obama tangling with Rush was his first huge misstep. Limbaugh is a master self-promoter and any tangling he does with the president is only going to make him more relevant and strengthen his position as the “voice of the opposition”. I wondered why the administration was even talking about him.
But now the situation is looking more and more interesting. Rush, of course, couldn’t resist the opportunity to claim the mantle of Republican leadership. And now that he’s taken the pedestal, the administration is hammering home, “See! This is the what the Republican party represents. This is the moral and intellectual leader of the Republican party”.
Limbaugh may be popular amongst the dittoheads, but like Sarah Palin he’s a HUGE turnoff to moderates. Despite his actions in office, George W. Bush didn’t run as an arch-conservative or a Limbaugh Republican, he ran as a “compassionate conservative”, a moderate with a history of bipartisanship. The Republicans are teetering on the edge of veering sharply to the right, and exiling themselves to the political fringe for the forseeable future. And it now appears that the Obama administration is looking to give them a push, by goading their worst aspects into becoming the public face of the opposition. VERY interesting.
“I went back at that tape and I realized words that I said weren’t what I was thinking,” Steele said. “It was one of those things where I thinking I was saying one thing, and it came out differently. What I was trying to say was a lot of people … want to make Rush the scapegoat, the bogeyman, and he’s not.”
It’s unfortunate. If a large cross-section of Republicans “revolted” from the vile Limbaugh movement and instead tried to come up with more efficient, cost-effective ways to help America with it’s problems they could probably “reboot” their party image sooner rather than later. Instead, they’re too afraid of Limbaugh to admit that maybe – just maybe – rebuilding this country is a good idea.
The thing I love most about Steele is that it just shows the degree to which the party learned the wrong lesson from Obama’s win.
It wasn’t their worship of laissez faire capitalism at any cost, it wasn’t their shrill partisanship, it wasn’t their insistence on nothing but tax cuts for the rich, it wasn’t their belief that all government - effective or not - is worthless, it wasn’t their bumbling response to an economic crisis or their massive incompetence when faced with disaster at home and abroad.
It wasn’t that they lost because their opponent struck all the right notes, appealed to the independents and the moderate Republicans - not to mention the better angels of our nature - was charismatic and a master of rhetoric, harped on hope (the greatest intoxicant any salesperson has in their arsenal), appealed to the next generation, and ruthlessly out-fundraised, out-organized and out-foxed them.
No, they lost because they didn’t field a black guy. That’s what they learned from Obama’s victory.
Hey, do I get to say “I told you so” now? Oh, no, the nuts don’t run the Republican party. They’re just useful tools. Ha. Limbaugh and Palin. That’s the future of the GOP.
