Have They Had Their Fill of Tea?

Grog I think it is entirely pos­si­ble for some thing to be a tem­po­rary net pos­i­tive and then turn out to be a longer term net neg­a­tive. I don’t think any one on here would argue that the teapers helped the Repub­li­cans pick up seats in the last elec­tion The real ques­tion would be at what long term cost. If over time or maybe even now and into the next elec­tion the pub­lic per­cep­tion to that new ele­ment of the Repub­li­can becomes a demon­stra­ble turn off A N D it trans­lates into losses in elec­tions it will prob­a­bly trans­late into a strong net negative.

I don’t think any one is so obliv­i­ous to demo­graph­ics and regional vot­ing paterns to not also under­stand that the teaper ele­ment will hold sway in cer­tain areas of the coun­try for some time to come as that move­ment to the ever more right has been some thing that we have been see­ing over time. Other areas that lurched that direc­tion in the last elec­tion may well lurch back this time depend­ing on can­di­dates offered and the mes­sage that is delivered.

I can use my own state and area as a small lab on this. We got teapered hard last time around and will be deal­ing with the fall out for the fore­see­able future. Staunch Repub­li­can friends that have been the back bone of the party for as long as I have been alive see an elec­toral blood bath com­ing their way. I don’t see it as being that bad but they do. So even at this level the teapers may well have been a short term pos­i­tive that could well prove have a long term neg­a­tive for the Repub­li­cans. One thing that will set the stage for this is how the teapers han­dle Sen Snowe. If they as promised go after her ham­mer and tong there will be a back­lash. When even our moron teaper 28% approval govenor knows bet­ter than to ven­ture into that mine field it says a great deal. Now keep in mind even here there are teaper enclaves that will keep demand­ing more cow bell and regres­sion even as their for­tunes sink because of teaper action. Much of this has and is being dri­ven from the evan­gel­i­cal pul­pit and I sus­pect that is no difer­ent in this state than in many oth­ers. So regions that have gone all in on the evan­gel­i­cal move­ment will con­tinue to teaper them­selves out of exis­tence while the teaper fad we saw last time around will not just fade but be bur­ried in other areas.

While we are at it. Polls that pur­port to show Perry beat­ing the pres­i­dent or Perry and any of the other far right can­di­dates beat­ing him are I think at best sus­pect. Rom­ney run­ning sort of even, ok maybe. But to think that Perry or Bach­mann would win if the elec­tion were right now.….….…I don’t think I would bet the farm on that proposition.

Mac as with so many things polit­i­cal there will come a time when some one will decide that they wish to clense their soul before they depart or maybe they will wish to gain one brief moment in the sun but at some point we will actu­ally learn much more about the whole Swift Boat­ing escapade and other elec­tion shenagians from that elec­tion. I sus­pect we will learn that there were those in our midst that inten­tion­ally per­verted our elec­toral process to fur­ther their goals.

Was Kerry an awful can­di­date? Well he did have his moments but those swung both ways. I can remem­ber inter­views where I thought he was really on his A game and oth­ers where I think his mes­sag­ing got seri­ousy mud­dled. Was it all his lack­ing or the swift boat­ing? I think that was hard to tell But I do feel where you have one side that is not inter­ested in hav­ing a cam­paign of issues over raw emo­tion it is going to be very hard for an issues can­di­date to gain any trac­tion in todays media morass.

That Kerry came as close as he did prob­a­bly does speak to his via­bil­ity but it may just as well speak to the cul­pa­bil­ity of those that were arayed against him and their dis­tain for fair play and the elec­toral process. My real fear is that we could well see the same thing again this next time around. Way to much talk from some of the same cir­cles about voter fraud and the need to pro­tect the process when many of us have a much greater fear of elec­tion fraud. I guess we shall see but con­sid­er­ing some of what seems to be play­ing out in this land I tru­ely see this next elec­tion play­ing out along sim­i­lar lines. It shall be raw emo­tion and cow­bell from one side and an attempt to frame the issues and the choices from the other.

A good friend thinks that at some point Pres­i­dent Obama is going to have to make a deci­sion as to how badly he wants to be a two term pres­i­dent and just maybe fin­ish some of what he set out to do or con­tinue to try and be con­cil­ia­tory and com­pro­mis­ing to the oppo­si­tion. I keep won­der­ing just how firey he might be able to be if he made that deci­sion in one way. The man can never get ¹⁄₃ of the elec­torate for they could be reduced to eat­ing dog crap and he and his hav­ing the only answers to cor­rect­ing the sit­u­a­tion and still they would vote against him. Then there is the ¹⁄₃ that should vote for him but that may still have their knick­ers in a knot because he hasn’t been every thing they wanted.……some fire in the belly moments could bring much of that ele­ment back in the fold, not all but most. Then that remain­ing 1/3.……that cohort of the mid­dle. I do not include in this either dis­a­fected Repub­li­cans or Democ­rats that may call them­selves Inde­pen­dents but really are not hell I don’t even know that I would include myself in it but that really and tru­ely mid­dle that doesn’t know which way to go. I have a sus­pi­cion that an Obama that came out and put his cards down that he had tried to com­pro­mise and that he had tried to work both sides and been kicked in the teeth for the effort and that he was if elected going ahead and screw the oppo­si­tion might gain far more than he would lose.

Lead, fol­low or get out of the way could become a cam­paign mantra that would work against an oppo­nent that is almost going to have to run on I will lead you back to the dark ages, I will never fol­low any other path even though it is proven the one I want to take is wrong for the vast major­ity of Amer­i­cans and me and mine refuse to get out of the way so that the major­ity of Amer­i­cans can again at least think there is hope the Amer­i­can dream still exists.

In my own heart of hearts I yearn for a fight fire with fire cam­paign. Now the question.….How bad does the pres­i­dent want to have the chance to fin­ish what in many ways he never got the chance to start?