Larry Sabato, liberal-leaning political science professor (forgive the redundancy) at UVA gave his political predictions for 2014 on Fox News this morning.:
— a lot of retirements in House will be announced soon Obama’s “lame duckhood” will become “lamer”
— governorships will not see much change in party
— GOP will gain a couple of seats in Senate and could win control with some luck
— Tea Party has lost most of its influence (something about “it now has support of only immediate family and close relatives”).
Wonderful to hear from Larry! Now, my predictions:
— As Sabato’s predictions reflect current conventional wisdom and the near-unanimous views of pundits on both sides I am reminded of the lyrics (with a slight change) of a song popular to the season: “It’s beginning to look a lot like “Mitt’smas” (recall how confident Karl was?);
— Unless Boehner can somehow walk back his angry remarks about conservatives and the Tea Party’s congressional candidates, the GOP has a bleak election season staring them in the face.
— Even Boehner’s irresponsible fits of pique and the inexplicably malicious behavior of the Establishment Republicans and the US Chamber of Opportunism toward conservatives, however, may not necessarily be fatal.
In my view, what will assure the demise of the GOP as a serious political party is the outcome of the actions of House Republicans regarding three key issues:
1) the immigration/amnesty debate (Boehner, Ryan are already receiving kudos from the Obamanuts, Organizing for Action, for their apparent intention to pass the Senate bill, or at least, the worst parts of it.
2) the impending push to extend unemployment benefits and raise the minimum wage to unrealistic and destructive levels.
3) the Congressional Republicans submitting to further dictatorial actions by Obama (for which Podesta has been brought into the administration) and Harry Reid. Further executive action as was taken by Obama in his first five years will not only dissolve constitution governance and neutralize Congress as a “co-equal branch, it will confirm the current status of US government as a defacto dictatorship and Republicans as having rolled over.
The GOP’s usual ineptitude on any one of these is likely to subvert the opportunities presented by the mid-term election to the Democrats; two or more could cause a rout. Conservatives, in my view, are already questioning the value and wisdom of supporting the GOP as it is being led today.
Indeed the GOP may really be the “Stupid Party.” In fact, I’m becoming convinced that it really isn’t a serious political party at all. It seems content to be an unannounced adjunct to the Democrat Party.
Consider the US Chamber of Commerce announcement that it will spend $50 million to attack Republicans and the move is applauded by “establishment Republicans.” This is so extraordinary that it must give pause to every conservative who, heretofore, would never consider a third party.
Think about what that $50 million will be used for. It will be spent to attack conservative Republicans who are backed by a significant part of the GOP base with all kinds of negative ads. It’ll be spent on opposition research, all for the purpose of totally discrediting the candidate and ridiculing their principled conservative positions.
Let’s imagine that that candidate, a true conservative, is able to overcome the attack and wins the nomination (consider how quickly the establishment abandoned all those candidates who made a misstep that Democrats would have defended or dismissed as irrelevant). We’ve actually seen the results over and over. The Dems need not do any more in the general election than rerun ads originally prepared by those “free market” Chamber folks and the Establishment GOP. Now, that is stupid!
DLH
Ed Note: Our Illustrious Senior Editor (ISE), a.k.a DLH, also forwarded the following commentary by a popular Washington Times Community blogger James Richard Edwards (excerpts appended, see the entire article here). The warnings issued by our ISE and seen persistently in the many blogs we monitor should not be ignored or minimized by Republican leadership at any level. There is far more to be lost than gained by even the perception of a Republican “corporate” establishment’s war with the conservative base.
As surmised herein, maybe they do not care. If so then why should the base care about the Republican Party? In this editor’s judgement the situation is salvageable, and sufficient victory possible, only if the likes of Boehner, the Chamber of Commerce and establishment Republicans would not be so oblivious to their appearance as pathetic corporate lackies and flacks, the same losing togs they wore in 2012.
GOP establishment gears up to destroy any chance at midterm success in 2014
HOUSTON, December 30, 2013 ― The establishment GOP in Washington hates the Tea Party and the conservative wing of the party more than they do the Democrats. They will make very clear that instead of riding a conservative wave to a landslide victory in the 2014 midterms, they will do everything in their power to sabotage conservative and Tea Party candidates for their own personal benefit.
Many establishment groups have been vocal about their strategy to attack principled conservatives. Karl Rove’s American Crossroads is “preparing an aggressive effort to groom and support more centrist Republican candidates.” The Chamber of Commerce, who supports illegal and cheap labor and wants to push for amnesty and further corporate welfare, recently devoted “at least 50 million dollars” to stop Tea Party candidates and promote moderate Republicans. . . .
In 2010 . . . when the conservative grassroots led the agenda, the Republicans won 63 new seats. That was the second-largest number of new seats won in the House of Representatives in one cycle in the history of the country.
In the last 40 years, Republicans have won the presidency by a landslide twice. They were led both times by Ronald Reagan, a principled conservative and not the establishment choice. Reagan won 44 states in 1980 and 49 states in 1984.
The GOP ruling class’ shortsightedness and lack of principles will cost the GOP control of the Senate and very well may destroy the Republican party in its entirety. Anyone who is opposed to the fascist Obama agenda had better hope that they choose a different course, however, it has been made clear that conservatives, the GOP’s base, and not Democrats are the real enemy.
