OK. What does it mean? She is a tea bagger and outside the mainstream ,way outside.she was not backed by the party because they figured Castle could win the senate. It is highly unlikely ,according to Repubs, that she can win.
Odonnell is a bit extreme. She says masturbation is wrong. She claims porno is equivalent to cheating on your spouse. Her finances are questionable at best.
She is in a sense not a Republican. She won over a party candidate. I read that she is not getting financial aid from the Republican party in the coming election. In a way she ran against the Republican party. The party is not in control of these people . It is interesting . The Republican party was playing with fire when they helped out the Tea baggers. Now they have to pay.
To the contrary, Odonnell’s the new true Scotsman of the Grand Old Party. Her tea party faction will begin sweeping away the old ‘culture of corruption’ GOP leadership after November.
I’ll not be too surprised if they try to make masturbation a criminal matter within the next decade.
The GOP power structure finally recognizes their enemy:
Just saw the clip of her on the Rachel show. She’s a frigid sin-obsessed little god-botherer. She probably shows up at confession and the priest tells her to go get laid already.
I really doubt they’ll simply sacrifice the seat. I expect like many of their other candidates they’ll start polishing and give her talking points to stick on.
The sad thing is it could work. Democrats are failing to motivate their base and come election time plenty of people will just be checking the R box not truly understanding what they’ll get. The Democrats will lose if they do not fund negative ads. The Republicans need only throw some money her way to get her name out there.
Disregarding the assumption that she is crazy, it is going to be interesting how the GOP will govern with the Tea Party folks having a significant caucus in both the House and Senate. Assuming that the Republicans do gain control of the House (a safe bet at this juncture), the real test for them will be the development of their first budget. It will be interesting to see who emerges as the leader of the House Tea Party Caucus. It sure as hell won’t be Boehner, who is a golf course, Chamber of Commerce-type Republican if ever there was one. He’s like Gerald Ford under the influence of a Sith Lord. Michelle Bachmann has her fan base, but she couldn’t manage a meat market, much less control a caucus. Newt Gingrich kept the 1994 House Republican Freshmen under some semblance of control (at least until they ate him). Tom DeLay kept the Republicans unified during his reign as Majority Leader, but he, like Boehner, was no principled idealist-- he’d peddle his ass to anybody if the price was right. I don’t see a natural leader for the Tea Partiers in the House.
I would expect that O’Donnell, if elected to the Senate along with Sharon Angle, etc., would follow the leadership of Jim DeMint at least for the time being. There may have a hard time influencing policy in the Senate, since they won’t feel bound by that body’s traditions and (limited) sense of decorum.
So there will be a leadership vacuum for the true Tea Party types that get elected. They aren’t beholden to the “establishment”, so who will be calling their tune? Their local constituents? The blogosphere? Dick Armey? Rush Limbaugh? The Koch Brothers? Satan? Such is the nature of a leaderless movement, part of the appeal of which is fact that there are no leaders. Stay tuned!
This is about Repubs against Repubs. They thought they had found a group of people they could successfully use to get power. But now they are facing a group that may not play nice with them. The Repubs have been historically a controlled party that can whip pols into line. They can make them filibuster to fight the Dems over and over. But now they have a new problem in their future. I would not be shocked if they did not financially back their new pals. I bet the Repubs are embroiled in conferences all night trying to come to grips with this turn of events.
It’s not ‘Repubs against Repubs’. It’s conservatives and Libertarians no longer willing to get into bed with any Republican simply for the sake of winning.
Don’t forget - the Republicans are almost as unpopular as the Democrats. The Tea Party is the great mass of people to the right of center in America, who are sick of politics as usual. It used to be that these people were reliable Republican votes - even for Republicans who behaved like big-government corporate stooges. They’re finding out now that all the electorate cares about is their policies. They’re in no mood to elect a Republican like Castle or Cristie in Florida just because they are Republicans. If they are establishment types with mixed voting records, they’re not getting the Tea Party’s support.
I suspect a lot of you on the left would do the same to the Democrats if you could manage to organize a progressive movement as large as the Tea Party’s. You’d probably rather vote for an ‘unelectable’ but principled progressive than hold your nose and vote for some blue-dog Democrat.
“Right of center”? Does that mean that you think Tea Partiers are less conservative than mainstream Republicans? Or am I reading too much into that?
Maybe I’m not progressive enough but no. I’d rather vote for someone who actually has a chance of winning. The overall balance of power in Congress is more meaningful than any particular seat and if voting for some chucklehead I only agree with 55% of the time means that some other guy I agree with 20% of the time will lose and my party will be closer to being the majority… well, that’s a no brainer to me.
Bingo - we have a winner
The GOP party of old is seeing the beginning of what is going to be a significant housecleaning. The conservatives are a huge voting bloc that’s pissed off and motivated. Goodbye RINOs
The question is how big are they? The tea baggers have been loyal Repubs for a long time. It appears they may not go along now. John Boner can say what he wants to whip them into voting shape, but i don’t think it will work.Some will owe the party nothing.
What is the tea bagger position on the expiration of the Bush tax cuts? Will they back letting it die, or take the tax benefit out for the rich?
I’m not sure whether I want to look myself, but I’m wondering what the prominent conservative-type blogs think about all this - both the victory and the Fox News report.
They obviously support extending them.
Wow…where to start? (And not that I wholly disagree but that it is a complex assessment.)
Is O’Donnell principled? I guess that depends on how you define “principled”. Certainly she seems to have the courage of her convictions so she is “principled” in the sense that she adheres to her ideals. On the flip side though is her ideals are hardly defensible and not ones I would call principled.
As a progressive liberal (myself) I was energized by Obama. I now feel wholly ripped off by Obama. His rhetoric is great but the guy who claimed to be willing to fight the good fight has done anything but. He had a majority in Congress and a mandate and he let Republicans run roughshod over him over and over again with nary a peep. While I am sure you (Sam) are happy he didn’t get his way I’m not and that is not what I voted him in for.
So then, you might say, don’t vote for him again and there is the rub for progressives (liberals). Those claiming to be liberal/progressive only need to be just better enough than the opposition to get my vote. Knowing back then (when I voted for Obama) what I know now would I change my vote? Hell no…McCain and someone else maybe (maybe) I could have voted for with hindsight but McCain/Palin? Not in a million years. I’d pen in Mickey Mouse before I cast a vote for that ticket.
Now I think Republicans are in the same boat. In the past they have been able to be monolithic. That monolith is cracking. How it will sort itself out I have no idea but I think there are a lot of people who cannot vote for O’Donnell. A primary is one thing, a general election is another and that monolithic republican vote will see some move away and make it not so monolithic.
How this will all play out in the end I have no idea. Maybe it is time to reform our voting system so third parties have a chance.
If you see O’Donnell as Libertarian and a person you would like to see win then that is scary. Not even sure how a person who tells you that you shouldn’t masturbate can even be considered Libertarian in the first place. She is…I don’t know what she is except a nutjob.
Ah, great. We’re trying to beat a Boehner and now we find out it’s sinful. Seriously, if O’Donnell wins, we might as well have a military coup. I’d write her off, but in a small state all it takes is a frenzied minority to push someone through. One can only hope the grownups show up in November.
Suppose this is an aside, but the two aren’t mutually exclusive IF the position is masturbation is wrong, but none of the government’s business.
I have no idea if that’s O’Donnell’s position.
They’ll have to pry it out of my cold, dead fingers!