# GOP establishment fears the monster they created... **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [February 4, 2013, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-establishment-fears-the-monster-they-created/649337 "2013-02-04T20:50:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2013, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-establishment-fears-the-monster-they-created/649337/61 "2013-02-06T02:35:04Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > By 2016, Hillary will have been a major public figure for a quarter of a century. People will have largely made up their minds about what they think of her generally. They can try re-running Hillary Hate, but it’ll do more to rally support for her than opposition to her. If I were 69 years old, I don’t think I’d want to put up with another several years of “but what about BenGHAAAAAAAAAAAAZI?” ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2013, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-establishment-fears-the-monster-they-created/649337/62 "2013-02-06T02:49:22Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > If I were 69 years old, I don’t think I’d want to put up with another several years of “but what about BenGHAAAAAAAAAAAAZI?” She’ll have to learn to roll her eyes very discreetly but still visibly. And by 2016, most Americans won’t remember what “Benghazi” is supposed to mean in the GOP lexicon. Increasingly, the wingnuts are talking in code that means nothing to most Americans. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2013, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-establishment-fears-the-monster-they-created/649337/63 "2013-02-06T03:08:35Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Uhm, it was a joke. > > Have you had your blood pressure checked recently? No, it wasn’t a joke. You were illiterate–he was using the correct definition of “their” but an ambiguous antecedent. Not that it’s important. I just thought you might enjoy seeing what your brand of petty nit-picking feels like. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2013, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-establishment-fears-the-monster-they-created/649337/64 "2013-02-06T03:11:58Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Have you had your blood pressure checked recently? > [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](#): > > I just thought you might enjoy seeing what your brand of petty nit-picking feels like. Tone it down, please. ---
**Author:** ![Zakalwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zakalwe/32/270_2.png) [@Zakalwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zakalwe)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2013, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-establishment-fears-the-monster-they-created/649337/65 "2013-02-06T03:12:56Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > She’ll have to learn to roll her eyes very discreetly but still visibly. And by 2016, most Americans won’t remember what “Benghazi” is supposed to mean in the GOP lexicon. Increasingly, the wingnuts are talking in code that means nothing to most Americans. Seriously. How true is this? I find myself looking up phrases just to see what they’re supposed to mean to the people they’re aimed at. “like a snowstorm in February” - the fuck? Oh. It’s code for “Obama is a Kenyan, Muslim, atheist who wants to destroy America”, who knew? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2013, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-establishment-fears-the-monster-they-created/649337/66 "2013-02-06T03:21:43Z")
> [@Hello\_Again](#): > > I’m, like, 99% sure it’s tortious. Correct; spelled it wrong. (Damn, that spoils the “all the way down” bit! ☹ ) ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2013, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-establishment-fears-the-monster-they-created/649337/67 "2013-02-06T03:39:04Z")
> [@Asympotically\_fat](#): > > They need the Tea Party constituency to vote for them, but what they don’t need them is to dictate policy for them. The right wing of the party would still vote for a more centrist candidate. They might not like it, they’re not about to vote Democrat because of it. No; but they may well decide to simply stay home and not vote at all for someone they consider a Democrat in disguise. > [@Asympotically\_fat](#): > > I think that would serve as a major wake-up call to them and the influence of the Tea Party wing will instantly evaporate to nothing AND then you will see the kind of changes being made to drag themselves to the centre and make them electable. There’s a problem with that though; the Democrats are already there at what passes for a center; they’ve spent the last few decades sliding to the Right just behind the Republicans. Unless the Democrats move left, there’s no _room_ for the Republicans to move very much to the center without become indistinguishable from the Democrats. ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2013, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-establishment-fears-the-monster-they-created/649337/68 "2013-02-06T10:03:11Z")
> [@NitroPress](#): > > Occupy was co-opted by day 2. Which was unsurprising. By whom? ---
**Author:** ![Dick\_Dastardly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c4cdca/32.png) [@Dick\_Dastardly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dick_Dastardly)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2013, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-establishment-fears-the-monster-they-created/649337/69 "2013-02-06T10:39:22Z")
> [@Happy\_Lendervedder](#): > > Well I guess we’ll see, won’t we? This Democratic overconfidence is troublesome, however. I’m never overconfident. Something could happen like the 2008 economic meltdown that gets tied to Obama and ruins the Democratic brand. But likely things the Democrats push like an immgration reform will just split the GOP and highlight their non-friendly Hispanic/Asian attitudes. The GOP have to have a 2016 nomination process too. That means candidates having to appeal to GOP _primary voters_, the craziest of the crazy, who aren’t going to be in a more moderate mood after four more years of the Kenyan socialist and so they’ll have the same clown car derby they had in 2008. The GOP spent decades appealing to white resentment and it worked because of the white majority. But they don’t have a majority anymore and so the policies they used have now come back to bite them in the ass. As Senator Huckleberry Closetcase recently pointed out, they’ve run out of angry white guys : [http://gawker.com/5939404/sen-lindsey-graham-not-enough-angry-white-guys-to-sustain-gop](http://gawker.com/5939404/sen-lindsey-graham-not-enough-angry-white-guys-to-sustain-gop) ---
**Author:** ![Dick\_Dastardly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c4cdca/32.png) [@Dick\_Dastardly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dick_Dastardly)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2013, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-establishment-fears-the-monster-they-created/649337/70 "2013-02-06T10:44:18Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > If she stays healthy, she’ll have to run against Joe Biden, Martin O’Malley, and probably Brian Schweitzer. I think Biden will prove to be a paper tiger, but a lot of people will be ready for someone more of Obama’s generation than Hillary’s, and O’Malley will be a strong contender. Nobody wins 2016 in a walk. I follow US politics quite closely and I’ve never heard of O’Malley. I’ve heard the second name but can’t remember where. Hillary is known by everyone, (now) massively popular with the Democratic base, is a woman\* and has a funding network that will dwarf every single candidate in the race. She’ll also have Obama’s campaign databases of supporters and the best people will want to work for her. If she stays healthy and runs it’ll be a coronation, the other guys won’t even be window dressing. \*You can’t underestimate this. After the first black president the first woman president. ---
**Author:** ![Dick\_Dastardly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c4cdca/32.png) [@Dick\_Dastardly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dick_Dastardly)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2013, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-establishment-fears-the-monster-they-created/649337/71 "2013-02-06T10:46:56Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > She’ll have to learn to roll her eyes very discreetly but still visibly. And by 2016, most Americans won’t remember what “Benghazi” is supposed to mean in the GOP lexicon. Increasingly, the wingnuts are talking in code that means nothing to most Americans. This is undoubtedly true. Benghazi and things like it only matter to people who hate her anyway. They’d be doing her a favour by attacking her on things like this. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2013, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-establishment-fears-the-monster-they-created/649337/72 "2013-02-06T12:25:22Z")
> [@Dick\_Dastardly](#): > > I follow US politics quite closely and I’ve never heard of O’Malley. I’ve heard the second name but can’t remember where. [Martin O’Malley](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_O%27Malley) is in his second term as governor of Maryland, and before that he was mayor of Baltimore for eight years, and city council and so forth before that. He’s chaired the Democratic Governors’ Association, which is a modest springboard for Presidential candidacies; past chairs include Bill Clinton and Howard Dean. More significantly, someone isn’t likely to hold that position unless the people who run the national party think well of him/her. So he’s got a good record, he’s well-connected, he’s running, and his second term as governor conveniently ends in January 2015. He will be 53 in 2016. If Hillary weren’t in the race, he’d be the guy to put your money on. And I would hardly count him out. The Democratic primary electorate is younger than the (_get off my lawn!_) GOP primary electorate; Hillary’s age may be a bit more of a problem on the Dem side than McCain’s was on the GOP side. ---
**Author:** ![mozchron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c2a13f/32.png) [@mozchron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mozchron)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2013, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-establishment-fears-the-monster-they-created/649337/73 "2013-02-06T12:58:39Z")
O’Malley is awesome. I lived in Baltimore while he was mayor and governor. Popular, charismatic, young, he played in a celtic band while mayor for god’s sake. I think he could give Hillary a run for her money. I am sure he has large political aspirations, but whether 2016 is in his plans I don’t know. He’s young enough that he can wait. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2013, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-establishment-fears-the-monster-they-created/649337/74 "2013-02-06T15:24:32Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > I would guess the same thing. I could just as easily propose that eliminating daylight saving time,\*\* the designated hitter,\*\* and left lane exits on highways would have the same effect. Hmm. Well, THAT would at least get me reading the newsletter… ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2013, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-establishment-fears-the-monster-they-created/649337/75 "2013-02-06T16:22:20Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > If she stays healthy, she’ll have to run against Joe Biden, Martin O’Malley, and probably Brian Schweitzer. I think Biden will prove to be a paper tiger, but a lot of people will be ready for someone more of Obama’s generation than Hillary’s, and O’Malley will be a strong contender. Nobody wins 2016 in a walk. > [@Dick\_Dastardly](#): > > I follow US politics quite closely and I’ve never heard of O’Malley. I’ve heard the second name but can’t remember where. Former front man for the Stray Cats; along with Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and Royal Crown Revue, a major player in the rise of “retro swing’s” popularity. ETA: 😃 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2013, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-establishment-fears-the-monster-they-created/649337/76 "2013-02-06T16:41:00Z")
> [@Dick\_Dastardly](#): > > Hillary is known by everyone, (now) massively popular with the Democratic base, is a woman\* . . . > > \*You can’t underestimate this. But you can **dispute** it, or at least the RW has and will. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2013, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-establishment-fears-the-monster-they-created/649337/77 "2013-02-06T18:45:29Z")
> [@mozchron](#): > > O’Malley is awesome. I lived in Baltimore while he was mayor and governor. Popular, charismatic, young, he played in a celtic band while mayor for god’s sake. > > I think he could give Hillary a run for her money. I am sure he has large political aspirations, but whether 2016 is in his plans I don’t know. He’s young enough that he can wait. Everyone pretty much assumes that he’s running. And while he’s young enough to wait, there’s the question of what he’s going to do with himself if he waits for 2020+. He’s term-limited out of the governorship in January 2015, and neither of Maryland’s Senators, both Democrats, seem to be contemplating retirement. He needs to run in 2016 while his experience as governor is still fresh: even if his sights are really set on the future, 2016 is when he needs to run to become nationally known, raise his visibility for the veepstakes, and so forth. ---
**Author:** ![Dick\_Dastardly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c4cdca/32.png) [@Dick\_Dastardly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dick_Dastardly)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2013, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-establishment-fears-the-monster-they-created/649337/78 "2013-02-06T19:20:45Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > But you can **dispute** it, or at least the RW has and will. She’s got cankles too. ---
**Author:** ![Dick\_Dastardly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c4cdca/32.png) [@Dick\_Dastardly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dick_Dastardly)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2013, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-establishment-fears-the-monster-they-created/649337/79 "2013-02-06T19:24:05Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > [Martin O’Malley](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_O%27Malley) is in his second term as governor of Maryland, and before that he was mayor of Baltimore for eight years, and city council and so forth before that. He’s chaired the Democratic Governors’ Association, which is a modest springboard for Presidential candidacies; past chairs include Bill Clinton and Howard Dean. More significantly, someone isn’t likely to hold that position unless the people who run the national party think well of him/her. So he’s got a good record, he’s well-connected, he’s running, and his second term as governor conveniently ends in January 2015. He will be 53 in 2016. > > If Hillary weren’t in the race, he’d be the guy to put your money on. And I would hardly count him out. The Democratic primary electorate is younger than the (_get off my lawn!_) GOP primary electorate; Hillary’s age may be a bit more of a problem on the Dem side than McCain’s was on the GOP side. I don’t see the age thing as being a problem unless she isn’t healthy and I don’t think there’s a generational issue at all. If she was some crusty old Senator who’d been in the Senate for decades then maybe but when you’re such a major and vibrant political figure then it’s not going to matter ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2013, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-establishment-fears-the-monster-they-created/649337/80 "2013-02-06T21:10:49Z")
> [@Dick\_Dastardly](#): > > I don’t see the age thing as being a problem unless she isn’t healthy and I don’t think there’s a generational issue at all. If she was some crusty old Senator who’d been in the Senate for decades then maybe but when you’re such a major and vibrant political figure then it’s not going to matter Sure, Hillary’s never been the presumed front runner for the Democratic nomination, only to be beaten by a young upstart. 😉 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-establishment-fears-the-monster-they-created/649337.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-establishment-fears-the-monster-they-created/649337.md?page=5)