Tag: Republicans

McCain Can’t Think of Any Savvy Republicans

Trish

I would find someone even as high-ranking, frankly, as former President Bill Clinton to go and be the negotiator.

Sen. John McCain, offering his opinion on how to end the Israeli-Hamas violence in Gaza and Tel Aviv. It’s notable that McCain couldn’t think of a single Republican who would be creative enough, or able to come up with fresh ideas, or skilled at finding compromise, to lead such an effort.

Murphy Defeats West Again as Board Misses Deadline

Trish
Current but soon to be former Rep. Allen West

Despite a judge’s refusal to grant a recount to Rep. Allen West (GOP/Tea-Fla.), a partial recount of the early votes only is under way, as of Saturday morning, Nov. 17.

The colorful (read: “nut case“) tea party congressman lost to Democrat Patrick Murphy by about 0.6 percent. Florida law requires that a candidate lose by 0.5 percent or less to trigger a full ballot recount. But when the governor of the state is Rick Scott, himself a tea party champion, anything can happen.

Updates available after the jump

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Think of the Savings If These States Secede

Trish

23%

Amount of total federal revenue alloted to the states in 2010 that was taken by six of the seven states with the most signatures on petitions to secede following Pres. Obama’s re-election. The states are Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina. Alabama also gathered among the most signatures but did not receive as much funding.

Romney: We Need to Get Somebody in Here to Come Up With Something.

Trish

Going forward, clearly we have to have an immigration plan, this idea of just kicking this down the field until every four years the Democrats use it as an issue to hit us over the head with is nuts, we have to have an immigration plan and program, and I certainly hope that our leaders in Washington are willing to put that forward.

— Mitt Romney, in one of two calls to donors explaining his 2012 election loss. Romney’s statement makes clear what Democrats suspected all along: Romney had no plans, no coherent ideas on major issues. He simply asked voters to choose him and then to trust that he would make it up as he went along. But his statement about hoping “our leaders in Washington,” meaning the national GOP, will come up with something shows just how much Romney planned to delegate had he been elected.

You Almost Feel Sorry for the Tea Party. But Not Quite

Trish

This is hard for me to process. With all the debt, all the unemployment and the bad economic indicators, how is it that Obama is only 2.5 percentage points down from where he was in 2008?

— Soon to be former state Rep. Scott Plakon (Longwood), who lost his seat in the Florida House on Tuesday. Plakon was author of the first of 12 tea party inspired state constitutional amendments — the one that would have exempted Florida from healthcare reform, aka Obamacare. Only the three most innocuous amendments were accepted by voters, who turned down Plakon’s along with restrictions on abortion and more tax cuts for industry. Plakon and other tea party members are struggling to understand why sentiment in the country isn’t as portrayed on FOX News. They might start by taking another look at those “bad economic indicators,” which have been steadily improving for about two years.

Mitt Who? Republicans Hurry to Be Post-Romney

Trish
Mitt, during his concession speech: 'Can we make this go by a little faster?'

Before dawn broke in my neighborhood, the Romney/Ryan yard signs disappeared from lawns. The zzzppptt! of Romney/Ryan bumper stickers being torn off like bandaids, in grim, lip-pursed yanks, might be what woke me up this morning.

Almost as if they had never existed, the traces of Romney’s support were gone. As soon as it became evident that Pres. Obama had easily held off his shape-shifting opponent, the Romney brand was in the clearance bin.

The main lesson is one that Democrats learned in 2004, when hating George W. Bush wasn’t enough to put Generic Democratic Challenger in the White House

For the vast majority of Romney’s base, his support was more about what he wasn’t than what he was. He wasn’t, of course, Barack Obama. Beyond that, he was Generic Republican Challenger, and he stirred as much passion in his followers, if they could be called that, as a can of Ensure. Yes, he had all the ingredients they needed but they’d really rather have had them in a slice of pizza.

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Time For Mitch McConnell to Get a New Hobby

Trish


McConnell realizes he can count to two.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) famously declared that the most important goal of the Republican party for the past few years was to make Barack Obama a one-term president.

But even after tirelessly obstructing each and every initiative put forward by the president; and with the economy improving despite every Republican attempt — including having rightwing CEOs threaten their employees that they would cut jobs if Obama won — to keep it in the Bush recession; and causing such inertia in Congress that its approval numbers nearly imperil democracy…even after all this, McConnell failed in his number one goal.

So with your help, we’d like to develop some new goals for Mitch. Please leave your suggestions in the comments.

  • Have surgery to remove turtle chin
  • Read a book on how to govern, and what the point of being in the Senate is
  • Announce you will not run for re-election in 2014
  • Announce that you will retire early to spend more time with your family
  • Announce that you are actually stepping down today and then go back to your old Kentucky home and never be heard from again