Republican Collapse
By CHARLES M. BLOW
Published: October 16, 2013 658 Comments
Congress has finally worked out a deal to end the government shutdown
and dodge default, but not before the Republican Party demonstrated to
Americans just how conflicted and dangerous it is.
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Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings
Institution, this week described our current Congress as a greater
danger to national security than Al Qaeda, writing, “We don’t tend to
talk about Congress as — at this stage — what it plainly is: the
clearest and most present danger in the world to the national security
of the United States.”
That is what the G.O.P.-led House has brought us. Conservatives outside
the chamber know defeat when they see it, and want to live to fight
another day. But they beat their chests in vain as their laments fall on
the deaf ears of the far-right political death squads.
On Tuesday, the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial pages blasted:
“This is the quality of thinking — or lack thereof — that has afflicted
many GOP conservatives from the beginning of this budget showdown. They
picked a goal they couldn’t achieve in trying to defund ObamaCare from
one House of Congress, and then they picked a means they couldn’t
sustain politically by pursuing a long government shutdown and
threatening to blow through the debt limit.”
Senator John McCain said
this week, “Republicans have to understand we have lost this battle, as
I predicted weeks ago, that we would not be able to win because we were
demanding something that was not achievable.”
Senator Lindsey Graham put it more bluntly: “We really did go too far. We screwed up.”
But, far-right elements of the House cannot be reasoned with. They
prefer to go down in a blaze of glory — or at least take the country
down in one.
And arguably no one is more the face of this disaster than Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, labeled by one New York Republican representative, Peter King, as a “fraud” and “false prophet,” who helped orchestrate it.
The Houston Chronicle editorial board
on Tuesday took the extraordinary step of trying to withdraw its
endorsement of Cruz, an endorsement that no doubt helped get him
elected. An editorial posted to the paper’s Web site began, “Does anyone
else miss Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison?”, the senator Cruz replaced. It
went on:
“When we endorsed Ted Cruz in last November’s general election, we did
so with many reservations and at least one specific recommendation --
that he follow Hutchison’s example in his conduct as a senator.
Obviously, he has not done so. Cruz has been part of the problem in
specific situations where Hutchison would have been part of the
solution.”
It seems everyone is waking up to what a disaster this current
Republican contingent of extremists has become and how poisonous they
are to the functioning of our democracy. Better late than never, I
suppose.
Cruz’s favorable ratings are underwater in Pew’s, Gallup’s, Fox News’ and Quinnipiac’s polling.
But then, Cruz doesn’t put much stake in polls, with their pesky numbers.
According to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll
taken last week, views of the Republican Party sank to record lows and
70 percent of respondents thought Republicans in Congress were putting
their own political agenda ahead of what was good for the country.
The poll also found that negative feelings about the Tea Party had
risen, with 47 percent saying they had negative feelings about the
group, including 34 percent who described their feelings as “very
negative.” Just 21 percent of Americans now say they feel positive about
the group.
But when Cruz was asked Friday about the poll, he dismissed it
as having a problematic methodology. He said: “If you seek out liberal
Obama supporters and ask them their views, they’re going to tell you
they’re liberal Obama supporters. That’s not reflective of where this
country is.” In fact, it is Cruz’s methodology that is flawed. His
grandiloquence may well be the undoing of the Grand Old Party.
According to a Pew Research report released Tuesday:
“A record-high 74% of registered voters now say that most members of
Congress should not be reelected in 2014 (just 18% say they should). By
comparison, at similar points in both the 2010 and 2006 midterm cycles
only about half of registered voters wanted to see most representatives
replaced.”
The report also found:
“An early read of voter preferences for the 2014 midterm shows that the
Democrats have a six-point edge: 49% of registered voters say they would
vote for or lean toward voting for the Democratic candidate in their
district, while 43% support or lean toward the Republican candidate.”
Republicans terribly misplayed a weak hand on the government shutdown
and the debt ceiling. There was never any chance of success other than
scaring the president and the Democrats into caving. President Obama and
Harry Reid called their bluff and they were left with no real options.
This is an embarrassment for the country, yes, but it’s also an
embarrassment for the Republican Party that lays bare their motives,
tactics and intention. It may not be so easy for voters to forget this
come next November.
As the conservative Matt Drudge tweeted on Wednesday: “Speaker Pelosi Part 2: Opening Jan 5, 2015.” If only.
end quote from:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/17/opinion/blow-republican-collapse.html?_r=0
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