The ongoing attack on women’s rights by Republican candidates is so backward, so politically foolish, that it feels as though the party doesn’t really want to win in November. It feels like they’re throwing the election.
The thought that this election is nothing but a smokescreen has been tugging at me for months, that it’s nothing but ground cover created by some evil genius sitting in a shuttered office on K Street. Someone who knows that the real issue is getting money out of American politics to level the playing field for equal representation. Someone who realized that something new might be needed to keep the money issue away from the race to protect the privileges of the corporations and the very wealthy and that the usual hot button issues of God, guns and gays might be running out of emotional steam, so he turned to women’s rights. It’s been settled for years. Nobody would see it coming. It was ingenious, and capable of creating enough smoke to cloud the real issues, like the way our broken government has been completely co-opted by big money.
Things are so dysfunctional following Bill Clinton’s destruction of the Glass Steagall Act and eight years of George W. Bush, that the Republicans might be better off letting Mr. Obama stay right where he is for four more years. Big money owns the system anyway, our politicians are mostly bought and paid for, so why not? Let a Democratic administration continue cleaning up the Clinton/Bush mess, trying to untangle the United States from two wars while the threat of a second Great Depression continues hovering over our heads.
Rational political observers will tell you the Republicans are in trouble because they’ve been forced to play to their base to win in the primaries, a base that’s been moving farther and farther to the right. And that’s true. But it still doesn’t explain this current attack on women’s rights. It’s political suicide. If you think Romney will be able to pivot back to the center after this, you’re out of your mind.
More than half the population is made up of women. And they go to the polls. The number of women turning out to vote in presidential races equals or exceeds the turnout for men. The Republican kingmakers know this, so nothing adds up. Suddenly, two and two make five as we are led to the conclusion that these guys are doing all they can to throw the election. But that can’t be, can it? No, it must be that they’ve been trapped into playing to their base to get through the primaries, leaving the party so shattered that they’ve become their own worst enemies. It’s the only reasonable explanation.
That must be it.
Just when I settle down and get comfortable with the thinking of reasonable people, I go to the latest news and read, “Rick Santorum suggested that re-electing President Barack Obama would be better than electing Republican rival Mitt Romney, a statement that is arguably his toughest criticism of Romney to date.”
Really? What new form of internecine madness is this? It’s almost like they’re throwing the election.
The “attack on women’s rights” by Republican candidates and the “war against women” by conservatives, is that really happening or is it just another spin from the lineup at MSNBC? Being a moderate Republican with a streak of independence prevalent, I have yet to be notified of the war nor have I been recruited. It seems that the only place where I have heard of such incredible slants is from the continual mush spewed out from MSNBC.
Of course the Republican elite are throwing the election basically just like they did in 2008. You provided a good rationale when you said:
“…the Republicans might be better off letting Mr. Obama stay right where he is for four more years. Big money owns the system anyway, our politicians are mostly bought and paid for, so why not? Let a Democratic administration continue cleaning up the Clinton/Bush mess, trying to untangle the United States from two wars while the threat of a second Great Depression continues hovering over our heads.”
The results of Obama’s 3+ years in office have been incredibly successful for the Republican Party, thus Obama’s implementation of the GOP plan has been flawless. Barack Obama is no accidental gift to the Republican Party. While he bows to every foreign leader possible, he’s really taking a bow for the GOP that deliberately installed him as president to do what no Republican could ever get away with.
They threw the election in 2008 as well by nominating an old man with cancer and a completely unqualified nutjob woman Governor from Alaska. Remember how the sequence unfolded. Obama had his Democratic Convention, which culminated in a speech watched by millions, who were inspired, enthused, once again believing in their country and all the heart-warming, tear-inducing bullshit that Obama spewed out. Rather than rain on that parade, the Republicans responded …. by choosing Sarah Palin as McCain’s running mate.
Everyone was shocked, but it was a foregone conclusion from then on. It would be a sweeping “Democratic Victory”, throwing out the old, hated Bush and especially Cheney, ushering in a new era of Patriotic Goodness, when in fact, the only thing that changed was the tattered curtain which was starting to fail to hide the men behind it.
More than ever, money and the expense of campaigns makes sure that anyone who would truly upset the status quo will never get the chance. People who are substantial donors will only back “safe” candidates. Perhaps they will back a radical right winger to protect their favourable tax status but they will never back someone who threatens their money.
If the Republicans wanted to win in 2012 they would run a candidate who could court the socially liberal/fiscally conservative moderate middle. They have such candidates but made sure they were not in the running. It’s Obama in 2012…