This leads to potentially the biggest problem of them all, which is that the GOP establishment and its pundit class constitute the sorest of sore losers. They have expected genuine conservatives to swallow their pride for decades and vote for moderate squishes who were in some ways barely better than their Democratic brethren (e.g., John McCain, Bob Dole, and Gerald Ford nationally, as well as more state and local candidates than one can hope to count). But as was the case in 1980 with Ronald Reagan, it appears that there is no establishment desire to reciprocate and provide meaningful resources to the winners if their people lose, starting with Mitt Romney and his acolytes at the national level and moving on down from there — even if it leads to Barack Obama’s reelection.
Here’s my problem with conflating the state level argument against a single scumbag, and trying to impute that to a broader “establishment and pundit class” argument.
I buy the one-off argument against the scumbag in Ohio. I do NOT buy the “establishment and pundit class” argument. Eric Cantor has been in John Boehner’s grill…their staffs can barely stand to be in the same room together. Which one is the “establishment”?
How about Daniels? Christie? Paul Ryan?
Who is the GOP “pundit class” and what have they opined about the scumbag in Ohio?
The “expansion” of the argument is where it loses potency. If you had held fast to the exposure of Kasich’s enemies in Ohio…you had me. And…I would have carried that message far and wide. Tried to help you blow it wide open.
Once you lumped in the argument about “establishment and pundit class”, you lost me. I believe it’s a myth. Sour grapes and pixie dust.
It’s Gingrichery sleight of hand. HE needs it…because he’s running as one third-Reagan torch bearer, one third-McCain anti-”establishment” “maverick”, and one third-Obama, magical transformer and big idea carny barker.
But nobody with a lick of sense is buying this nonsense about an “establishment/punditry” cabal that “controls” voters with their voodoo.
I want to hear MORE about the scumbag in Ohio, that interests me. And, I would like to help Kasich crush that.
I want to hear LESS about some mythical group of unicorns and voodoo pixie dust controlling national voting patterns.
