It’s not Gerald Ford claiming that “There is no Soviet dominance of Eastern Europe.” It isn’t nearly as bad as John McCain “suspending” his presidential campaign so that he could be seen sitting at a table with other famous people, getting rolled by Harry Reid. But it ain’t good, either. Here it is:
In a new interview, Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren claims much of the credit for the Occupy Wall Street protests sweeping the nation.
“I created much of the intellectual foundation for what they do,” the Harvard Law School professor and former Obama administration consumer advocate told Samuel P. Jacobs of The Daily Beast. “I support what they do.”
The National Republican Senatorial Committee, charged with helped Senator Scott Brown win reelection, jumped on the comment.
So I guess I have to take back my comment that the NRSC is totally useless — not that it takes a genius to hop on Warren for that one. But there’s something important here, and not one of the GOP candidates has shown the brains or savvy to see it.
The riots of 1968 gave us Richard Nixon. The Vietnam War had already claimed LBJ, and Nixon was never going to get to the left of Hubert Humphrey on that issue. So who was going to elect Nixon? “The Silent Majority,” by his own estimation — and he was right.
The Silent Majority was those great numbers of Americans who didn’t grow their hair long and make a pisshole out of White Lake or try to burn down Washington, Baltimore, Chicago and Louisville.
Most Americans aren’t like that.
Most Americans still aren’t.
As Occupy Wall Street/Detroit/Los Angeles/Mandalay wears on, it becomes uglier, more criminal, and less sympathetic. But President Obama has already sided, somewhat, kinda, with OWS. He can’t on the one hand, say “we are on their side,” and other the other brush them off as “just some kids in my neighborhood.” The President has taken his side, and it’s not with the Silent Majority.
What the GOP needs — and I think this is the person who will win the nomination — is a “law and order” candidate. Oh, the term is clichéd and self-defeating, but the sentiment is neither. If this incoherent mass temper tantrum goes on much longer, Americans are going to demand an end to it.
Of all the GOP contenders, Herman Cain has come the closest to taking on OWS, but “blame yourself” is hardly a winning campaign theme. The post-modern law and order mantle is still up grabs.
Will anyone take it?
PS I think Warren has just sealed her fate as the second Democrat to lose to Scott Brown in Massachusetts for the US Senate.
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