There was a monster tornado on September 14 in Oz; Dorthy, kicking her heels together wildly, was swept up in it and found herself back in Kansas. The gold yellow brick road was destroyed. In response, the Obama administration promised to divert $823,000 from a study of African genital washing stimuli to Oz, along with Vice President Biden and the Honorable Charles Rangel to assist in its distribution. To demonstrate the post-partisan nature of the effort, Karl Rove has agreed to go with them to help.
What caused the tornado, besides global warming and George Bush II, the root of all our national disgrace? Nobody in the Washington establishment has been able to figure it out. Karl Rove apparently complained that it was a man woman-caused disaster, and lamented that it was terrible and probably means the end of civilized politics as we have known and loved it. If the stupid tea party fascists want to screw up the Grand Old Party, they wouldn’t get any support. Michael Steele, the inappropriately surnamed chairman of the Republican National Committee, welcomed Ms. O’Donnell to the fold and sent an e-mail elaborating on her merits:
The people of Delaware have spoken. And just like voters across America, they are demanding commonsense conservative candidates who will focus on the issues that matter most to them: creating jobs, turning the economy around and protecting our most cherished freedoms.
Christine O’Donnell is exactly that type of candidate and the RNC is proud to support her and our entire slate of Republican candidates in Delaware. But with only 48 days until Election Day, time is running out for Republican grassroots leaders like you to help the RNC provide Christine and all our candidates with the campaign resources and direct financial assistance they need to win.
Please make an urgent contribution of $50, $75 or $100 to RNC Victory today to help fully fund the Victory Centers in Delaware and across the nation that are the key to winning the 39 seats in the House we need to Fire Nancy Pelosi and the ten we must capture in the Senate to Retire Harry Reid.
Your 2010 election contribution today is critical to ensuring Christine O’Donnell and every Republican candidate receives the get-out-the-vote and campaign support they need to fight back and win an historic victory for our Party and our country on November 2nd. Please give as generously as you can.
That’s cool. On the various conservative blogs, the reactions generally amounted to a hand gesture hardly amounting to clapping. By the morning of September 16, Ms. O’Donnell had received $750,000, and was shooting for $1,000,000 in post-September 14 contributions from those who might (or might not) otherwise have pledged the funds to the RNC. This was terrible. Ms. O’Donnell’s overloaded website crashed, a sure sign that even the internet gods (it was invented by Al Gore, don’t ya know) don’t like her. How could she possibly hope to win a Senate seat in November? It’s all madness! What’s a moderate RINO Republican to do? Weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth (if any) might help, but more is needed.
In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, when Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent had escaped from the about-to-be-destroyed Earth by hitching a ride on a Volgon spaceship and the ship was about to go into hyperspace drive, Ford warned Arthur that it would be unpleasant: like getting drunk. Arthur questioned Ford why he thought that getting drunk was unpleasant. Ford answered, “Ask a glass of water.” The September 14 primaries, particularly in Delaware, were indeed rather like getting drunk for the GOP establishment, and the hangover may be even worse.
The Earth has not yet been destroyed, either by the Volgons or the tea parties. Still, they are persistent devils and we must all be wary. As Karl Rove may have said, “*&(*&#$%! This has to be stopped, now.” It turns out that Michael Steele said, forcefully, “Gosh darn! We gotta do something. How about a new party slogan, like ‘Now is the time for all good men Republicans to come to the aid of their party’?” Maybe he can think of something better. There is, as best I have been able to determine, no truth to the rumor that daily viewings of the Caine Mutiny have been scheduled at RNC headquarters.
On September 15, the Democratic National Committee made a breathlessly awaited major announcement about the future of the party, possibly including how it plans to counter the tsunami generated by the tornadoes in Oz and elsewhere — it has redesigned its website! Here it is! That’s very impressive and, as all fair-minded folks must agree, the old website was rather clunky. Gosh darn, I’d vote for a Democrat for that reason alone (there are not many others). But then, I’m a reasonable guy and always follow the instructions to “cast your vote here for a cleaner America” when I pass a municipal trash can; the world is a better place because of it, I’m confident.
Will Ms. O’Donnell’s nomination prevent the Republican Party from gaining a Senate seat in the November elections? Quite possibly it will, and that’s not good. Nor is it certain. In any event, it has obviously opened the eyes of at least some leaders of the party to the power of the tea party folks, and to their demands that business cease being carried on as usual. That’s important. The Republican Party is not a private country club, which the common people are to be encouraged to support financially and with votes but in the functioning of which they are unwelcome. If this change comes between now and November 2012, there may well be a far better chance of the election of a conservative to the presidency. As opined here:
Whatever the fate of the slate of “tea party” candidates running in November, conservatives say this year’s primary season already has changed the Republican Party for the better.
They say Republican leaders are finally respecting the tea party movement’s disgust with politicians who campaign to limit government size and slash spending, but vote to do the opposite once in Congress, and are realizing the perils of ignoring the voters attracted to the movement’s message.
“All of a sudden, the Washington political insiders have lost control of the Republican Party’s machinery, and there is a more powerful grassroots movement out there on the conservative side than at any time in American history — stronger than the 1964 Goldwater movement, the 1976 Reagan movement, and the grassroots-led takeover of Congress in 1994,” said former Texas GOP Chairman Tom Pauken.
Sometimes, the “the self-styled political experts who dominate media coverage” get it wrong, as noted in this Washington Times editorial. Roger Kimball observed here:
If conservatives do not like O’Donnell, then they should be out identifying better candidates to run against vulnerable RINOs — because somebody is going to run. These incumbent takedowns are going to inspire a lot of new people to get into electoral politics, many of them without the sort of experience or backgrounds that Establishment types are comfortable with. Power, like nature, abhors a vacuum.
If so, that’s a very good thing and the next few years should be very interesting.
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