Cannibals

I haven't really believed that the GOP civil war was as serious as it now appears. I saw new right wing alliances forming between guys like Newt Gingrich, Eric Cantor, Bobby Jindal, and Michael Steele. I assumed, wrongly, that the GOP rank and file would be quick to defer on matters of political strategy to unofficially organized conservative blocks like the ones I've suggested and others I haven't.

But it ain't like that, not yet.

It's a total free-for-all.

Steele is clearly way crazier than anybody really thought and has become something of a disaster. I knew he'd developed a media ego during his time at Fox but I thought that cons liked him so much because he actually had some policy/organizing chops. Instead, we've been introduced to a bizarre caricature of a Republican politician.

But I think nothing sums up where the GOP is than this spat between former Bush speechwriter David Frum and the incredibly crazy Mark Levin, who must have the world's smallest penis.

The background is that Frum wrote a column in which he soberly explains why Democrats are so glad to continue to make Rush Limbaugh the head of the GOP. He's dead-on in his analysis.

Levin got real upset and has been blasting Frum all week.

Then they spoke on Levin's show. It ain't pretty.

You must be this crazy to ride the Republican roller coaster I guess. All descend, no climb.

Birth Pangs of Opposition

RNC picks Michael Steele, former Lt. Governor of Maryland as new Chairman.

I've been saying that this represents the smart choice for the GOP but given how contentious things have been within the caucus, I'm not sure that conservatives will unite behind the decisions Steele makes to substantively change tactics or expand the coalition.

I've also said that this 'helps' Republicans in the mold of Newt Gingrich and Bobby Jindal.

RNC: Rock Bottom Coming Any Day Now

For whatever reason, I've been following the race for the new Chairman of the RNC especially closely. Many bloggers have found that little campaign to be an exercise in unintentional comedy - and I'd have to agree - but I think it also happens to be fascinatingly microcosmic of the GOP's larger need to reorient given the new political environment.

I was almost certain after the election that Michael Steele, the African American former Lt. Governor of Maryland, was a sure thing. I felt this way because the Republican brand had become such poison to the minds of... well pretty much everyone outside of Southern White Men.

I figured, because it was statistically evident, that Republicans would realize that they couldn't continue to hemorrhage Latinos, white Catholics, and suburbanites from their caucus. I imagined that, if only out of the need for self-preservation, that RNC voters would elect someone that could help reinvent the GOP as a legitimate national party.

Steele, in addition to being a token minority in the GOP, also happens to be pretty smart and charismatic. He's also from a 'northern' state, one with a huge suburban population that has become non competitive for the GOP.

Given the leadership vacuum in today's GOP, Steele seemed like a sensible choice, one that would have mirrored (image-wise, to become a national party) what the DNC did (substance-wise, to become a national party) under Howard Dean after Kerry's loss in 2004.

After Gingrich opted out of the RNC race to sort of? back Steele, I figured Steele's chances had only improved. Gingrich is a huge mark for Bobby Jindal and it seemed intuitive that RNCers would start orienting themselves to take advantage of some of their younger rising stars.

But that's not what has happened at all...

Nobody's getting whipped into line for this. In fact, the race has seemed to grow more fractious over time.

On one end you have nonmember candidates like Steele and former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell. On the other you have several current or former heads of state party organizations including Saul Anuzis (Michigan), Katon Dawson (South Carolina), Mike Duncan (Bush's appointment, formerly head of the Kentucky GOP), and Chip Saltsman (Tennessee).

This Perry Bacon Jr. article in the Washington Post indicates that RNC voters are reluctant to vote in a nonmember. It also says that Chip Saltsman's 'Barack the Magic Negro' giftbag has effectively killed his chances, contrary to reports of a reactionary boomlet in favor of his candidacy after news of the giftbag leaked. That leaves Azunis, Duncan, and Dawson. (Never mind that Dawson has struggled to explain his long-standing membership in an all-white country club. Guess it hasn't been as big a media-issue as the Saltsman CD)

How interesting it is that so many RNC voters have decided to disqualify the two African American candidates. The rationale for Steele I stated above. Blackwell, for his part, recently racked up the endorsements of many of the major influentials of the conservative movement including James Dobson, Tony Perkins, Pat Toomey, Phyllis Schlafly, etc.

But none of that seems to matter since RNC voters have decided to discriminate against nonmember candidates, regardless of qualifications, conservative credentials, potential effectiveness...

Why do you think that is?

Giggle away.

Anh Cao Goes to Washington

Oyster's piece yesterday was excellent.

It's not easy to be comfortable with the prospective mentors lining up at his door and Cao's preference for the House Ways and Means Committee seems comically naive, if it wasn't originally intended to be a joke.

Today, the Times-Picayune's Jonathan Tilove touched on the various GOP talking points on Cao's victory. RNC Chairman Mike Duncan and Minority Leader Boehner waxed on and on about Cao's race as symbolic of the upcoming GOP phoenix.

At first, I simply thought that Cao's victory was just being massaged by GOP messengers as a matter of routine. Cao provides cover to boost the morale of the troops, to win a day in the media. The GOP's got to take what it can get.

I remember when the Dems got massacred in the 2002 midterms but Mary Landrieu was able to win in a December runoff. The same sort of thing happens. Party leaders need some happy stuff to put into the quarterly newsletter, you know?

So they simply exaggerate the symbolism of the victory and the potential of the victor.

But at the same time, this GOP is in such disarray that it's not so implausible that Cao could find some room to maneuver. Or, put another way, some of Cao's mentors might find some room for him to maneuver.

Cao has two things going for him, in terms of political opportunity within the GOP.

First, in a rhetorical sense, one way the GOP will attempt to rise is by putting their best foot forward on ethics. Something something about absolute power corrupting something something. The Democrats got a lot of mileage out of the ethical missteps of their GOP colleagues and the GOP will try to do the same.

According to the Hill, Republicans are already salivating. The article features a lot of GOP ejaculations over the Blago arrest in Illinois but it also touches on the expanded allegations into Charlie Rangel of New York. More:

The stream of bad news for Democrats on the ethics front shows no sign of letting up anytime soon.

Just Monday, the Chicago Tribune broke a story about Rep. Luis Gutierrez’s (D-Ill.) questionable real estate deals involving a developer and a longtime political donor that netted him $420,000. In the past week, The Village Voice also reminded readers that Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), the top candidate to chair the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, was videotaped accepting a bribe back in the 1980s.

“There is just a torrent of this stuff — it seems like it’s never-ending,” gushed one GOP aide.

I think it's fairly certain that we're not done discovering GOP skeletons, as a probe into Senator Coleman is casting a wider net, but I do think that the fractured GOP will fight back on matters of congressional ethics and honor in terms of perception and portrayal. Joseph Cao is a shiny new trophy for the caucus to be photographed with.

It's a no-brainer talking point effort for Republicans, who are fairly divided on matters of policy. It's something they can get the caucus around for demonstrations of unity while the fundamentalist and pragmatist wings of the party duke it out for future control.

The second thing Cao might be able to use is the aforementioned GOP civil war. Guys like Mike Duncan and Newt Gingrich are competitors for the RNC chair. Duncan is hoping to stay on while Gingrich is backing Michael Steele from Maryland. There are a number of other candidates for that job. The Republicans in the House have already decided to keep Boehner at the top, so there are few positions from which to reform the GOP.

Cao can play politics here. He has a higher profile than most freshman GOPers because of the nature and timing of his victory. He represents token diversity in a party that has none and he also represents one of major issues on which the GOP will use to try to climb back to respectability.

Still, the Ways and Means Committee?

That would take some kind of political savant. From Cao's "jokes" the other day, it's pretty hard to see that. We'll find out soon, I guess.

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I was also going to call out Bill Jefferson for not congratulating Mr. Cao but I realized that I hadn't offered any congratulations myself.

Congratulations to Anh Cao for his victory. I wish him the best of luck and I am curious to see what he's able to accomplish.

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I almost went on a speculative tangent when thinking about the GOP leadership vacuum, the RNC, etc. I'll do that now. This is bad analysis, poor speculation. It borders on a wanton prediction. But it's fun to do this stuff.

Guys like John Boehner and Mike Duncan seem to me to be fairly responsible for recent GOP congressional massacres. I think they're kind of in the same boat together as far as their organizing principles and messaging strategies.

Guys like Michael Steele and Newt Gingrich have been on the sidelines shooting spitballs from cushy perches as analysts for the media. They've been able to be conservative while also having the wiggle room to distance themselves from the excesses of the Bush years. I think guys like Gingrich and Steele are all about setting things up for the conservative 'solutions' of outsider Bobby Jindal. I think guys like Boehner and Duncan are all about Mitt Romney or something.