1

Oh, bloody hell.  I love my old state, but seriously, people?

2 For fuck's sake.  What are they thinking?

3 Yeah, this is basically my worst nightmare come true.

4 What part of "Bull Moose" do these people not understand?

"Go Perot!"

5 Is the GOP fielding a halfway decent candidate?  If this would otherwise be another McCain vs. Obama scenario, I say go for it Tea Party.

6 It's not too late to call or e-mail whomever's doing this and express support for them, but encourage them not to take this route. Let's find their facebook page and remind them about Ross Perot. Here is the Daily Caller on the candidates:

"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democrat, has $8.7 million. He also will get a fundraising boost from Obama this week when the president shows up in Nevada on Friday. The closest Republican is banker John Chachas, with $1.7 million. Businessman Danny Tarkanian has about $377,000, and former state Sen. Sue Lowden has roughly $498,000. But the state of this race is more clear than most: Reid is going to need every cent if he hopes to win reelection. Reid’s negatives are sky high in the state, and he trails both Tarkanian and Lowden in most polls."

7 ugh. Seriously, as angry and dissatisfied as I am with the GOP/RNC, this race is not the place to do it. Knocking off Harry Reid, which was likely up until this news, should be priority #1.

8 What, was Ross Perot too long ago for these numnuts? This run has to be scuttled immediately. 

9

I remember the lesson of 2008 extremely well.  Obama has been everything I hoped for and more.  He's so incompetent that many more people are questioning The Government rather than one party or the other.

In terms of what he's actually gotten accomplished (nothing), he's about where McCain would be.  So instead of a one-term dipshit Republican, you've got a one-term dipshit Dem.  Much more importantly, you've got near-certain huge gains in the House and Senate (maybe even enough to overturn majorities), something that would never have happened with a GOP prez.

Here's your sentence reworded a bit:  Absolute ideological party purity is so important that it's worth electing Harry Reid (Barack Obama) to send that message.

Maybe it's the GOP who shouldn't field a candidate.

10 If the GOP can't field sufficient candidates, expect this sort of thing to happen.  I think this is partially a reaction to Tarkanian's anti-2nd views.  Tarkanian was endorsed by the Brady Fascists, and has ranged from C to F in his NRA grades.  Republicans would be really stupid to forget 1994 and 2000 and the political problems being anti-2nd can cause.  Harry Reid is a douchebag of the highest order, but he knows his generally pro-2nd record helps him stay in power.  One of the few things that social cons, fiscal cons and libertarians generally agree on is that we all like guns, big piles of shiny guns.  And Nevada is pretty typically pro-2nd.

11 Dave makes a valid point if you're looking at this in the long term.  Rebuilding a culture of opposition to overbearing centralized power is critical to maintaining a free nation.

12 I guess what I'm saying here is you have to weigh the long term goal of changing the culture with the short-term damage Harry Reid can do with another six years in office.  It's a valid question.

13

Dpud has me read correctly.  I did pretty much nail the 2008 election and the consequences thereof.  Point by point:

Deficit and unemployment:  same under McCain.  The prez largely has zero control of economics, unless he's willing to take the Fed head on.  McCain is economically illiterate and would never have done it.

EPA:  McCain the squish might have encouraged bipartisan support, rather than the congressional pushback that's now happening.

SC:  The libs would have hung on for the next prez, so no real change, unless one of them dropped dead.  If one did, good luck getting anyone close to acceptable through this congress.

Worldwide apology tour:  Idiotic but in practice meaningless, just like his Nobel Prize.

Missile Defense and Afghanistan:  Give you this one.  It's not terribly important relative to the economic situation (bankrupt countries can't fund the military), but there would have been a clear difference.

Guantanamo bay and the trials:  Advantage Obama, in that neither one has happened yet (nor will happen), but his administration's idiocy on both has gotten so much push-back that many are now realizing just how feckless the Dems are on national security.  McCain would have kept going in the Bush fashion (right idea, no communication), and just kept getting beat up by Congress and the MSM.

Abortion:  Why are we funding anything overseas given our financial situation?  Relative to the IMF it's a drop in the bucket and most people don't give two shits.

Do I want Reid reelected? Hell no, he's an utter sack of shit.  However, I'm done voting for or in any way supporting the lesser of two evils.  If the GOP can't come up with a good candidate we need a third party.  If they can't nominate someone who is worth supporting, they're the ones who should get the hell out of the way and let's see how the tea party (or other third party) does.

14 Completely OT, but this article needs a huge fisking.  Eddiebear may be the only one capable of doing it true justice.

15 So, I guess it really fucking sucks that Scott Brown won the Massachusetts special election.  You know, because Scott Brown isn't the most conservative politician in the USA.  Never mind that it was an enormously fucking symbolic victory or anything.

And if the Tea Party candidate siphons off enough votes from whoever the GOP candidate is and Dingy Harry stays in the Senate, and the GOP doesn't knock off a second sitting Dem Majority Leader in a row, well, at least we won't have a weak-kneed Republican in the Nevada seat. 

Harry Reid will still be in the Senate, but we'll all be able to pat ourselves on our fucking backs about how principled we were.

Yeah.

16

Sean, the Tea Partiers are NOT functionaries of the Republican Party and are NOT under any sort of obligation to insure a Republican candidate gets elected. They want a Conservative candidate, and if the local Republican Party and the RNC refuse to run one it's THEM who should be blamed if the Tea Partiers walk.

Since you conjure Scott Brown, let me respond with Dede Scorfezza: the Establishment Republican candidate, supported by the RNC to the extent of a million dollars, beloved of Newt Gingrich, Michael Steele and other illuminaries...

...pro-abortion, pro-gun control, corrupt... and, in the crunch, she threw her support behind the Democrat to insure his victory.

So let me rephrase your last coment:
"Another statist RINO will be in office, elected by Republican money and time, but we'll be able to pat ourselves on the back that she has an "R" after her name even though she caucuses with the Democrats. Yeah."

 

Why don't you take that bile and apply it to the Utah Republican Party, to insure that they DON'T nominate a candidate so odious that the Tea Partiers can't tolerate him?

17 Scott Brown is a unique situation, is he a bit RINO-y?  Hell yeah, but he's from Massachusetts.  The fact that you could get anything, ANYTHING with an R next to its name elected in Massachusetts is a massive win.  Just getting the reflexively leftist Soviet of Massachusetts to elect something without a D next to its name is a major advancement.

I'd like to see Harry Reid gone, absolutely, it'd be a great symbolic win, but if the GOP can't make it happen in NV, they can't make it happen.  Nevada isn't Massachusetts, one can be fairly conservative there and pull a win.  The GOP knows that the Tea Party set can be the greatest friend, and can deliver you the votes, donations and volunteers to win, like in Massachusetts, or the biggest thorn in their side, like in NY-23.  The GOP stupidly blew millions of dollars trying to prop up Scozzafava, who imploded and turned around and endorsed the Democrat.  Tea Partiers are about advancing liberty and smaller government, you either walk with them, or they'll walk on their own, if you can have a Hoffman but run a Scozzafava, they're going to walk and rebel. 

Chad, that's a valid point, but at some point that notion is going to have to be challenged, or our nation is going to collapse under its own debt.  In the long term, the most important thing in the long term for us is to change the culture to the extent that we can make the changes needed to roll back the size and power of the federal gov't, permanently. 

18 Re Scozzafava - you should find some vid of Steele talking about why the national GOP supported her, especially during the race or immediately afterward - it's obvious he wasn't crazy about doing it, even though he tried to put on a good face.  The GOP machine has an obligation to support whoever the locals nominate.  Which is a good thing, because when your guy who is a hardass fiscal conservative but doesn't believe that abortion is something that is covered one way or another by the Constitution and so has no business being legislated out of existence, or doesn't believe that gays should be jailed and forbidden from any sort of job where they come in contact with decent citizens and their children, or doesn't believe that liquor should be outlawed or bars should all be closed down because alcohol is evil, your fiscal conservative candidate will still get the financial support of the party, including the dollars that come from the pro-life faction, the Southern Baptist faction, and the prohibition faction. 

Scozzafava is exactly an example of why the Tea Party needs to turn into a concerted effort, before a candidate is selected by whatever the local parties do to select a candidate, to make sure the GOP is nominating conservative candidates.  Our economy can't survive the election cycles it would take to build a fiscally conservative third party, and it's not likely that a third party would be able to drag enough people away that actually understand the mechanics of how elections and politics work to make a third party effort viable in a hurry. 

The fact that Tea Partiers are not functionaries of the GOP is a fault of the Tea Party, not of the GOP.  Instead of getting in and making sure first-hand that the GOP was electing conservative candidates, they had a tantrum and stormed off, screaming "You're not going to play with my toys anymore!!!"  And it's been happening for cycles and cycles and cycles.  I really don't get this - people who supposedly espouse fierce independence and doing things for themselves think they can sit back and expect others to carry water for them, instead of getting in and doing the hard work of actually getting a conservative candidate nominated.  Blaming 'they' for the candidates that are nominated is so fucking welfare mom, I hope you realize you sound like someone waiting in line for their government cheese when you say that 'they' aren't giving you the candidate you think you deserve without actually lifting a finger to get that candidate.

19

Sorry, Alice: When you started stereotyping Christians I stopped reading.

Care to try again, only without the bigotry? 

 

20 There's no reason for me to restate what I said, you're not bothering to actually read.  

21 And BTW, screaming "RACISSST!!!" because you can't handle real criticism is so Obama supporter.

22 The fact that Tea Partiers are not functionaries of the GOP is a fault of the Tea Party, not of the GOP.

This is a valid point, and I think at some point you'll see that happen.  I think the problem is the relationship between conservatives and the GOP is like that of a bunch of doges hiring mercenaries, only to have the mercenaries turn on them or start playing grabass on the battlefield as arrows are falling from the sky, they expect the mercenaries they hired to be competent professionals.  Right now they're conducting raids on the rebellious mercenaries in the hopes of getting them back in line, but I reckon when that fails, we'll see the Tea Partiers start to merge with the GOP and take over.  Or not, and the Socialists will pretty much own the US.  Guess we'll have to wait and see.

23

If you can't state your opinion clearly and without spleen, Alice, it must not have been worth reading.

It also says a great deal about your character, as compared to those awful intolerant hateful immature Southern Baptists.

 

24 Care to try again, only without the bigotry?

Care to try again, only this time with reading comprehension?  You blatantly chose to misread Alice's point and then chose to hurl an accusation of bigotry at a person of faith.  The only person who comes across poorly in this is you. 

I am inclined to support the destruction of the two party system.  I think it leads to the current state of corruption by both parties, not to mention that there's nothing in the Constitution that mandates the current party structure.  I do, however, recognize that the system is entrenched to such a point that the practical effect of running third party candidates is to leave in place politicians with whom I totally disagree.  Thus, I reluctantly agree that running a third party is nearly always going to be a terrible idea.  I do worry that if the tea party succeeds in taking over local precincts then the new boss will be the same as the old boss.  After all, what's to stop the tea party people from being unwilling to look beyond their own buddies to find the most conservative candidate for the district?  On the other hand, no party and no candidate deserves loyalty.  It's the candidate and party's job to win my vote.

25 It also says a great deal about your character, as compared to those awful intolerant hateful immature Southern Baptists.

DaveP, I would like to introduce you to the line since you clearly are unable to recognize it.  Alice made no insulting comments about Southern Baptists or Christians.  You're attack on her character is completely and totally out of place.

Stop.  Now.  And before you even begin to shriek help help I'm being oppressed, this isn't your sandbox and these aren't your rules.   
Please address the substance of Alice's positions rather than making ad hominem attacks. 

26 You're Your - obviously I need coffee.

27 Good morning everybody, did I miss anything last night?

28 I don't think I said anything about Southern Baptists that they don't feel a strong religious conviction about, unless the SBC has done something revoking the resolutions they've passed about sexuality and homosexuality. (Warning for those of you who are conscious about their clicks, those are actual links to the Southern Baptist Convention website.)

Did something happen over the last decade that I've missed, like, say, it suddenly being A-OK by the Southern Baptists for a gay to lead a Boy Scout troop, or for gays to be in the military, or serve as an ambassador, or in any federal position? 

29 Good morning everybody, did I miss anything last night?

Nothing at all, you government-cheese-eating welfare mom

30 Take that back.
I'm not a mom.

31 Hoffman is a red herring.

A very small number of Scozzofava's supporters kept a conservative, not Hoffman but Maroun, from being the GOP nominee.
She was nominated even though the few votes they allowed went against her because she had fewer than 10 supporters who wanted her who were powerful enough to force their choice in.
NY politics at its most yawningly normal.

That's the important part. Hoffman was the protest vote.
And it was a cheap protest. It's only for one year and he only made the unbeatable Dem majority one-more-vote-unbeatable but he sent a message, loud and clear.

Now this year, the GOP knows they can't ram another RINO down their constituents' throats, they have to allow honest voting (a relative rarity in NY) everywhere in NY.

The NY GOP is only different from the Dems because the Albany Times Useless hates them. The NY Times reflexively goes for the Dem when they fight, but they don't really seriously fight all that often. They only fight over which districts get the most vote-buying projects paid for by the shrinking pool of productive people.
 
For the longest time the Senate was GOP and the House was Dem, they got the budget done late probably more than 20 years in a row as they haggled, (blatantly, openly and disgustingly corruptly) over the carcass of a once productive state.

They need to be smacked down and shut out. Scozzofava was the shot across the bow.
There's a compact between corrupt politicians and voters. So long as they do it competently then people have no problem with corruption (see, Boston), but the NY pols are not competent and the rate is accelerating.
NY was a manufacturing powerhouse for a long time, the Erie Canal was there and the Hudson and Mohawk rivers provided transportation and, before electricity, power to factories. So once things electicized the Erie Canal factories were already set up so they stayed because of the ease of transporting goods to both the Atlantic Ocean and the Great Lakes. Stuff from Pittsburgh went to Utica and then went back to Ontario.
Now? Oneida silver is made in China, IBM is mostly gone, GE is in China and Mexico and all the little companies that made stuff for IBM and GE are gone too. In my area, IBM was big, there was a smaller company that made fans for computers, Rotron. Their factory was a fixture in Ulster County for the first 25 years of my life. Gone.
The only thing they make in NY anymore are some gov't stuff and beer and wine. I think even Corning moved to China.
Corning.
From the wiki page on Carrier
It was Central New York State's largest manufacturer. In recent years, Carrier has substantially downsized its presence in Syracuse, with manufacturing work being moved to a variety of domestic and international locations. Meanwhile, managerial employees were relocated closer to UTC's Connecticut corporate headquarters.

(Funny tidbit, Carrier makes HVAC stuff, the Carrier Dome in Syracuse does not have a/c).
NY is primed to start electing conservatives.

Most of upstate is pretty conservative.
NY is a series of cities on the Hudson and Mohawk surrounded by farms and mountains. The only difference between some places and the most rednecky parts of Georgia you can find are the flannels are thicker, the accents are different, they own fewer pistols and smaller magazines and the trucks with the gun racks and Confederate flags have more rust in NY.
The populous cities, NYC, Poughkeepsie, Kingston, Albany, Amsterdam, Utica, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo and a few others, are pretty lefty but even they have some conservative areas.

And now, people are discovering that it's almost socially acceptable to elect conservatives instead of the plunderers they've been electing.

32 Another thing I forgot to mention, all the railroad tracks in NY.

NY has more railroad tracks than most other states I've seen. As much as in Italy. It was normal to be stuck at a few crossings as mile-long trains went by.
Now?
Rusty rails and weeds that people are probably mining for scrap metal.

33 I do miss one thing about living in upstate NY, I used to get Canadian channels that showed curling from the Olympics. 

34 See, that's my point. Maroun had considerable support, but the GOP poobahs decided they wanted their friend to have the seat.

That's the lesson from Scozzofava/Hoffman.

35 Remember, NY politics is corrupt as corrupt can be.
You know how your vote is supposed to be secret?
I had a friend who was a "journalist" for some news service, Scripps I think. A leftist in very good standing, she probably still has her Cuomo campaign sign in her window.
I'm not joking, she still had it in 1999 when last I saw her house.
She was "downsized" so she got a job in Pataki's press relations dept., so she had to vote GOP or she would lose her job.

That's normal in NY. I talked to a girl whose father was NY Democrat Royalty (she dated a friend who was cool enough for her, I was too lowborn for her to act anything but condescendingly to, I mean, I didn't know one 12th Century French poet!!!! True story, my friend knew a few and even had a favorite and was deemed "okay")
and she acted as if that was just the way it was, she was surprised I was surprised.

She was just out of school, Cornell I think, and was moving her way up the political appointee ladder. Heck, she's probably been elected by now to some safe seat.

36 Veeshir - you keep thinking NY voters would actually vote anyone out of office?  anyone that would already left the state out of frustration or because their job moved elsewhere...I have too many friends that will never vote for anyone with an R after their name...it's frustrating as hell...even going back to Hevesi running for state comptroller and WINNING even though it was known if he won, he will be replaced...NYS wouldn't even vote for the R candidate and he lost - and it wasn't that close.

I don't have the faith you have in the NYS people...it seems that state or union people vote for D's since they will never make cuts or reduction in employees...even the rabble that so far have thrown their hats into the ring for the Gov and both Senate races are enough to give me a headache and hold my nose while voting...

37 See, I'm thinking it's becoming almost socially acceptable to vote R in NY.
I have two aunts who think I'm making my immigrant grandma spin in her grave by voting (R).
They both voted for Bush. They deny it in public, but in private, they've told me.
They probably voted for Obama, but now they're feeling had. Bamboozled. Run amok.

Even my hard-core, angry leftist cousin is on the defensive with me. She wanted Clinton but she goes (D) no matter what. And now she's actually trying to defend that to me instead of just laughing at my stupidity and ignorance.

38 FWIW, Bob Owens posits that this may not be a very serious endeavor

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