Comments Posted By busboy33
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"You really lost me there."
That's why I explained it in the next 3 paragraphs. I kind of thought that was standard form -- that you read the next few sentences for the explanation. My mistake.
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 2.11.2009 @ 21:31
"the idea that the same tactics used in NY23 could be grafted elsewhere is loony."
Y'know Rick, I think you have more in common with the loonies than you realize. You both mistake right with reality.
Is getting drunk on power and declaring jihad against percieved RINOS a smart idea? Hell no. On that point, you are absolutely right.
Does that mean it's not going to happen? Of course its going to happen! That's reality. Your American Thinker quote above shows that. Hell, RedState was crowing when Dede was driven out. As he made clear, he didn't even care about winning the election . . . the point was that the insurgency won the battle against the GOP, and now they were going to dictate the terms of the relationship. If Hoffman actually wins, that's just gravy.Is this an UNBELIEVABLY SUICIDAL course of action? Yep. Again, you're right that it's "loony" to even try something that is virtually guaranteed to violently and spactacularly fail, dragging the GOP even deeper into its hole, possibly killing it off entirely.
But they're doing it.
I'm more convinced than ever this is nothing but "a beautiful death"-wish.
Y'know Rick, I think you have more in common with the loonies than you realize. You both mistake right with reality.
Huh? You go on to say I'm right about everything but you lump me in with the loons because everything that I criticize is going to happen anyway?
You really lost me there.
ed.
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 2.11.2009 @ 17:30
@JerryS:
No dispute about Schwarznegger, but you've got to admit the "Fu@k You" letter was funny. Maybe it was just a long day, but I giggled like a schoolgirl.
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 2.11.2009 @ 15:30
'UNRULY' CONSERVATIVES SHOCK THE GOP IN NY23
@Jeff Barea:
I agree with everything you said . . . but I don't understand the relevance to the current conversation.
So just everybody writes in whomever they want to vote for? That's actually not an American concept, since we're not a pure democracy.
You get to decide whom to cast you vote for . . . yes. But that's different than deciding who the candidates are.
Vote for Hoffman, vote for Owens, heck, Scoza's name is still on the ballot so vote for her if you like. You CAN'T vote for Sarah Palin. Sorry. Them's the rules.
The issue is, does the Party have to get YOUR approval for the candidates they advance? If you cared, why wern't you down at the Party Headquarters advocating for your favorite? If you don't like the candidate . . . then don't vote for them. But you understand that EVERY candidate is opposed by somebody, right? This means that there is ALWAYS someone crying foul.
Do the people have the right to follow this course of action? Yep. Absolutely. But it WILL cripple or destroy the GOP, and as Rick said the whole point of this game is to wield political power. This plan fails to accomplish that.
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 3.11.2009 @ 03:30
"something at the National level for Congress? I would say that is far and away above the level of dog catcher, wouldn’t you?"
Agreed -- but where is the line? State Assemblyman is far above Dogcatcher as well. It's not National, but it's the upper eschelon of State elections. Primary, or let the party decide? Mayor? again, far above dogcatcher, far below State Assemblyman, but the biggest post in the small pond of town politics. Primary, or let the party decide?
My point is that there is a heck of alot of grey in between National Congressman and dogcatcher. Is the NY-23 situation the final outcome over building resentment with the candidate selection process . . . or is it anger at the candidate that was selected? If the local officials could have and did select Hoffman, would you be calling for primaries (against Hoffman), or would you argue that the party is doing its job?
The argument I'm hearing against Scoza isn't that the process is faulty, but that she is a hippie liberal socialist RINO. How she was selected doesn't have any impact on that concern, does it? If she WAS chosen by primary, would all those calling her a disgusting travesty of the GOP support her then, or would we still be right back here, with a third party "purist" running against her?
If the complaint is the lack of a primary, running as a third party fixes that how? By pulling the people that care about primaries (allegedly) out of the GOP ranks into the Con Party ranks, there's nobody in the GOP trying to amend the rules to allow for primaries now. That's not changing the nomination system . . . that's killing the GOP for a new party, "Out with the Old, In with the True!"
That's the way it's looking from here. I'm open to another way of looking at it . . . but I gotta say this seems pretty clear cut."Second, I never said Hoffman claimed he had a beef."
True, and my bad for that.
"Scozzafava’s selection by the GOP-elite did not sit well with the people in the district."
Respectfully, the local Republican Party officials in NY-23 hardly qualify as the "elite", at least to me.
If I understand what you are saying, the local Republican Party members became so enraged that the Party nominated Scozzafava (although she's been working for them for years), that they . . . all decided to join the Conservative Party and nominate someone who lives outside the District?Really?
So the general members got together and had a meeting, and someone (just a regular Joe) said "hey, why don't we ask that nice conservative Hoffman to run"? I find that idea stunningly hard to believe.
You claim she was chosen by the elites. Rick claims she was selected by the outside forces. I thought she got the nod from the local party officials . . . the same as every Republican candidate has for decades. It's not the system that is the problem, or the selection process . . . it's her. Personally.
I haven't been able to find a single piece of information about her nomination that suggests there was ANYTHING objectionable about it, that she was installed from on-high, that the local party members gave a damn until Hoffman and Armey started making noise.
Show me something different, and I'll change my opinion.
"Hoffman may have set himself up to run the tables with the election. That in itself tells a tale, again whether you want to acknowldge it or not."
Check my comments @7 and 11. I acknowledge it absolutely . . . I just think it's the worst possible tale for the GOP.
"I don’t believe anybody of sound mind (I’ll give you that caviot) is going to hang it out there, with their own money and all, unless there is good cause to do so."
What if it was with another's money? Like, say, some PAC?
Good cause -- I agree they won't do it without good cause. What is good cause? Righting a wrong? That's a good cause. Gaining power and thereby enriching myself and my friends? Most politicians think that's a pretty good cause too.
To think that members of ANY political affiliation are altruistic, honest, reliable, trustworthy, and generally all-around Boy Scouts is nonsense.
Why would they do it? Why does ANYBODY run for public office?Think about Hoffman. Why is he running?
Because he is opposed to the candidate nomination process? Then why is he acting outside of the GOP? Whatever happens, he hasn't changed the GOP practices . . . he's just fought with them for power.
To present an "honest conservative" face so the people have a real choice, and not a "Washington Insider Elite"? Yeah . . . that's why he had Dick Armey at his side during the interview with the Watertown Times . . . so he could distance himself from the Beltway.
Because he's an "outsider"? I read his interview, watched the debate . . . he sounded like a regular old politician to me (lots of sound bites, no substance)."I suggest to you that there would have been considerably less of a backlash had a Primary process been observed and Hoffman may not have run if there had been such a process. (No proof, just my own observations)"
Maybe. So that's what made Malkin, Pawlenty, Limbaugh, Beck, Palin et.al jump into a local race -- their outrage over the lack of a primary system in the nomination process? Then all the attacks on Dede personally, as a liberal RINO, are just purely coincidental. They would all be supporting Hoffman even if the GOP candidate was Reagan Himself . . . it's the principle of the thing, you understand.
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 2.11.2009 @ 21:03
I just don't buy that. This is about being "pure" conservative. It just doesn't make sense otherwise. Why the bloody hell would all those outsiders give a damn about a local election like this, if not to burnish their "I'm more conservative than you" credentials. If they were loyal GOP members, and just have a problem with the Primary system . . . why attack Dede personally? She's still a GOP member, like them. She has been a GOP pol for years . . . they've never given a damn.
This just doesn't make sense as anything other than a purity test. The Primary issue is a cover so we can slag Dede for being a RINO. If it was about primaries, then the Scoza hatred wouldn't be there.
@SShiell:
Do you want a Primary for all elections? Every single one, no matter how small? Or should the Party officials handle these details . . . as long as they make all the choices that you want?
If you run a primary every single election, from President down to dogcatcher . . . kiss you party reserves goodbye.
I'll ask you too -- where is this narrative that Hoffman was trying to work with the system and the officials shut him out coming from? If there are facts that support that, tell me and I'll learn something. How was the system screwing him over? If it did . . . WHY did it screw him over?
I don't see any of that in the facts I've seen, so I have to reject that narrative without proof. Like I said, if I missed all this straighten my a$$ out -- but I'm going to need some facts."I garuntee you that there is not one conservative out there who wants to run as a third party candidate so long as he/she is given a creidble shot in a Primary to be the nominee."
I respectfully disagree. You mean that there isn't one single conservative egomaniac out there, that's more interested in power over the good of the party and the people? If so, I'm mightily impressed . . . but I'm also pretty skeptical.
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 2.11.2009 @ 15:10
Odd -- seems to be working fine now. Well, let's try this again then . . .
"Dede’s betrayal - and that’s what it is when you endorse your opponent at the time when it can do the absolute most damage to your own party - is the most despicable thing I’ve seen in politics in a long time."
Yeah, imagine actively working to hurt your party's chances of winning an election. That's as despicable as fielding your own candidate to actively compete against your own party's chosen candidate.
No, wait . . . that's good, right? We'll get back to the "betrayal" in a moment."People who talk about the tea baggers being 'paranoid' smear the majority when the label actually applies to a minority."
It appears that we're using different words to refer to the same thing, then. I agree the paranoids are a minority of the GOP. I also think the TeaBaggers are that small minority. You obviously disagree. For you, the crazy paranoids are the BASE of the GOP:
"The base doesn’t want to see anything done by Obama that would give him a success. Their worldview is so twisted by partisanship and ideology that the real disconnect occurs in viewing what the president is trying to do . . .
Anyone who is familiar at all with commenters on the internet and especially, the words and thoughts expressed by Beck and Limbaugh knows that this is 100% true. The thing is, some of what they believe is correct; the mocking of their beliefs and values by elites and liberals is not imagined. Of course, part of the problem is that these beliefs and values are squeezed through a paranoid worldview which is so far beyond reality that it becomes easy to slight them."
Rick Moran, http://rightwingnuthouse.com/archives/2009/10/17/the-different-reality-inhabited-by-the-conservative-base/So the base of the party are the crazy, out-of-touch paranoids? "Base" means the foundational core that the rest of the party is built upon, right? I thought the base of the GOP was fundamentally sound, and the crazy wingnutters were like a tumor. I must have got such a flawed positive view of the GOP from all those incorrect Leftie blogs. As you said, you know (better than everybody else), so I'll just have to take your word that the GOP is inherently, fundamentally, insane.
Just to doublecheck . . . this is the party you want to remain a part of, right?
"There is no way what happened in NY23 can be grafted anywhere else in the country."
Since I don't believe you are actually that staggeringly naive, I'll just you wrote that while either in the grip of overwhelming emotion or overwhelming Scotch. Driving her out of the race was a "victory" for the forces of good . . . you think they're going to pack up and stop? Now that they think they are driving the GOP bus, that they dictate what candidates get presented to the public?
I will agree that there's not much chance of a whack-a-doodle candidate being sucsessful in most (but not all) other races . . . but the insurgency isn't going to try? Now that they are "winning"?
Like I said -- you're not that naive. Time will tell."Scozzafava was the handpicked candidate of the national GOP"
So the local GOP officials wanted to run somebody else, and Washington D.C. called them and said "You are hereby ordered to run her"?
I'm going to have to ask you for a cite on that little tidbit. I'm foolish to just believe what I read on Leftie Blogs, like PajamaMedia:
"It disappointed me to hear the Club for Growth’s Andy Roth blame RNC Chairman Michael Steele and the D.C. Republicans for giving us a Dede Scozzafava. He knows better than that, and he shouldn’t play that game simply to get his message across. Scozzafava got the nod based upon a state and local decision."
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/scozzafava-candidacy-not-the-fault-of-dc-gop/
Since you know better than anybody else, who did the local party officials want to run?"The job now is to marginalize the crazies while giving a strong voice to those who wish to reform the party by bringing it back to its true principles."
And were back to the crazies and Dede. If the crazies are the ones that have decided that the Party shall accede to their wishes in what candidates they run . . . then isn't that what she is doing when she endorses Owen? Cauterizing the wound. Its better for the party to lose this election so the crazies don't get drunk with power and demand the wheel. Without Hoffman, she would almost certainly have won. Now, it's a toss-up. I know you think it's going to be a Hoffman win, but others aren't so sure (see Nate Silver).
The crazies are willing to risk losing one of the dwindling GOP seats, willing to risk splitting the party, just to get their way. Regardless of whether that's "right" or "wrong", its not good for the GOP. The Watertown Times was scathing in its critique of Hoffman, since apparently all he could do was spout platitudes but didn't seem to have much of an inkling about how the North Country functioned. I guess you know better than the locals.
(As someone who lived in Watertown for years . . . I'm curious to know what do you think of the area? What's your learned opinion on the ecconomics north of Pulaski? Aside from the 10th out of Fort Drum and some tourism in the Thousand Islands (beautiful in the summer, btw) what do you see as the pressing ecconomic concerns and issues for the good people there? I'm sure they'd love to be told what's important to them).You disagree with me -- fine and dandy. Both of our opinions aren't going to matter one bit in this election. Time is going to prove one of us wrong. I guess we'll see who it is.
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 2.11.2009 @ 01:21
Scozzafava endorsed Owens over Hoffman.
Let's just assume you're right Rick -- that this internal power struggle is good for keeping the Republican beast fit overall. In a hypothetical world, this can make sense.
But that's not what is happening here. Palin, Thompson, Pawlenty, Armey . . . they're publicly trying to assert their control over the party as the shepherds of the TeaBaggers. This isn't an internal contest -- it's a very, VERY public revolution. Owens wins, then Dems take a seat they haven't held for a century, and the GOP is officially impotent. Hoffman wins, and the GOP is officially the Conservative Teabagging Party. I don't see how the GOP comes out of this as anything but crippled (even moreso). The fact that the GOP is actually two warring parties is now writ large, making a shrunken party divide into two even smaller parties. Good thinking!
Do the TeaBaggers really believe that they, by themselves, represent 50.1% of the population? If they don't, are they just interested in "a beautiful death"? I don't get the strategy here.
1. Dede's betrayal - and that's what it is when you endorse your opponent at the time when it can do the absolute most damage to your own party - is the most despicable thing I've seen in politics in a long time. Party switchers are one thing - Specter, Jeffords, Gramm, Connally - this is routine in politics. But what Scozzafava did was beyond contempt and she will pay for it.
2. Your analysis is 100% incorrect. There is no way what happened in NY23 can be grafted anywhere else in the country. Scozzafava was the handpicked candidate of the national GOP - she is being obscenely hypocritical when she bitches about outside parties influencing the race. She owes her candidacy to outside influences which makes her endorsement of Owens appear even more a personal vendetta.
3. The fight going on now is between out of touch elites and regular republicans which include "tea baggers" but also main street GOP and fiscal conservatives. Stop reading liberal publications about the make up of the conservative movement and the GOP - I know far better than any lefty what's up and will give a far more honest appraisal of what's going on. People who talk about the tea baggers being "paranoid" smear the majority when the label actually applies to a minority. The job now is to marginalize the crazies while giving a strong voice to those who wish to reform the party by bringing it back to its true principles.
It can be done and will be done. When, I can't say. But it is incorrect and unfair to make this into a battle between the crazies and the rest of the party. That is a false analysis and only shows that those who make it are more interested in scoring partisan points than examining what is actually happening.
ed.
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 1.11.2009 @ 15:58
WHY THE SHORTAGE OF SWINE FLU VACCINE?
@GayleMiller:
"the local authorities were offered help and didn’t take it!"
Ms. Miller, while you always make me laugh (and this was a bellybuster), I do salute your dedication and faith. It is impressive. No matter what criticisms are leveled at you . . . nobody can ever claim you don't give 110%.
Sorry but you're both right - and wrong. It's a lot more complicated than simple statements that one or the other side was at fault:
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/pdf/hr109-377/execsummary.pdf
"Failure" was the operative word all around. Trying to ascribe more blame to one side or the other is a fools game if you read this overview of the Select Committee's findings. Believe me, both state/local and national govt come in for their fair share of withering criticism.
If you absolutely have to have a main culprit, FEMA state and federal is it but trying measure such gross incompetence by a matter of degree is idiotic.
ed.
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 26.10.2009 @ 16:31
WILL WE MAKE HEZBALLAH ANOTHER 'PARTNER FOR PEACE?'
@John Galt:
Let me rephrase -- how does not mentioning Hezballah equal "bowing down"? Obama also didn't mention Vladimir Putin . . . is he bowing down to Russians?
Comment Posted By busboy33 On 26.10.2009 @ 02:07
