Shorter Wall Street Journal

The Hilsbot scenario.

For 4 years we heard how Hils amassed a war chest of monies and thanks to some unwise advice from the unlamented dolt Mark Penn, she blew it all just before she needed it to stop Obama-mania.

OK, I’m not going to actually subscribe to The Wall Street Journal to read that article, but I will say this: the “Citizens United” decision seems to have had one very damaging unintended consequence for the GOP. It re-directed resources away from the National Committee and put the early stages of the election into the hands of wild, undisciplined billionaires with out-sized egos and pet causes to promote. Maybe the best example of this was Sheldon “greater Israel” Adelson, who spent the early months of the GOP campaign throwing tens of millions of dollars into anti-Romney advertising in a Quixotic attempt to promote Newt Gingrich for the GOP nomination. A fair chunk of change was spent producing a slick, 20 minute documentary called “When Mitt Romney Came to Town” that helped cement the idea, in the public’s mind, of Romney as a soulless capitalist, perfectly willing to ruin the lives of thousands of ordinary Americans to pad his Swiss and Cayman Island bank accounts (quite the charge coming from a casino magnate!). I find it amusing that the talking heads are claiming that Obama’s masterful stroke was painting a negative portrait of Mitt Romney in the early days of the campaign. And sure, Obama did spend money in the early months of the national campaign doing this, but he wasn’t creating this image out of thin air. He was merely ensuring that it didn’t go away by keeping it alive in voters’ minds. That image was created by guys like Adelson, Gingrich and Rick Perry who, as far as I know, was the first guy to call Romney a “vulture capitalist.”

According to the Tea Klux Klan’s thoughtful, nuanced analysis, Zomney lost because he’s a filthy gaw-dammed LIBRUL instead of a Real AmeriKKKan turbo-patriot KKKonservative. (Ok, then what about Appalling Ryand?)

@¡Andrew!:
Next time, MORE WINGNUTTY!

Yeah, that worked out well this time.

@Serolf Divad: question is whether strategic soul searching for love of party will win out over slavish love of money and “movement”.

Listening to hate radio on the drive up this AM, and the local Central PA Hannity said, verbatim, “Obama won this because of his race”. He quickly turned and said “we need Marco Rubio, Nicky Haley, etc.” but there is little doubt in my mind – if there’s a race war going to happen, the Panthers won’t be Black.

@Beggars Biscuit: Rush was playing “Feliz Navidad” today to mock GOP Latino Outreach chatter.

I think wingnuts will settle on some combo of “Mitt wasn’t conservative enough” and “holy shit he ran an awful campaign”. And then, because of some spectacular gerrymandering — the raw national House vote favored Demrats — they’ll keep the House in 2014, convincing themselves that 2012 was an aberration.

In other words: Only when Demrats win the House, Senate and Executive over consecutive elections will wingnuts lose their grip on the GOP. And that ain’t likely happening this decade.

So, when do Demrats cave on the Fiscal Cliff and sell out everybody they tried to sell out in Summer 2011? Because you know that’s coming.

@nojo: Republican answer to Hispanic out reach is more Bushes. Yesterday,George P. Bush registered to run for an office in Texas.

@nojo: Yeah, I guess that’s pretty much what we can expect from the Demonrats after the election euphoria wears off.

@texrednface: (shudder)

@texrednface: Does Joseph P Kennedy III (JPKIII?) balance that out?

@nojo: Well, something needs to be done. But for now, I’ve got a briefing book to finish that’s been under wraps for two months…

@Beggars Biscuit: Heh. You get to tag along on the trip?

@texrednface: When I see the name “George P. Bush,” it reads to me as “George — piss off, Bush.”

@SanFranLefty: Sadly no. It’s been a total cluster for the last month, and once trip planning was taken over by Hil’s team, they assigned me to the mop up crew, aka “turn promises into reality”. Total ground time may only be hours, anyway.

@Beggars Biscuit: Well, needless to say the trip gives me something to talk about at Thanksgiving with all the emigre in-laws.

My favorite quote from the circular firing squad (by way of Politico):

Rick Tyler, a former strategist for the pro-Newt Gingrich super PAC and a top adviser to Todd Akin’s Missouri Senate campaign, called Crossroads’ efforts “a colossal failure,”

When talking of failure, this man knows whereof he speaks.