Plenty of people who think they are quite attuned to the echo chamber are spending a good deal of time doing the progressives and RINO’s dirty work. These are people on the right, so-called insiders who get how the game is played. Yet again (and again) I find the chorus repeating the message which the left and the media have ingrained in them…every time they hear the bell ring.
"Sarah Palin." Ding!
Independents will never vote for her. Her resignation as governor is a deal breaker. You can’t bring social issues into the debate or Republican’s lose the center, she is stupid, inexperienced, too provocative, and on and on and on.
This is the message of the establishment elites on both sides. It is the growl of a cornered animal that fears for its life. A life dependent on the growth and power of government. And it has been picked up and repeated by people who should know better.
Here in New Hampshire we have a similar phenomenon. It has two immediate forms, one from each side. The first from the left is something Skip mentioned earlier–the form letters in the local papers outlining ‘name of democrat law‘ followed by "reason why we must to keep it." These are the same people who in 2006 and 2008 were the social/political nihilists bent on remaking the landscape in their own image, but who upon relegation to a dark and meaningless corner of the political attic in 2010, have suddenly embraced…conservatism? We are to believe they are now keepers of the status quo, defenders of a new ‘ancient’ tradition whose ink is not even dry. And they are running from "change" as if the sound of the word burns their ears with a fire in desperate need of a pool of water to put it out.
The second example is from the right. The establishment Republicans, I’ll call them the party before principle crowd, are entrenching themselves to protect the GOP Chairman’s seat from "outsiders." I can call them that because as a group they have been loath to restrict themselves with any constancy to either their own state platform or any written constitution if either happens to interfere with an opportunity to use the word ‘good’ in conjunction with the word ‘government’ in a way that will make them feel better about themselves even if it has to be at your expense. Together they are building a wall whose mortar is mixed with excuses and platitudes about why someone like Jack Kimball should not be seriously considered for the post of party Chairman. Someone whose energy was good enough to keep the party in power, but not good enough to run it, as if "some animals are more equal than others."
Has anyone else noticed that they are gathering in defense of the entrenched party structure as if they are democrats defending the bureaucracy? Their excuses all have that ring of the "women and children hit hardest’ meme. The one used to justify the retention of any policy or program with which they refuse to part company–usually because it will detract in some way from their relationship to power.
And there’s the rub. Is it about the relationship to power?
The democrats were more than happy to change everything until they were no longer in charge, now change is poison. Ask yourself if the establishment Republicans suffer from a similar problem when it comes to the candidacy of Jack Kimball for GOP Chairman?
