Republicans, feeling down, get an invitation to the White House

May 7, 2008

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) recently delivered a major-league pep-talk to his Republican caucus, which was very well received. GOP lawmakers gave Boehner a standing ovation, and were all smiles as they looked ahead to the rest of the year. They were led to believe that tying Dems in congressional races to Obama and Pelosi would be a recipe for success, and Republicans might even gain seats this year.

This same Republican caucus was feeling far less jovial during their confab yesterday. Boehner’s election strategy has been tested twice now in two months in two reliably Republican districts — first in Illinois’ 14th, then in Louisiana’s 6th. The GOP went 0-for-2. Worse, the NRCC has very little money to make a serious go at actually narrowing the Dems’ majority. None of these guys left the room smiling yesterday.

What might cheer congressional Republicans up? How ’bout a trip to the White House?

House Republicans will hold a rally with President Bush on Wednesday morning, with all 199 members invited to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. to show solidarity with the president, according to GOP sources.

Oddly enough, I’m not sure whose spirits this is supposed to boost — Republicans’ or Dems’.

As Tim F. noted, “Blind, deaf Americans living under rocks for very long periods of time have figured out that everything the President touches is a half-assed failure. Any sane person would treat the guy as radioactive. So what gives? I have to assume that this little pep rally will be about as well attended as Alberto ‘abu’ Gonzales’s farewell party at the DoJ.”

As for the Republican caucus’ discontent, they sound pretty miserable.

Shellshocked House Republicans got warnings from leaders past and present Tuesday: Your party’s message isn’t good enough to prevent disaster in November, and neither is the NRCC’s money.

The double shot of bad news had one veteran Republican House member worrying aloud that the party’s electoral woes — brought into sharp focus by Woody Jenkins’ loss to Don Cazayoux in Louisiana on Saturday — have the House Republican Conference splitting apart in “everybody for himself” mode.

“There is an attitude that, ‘I better watch out for myself, because nobody else is going to do it,'” the member said. “There are all these different factions out there, everyone is sniping at each other, and we have no real plan. We have a lot of people fighting to be the captain of the lifeboat instead of everybody pulling together.”

In a piece published in Human Events, the Republicans’ onetime captain, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, warned his old colleagues that they face “real disaster” on Election Day unless they move immediately to “chart a bold course of real reform” for the country.

And in a closed-door session at the Capitol, National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) told members that the NRCC doesn’t have enough cash to “save them” in November if they don’t raise enough money or run strong campaigns themselves.

It couldn’t have happened to a more appropriate group of people.

“Blind, deaf Americans living under rocks for very long periods of time have figured out that everything the President touches is a half-assed failure.”

Not true! Everything the President touches is a complete failure.

  • During today’s White House news briefing, Dana Perino responded to recent comments from Tim F, saying “The President strongly disagrees with the charaterization of his failures as “Half assed””

  • One word, guys = “Retirement”. You know you want it, so why not spare yourselves the humiliation of losing your seat at the ballot box and just go away quietly while you can?

  • Newt Gingrich … warned his old colleagues that they face “real disaster” on Election Day unless they move immediately to “chart a bold course of real reform” for the country.

    Great advice, Newt! And what “bold course” would that be? Three-quarters of the electorate can’t stand your president, hate your little pet war, see your fat cat donors cashing billions in oil profits as Mr and Mrs Joe Sixpack are losing their jobs while getting screwed at the gas pump and the supermarket! That’s where your “bold course” brought us – where can you possibly go from there? More tax cuts? Maybe a cushy book deal?

    Truly appropriate, indeed.

  • It is a lot more fun to be in the majority and have virtually everyone be a sub committee chairman.

    The Republicans are losing and will continue to lose a lot of good candidates because many of them would rather be at home in their district with a good job than in Washington as a minority member of Congress

  • The Rethugs know they can’t win on the issues. That has been true for years. So they change the subject to something trival, silly, nonsensical (like flag pins, or haircuts), or they instill a culture of fear, as they did in 2002 and 2004. So what will it be this year? Iran? Elevated terrorist alerts. Marshall law? Obama’s choice of underwear? His secret alien mistress? Or his secret boyfriend? No matter what, the ever-reliable MSM will blow it all up into a mind-exploding mediathon of inconsequential and speculative drivel.

    That sucking sound you hear is the oil pump on the Rethug slime machine just warming up.

  • Has Newt set up his 2012 exploratory committee yet?

    I predict that Newt’s prediction of GOP disaster will come true and he will selflessly offer himself as the hero on a white horse in 2012.

  • The Republicans are in the middle of a collapse and will soon be irrelevant. However, if you look at the Indiana primary, what will happen when all of the former Republican voter start voting wholesale in the Democratic Primary. Also, what will general election be like with only one relevant party. Will the national general election be as moot as the general city election in Chicago?

  • Yeah, if all else fails, gather around little Bushie and pretent that he is the ONLY constituent that matters. I think Matt called it the Lemming Strategy, didn’t he?

    Cause apparently, the GOP doesn’t need no stinker real voters to show up — right Diebold? And Little Bushie doesn’t serve the Repug Party, somehow it’s supposed to serve him, right. WTF? Sickness like a cancer grows. Groupthink, Sickthink, whatever. It really is the Repug Party.

    Jeebus.

  • This sounds cheery and it is for the moment. Please remember these same folks have a war that is putting 300 million dollars a day into Bush’s friends pockets and they do control the majority of the media and the crap they put out. They also have criminal charges just waiting to happen at all levels of so I would not take lightly what they may come up with before election day. The only hope we can have is that they are so greedy and corrupt they will have a mad rush of finger pointing and destroy themselves.

  • The next headline I want to see is “K Street flooded with applications. Few openings available.”

  • From Gingrich’s article, I can only see his clarion call for real reform as something new. I get the impression that any previous Republican “reform” was merely fake, merely offered up to get elected.

    Newtie is the most responsible for turning the Republican party into an intellectually hollow attack dog instead of a party worthy of American attention in 2008. Yes, Newtie, you are the one who has single-handedly changed our political landscape into a land-mine strewn divisiveness unbecoming of any well-adjusted democracy. Newt let loose a genie the limbaughs and hannitys among us have been using to demoralize any sane political discourse we Americans deserve. But, this is our year, and Obama is the best person for the job of ridding us of undemocratic nonsense. -Kevo

  • “Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, warned his old colleagues that they face “real disaster” on Election Day unless they move immediately to “chart a bold course of real reform” for the country.”

    Or option B, scare the crap out of the voters by cranking up the terrorist alert to ‘hell fire red’, throw in a a fake nuclear terrorist bust, and the always reliable “liberals want kill your unborn babies” mantra.

    “Bold course of real reform”, ya good one Newt. I think you meant lower taxes and tell us what god really wants, like bashing gays, saving embryos/fetuses, escalating the war, and my personal favorite rejecting science.

  • “We have a lot of people fighting to be the captain of the lifeboat instead of everybody pulling together.”

    But isn’t this the world the Republican’s sell? Take care of number one, let other’s pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. We don’t owe the poor, the uninsured and sick, the unemployed anything (and we could care less about their condition)? Screw them — we have ours?

  • @ 12: [plug for website]

    Someone seems to have shat flashing technicolor crap all over your webpage. You might want to clean that up.

  • Hey, elections are like the “free market” where the weak particpants die off, which keeps the whole strong.
    Die, you weak, whiney Republicans! Go read your Ayn Rand and fantasize that you are the strong professionals in “Atlas Shrugged.”
    Maybe Weird Al Yankovic can write a new parody song dedicated to you, a remake of “You’re Pitiful.”

  • So now all Boy George II has left to offer politician of his party is … lunch at the White House.

    They must be so proud of him in Kennibunkport.

    I sooo want to see them lose big in November.

  • Newt Gingrich, warned his old colleagues that they face “real disaster” on Election Day unless they move immediately to “chart a bold course of real reform” for the country.

    But isn’t reform exactly what conservatism, by definition, is against?

    Conservatism inherently looks to the past. Don’t do or try anything new; stick with the tried and true. Fine strategy if things are going well and you have no urge to improve.
    Progressivism, on the other hand, says- be bold. We’re not sure if it will work, but it’s worth trying, because what we have now ain’t working.

    Or, in the words of Ambrose Bierce-
    Conservative, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.
    ( Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary (1911))

  • Time for those guys to jump party, denounce Bush, McSame and the war and you will be welcomed with open arms

  • As Tim F. noted, “Blind, deaf Americans living under rocks for very long periods of time have figured out that everything the President touches is a half-assed failure.

    As Racerx noted, Not true! Everything the President touches is a complete failure.

    Respectfully, I must note that EVERYTHING the President touches turns out so hideously mangled that, in comparison, they makes complete, utter, FUBAR-specific failures look VERY good.

    *In the background, a reporter asks John Boehner: “You’ve helped George W. Bush butcher the Republican brand, the Republican Party, and the entire concept of conservative politics in America far beyond any hope of repair. What are you going to do next?” Boehner’s reply: “I’m going to DisneyWorld BushLand!!!

  • Always just thinking of themselves…looking for ways to win rather than changing their policies. They cannot perceive their failure just that they may not win. They blame every body and everything for their “not having won yet” rather than admit they are wrong and their policies don’t work. I hope America never forgets how Republican rule has nearly destroyed our nation… twice now…both times with serious and bloody consequences, and leaving it to the democrats to figure a way to bail the country out. Robber barons, economic royalists, corporate America…always a few hundred greedy people behind it all.

    In the words of Rush Limbaugh “…Reagan is DEAD! His policies may live on but we are in the process of doing something about that as well” (okay, I changed them a little but that’s a Rush tactic too)

  • joey said: “[Republican’ts] blame every body and everything for their “not having won yet” rather than admit they are wrong and their policies don’t work.”

    They learned this from Milton Freedman, who recommended that every economy he could get his hands on be privatized to encourage growth, and then when growth failed to come, claimed that his victums weren’t privatizing enough.

    You know his victums, like Chile, Brazil, South Africa, New Orleans, etc..

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