{"id":9779,"date":"2007-01-30T15:52:24","date_gmt":"2007-01-30T20:52:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/9779.html"},"modified":"2007-01-30T15:52:24","modified_gmt":"2007-01-30T20:52:24","slug":"at-least-one-side-is-looking-forward-to-the-primaries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/at-least-one-side-is-looking-forward-to-the-primaries\/","title":{"rendered":"At least one side is looking forward to the primaries"},"content":{"rendered":"

I knew there was some discontent among conservatives over the 2008 field, but I’m amazed by the striking difference between Dems and Republicans as the campaign begins to unfold in earnest.<\/p>\n

Red State recently looked<\/a> at the GOP field and concluded, “They all suck.” RS added, “Let’s just admit it. Every one of the thus far announced Republican candidates for President sucks. From the lecherous adulterer<\/a> to the egomaniacal nut job<\/a> to the flip-flopping opportunist<\/a> with the perfect hair to the guy who hates brown people<\/a> to the guy we’ve never heard<\/a> of to the guy who has a better chance of getting hit by a meteor<\/a> while being consumed by a blue whale being struck by lightening.”<\/p>\n

I consider myself fairly clued into Democratic politics and I haven’t heard anything close to this on the Dems’ side of the aisle. Indeed, it’s the exact opposite — Dems seem impressed<\/i> with the top-notch candidates to choose from. The challenge isn’t to figure out how to get excited about a lackluster field; it’s to figure out which of several appealing candidates to support.<\/p>\n

But for our friends in the GOP, a degree of depression<\/a> seems to be setting in.<\/p>\n

Contemplating the current field of Republican presidential candidates, Rush Limbaugh sounded like a man with malaise.<\/p>\n

“To be honest with you, there’s nobody out there that revs me up,” he confessed to his audience of several million conservative sympathizers on his radio show last week, “so why should I pretend there is?”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Putting aside the fact that Limbaugh, by his own admission, routinely misleads his audience<\/a> for GOP gain, the comment is telling: Republicans have been gearing up for this race for a long time, but you wouldn’t know it looking at the field.
\n<\/p>\n

What for much of the past year has been an undercurrent of grumbling on the right about the top tier of Republican contenders — Sen. John McCain of Arizona, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani — is lately on the rise in both frequency and volume. Limbaugh’s sour note is the most striking of examples.<\/p>\n

From consultants to bloggers to talk show hosts, there is a climate of suspicion — at times bordering on contempt — among conservative activists about their 2008 choices. […]<\/p>\n

“The party is headed for the wilderness,” complained conservative publicist Craig Shirley, author of a book on Ronald Reagan’s insurgent 1976 campaign. “In some ways it’s a victim of its own successes, but it’s also been co-opted by folks from the inside with less than pure intentions: People who’ve come to party for power, money, access, celebrity.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Some of this will pass, I suppose, once the Republican base rallies in opposition to whomever the Dems pick, and they embrace the GOP nominee as the one who’ll stop the Dems from retaking the White House, but it’s amazing how depressed the right is.<\/p>\n

This environment could, in theory, create a genuine opening for party savior to come riding in on a white horse, but who’s waiting in the wings? Jeb Bush?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I knew there was some discontent among conservatives over the 2008 field, but I’m amazed by the striking difference between Dems and Republicans as the campaign begins to unfold in earnest. Red State recently looked at the GOP field and concluded, “They all suck.” RS added, “Let’s just admit it. Every one of the thus […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9779\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}