Another Milepost On The Road To Oblivion

Paul Waldman at the American Prospect recounts the ridiculous failure of a week the GOP had.

Try to relax; today's meme is all about discomfort. And there's no one feeling more of it than Republicans, who were hit yesterday with the rhetorical stylings of their erstwhile hero Cliven Bundy—Nevada rancher, defier of laws, and racial philosopher. The Republican Party's chief spokesperson, for instance, can't figure out why anyone would associate Bundy with the GOP. "The issue with Cliven Bundy has absolutely nothing to do with his party, zero," he said. After all, it's not like the GOP's chief organ in the media had been giving the guy blanket coverage all the while Republican politicians were praising his crusade. I mean, c'mon.

Republicans are also being made uncomfortable by their own candidates, who haven't all gotten the message on the "outreach" the party is supposed to be doing. Here's one who has proposed an effort to round up and deport every undocumented immigrant in the country, which he calls, no kidding, "Operation Wetback." Here's one who said it was an "abominable idolatry" when wives love their children more than their husbands, arguing that that's what causes divorces most of the time. He added that in the "vast preponderance" of situations where men are adulterous, women are to blame because they have showered too much emotion on their children instead of their husbands. And here's one who endorsed cockfighting.

And none of this will matter in the least to Republican voters come Election Day, who will to a person say "But none of these people are like *my* Representative or Senator, because they're a good person, and I'm still going to vote for them in November."

They will still come out and vote Republican just to prove to the dirty effin hippies that their guy is not an animal hater like Matt Bevin running for Mitch McConnell's seat or not a bigot like Drew Turiano running for Steve Daines's House seat in Montana or not a homophobe like Det Fowler running for Huckleberry Graham's seat and CERTAINLY not ANYTHING like that Cliven Bundy fellow.

There is literally nothing that the GOP can do that will make Republicans stop voting for them.  There's a long list of things that will make Democrats stay home, however.  2010 proved that.