SoonerBlue

Newt Gingrich thinks the teabaggers are ruining the chances of a GOP comeback.

Naw...what was his first clue?

That three-ring circus full of clowns with teabags hanging from their hats and stapled all over their clothes? Running around carrying signs showing everything from Holocaust death camp corpses, to President Obama as Hitler...signs that said, "Next time we'll come armed."?

Just when moderate GOP voters were looking for a serious thinker to run the country, they didn't know whether to cringe, laugh, or go jump into the Boston Harbor.

Hey Newt, Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann ain't listening...and just when you finally started making sense too...

From politico.com: "Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich predicted disaster for his party if the conservative wing of the GOP continues to field independent candidates to the right of the party’s nominee.

"If we get into a cycle where there are tea parties and there are conservative third-party candidates, we will make [Nancy] Pelosi speaker for life," Gingrich told POLITICO in an interview Thursday, calling the practice "totally destructive." [..]"

I keep trying to tell everyone that this teabagger movement is just a fringe element...it will never be taken seriously.

If they claim they are not associated with any political party, they will fizzle and die in no time flat.

IF they declare as a national political party (they registered as a state party other day in Florida), they will be dismissed as a third party that will never accomplish much. That's always been the fate of third parties...look at Perot, look at Nader.

If they keep crowing that they'll soon take back the GOP...well, that's not going to fly with moderate conservative voters. That's the GOP's biggest problem right now -- they're seen as extremists who will not allow moderate voices to speak to the mainstream of citizens and voters.

Democrats, don't be tardy to the Tea Party party...cheer them on, they will surely siphon off votes from Republican candidates. Remember...that's how Ralph Nader helped elect GWBush president.

Right now, a majority of the voting public has little faith in the Republican party or its future. Its mostly seen as the party of NO, the party of Neander-cons...and that's not gaining them much traction.

Maybe the tipping point began in 2005, when GWBush decided to hitch up his "political capital" to destroying Social Security. Yeah, he wanted to ditch Social Security and replace it with plans that would put worker's savings in the stock market.

Now just imagine the pickle this country would be in if the GOP had won that fight. Worried voters squirmed, contacted their political reps and hooted it down.

It's been downhill for the GOP ever since.

Yes, yes, I know -- the Democrats will probably lose gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia tomorrow, and 'they' think the results will serve as clues to how everyone will vote in 2010 and 2012. This Democrat is not thrilled, but not all that worried...a lot can happen in even six months...not to mention two years. 

The special congressional election in New York is the one that really fascinates most political junkies. Frank Rich of the NYTimes says:

"BARACK OBAMA’S most devilish political move since the 2008 campaign was to appoint a Republican congressman from upstate New York as secretary of the Army. This week’s election to fill that vacant seat has set off nothing less than a riotous and bloody national G.O.P. civil war. No matter what the results in that race on Tuesday, the Republicans are the sure losers. This could be a gift that keeps on giving to the Democrats through 2010, and perhaps beyond.[...]"

The teabaggers already ran off the moderate Republican, Dede Scozzafava. She withdrew from "NY 23" this weekend (and then endorsed the Democrat) The teabaggers also raised enough money and noise to push their Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman to the brink of victory in a district he doesn’t even live in.

If the teabagger candidate wins in NY tomorrow, look for radical righties to be emboldened to go hunting for 'moderate' GOP scalps in other districts. Their angry, energized base will take on more party establishment-approved candidates who don't toe their ideological line.

This surely won't go over well with the majority of Republicans...or with the rest of the country either. Thank goodness the teabaggers and birthers are a small minority of our 300 million citizens.

And, you know something is seriously wrong within the GOP when the wingnuts turn on Newt Gingrich - long thought to have great conservative ideas. Seems the teabaggers think Newt is too moderate...they don't like how he's trying to pull the Republican Party from the radical right to the more mainstream center.

A week ago Newt appeared on several Sunday talk shows flirting with the idea of running for president in 2012. Radical rightie pundits quickly shot ol' Newt down.

Yeah, the guy who led the GOP to a 1994 revival is now being dissed as a RINO -- Republican In Name Only -- just like they did the very conservative, Sen. Lindsey Graham.

The teabaggers were also pissed because Newt endorsed moderate Dede Scozzafava, and urged Republicans not to support the more conservative third-party candidate Doug Hoffman. And they probably still remember when Newt eased out Sarah Palin as speaker at a big GOP do...he didn't want her there out-shining everybody.

Like I said, we Democrats are not all that worried. The Republican Party has lost several recent elections, and has seen its 'brand' sink to 17 percent of Americans who identify themselves as Republicans, so it doesn't bode well for the GOP if they continue to divide the party and toss centrists out of the tent. The party needs to run moderate contenders if it wants to survive and maybe win a  national election or two.

Looks like they'll have to let this little Surge of the Teabaggers play out...and learn the hard way. There's just not enough of them.

Or. maybe we'll split into a 3 party system -- Democrats, the crazed wingnut teabaggers Conservative Party, and moderate to semi-crazed Republicans. Blue Dog Democrats should switch to the moderate/semi-crazed Republican party...it's where they belong, and I hope they don't forget to take Lieberman and Specter.

Anyway...more popcorn and on with the show!

Looks like it's gonna take a looong time to clean all the skeletons out of the Bush Presidency Closet. Deja vu all over again. From the NYT:

Dick Cheney lied!?...whoa, didn't see that coming. We’ll have to see whether Cheney’s lawyer will let him make a statement...or if he'll send his daughter Liz out to play defense yet again.

Someone please tell me - by what authority in the Constitution does the VICE PRESIDENT issue orders?

I know one thing - if Al Gore had done the same thing, the Republican temper tantrums and head spinning would be a sight to behold.

So, now we have Leon Pannetta giving us a little embarrassed grin as he tells us -"Remember when we told you we didn't have any secret program? Well...turns out maybe we did have this one."

And now we're wondering just how many other secret programs they're running that Congress and the President have no clue about...

Some people think the program might've been about "assassinating intelligence targets abroad." As if that would be a new CIA trick...

The CIA keeps telling us that the program was no big deal and if only they could tell us about it we would understand. But, hey, if there's nothing to hide they wouldn't be hiding it, now would they? People keep secrets when they know the crap they're doing is shameful or illegal.

Some lefties are happy that we may be inching closer to actually filing charges against the Bush law-breakers and liars. Obama said he wants to keep looking forward - which means it would interfere with policy making - but this new info might prompt Attorney General Holder to just hunker down and do his job, uphold the laws of this country.

Because it's very serious business when the vice president/executive branch orders the most powerful intelligence agency of the United States to withhold information from Congress.

I still think Obama has too much on his plate right now to be distracted by all that...yet once this ball gets rollin'...

And one good thing - turns out Nancy Pelosi didn't lie to us when she said that the CIA had not revealed its waterboarding policy during a 2002 briefing.

Many of the Republicans, especially Minority leader John Boehner, just as good as called her a liar and demanded an investigation into the allegations. Rep. Steve King accused Pelosi of "actively undermining our national security" and called to suspend her security clearance. Newt Gingrich even demanded Pelosi's resignation.

All those Republicans who trashed Pelosi owe her an apology...but I'm not holding my breath.