Frank Rich, 11/08: The Night They Drove the Tea Partiers Down

[Faygo Kid]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/opinion/08rich.html?ref=opinion

FOR all cable news’s efforts to inflate Election 2009 into a cliffhanger as riveting as Balloon Boy, ratings at MSNBC and CNN were flat Tuesday night. But not at Fox News, where the audience nearly doubled its usual prime-time average. That’s what happens when you have a thrilling story to tell, and what could be more thrilling than a revolution playing out in real time?

As Fox kept insisting, all eyes were glued on Doug Hoffman, the insurgent tea party candidate in New York’s 23rd Congressional District. A “tidal wave” was on its way, said Sean Hannity, and the right would soon “take back the Republican Party.” The race was not “even close,” Bill O’Reilly suggested to the pollster Scott Rasmussen, who didn’t disagree. When returns showed Hoffman trailing, the network’s resident genius, Karl Rove, knowingly reassured viewers that victory was in the bag, even if we’d have to stay up all night waiting for some slacker towns to tally their votes.

Alas, the Dewey-beats-Truman reveries died shortly after midnight, when even Fox had to concede that the Democrat, Bill Owens, had triumphed in what had been Republican country since before Edison introduced the light bulb. For the far right, the thriller in Watertown was over except for the ludicrous morning-after spin that Hoffman’s loss was really a victory. For the Democrats, the excitement was just beginning. New York’s 23rd could be celebrated as a rare bright spot on a night when the party’s gubernatorial candidates lost in Virginia and New Jersey.

The Democrats’ celebration was also premature: Hoffman’s defeat is potentially more harmful to them than to the Republicans. Tuesday’s results may be useless as a predictor of 2010, but they are not without value as cautionary tales. And the most worrisome for Democrats were not in Virginia and New Jersey, but, paradoxically, in the New York contests where they performed relatively well. That includes the idiosyncratic New York City mayor’s race that few viewed as a bellwether of anything. It should be the most troubling of them all for President Obama’s cohort — even though neither Obama nor the national political parties were significant players in it. . . .

[IdaBriggs]

1. No idea who this guy is / don't really care BUT he nailed it. nt

[localroger]

2. Can't really agree

Even Markos Moulitsas was rooting for Hoffman because of this, but I think the apres-fiasco reaction from the teabaggers shows that a Hoffman win wasn't necessary; the Republicans will commit suicide anyway because the teabaggers have already sailed off the edge of reality. Markos' and this columnist's argument are reality-based -- if the R's give in to the teabaggers they will lose general elections. But the teabaggers are purity driven. They don't care whether they win the general election. They will win primaries, probably lots of primaries, crow about their victories there, then don sackloth and ashes and rant about the godless heathens who need to be purged after the general. The idea of compromise is completely alien to them.

The Republican leaders can save the soul of the party by vigorously rejecting the teabaggers, but if they do that they still simply won't have the votes to win. The teabaggers will stay home or vote for third parties (Hoffman was not a Republican; they're too liberal for him). And without those votes the R's can't win. The Republicans only ever had a majority because of an improbable alliance between the far-right nutjobs and powerful business interests. The two groups have little in common except that they need each other to win elections. Probably the most unfortunate thing to ever happen to the Republican Party was six years of total rule; in that time they gave the teabaggers hardly anything of what they wanted, and even the dullest of them is starting to suspect now that they were used.

[starroute]

3. The model the teabaggers are betting on is that of the 1970's

After Goldwater was crushed in 1964, the extreme right was on the outside for a long time. But they built their power quietly, refused to compromise with the mainstream GOP (which they saw as controlled by the East Coast elites), and ran candidates who had no chance of winning.

And then with Reagan, they suddenly had a candidate cut from their own cloth and a seat at the tables of power.

I don't know enough of the details to be clear on precisely what went down then and whether it could happen again -- though certainly the discrediting of the GOP after Nixon was a big factor. But it's clear that the people over on the right who are pursuing this no-compromise strategy are hoping for a repeat and a vindication.

[creeksneakers2]

4. Exactly

Losing is reality. Reality chases them into denial. They just get crazier to keep up with the newest denials. They didn't learn a thing from 2006 and 2008. "We weren't conservative enough."

The funniest part is that the powerful business interests encouraged this insanity. Now they are prisoners of it.

[Joanne98]

5. He nailed it. We're getting stuck with the banksters brand!