By now we’ve all had time to digest the “shocking,”
“stunning,” “earthquake” (all terms culled from actual media coverage)
that is lame duck House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s ejection from his
post by the likes of tea party upstart Dave Brat. Brat, an economics
professor at Virginia’s Randolph-Macon College, is doing his level best
to upend quite a few paradigms. After unseating Cantor while leveraging
an infinitesimal campaign budget (you’ve heard the statistic: Brat spent
$200,000 – slightly more than what Cantor’s campaign dropped on steak
dinners), the most cynical of us are taking another look at the
assumption that mass money buys outcomes without exception.
At the same time, Brat demonstrates that earning a
PhD in a scientific discipline is no guarantee that data will have
bearing on political policy development. Brat won over his wingnut
district with a staunch anti-immigration position that flies against the
express desires of three major constituent groups: economists, business leaders and religious organizations.
But in between Cantor’s surprise overthrow and the
tragic and scary events unfolding in a foundering Iraq, another story of repugican cabal cognitive dissonance was somewhat lost in the shuffle. I am
speaking of last weekend’s repugican cabal coven in Moscow, Idaho, managed by
wannabe House Majority Leader Raul Labrador. I am not sure I could
provide a synopsis of the disaster more succinct and factual than writer
Betsy Z. Russell of The Spokesman-Review:
“Idaho’s state repugican cabal coven
degenerated into a fiasco Saturday after attempts to disqualify up to a
third of the delegates attending appeared to be succeeding – and the
coven ended up adjourning without electing a chairman, setting a
platform or doing any of it scheduled business…Far from uniting the
deeply divided cabal, the gathering in Moscow degenerated into
dysfunction – though it’s the cabal that holds every statewide office in
Idaho, every seat in the congressional delegation and more than 80
percent of the seats in the state Legislature. It also proved not to be
the finest hour for Labrador, whom many looked to as the healer for the
fractured cabal just a day after he announced that he’s running for
Majority Leader of the U.S. House; instead, he ended the coven
facing jeers and walkouts from his own cabal members.”
I must own that I gasped audibly at several points
while reading the text. June 2014 is the month of conservative
schadenfreude that keeps on giving. But once the gleeful laughter
recedes, an obvious question presents itself. Why does the cabal
continue warring with itself during the primary season in the absence of
any logical reason to do so?
The fallout from the silliness appears to be forcing
a premature end to Labrador’s national ambitions before they have an
opportunity to gain traction. Boise State University professor emeritus
Jim Weatherby, a longtime observer of Idaho politics, noted, “It’s hard
to blame all this on Raul Labrador, but on the other hand, this does not
strengthen his credentials for a national leadership position, either.”
These increasingly common and bizarre instances of repugican infighting have clearly been a longtime coming. “Mainstream” wingnuts asked for this after President Obama’s first election,
when they welcomed new radical and reactionary elements to the fold that
predicted long-term implosion. And anyone who paid attention to the
fall 2013 government shutdown will recall that heated rhetoric was just
as often repugican on repugican as it was sane person versus wingnut.
The larger lesson may be that the best Democratic
strategy for the 2014 midterms is no strategy at all. Sit back, take it
easy. Put up your local candidates and support them, but why bother
exerting yourself or spending a ton of money to go negative? Conserve
your resources and watch your enemies eat other.
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