Republicans Divided
by David Atkins
As much as we progressive bloggers are fond of pointing out "both sides do it" journalistic malpractice, sometimes even the traditional can't help but notice how bizarrely discombobulated Republicans have become lately. Case in point: the L.A. Times.
Facing that unpleasant reality, Republicans fell into an angry family feud over their strategy. Several GOP senators who face reelection next year accused their House colleagues of acting irresponsibly. The House voted to disagree with the bipartisan bill the Senate had passed to preserve the tax cut for two months so Congress would have more time to work on a full-year extension.
Democrats, meantime, were happy to accuse Republicans of voting to block a tax cut and leaving town without finishing their work — the same argument Republicans planned to use on them.
"The issue right now is this: The clock is ticking; time is running out," President Obama said in a statement at the White House after the vote. "And if the House Republicans refuse to vote for the Senate bill, or even allow it to come up for a vote, taxes will go up in 11 days."
This was not a fight that seasoned Republican lawmakers, most prominent among them House Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio, would have chosen. They see no value in having Americans think Republicans are allowing a tax increase, a message the White House continues to broadcast daily. Senate Republicans calculated that it was better to agree to an imperfect compromise, one that extends the tax break a couple of months and buys more negotiating time, than to try to argue otherwise.
But as has happened so many times this year, those voices were drowned out in the House by hard-charging conservatives and their newly arrived tea party partners, who pushed the GOP to instigate one last round of brinkmanship as the year ends. Boehner took up their cause, and is now withstanding grumbles from within his ranks and the arrows of Republican allies in the Senate who view this as a no-win battle.
It's increasingly clear that Boehner isn't in control of his caucus, and that no one is really driving the ideological train in the Republican Party except maybe Rupert Murdoch and Grover Norquist, who themselves don't always see eye to eye.
And speaking of ideological train wrecks, there's the whole Ron Paul Goes to Iowa problem:
Conservatives and Republican elites in the state are divided over who to support for the GOP nomination, but they almost uniformly express concern over the prospect that Ron Paul and his army of activist supporters may capture the state’s 2012 nominating contest — an outcome many fear would do irreparable harm to the future role of the first-in-the-nation caucuses.
In spin rooms, bar rooms and online forums, the what-to-do-about-Paul conversation has become pervasive as polls show him at or near the top here just weeks before the January 3rd vote.
Paul poses an existential threat to the state’s cherished kick-off status, say these Republicans, because he has little chance to win the GOP nomination and would offer the best evidence yet that the caucuses reward candidates who are unrepresentative of the broader party.
If the shoe were on the other foot, the traditional media would be predicting the end of the Democratic Party as we know it.
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