The Pyrrhic Victory: Tuesday Could End the GOP

Some prominent Republicans seem to be feeling their oats, assuming what are sometimes infamously referred to as "RINOs" or Republicans in name only by the Conservative GOP base, eat oats, of course. Mitt Romney is merely channeling Jeb Bush here in an increasingly obvious last-minute GOP establishment gesture to reach out to Hispanics, perhaps especially in Colorado, as we move closer to election day.

On "Fox News Sunday, former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) said a Republican-led Senate would pass new, stronger legislation on immigration reform.

To be clear, there's absolutely nothing wrong with the GOP welcoming more and more Hispanics into a Right-leaning fold. In fact, it needs to do that. Unfortunately, there are few if any across the GOP's traditional - and much broader - rank and file supporters who still believe they'll do it with anything other than something amounting to trying to be better Democrats, than the Democrats themselves.

Republican Mike McFadden tried that in his bid to oust Al Franken in Minnesota. He's currently down by a Real Clear Politics average of ten points. The Mitt Romney, Karl Rove and perhaps now Jeb Bush led GOP refuses to accept the reality that they never will, nor can they be better Democrats than actual Democrats. Furthermore, the growing lack of enthusiasm and numbers across what was once a vibrant GOP base as they continue to try may indeed signal bad years ahead for a national party increasingly out of touch with their own past supporters around the nation.

Norm Ornstein at National Journal recently touched upon a potential disaster waiting in the wings for the GOP should it actually win the Senate this coming week. If an over-exuberant GOP ekes out a Senate majority in what by every measure should have been a banner and even better year, the disaster could easily be even worse than Ornstein suggests.

A Republican Senate Victory Could Splinter the PartyThe tension between setting out a positive agenda for governing and the pressure to continue to block and obstruct will be very, very high.

Not surprisingly, today, the AP seems to be feeding into the current GOP delusion. 

GOP Rebels Mind Their Political Manners

Tea party groups and other Republican rebels that thrive on bedeviling the party establishment are minding their political manners in the run-up to Election Day, while Democrats are struggling.

I'd suggest, the real question is, are so called 'GOP rebels' really minding their manners, or have they now grown so tired of holding their noses that they are increasingly disengaged? In conversation after conversation I've had with GOP-aligned activists I've known for years, the latter appears to be the case. 

Even Rand Paul recently pointed out how bad the GOP brand is hurting: Rand Paul: GOP brand 'sucks'. Try to square that with any notion of a triumphant GOP taking control of the Senate and marching on to victory in 2016.

It doesn't add up. Then think about a second scenario. It's a mid-term election in which, by any measure, from the long history of mid-term elections, to Obama's current dismal approval numbers, the GOP should have won this year in what would have been viewed as a crushing wave of voter resentment. But it didn't happen. 

Face it, the GOP is poised to win today only because the Democrats are having a bad year, not because they're having a good one. And an establishment GOP that by Mitch McConnell's own admission sought to "crush" it's own base in the primaries can't blame conservatives, or so called Tea Party-aligned candidates. They got pretty much the slate of candidate they wanted and still under-performed, even if they do eke out a win on Tuesday.

If that's all they can achieve with the wind at their backs and everything else going their way ... how does that suggest they'll do in what will surely be a more challenging scenario in 2016? In reality, even if this version of the GOP wins the Senate, it's performing so weakly, it may have to wait for a mid-Winter run-off in Louisiana to celebrate it.

No doubt the usual suspects, from the establishment GOP operatives, to so many now out of touch D.C.-based capitol hill GOP staffers and the lobbyists in between will drink and celebrate no matter how small the GOP's margin of victory in a year when it should have been huge ... but then, they did the very same thing on the decks of the Titanic not long before she went down, too.

Source