Republican Civil War

The year already seemed to be ending with political momentum shifting from the Republicans to the Democrats, including rising poll numbers for Obama for a variety of reasons. Matters suddenly got worse for the GOP yesterday when the battle between the nutty conservative Republican mainstream and the totally bat-shit crazy far right tea-party fringe placed the party in a lose-lose position. Yesterday, with C-SPAN being told to turn off their cameras, the John Boehner and the Republicans decided to flee Washington without even voting on the payroll tax extension which passed the Senate with strong bipartisan support.

Even many Republicans realized what an insane move this was. The editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, which normally could double for they daily list of Republican talking points, condemned the House leadership for this fiasco. Karl Rove has said the WSJ was right and the Republicans should fold. Newt Gingrich, likely in the closing moments of his fifteen minutes of fame as a GOP front-runner, said the Republicans should give in. (Mitt Romney, trying to avoid the usual embarrassment of being on both sides of every issue, declined to take any position on this one)

The Republicans are being backed into a corner where they may have to back down and defy the Tea Party members, risking a decrease in support next year. Even if they do the right thing in the end, the irresponsibility of the Republican-controlled House has now been exposed to some who might not have been aware of it in the past. If the Republicans fail to back down, we will have a huge mess in January which the Republicans will rightly receive the blame for (despite the email I received from my Republican Congressman today reaching for a way to blame the Democrats).