Wednesday, January 11, 2012

"Frenemies," Big Daddy Catfish and The Rosey Test.

A "Big Daddy" 102 pound Alabama Catfish
Michelle Malkin writes:
Michael Corleone said to "keep your friends close, but your enemies closer." But what, pray tell, do we do with our frenemies? This is the awful election-year quandary of movement conservatives. And everything you need to know about our heartache can be summed up in one image: 2008 presidential election loser John McCain and Mitt Romney together on the campaign trail.
When they're together, they look like they're holding each other (and the rest of us) hostage. Their toxic chemistry makes seething, ex-newlyweds Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries look like Fred and Ginger. In New Hampshire last week, after Romney's Iowa caucus squeaker, an overly giddy McCain mocked his endorsee for his "landslide victory." Awkward.
Then in South Carolina on Friday, McCain mistakenly referred to Romney as "President Obama" -- as Romney and South Carolina GOP Gov. Nikki Haley rushed to correct the gaffe. Freudian slip? Senior moment? Sabotage? All of the above?
Of course, if you choose to pal around with a double-talking, big government barnacle, you get what you deserve.
Elitists of all stripes -- both within the GOP and without -- are convinced that once Mitt Romney gets the nomination he will naturally get the votes of all of those who despise Obama -- i.e., the Tea Partiers, libertarians, firearm rights advocates, evangelicals, etc. "Who else are they going to vote for?" they opine smugly, sure (as they always are) in their analysis.
Such people have convinced themselves that the Tea Party, that powerful popular movement that brought the GOP out of the wilderness in 2010 and thrust them into power in the House, was reacting to the presidency of Barack Obama and all he threatened. In fact, the Tea Party was made up of cumulative frustration at the political failures of principle represented by the GOP, the Bush presidency and the big government, go-along-to-get-along Beltway Elites who call themselves "Republicans." (A term that has always, I must admit as a small "r" republican, chapped my ass, for they long ago turned their backs on the constitutional Republic of the Founders.)
The Tea Partiers were disgusted by the unprincipled candidates of the GOP, whether they were elected or not, and decided to give the two-party system one last try. They would try to take over the GOP from the bottom up, and 2010 was the result. Two years on, they are beginning to understand how stacked is the two-party deck against them. But remember this: they don't blame Obama or his party for that. They quite rightly blame the people whose failures pissed them off in the first place -- the GOP elitists who are desperately trying to cram Mitt Romney down their throats.
Down here in Alabama, we've got a lot of dams. At the base of those dams, way down deep, there are big catfish who grow to their incredible size because all they do is sit where the water requires minimal effort to stay stationary while the ever-flowing river stuffs food in their mouths. That's all they do. They sit still, even sleep with their maws open, every now and then they procreate, and just get bigger and bigger. A fisherman friend of mine calls 'em "big daddies."
The big daddy catfish are invested in the dam. If they were sentient beings and could vote, they would make sure that no politician threatened that dam in the interest of the other fish who might want to swim free upstream. That is exactly and precisely what the GOP elitists are, big daddies. They are invested in the dam of big federal government and uninterested in free navigation. They would rather be the big daddies in a small lake, as long as the dam feeds them.
If there were Tea Party fish who proposed that life was better before the dam, when all fish could swim free, I'm sure the big daddies would ignore them and wish them gone. If it looked like they might succeed in their reforms, I'm sure the big daddies would turn on them and kill them to remove the threat to their way of life.
The thing about today's very human elitists of the GOP and their "who else are they going to vote?" analysis is that they fail the Rosey test.
My wife Rosey has been paying particular attention to the GOP race for president this year. She watches EVERY debate and switches the television back and forth between FOX and MSNBC. Rosey's first vote for a GOP presidential candidate was for Ronald Reagan. Since then, she has always tried to vote for "the lesser of two evils." Not this year. This year, she told me, if the GOP picks Romney she will be voting for whatever third party candidate seems best or for "None of the Above."
I rather suspect that that's what the majority of the Tea Partiers who, with their money and enthusiasm, put the GOP in the catbird seat in the House in 2010 will do this year. They will sit on their hands, or vote third party, but they will not vote for "Windsock Mitt" Romney.
The big daddies will not particularly mind this, of course, since in any case, they've still got theirs. At least until somebody decides their rotten system no longer has even a fig leaf of legitimacy and decides to blow up the dam and watch as all of the big daddies of both parties get sucked downstream and dashed to death on the rocks and debris below.

16 comments:

oldsmobile98 said...

Dr. Paul is the man of the hour. He really is the only one on the ballot who supports small government.

Is foreign policy the hangup?

So many are afraid of a non-interventionist foreign policy, because interventionism has been the status quo for so long. But more and more foreign policy experts (like Michael Scheuer, who headed the CIA's Bin Laden unit, and retired US Army Colonel Andrew Bacevich) are speaking out and reminding us that intervention makes us LESS safe, not to mention broke.

Friends, remember George Washington's Farewell Address and his warning to stay out of foreign entanglements. Say no to those who want to go to war with Iran.

My two cents.

Anonymous said...

Mike - overall a good analogy but I will 'disagree' in one small point: the intent of the TEA party folks was NOT to take over the GOP (although that is how they are usually characterized) - it was to attempt to get the party elites to WAKE UP.

Also let us not forget that those 'big daddies' make for some mighty fine fillets - IMHO properly fried catfish is fine eating, perhaps the best fish there is.
I say that as a warning to the party elites to remind them that they too can become extinct should they continue to ignore the will of the people.

W W Woodward said...

@oldsmobile98,

Foreign Policy? George Washington pretty well outlined how our foreign policy should progress. It's way past time that he be listened to.

I don't see Dr. Paul as an "isolationist" as many of the brain dead of America have accepted the Lame Stream Media's labeled.

I see the man as one of an overwhelming number of Americans who are sick of sending money all over the world to countries whose people in power for various reasons hate the very ground we walk on and the air we breath.

The USA for too long has not only been the unwanted and unappreciated "police force" of the world, we have also attempted to be everybody's "Daddy" and keep everybody happy all the time. Hell, I only have four children and several grandchildren and at any given time at least one or more is stirring the bucket because he/she feels somebody else is being treated better than him/her.

[W3]

Gunny G said...

oldsmobile98, Paul is a pork barreler just like all the rest. He sticks the pork in a bill HE KNOW will pass even if he votes NO. He votes NO, the pork comes on home and Paul gets to say he voted NO on it. No thanks. Not to mention he is half nuts and an anti-semite to boot.

One point here and it's a biggie.

Can we afford NOT to vote for Romney, if we have to, to keep President Mayhem from appointing one or two MORE Kagan-like morons to the SCOTUS? It is already 4-4 with one moron as a swing vote. Want it say, 3-6?

rexxhead said...

Romney cannot win.

http://dispatchesfromheck.blogspot.com/2012/01/republican-electoral-trap.html

Ashrak said...

Breaking windows, blowing up dams, Mike you will be on your way to GITMO shortly if you don't bow down and kiss the ring......
;)

Good luck with that puter.

Hey Olds, there is merit in staying out of foreign entanglements, to be sure, but there is just as much merit in fighting to win when we are entangled because others make it so that we are indeed entangled.

Iran has been at war with us for my entire lifetime. At what point do folks admit that the USA is not the root of all war and that there is truth to the statement that we do indeed hold the right to fight back?

TPaine said...

You're guessing right, Mike! I can tell you from personal contact and experience that a whole shitload of people will be voting for Ron Paul, whether or not he gets his party's nomination. We'll vote for him in the primaries, and we'll be voting for him in the general, as the Republican candidate or as an independent/write-in.

And I have this feeling that Dr. Paul will be running for President in either case. Last election, he didn't come out this strong, and decided against it, but this time around, he has nothing to lose, and all of us know that it's either him or "just more of the same." We're not taking any more of this "a vote for Ron Paul is a vote for Obama." And you can take that to the bank.

What is "Occupation" said...

We all have our issues.

I was a Tea Party guy from the democrat party (no longer a dem) since the beginning.

But the one over powering thought I have is the reckless position Obama has put us in when it relates to our foreign affairs.

All other issues are solvable, but not if America is cuckholded around the globe.

Iran, Russia, North Korea, China, OPEC and others see America creating a vacuum.

It will be very hard to regain what we are giving up and that cost will take generations to fix....

I will hold my nose and vote for ANYONE to stop Obama and company from continuing their destruction.

Dedicated_Dad said...

I will vote for Ron Paul if I can - ESPECIALLY if he runs "third-party!"

If that's not an option, I will vote for Obama!

For those who are ready to string me up, it's time for us all to face reality!

RP **MIGHT** - with Retardlican-majority support in both houses - be able to turn things around without major bloodshed.

All mitt-for-brains will do - at best - is delay the inevitable, and leave Leviathan with more time to entrench its insane tyranny ever deeper into our collective lives.

My vote will be for "LET'S GET IT OVER WITH!" - as personified by Dear Reader!

Olds98: The only people MORE afraid of RP than the Collectivist "progressives" in the "EVIL" "party" are the Collectivist Progressives in the "STUPID" "party."

We don't really HAVE a "2-party" system, we have ONE party -- the GOVERNMENT party -- with 2 branches!

Ergo, the media and the progressives are doing their best to prevent the peaceful revolution a RP presidency would bring.

We REALLY should remember what Kennedy said about those who make peaceful Revolution impossible...

Anonymous said...

I will never, ever, not, no, nien, non, nyet, ever, not in a million years, not if meant the heavens were falling, not if the sun was blowing up and I alone could stop it, not if the election boiled down to me being the tie-breaking vote, not even if it means Barry gets a 2nd term, I will NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT vote for Romney.

Anonymous said...

I hate the "party first" mentality of some (not all) conservatives. This is not the Soviet Union, even if the regressives (is there anything pro about "progressives?") want to turn the country into one.

Until conservatives by and large vote with their conscience, we will always end up with the regressive republican (RINO/Establishment).

WarriorClass III said...

"At least until somebody decides their rotten system no longer has even a fig leaf of legitimacy and decides to blow up the dam and watch as all of the big daddies of both parties get sucked downstream and dashed to death on the rocks and debris below."

If Romney gets the nomination, there's absolutely no reason not to blow up the damn and every reason to see it and them go. On the long slumber.

Ron Paul or Revolution!

WarriorClass III

Longbow said...

The last time I voted for the lesser of two evils was 1992. I haven't voted in a general election since. I have participated in the primary system and voted for local officers.

If the vote comes down to a choice between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks, I will abstain.

I refuse to participate in a farce.

Anonymous said...

I will still vote for a three legged dog named TRIPOD before ever voting to re-elect the socialist O'Bamster. This from a registered Democrat who fears for his country. Going down the toilet fast if we don't do some serious house cleaning in DC.

Anonymous said...

Not a big Romney fan but every vote for a third party is a vote for Obama. Ron Paul can't win. Sorry but that's a fact Jack.

justiceseeker51 said...

Ron Paul's 'speech' in NH....
Explains a LOT....He is our only Hope!

http://www.ronpaul.com/2012-01-10/ron-pauls-victory-speech-in-new-hampshire/