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Go Home GOP Rank And File: Off-Message Again

TIMOTHY NOAH OCTOBER 24, 2011

GOP Rank And File: Off-Message Again

BY TIMOTHY NOAH

I'm liking rank-and-file Republicans better and better. Earlier this month we learned that they favor Obama's plan to tax the rich. Now we learn that a 55 percent majority of them think Wall Street bankers and brokers are "dishonest," 69 percent think they're "overpaid," and 72 percent think they're "greedy." Fewer than half (47 percent) have an unfavorable view of the Occupy Wall Street protests. Thirty-three percent either favor them or have no opinion, and 20 percent haven't heard of them. Also, a majority favor getting rid of the Electoral College and replacing it with a popular vote. After the 2000 election only 41 percent did. Now 53 percent do. How cool is that?

Every one of these positions puts the GOP rank-and-file at odds with their congressional leadership and field of presidential candidates.

We keep hearing that the Republican base is a bunch of animals who applaud executions and jeer at gay soldiers. But poll data tell me that isn't the base; it's the knuckle-dragging nut fringe. The Republican base looks increasingly like a bunch of reasonable conservatives whose political views now put them well to the left of the ideologues they're sending to Washington. Time for Mitch McConnell, Eric Cantor, Rick Perry, and Roger Ailes to dissolve it and elect another.

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22 comments

Noah-nothing Tea Party was the original "hate greedy Wall Street' group. Didn't you know this? Are you really this stupid? Another fact -- Wall Street supported Obama, not Republicans last election. And Republicans are part of the approx 60% who disapprove of Obama's performance. I suspect it is the liberal moonbats like yourself who comprise the lunatic fringe.

- mr_rationale

October 24, 2011 at 3:56pm

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Again, the true moonbat is the inferior program written by that benighted Heritage staffer. There has been some populist sentiment on the right but ultimately, it comes to nothing, because there is almost no support from the starboard side for breaking up the big banks, increasing regulation, limiting untoward leveraging, et al. It is amazing how so dense a person feels so superior to those who actually know something.

- liberalref

October 24, 2011 at 4:18pm

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As usual rationale, you don't get it. Wall Street is utterly apolitical and always has been. Ken Starr was the general counsel of Fannie Mae for years, in just one example. He might still be - who cares? It's all a big pay off, party isn't relevant. In the end, Wall Street cares only that someone sane is at the helm. It gives whatever money it needs to to both parties. The only reason they supported Obama was because Bush Co did such a rotten job with the economy and was surrounded by such embarassing incompetents, they wanted Clinton's team back. And so they bought it, they got it. While they are utterly apolitical, they are partial to people with something resembling brains in their skulls. Republicans are the people who sent 21 year old recent bible school graduates to Baghdad to set up a stock exchange before the administration had bothered to secure the place. This is the party that thought if you just didn't say the *word* insurgency, it would all go away. They are not the sharpest tools in the shed. I can't remember a time in the last twenty years when the Republican leadership actually listened to what the American people wanted and did it. Poll after poll has shown that people want universal health care, want higher taxes on the rich - on and on. Remember when Clinton was impeached? 70% against? Republicans don't care a whit unless you're writing big checks - then their ears work fine. Just ask big pharma, the industrial ag industry, AMA, the student loan goons and all the rest. They are heard just fine. Poll those "people" (according to the Supremes) if you want to know what the leadership will be doing.

- WandreyCer

October 24, 2011 at 4:25pm

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Excellent comment, W., simply excellent. One of your very best this year. And that coward rationale is likely gone after the fashion of his usual hit-and-run.

- liberalref

October 24, 2011 at 4:37pm

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thanks libref, much appreciated. If they had David Frum type people anywhere near the Republican Party anymore, and I mean anywhere - Wall Street would write those guys checks too. You'd also be surprised how many closet Democrats are on Wall Street. I say closet, because alot of them do feign indifference to a bored center right thing when pressed, but they mostly don't care. No one is more cynical about politicians than Wall Street guys. They figure: you write your checks, they leave us be, just tell me the name to fill in, whoever it is. That's the idea anyway.

- WandreyCer

October 24, 2011 at 4:52pm

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In fact, our friend ratty has been away from the boards for a few weeks, I've noticed. I wonder if they were trying to patch up some holes in the application software . . . Heritagebot? Foxbot?

- ironyroad

October 24, 2011 at 5:04pm

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Bulbman, where are you, and why are you not commenting on this post? You were on another one this morning suggesting that the police go in and kick some asses among the OWS crowd, because 90% of Americans were against OWS. Are you going by some definition of the word "American" that is different than the normal one?

- NR409654

October 24, 2011 at 5:28pm

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Isn't Rat. doing a little bit of class warfare here? "Tea Party was the original "hate greedy Wall Street' group. Didn't you know this?"

- MikeB.

October 24, 2011 at 5:28pm

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The rank and file Republicans remind me of what Will Rogers once said about Wendell Wilkie in 1940: "He agreed with everything about the New Deal and that it was leading us to destruction."

- MikeB.

October 24, 2011 at 5:30pm

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I thought the original Tea Party was Rick Santelli ranting on the Chicgo Mercantile Exchange. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQQfzXQ6UjA Why would Mr._Rationale think that a guy on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange was "the original "hate greedy Wall Street' group." ?

- Nusholtz

October 24, 2011 at 5:50pm

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Mr. Noah, it's one thing for rank-and-file Republicans to say such things as reflected in the poll; it's quite another for them to vote according to those sentiments. What is my reason to believe they will do so?

- cspencef

October 24, 2011 at 6:05pm

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"Tea Party was the original "hate greedy Wall Street' group" - Ratty. The official spokesbot for the parasitic far right fringe group-think crowd that cherishes the 'job creators' for creatin all them thar jobs we bin hearin so much 'bout in these parts. It's nice to see the Rat Man try and attribute an 'anti-greed' characteristic to the Tea Party when there never was one to begin with. Sounds like the Tea Party cheerleaders are realizing their anti-American, pro-crony-Capitalism, laissez faire 'tea biscuits' aren't being eaten up by the majority of freedom loving Americans that cherish an actual fair, well-regulated, free-market economy.

- singlspeed

October 24, 2011 at 6:42pm

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Great comments, LR and Wandrey

- Curran1

October 24, 2011 at 7:24pm

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Who's the communard in the photograph? Could that be a beardless, young Fidel? Whoever he is, he looks like he's having a damn good time. The tragic thing about Castro is that Batista was a corrupt brute who sold his people out to the mob, Big Sugar and the CIA. He deserved to get ousted. But despite the high literacy rate, and the high life expectancy the Castro revolution represents a catastrophic failure of imagination. He had a shot, a brief shot to make things better in Cuba, and he bliew it. No way would I ever want to live under his brutal hegemony. I rubbed shoulders with some Cuban medicos in Namibia. One word for them: "cowed." You could tell they were constantly on guard against saying the wrong thing. Not to mention they were the worst-paid doctors in Africa; the Cuban government basically sold them out as indentured servants so as to spread la revolucion through good works and their pay was less than what we paid our housekeeper. And the irony was that the locals resented the hell out of them; they couldn't speak English! And try finding a Spanish interpreter in the Namibian bush...

- AaronW

October 24, 2011 at 9:43pm

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Fabulous comment, Aaron. You captured my sentiments about Fidel Castro perfectly.

- liberalref

October 24, 2011 at 10:44pm

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Thank you Curran - great stuff Aaron. I too just love this photo Tim, you have quite a knack for ferreting out the good ones.

- WandreyCer

October 25, 2011 at 8:48am

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Actually, this is a photo of a young Bertolt Brecht, important leftist/communist German playwright who, on watching the brutal suppression of the workers' rebellion on 17th June 1953 by Soviet and GDR troops sarcastically suggested that the GDR government should dissolve the people and elect another. Follow the last link in Noah's piece.

- lammersd

October 25, 2011 at 8:58am

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MikeB, Will Rogers couldn't have said that about Wilkie (or anybody else) in 1940, since he died in 1935.

- zardoz67

October 25, 2011 at 10:41am

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You're right zardoz. The actual quote about Wiklie is "He agreed with Mr. Roosevelt in the entire program of social reform and said it was leading to disaster." I have seen that quote a number of times, and I mixed it up with Rodgers. I am not sure who said it.

- MikeB.

October 25, 2011 at 11:06am

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I think Mr_Rationale has a point, but only half a point, because he leaves out the other half. Only a fraction of Tea Party and OWS hate Wall Street outright. In either group there are moderates and radicals, the latter unfortunately constituting the core of both groups, which dominates the rest in political speech and action. In either core there are the usual suspects, libertarians and absolute free-marketers on the right, and hard core socialists and environmentalists on the left; plus the usual eccentrics on both sides. The remainder are those that fear both corporatism and anti-governmentism. They lack both program and manifesto. They just want more fairness and equity observed and followed by government *and* business. They are the ones who are conspired against, both ends against the middle. Nor is Wall Street a monolith. Not all businessmen and women call people who both need and require government aid free-loaders &/or parasites. There are plenty of Wall Streeters who want a more fair and equitable business attitude and environment. They, too, are dominated by the militants. It takes quite a bit of gumption to tell both sides to sit down and shut up. Hopefully the true middle class losers can find it, say it, and mean it.

- Tgossard

October 25, 2011 at 1:12pm

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Encouraging results but I think cspencef touches on the real question. Will they continue to vote the party line?

- GSpinks

October 25, 2011 at 5:02pm

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Wandrey for President! Not that she'd want the job. But still:)

- Sophia

October 25, 2011 at 8:16pm

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