I tried to find a pic of Jeb strangling Mike Huckabee, but alas, I was unsuccessful. Who says you can find a picture of just about anything on the 'Net?
Ah, well. You know the old saying: "You are known by the company you keep":
Emerging Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush, kicking off a West Coast fundraising effort, is opening the door to criticism from skeptical conservatives by attending one event hosted by a former moderate GOP senator who blasted the party for giving in to the Christian right’s agenda.
A Bush fundraiser Thursday in Indian Wells, California, is being hosted by former Missouri Senator John Danforth, one of a group of former Republican lawmakers who have criticized the party for shifting focus to a Christian social agenda.
Hey, I've never said that there are no "progressives" in the GOP; just that the Party isn't "filled" with them, and that they're a tiny remnant of its bad, old Rockefeller days.
The irony, of course, is that Danforth is as anti-conservative as Huckles is, with the lone exception of moral/social issues (i.e. abortion and sodomarriage). Which ought to give us a terrifying glimpse of what an extinction-level event a Jeb-Huck nomination showdown in 2016 would really be.
It's also indicative of how stale, long in the tooth, and withering on the vine that vestigial Rockefeller bluenose winglet really is that Danforth is still a player. I had actually completely forgotten about him. The last time I can recall the long-ex-Missouri senator being in the headlines was way back when he became obsessed with whizzing in the metaphorical face of his fellow Show-Me State ex-senator (and devout evangelical Christian) John Ashcroft after the latter was named Dubya's attorney-general. It's a mark of such Christophobes that they psychologically project their own anti-Christian obsessions on their otherwise-fellow Pachyderms who simply want to include moral/social issues in the platform, not concentrate the Party's entire focus on them.
Well, other than Huckleberry Hound, that is.
If these latter-day Pontius Pilates had their way and the GOP washed its hands of evangelicals, out the airlock would blow forty million voters, most of the Party's "ground game," volunteers, energy, conviction, its congressional majorities, and any chance of ever winning a national election ever, EVER again. Which, as I recall, is perfectly okay with Rockefelleroids, who are more than content to sit beneath the Donk table like the mongrels they are, waiting for occasional dinner scraps and a pat on the head, secure in the knowledge that they've got theirs, and caring not a whit if the hoi palloi even live to see another day. Though I tend to think that there's a generous measure of sour grapes in that witch's brew of acrimonious, bigoted resentment as well; Danforth is part of "a group of former Republican lawmakers," after all. What better revenge could they effect than to inflict a third Bush on the Tea Party and sabotage any chance of averting an Elizabeth Warren presidency? And if Barack Obama simply canceled the election and decreed himself another term, you wouldn't hear a peep out of Danforth & the boys, that much is certain.
But then Jeb has already publicly stated that he's running as the GOP's "anti-conservative" candidate, and the proud champion of Obamnesty and Common Core. Why wouldn't he French-kiss the Christ-hating country-clubbers while he's middle-finger-raisingly at it?
I will (again) issue this warning to Tea Partiers, though: The presidential nominating process is the stronghold of the Republican "establishment". Only twice since the days of Calvin Coolidge have conservatives managed to break through and get one of theirs on the ticket: Barry Goldwater in 1964 and Ronald Reagan in 1980. If you don't want to see yet another Bushie catching the red, white, and blue balloons in Cleveland in a year and a half - the "mistake by the lake" if there ever was one - then stop the idealistic fantasizing, drop the purity fetishism, forget about the Cruz's and Pauls and Rubios and rank amateurs like Ben Carson, get behind Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and turn him into....well, the GOP presidential "Jean-Luc Picard" to the Gipper's James Tiberius Kirk.
"Conservatism: The Next Generation," as it were. If it isn't already too late.
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