Friday Follies: Establish Meltdown

Awhile back, I described how the Internet is breaking the "business model" of the current political parties, and how that reshaping of the political landscape is turning a bunch of Old Guard Dinosaurs into losers:

When you hear talk of "teabaggers", or how "dumb" Palin is, or how Brown won "because he stood in the cold shaking hands outside Fenway Park", you know that you're talking to one of the people that the Internet is turning into a loser, as their political business model collapses around them. They'll all be gone in ten years.

Well, add Karl Rove and the Republican Senate Campaign Committee to the list. While their visceral reaction to Christine O'Donnell's primary win in Delaware was quickly retracted, but for a brief, shining moment, we saw their real core. Not especially attractive, and not particularly smart of them to show us.

Robert Stacy McCain tells us how it works:

Let me say a few word about The Backstabbers — not just those faithless former servants who are now disparaging Christine O’Donnell, but the entire category of Republican campaign aides, consultants and operatives who specialize in tearing down their former employers (and each other).

If you really want to know the nature of that hive of scum and villainy, RTWT. Plus, he has a musical interlude which is absolutely superb, and which hits center mass.

Neo-Neocon looks at the emerging pattern:

Take one attractive woman politician on the right.

Dig into every facet of her past, especially quotes related to her Christian religious beliefs.

Mock and revile her, preferably distorting what she said.

In particular, make it seem as though she is intent on legislating those beliefs.

Do it quickly, as soon as the person is nominated, before she has a chance to counter the growing “narrative.”

But she wonders if the people doing this have any credibility. The answer, of course, is "only with their hard-core fellow travelers". As I said earlier, the country looks like it'd be happy to vote for the Village Idiot rather than this lot.

Of course, the Democrats are just as bad, and even more clueless, because they think this trouble that the Republicans are having will actually benefit them. "Follies", indeed. Carteach0 looks at this - what's been said, but more importantly, what hasn't been said, at least publicly:

Career politicians are afraid. Very afraid. At least, the smart ones are, the ones not already lost in an internally generated sea of arrogance, indifference, privilege, and self importance. The politicos who are paying attention and have their eyes open are seeing a ground swell of citizens involvement they can't control and manipulate, and it frightens them badly. They are striking out in terror, turning cannibalistic, and scrabbling at the hard stone walls of the political tombs they never noticed themselves building.

I approve.

Me, too. The Dinosaurs sniff a change on the breeze, and roar their defiance.