"For all the talk about how the base needs to cooperate with the establishment more, it’s worth remembering that the base almost always does its part on Election Day. Its the establishment that is less reliable in returning the favor." ~ Jonah GoldbergEven though much closer than what any mediaite predicted, it was nonetheless the results that many conservatives saw coming a mile away...and there's no one else to blame but the GOP Establishment...
"It's a shame what happened to Ken Cuccinelli, because he was betrayed by his own party. ... I never thought I would live to see this kind of self-sabotage." ~ El Rushbo
Matt Purple, a Virginian who writes for the American Spectator, shared a similar sentiment and added that with a Terry McAuliffe win, Virginia government metastasizes across the state:
A far cry from the state that was once the home of such Founding statesmen as Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Patrick Henry and George Mason, huh?It took a while, but it was the result we expected. After a brutal election season that culminated in a football Sunday featuring more political attack ads than beer commercials, we Virginians finally have a new governor. Terry McAuliffe defeated Ken Cuccinelli last night by a slim margin. A look at the electoral map shows the state as a sea of red with scattered blue patches in the southeast and a cap of cerulean in the north.
Northern Virginia decided it was so turned off by Cuccinelli’s social policies that it elected a loudmouthed Clintonian bagman nicknamed “The Macker” who boosted his job-creator credentials by setting up a Potemkin Village hybrid car company and who abandoned his wife in the delivery room to attend a Washington Post soiree. McAuliffe was a candidate only a D.C. insider could love, and these days Virginia is bulging with D.C. insiders.
But even a lib rag like Politico couldn't spin this as a clean win for the Democrats...
Meanwhile, Canada Free Press, besides reiterating Levin's sentiments, expressed that tea party conservatives need not hang their heads in defeat, but march on...How the heck did that happen?
Most public polls leading up to Election Day had Democrat Terry McAuliffe coasting to victory, some by double digits, in the Virginia governor’s race. Instead he squeaked by, beating Republican Ken Cuccinelli by less than 3 percentage points.
The much-closer-than-expected outcome blunts the narrative that this was a clean win for Democrats going into 2014 and guarantees an intense blame game among Republicans about what might have put Cuccinelli over the top.
Related links: Cuccinelli: ‘First principles’ will triumph despite campaign lossCFP: All of those who worked so tirelessly for Ken Cuccinelli can hold their heads high. Even with an Obama bundler-financed, third-party spoiler taking 7 percent of the vote, McAuliffe only won over Cuccinelli by a measly [less than] 3 percent.
A furious Mark Levin blames the “GOP establishment” and “RINO mouthpieces” for the narrow defeat, and no one knows the details of the race better than Virginia resident Mark Levin.
He posted the following response on his website, MarkLevinShow.com:
WE COULD HAVE WON THIS RACE. FOR THE REASONS I HAVE EXPLAINED HERE AND ON THE AIR, GOP ESTABLISHMENT AND DONORS LEFT THE FIELD. NOW, NOT ONLY THE LIBERALS BUT THE RINO MOUTHPIECES CONTINUE WITH THEIR MANTRA ABOUT THE DEAD TEA PARTY AND THE RINO FUTURE. ABSOLUTELY APPALLING! (And they did not spend even $3 million, that was a phony number.)Meanwhile, for those few planning to use the oh-so-close McAuliffe victory as an excuse to throw in the towel, don’t whine. True patriots, already back for another day, mounting new battle lines, are bristling to carry on with the good fight.
RT@seanmdav: In 2009, the RNC spent $9M to win VA by 17 points. Looks like it’ll have spent $3M in 2013 to lose by a hair. Dummies
RUSH: GOP Didn’t Take The Opportunity To Drive A Stake Through The Heart Of ObamaCare
But let's turn back to the Establishment. The narrative that they wanted isn't going according to plan. The sober reality is beginning to sink in, as the Independent Journal Review acknowledges that the GOP chose to hand Virginia to Democrats rather than give the tea party and social conservatives (i.e., their own base!) a win...
Related link: Rush Limbaugh: “GOP didn’t want to win Virginia because they didn’t want the Tea Party getting credit”When the facts are considered in the slim victory that terribly flawed Democrat Terry McAuliffe had against Ken Cuccinelli, it’s hard to deny the conclusion that the Republican party decided it was better to abandon Virginia to the Democrat party than to allow the Tea Party and social conservatives to win.
Here they are:
- The Republican National Committee spent three times as much in 2009 on the same race as they did this year.
- The Chamber of Commerce spent one million dollars in the last Governor’s race, and not one dime on Cuccinelli.
- While it’s often claimed that Tea Party candidates do poorly among independents, Cuccinelli actually won independents by 9 points, 47 percent to 38 percent.
- “McAuliffe outraised Cuccinelli by almost $15 million,” and in the last weeks of the campaign, this left Cuccinelli with nearly no media exposure.
- Even Politico wonders if Cuccinelli was beginning to turn the tide against the “War on Women” narrative, as he drove down McAuliffe’s lead among women from 24% in polling to 9%.
Add to that the decidedly establishment victor north of Virginia. Both last night and again this morning, NBC's Chuck Todd reported that the freshly reelected so-called 'Republican' Governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, refused to campaign for Cuccinelli because Christie was too worried about 'his own brand.' That says so much about this media whore's motivation and intertwining with the Republican establishment...or should I say Washington Establishment, as he and others rub elbows with Democratic statists...
Breitbart: Had Christie taken just a half-day to stump for Cuccinelli, not only would that have helped wash the Sandy stain away, it might have actually made him a hero to the base for both defying the Morning Joe crowd and helping to drag Cuccinelli over the finish line.Breitbart also reported that the ex-chief of staff for House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) helped McAuliffe beat Cuccinelli in Virginia’s gubernatorial race. Again, another case of a backstabbing Republican staffer. Where the hell do they get these guys? Or better yet, is this a more truthful reflection of the politicians they're work for?!
Besides the obvious, here is one big difference between the Tea Party and the GOP Establishment: When the family fight is over, the Tea Party still fights for the family. We didn’t care for Mitt Romney, but once he was our guy, we fought our hearts out for him. And we would have done the same for the establishment choice had Cuccinelli not prevailed. In Virginia, though, after the family fight was over, the Establishment scooped up their marbles and crybabied all the way home.
From the looks of the exits polls and the massive money gap, that crybabying might have been the margin that handed Terry McAuliffe and, more importantly, the Clintons, a vital 2016 swing state.
If Christie wins the 2016 Republican nomination but loses Virginia, and with it the general election, last night should be remembered as the most short-sighted and spiteful cutting off of the nose to spite the Tea Party in years. The GOP Establishment and Morning Joe crowd keep lecturing the Tea Party about how it is all about winning elections. In Virginia last night that talking point was laid bare as nothing more than a lie.
Then to top off the Krispy Kreme display, TPM reports that while Christie refused to campaign for Cuccinelli, a separate report divulges that he will campaign for Goober Grahamnesty! Again, that says so much about the guy. (H/t: tRS)
You know, it seems to me that the better advice to take above the media hordes, the Democratic statists and the Republican Establishment, would be to look to a conservative, not a moderate, not what's lost us the last two presidential elections. As George Neumayr suggests, the media's election-night advice to the GOP is worthless...they should look to Cruz, not to Christie...advice he also gives to Cuccinelli...
Related link: And Now, The Airing of GrievancesAmericanSpectator: Chris Christie’s thumping victory on Tuesday night over an equally forgettable candidate contains almost no national meaning, save that Chris Christie is good for Chris Christie.
Which raises the question: How could Christie turn blue states red nationwide if he can’t turn his own legislature red?
The breathless burbling about how Chris Christie’s victory “shows the path forward for the GOP” conveniently ignores his inability to turn New Jersey red for anyone but himself. Before election day, the New Jersey media didn’t see any reason for the Dems to worry about a Christie victory, as they enjoy a 48-32 majority in the Assembly and a 24-16 lead in the state Senate.
Of course, establishment Republicans...will ooh and ahh over Christie’s victory and argue that Tuesday’s results, in which the moderate in New Jersey won and the conservative in Virginia lost, illustrate the wisdom of ideological flexibility and the value of distance from the Tea Party. Never mind that Cuccinelli...had made a point of avoiding Ted Cruz, even though it was Cruz’s brave stance against Obamacare and the consequences of its buffoonish rollout that ended up making the race much closer than anyone expected.
The future of the GOP is not Christie but Cruz. Have the Republicans learned nothing from Romney’s loss, McCain’s loss, Dole’s loss? The lesson is simple: do not run moderates; that just hands victory to the Dems from the start. A basic test for any GOP nominee should be: Can this candidate win his own state? In Christie’s case, the question, despite Tuesday’s results, remains open. After all, he wasn’t exactly running against Hillary Clinton. Another test is: Can this candidate reclaim his own legislature for his party? If not, all the enthusiasm is empty. Republican governors in blue states that remain for all intents and purposes blue always end up doing damage to the party, racking up personal victories for themselves while selling out the party’s principles.
ADDENDUM: GREAT monologue from the Great One tonight...worth checking out in its entirety here! Here's a portion of it, via MofoPolitics...
