Delaware As Fort Sumter

You remember Newton's Third Law of Political Motion: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Christine O'Donnell and the Tea Party Express fired the first shot, and it's been heard far beyond the borders of Delaware:

Visibly sad, [Senator Olympia] Snowe called [Delaware Chain Saw Massacre victim Mike] Castle “an outstanding public servant who was committed to the common good of his state and country.”…

At times, as the Maine Republican talked about this issue, she became exasperated.

“Ideological purity at 100% is a utopian world and I don’t know who lives in utopia. I’ve never lived in utopia,” said Snowe.

I asked about the argument her GOP colleague Senator Jim DeMint made to me a day earlier in his office, that Americans no longer want what he called “mushy” lawmakers in the middle.

“What works in South Carolina and Delaware may not work in Maine. We all have different views. We’re independent,” Snowe responded, “I can’t go back to the people of my state and say, excuse me, I have to be one hundred percent ideologically pure because someone has dictated that from another state. It just wouldn’t wash,” she said.

Actually, if the polls are any indication, it doesn't work in Delaware, either.

Now look: I don't disagree with a single thing Ace says about Snoweball's record.  She's a RINO's RINO; she'd have to move a day's hike to the Right to even qualify as a "squish".  She voted for Hogzilla, she voted for ObamaCare in the Senate Finance Committee and it killed her to have to close ranks with her fellow 'Pubbies and vote against it on the Senate floor.  She voted for FinReg.  Regardless of what she tries to pass off elsewhere in this interview, she's not a conservative on any issue.  The only thing she has going for her from a conservative standpoint is.....

....she's from a deep "blue" state, she's the best we're going to get from that deep "blue" state, and without a handful of Republicans like her from deep "blue" states, we are unlikely ever to see the majority in the Senate again.  It's the only thing she said in that interview that I agree with, because it's the God's honest truth.

Mark my words, peeps: A right-wing Rubicon was crossed in the Delaware meltdown.  The other side taunted us ever since the Tea Party spontaneously arose that they would be a huge detriment to Republicans.  The Dems meant their "right-wing extremism" would "turn off" the independent voters that have, instead, deserted the Left in droves.  To the contrary, TPers have - up until now - been a resurrecting force that has brought the GOP back to life and back into political contention years earlier than anybody imagined possible two years ago.

And the most ironic aspect is that they have - up until now - been quite pragmatic in their electoral activism, in the interests of winning as many elections as possible.

The TPE's reckless embrace of Christine O'Donnell - who was making a living losing Delaware Senate races long before the Tea Party was anything but an American historical reference - and hatchet-job on prototype squish Mike Castle has changed all that.  O'Donnell's primary victory in a state in which she's proven she can't win, and even more the dirty, dishonorable way she obtained that primary victory, has sent a disastrous signal to the GOP at large: We don't care about defeating the Democrats; we want to scour the party of any but "true conservatives".

And when CO'D goes down in flames in November, GOP Beltway Cocktail Circuiteers like Olympia Snowe, like Susan Collins, like Scott Brown, all of whom can pretty much count on receiving the Mike Castle treatment in two, four, and two years respectively, will have just the opening they need to bolt the party in Jim Jeffords fashion, and a ton of PR ammunition to go with it.  Senator Snowe has all but declared it.

Just picture it: Republicans gain the ten seats they need to take the majority even without Delaware, and then the very next day Scotty B. and the Maine Wonder twins call a press conference to announce, "with sadness and regret," that because "there's no room in the Republican Party for independent thought," they're joining the swelling ranks of "independent" northeast center-left Senators Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman - who also, by the way, caucus with the Democrats.  New Senate Minority Majority Leader Chucky Schumer would be standing right there with them, grinning evilly, to "welcome them home".

If, indeed, Senate Pachyderms ever reached the majority even so fleetingly.  Guess who picked the wake of Stalingrad-on-the-Delaware to make her own petulant bid for "independence"?:

“Believe you me, the easier path would be to pack it all up and go do something different,” [Senator Lisa Murkowski] said. “If I had not heard this call from Alaskans, I would not be deliberating as I am.”…

“It is people from all walks of life, every corner of the state, who are concerned about Alaska’s future and concerned enough to take action on it,” she said. “I’m a public servant. My job by definition is to listen to my constituents. And there was a process in place — a primary election — that’s certainly one way that you listen to your constituents.”

She added: “When you think about the outcome of that, in a closed Republican primary, how many Alaskans were actually able to weigh in? So what is the will of the constituency? When you hear this outpouring of support and concern — concern about the future of the state of Alaska and our representation here in the Senate — you do feel a responsibility.”

Halo-polishes the bat-faced trust-fund trollop with the second-hand overdeveloped sense of self-importance borne of regressive genetic drift.  'cause the voices in her head - i.e., her "constituents" - told her so.  Meanwhile, her actual, FORMER constituents already weighed in four and a half weeks ago by choosing Joe Miller to represent them instead.

But none of that matters to the Murk; she's a "public servant" (i.e. not trained to do anything else but steal), whether the public wants her or not.  And if she can't force herself on her FORMER constituents - a highly likely outcome - she's gonna do her damndest to make sure they are misrepresented by a "public servant" (i.e. Scott McAdams) they want even less.

Eeyore may be perplexed at why Queen Lisa waited until today to take the write-in plunge, but I'm not.  If she had been resolved to do this from the start, she'd have announced it the same week as her primary defeat, or after the Libertarians had turned her down.  I think she was vaccilating (as RINOs are want to do) until she saw what the O'Donnelloids did to "outstanding public servant" Mike Castle and took that as her final-straw green light to complete her hackish journey to the Dark Side.  Thus has one sore Republican primary loser "inspired" another.

Think there might not be some "words of encouragement" for the Murk from the Squish Sisters or the Kennedy Seat Warmer?  If not before the election, than not long afterwards?

J-Ger remarks that, "The RINO-hunters have a point that the moderates never seem to be willing to compromise or put the party’s interest first."  Thing is, now the moderates can say the same thing, thanks to Christine O'Donnell and the Tea Party Express.  Is there nowhere for us Rodney King conservatives to rest our weary heads?

Take it away, Mr. Van Der Galien:

To me, it’s far more important to point out that it seems a bit counterproductive for conservatives to have a go at each other, while their country is being burned down by the progressives, led by Obama, who took over Washington back in 2008. They apparently would rather waste their energies destroying each other than the ones who are doing their best to “radically transform” America into something you and I won’t recognize. It might just be me, but this seems a tad bit counterproductive and even downright silly. If it were me, I’d probably want to focus on beating the real enemy – ‘liberals.’ Not on taking down my political friends. 

So [ought] say we all.