ERICKSON AND MALKIN: THE PEOPLE'S FRONT OF JUDEA



AS FMguru in comments and a lot of other people have noted, Erick Erickson of RedState has issued a declaration of victory even more ridiculous than the Michelle Malkin boast I quoted in my last post. Erickson:

In NY-23, Conservatives Win

The race has now been called for Democrat Bill Owens.

This is a huge win for conservatives.

"Whaaaa. . . ?" you say.

There are two big victories at work in New York’s 23rd Congressional District.

First, the GOP now must recognize it will either lose without conservatives or will win with conservatives....

Secondly, and just as importantly, there has all of a sudden been a huge movement among some activists to go the third party route. We see in NY-23 that this is not possible as third parties are not viable....

For all intents and purposes, NY-23 is a trial run for Florida. And in Florida, the conservative candidate is operating inside the GOP. If John Cornyn and the NRSC do not want to see Florida go the way of NY-23, they better stand down.

Combine this with what Malkin said --

A humble accountant from upstate New York exposed the hypocrisy of GOP leaders.... The GOP leadership knows it cannot afford to rest on its laurels, continue business as usual, and bask in yesterday's electoral victories without confronting its abysmal abdication of principled conservative leadership in NY-23.

-- and you realize that the real enemy for these guys is starting to be their fellow Republicans, not us.

I suppose I'm the last guy to realize this. I thought the crazies were going to seize the party bus and swerve it to the right, but the party was just going to sigh and position itself on the bus rather than under it, then everyone was going to kiss and make up afterward, bonding over their shared hatred of fascist Marxist Kenyan ACORN gay-married Hollyweird hippie America-hating Nancy Pelosi Rosie O'Donnell fat Michael Moores. And if a few winnable elections got lost, well, as long as there were at least forty Republicans-plus-Lieberman-plus-Blue-Dogs in the Senate, and as long as Richard Cohen and David Broder still loathed Obama more than any Republican, it's all good.

But I get the feeling from this that these folks are going to paint targets on the backs of even primary winners they don't like. Then, hey, maybe there'll be a battle within this movement -- some will want to start the Tea Party Party and run Rubio against Crist and the Democrat if Crist survives Rubio's primary challenge, while Erickson will angrily reject that course of action ("third parties are not viable"), calling instead for a huge expenditure on purely negative anti-Crist ads, but no endorsement of a candidate. To me it looks more and more as if Democrats are the hated Romans, but the GOP establishment is the Judean People's Front, and the teabaggers are the People's Front of Judea.