I'm told that Republicans are asking themselves why they lost a winnable election this year, and are seriously considering steps they can take to avoid future electoral debacles.
That's what I'm told -- and then I turn to the party's de facto press office, the Murdoch media, and I see that The Wall Street Journal has just published this interview with wingnut Harvard professor Harvey Mansfield.
Mansfield basically seconds the post-election pronouncements from the Romney camp that confirmed Team Romney's contempt for ordinary voters and embarrassed the GOP. Remember Romney's declaration that Obama voters voted for the president because the president gave them "gifts"? Remember the way Republicans rushed to distance themselves from what Romney said? Not Mansfield -- and, presumably, not the Murdoch press. Mansfield more or less agrees what Romney said:
'We have now an American political party and a European one. Not all Americans who vote for the European party want to become Europeans. But it doesn't matter because that's what they're voting for. They're voting for dependency, for lack of ambition, and for insolvency."You could argue that Mansfield isn't as extreme as Romney, because he says that not every Obama voter voted out of greed and parasitism. But what he's saying is that the ones who didn't think that's what they were voting for were simply too ignorant to realize that that's what they were voting for. So their either leeches or idiots.
Which brings us to another Mansfield point that echoes an awkward post-election pronouncement from the Romney camp. Remember Romney strategist Stuart Stevens telling us that Romney kinda-sorta won the election because he got the votes that really mattered, the ones from white people, and from people making over $50,000 a year? Well, Mansfield agrees that Obama voters don't really count for as much as Romney voters:
" ...if we get serious about what it means to vote, we immediately go to the notion of an informed voter. And if you get serious about that, you go all the way to voting as a wise choice. That would be a true voter. The others are all lesser voters, or even not voting at all. They're just indicating a belief, or a whim, but not making a wise choice. That's probably because they're not wise."So: Obama voters? The unfit.
(Wonder how much Mansfield thinks their votes should count. Three-fifths of a person, perhaps?)
Republicans: Do you want to save your party? Do you want it to be viable in future presidential elections? Then you need to cut Murdoch loose. He hears the messages that are alienating voters ... and gives them a massive megaphone. He stirs up the crazies who force wingnuttier-than-thou Senate and House candidates on your party. He's killing you.
Hey, maybe that's why the Obama administration seems as if it might not step in to prevent a Murdoch purchase of the L.A. Times and Chicago Tribune. Murdoch wants an even bigger megaphone? Please proceed, Rupert.
