The Club for Growth President is Chris Chocola. This guy was the gift that kept giving in northern Indiana. He was a useless congress critter.

His seeing a “semi-victory” in conservative pressure trumping GOP backing for a liberal Republican candidate like Scozzafava is excellent news!

We need more expensive primary fights within the republican ranks.

Semi-victory? Semi-nitwit Ambinder needs to ‘splain this a little more succinctly. If fracturing the GOP and having the Conservative Party grow to leave both unable to win, then congrats on your “victory’ and strategy.

“In the 2008 election cycle, [the Club]launched an offensive against Rep. Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD), who, thanks to the Club’s efforts, lost his primary to conservative Andy Harris, and the seat eventually went to the Democrats.”

“But now, the Club’s moment seems to have arrived.”
snip

“The Republican, Dede Scozzafava, eventually had to drop out, Hoffman lost, and the rest was history.”

Campaign slogan: Club for Growth: A Proven Record of Semi-Victories!

So that’s the new buzzword for these asshats. A loss is actually a semi-victory.

Boy, that Florida primary’s gonna be a wild one. The gay guy vs. the brown guy. The GOP base’ll love it.

I think the CFG is on to something with this “semi” meme. In fact, semi fits in well with so many things on the right now. Here are some of the elements the GOP has brought to you in their new SemiSociety.

- more and more people have semi-jobs, sometimes two or three.
- we have semi-healthcare complete with semi-insurance
- working American’s (non-pundit nepotism variety) have semi-paychecks compared to years ago
- Semi-Governor’s of Caribouland, who work a semi-term.
- Semi-banking system which loses semi-billions, but still pays out semi-bonuses
- semi-functioning semi-funded crumbling infrastructure

Their new motto: “The New GOP: Semi-fying the Country, Because We are Semi-sane.”

Works for me.

This guy sounds like the local sports columnist who cranks out ‘moral victory’ columns week by year while the team keeps sucking or even getting worse.

(Back before Oregon became Nike U, we used to go 2-9 a lot, and found it only took ONE win to leverage a “we beat X by 10 who beat Y by 3 who…beat the national champions, so the Dux woulda beat ‘em by 178″ column.)

All I can say is, GO LEMMINGS GO!

And if you think the Conservatards are into semi-victories, the NY State GOP wants to roll up the score:

Scozzafava may lose GOP leadership post

http://www.myabc50.com/news/local/story/Scozzafava-may-lose-GOP-leadership-post/PwO8lji44ku4saIvLX79Hg.cspx

Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava may be stripped of her Assembly leadership post for endorsing Democrat Bill Owens in the race for Congress.

Sworn into office on Friday, Owens cast one of the deciding votes on Saturday as a health care reform bill squeaked by the House. The bill, however, is considered dead on arrival in the U.S. Senate.

So the state GOP fucked her over for the “local issues aren’t important” candidate, and now want to punish her for being fucked over.

Ummm … I will argue that the Eagles won a semi-victory over the Cowboys yesterday despite the fact that Philadelphia scored fewer points than Jerry Jones’s group of wayward children. The Eagles showed a lot of spirit and despite a few mistakes I do believe it’s incumbent upon the NFL to award them with half a victory just for showing up at the Linc.

“So the state GOP fucked her over for the “local issues aren’t important” candidate, and now want to punish her for being fucked over.”

Of course. This is just the U.S. version of stoning to death the rape victim.

Everyone knows when a woman gets assaulted it’s her own damned fault for having those lady parts that get everybody all crazy. You don’t see anybody punishing Joe Lieberman, do you?

I’m not sure CFG is entirely on the wrong track. We need to look at its tactics objectively,and I think we do that by comparing this cycle of Righter-than-thou purging with our own struggles to get progressive Democrats elected in the 2002-2004 cycle.

I remember the netroots, and esp. dKos, catching a lot of mockery from the Right for not winning any races during those cycles… and a lot of counter-mockery from us when our candidates won and took the House and Senate in 2006 and 2008.

So here’s my question: did we primary moderate incumbent Dems only to lose general elections in 2002-2004? I honestly don’t remember the details, so if someone does please let me know.

“Semi-victory” doesn’t even count in sex and horseshoes…

They’re way more effective than the Democratic Party.

Sad, but true. We should all do our utmost to encourage the psycho wing of the Republicans (apparently most of them at this point). It is the path to Democratic electoral domination.

Of course, it might be argued that encouraging the meltdown of the GOP is the ONLY way to ensure something other than a Republican majority. What with the Democrats busy proving as always that there’s no majority they can’t squander, no mandate they can’t fritter away without accomplishing anything while selling out on core values.

Really, the best we can hope for is a kind of neutral period in which to regroup, while the Democrats are “in power” — in the same sense that a dying ember is “on fire” — between Gingrich-esque periods of something significantly worse.

The CBA (back before Isiah Thomas destroyed) had the semi-victory scoring down pat. You got a pint for winning each quarter and 3 for winning the game. I give the CfG 2 points for NY-23 but the Dems get 5 points.

The conservative grassroots have been swept up in fiscal conservatism, and they’re fresh off a semi-victory in NY-23, where the Club backed Conservatve Party Candidate Doug Hoffman and became one of the central financial players in the race, spending almost on par with the big boys–the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee–adding just over $1 million to the race, including bundled donations.

Because fiscal conservatism is spending a ton of money on a loser who would be a cross between Dr. Strangelove and Napoleon Dynamite if they hadn’t marinated him first in ten gallons of Ultra-Dull.

Getting a chuckle out of his capitalization of “candidate.” When all else fails, Caps will make your candidates bigger than life. And winners. Also.

I’ll say one thing for the minority assembly that’s going to strip Scozzafava of her titles: they’ve got more balls than Harry Reid as far as off-the-reservation behavior goes*.

*See: Lieberman (Independent Douchebag – CN) + “Lieberman promises to filibuster health care reform if a public option is included”.

IIRC, it was kinda the opposite – big support for Stefanie Herseth (now Herseth-Sandlin) in the special election that got her first elected, for instance, and she’s as blue a dog as they come.

Something analogous that CTG could do would be like, oh I don’t know, supporting someone like DeDe Scozzafava in a seat thought to be safely blue, which is as ludicrous as it sounds.

I have a serious question. Honestly, I do. What would NOT be good news for the Republicans?

And, Club for Growth sounds like a hair loss remedy to me.

We’re sorry to inform you that you must withdraw your query. Please rephrase and submit as a semi-serious question.

Thank you,

The Management

The Republicans will take the Congress next year backed by the Club for Growth

Tell me again why Ambinder is considered a well known blogger/pundit. He’s an idjit. Also too, I am sure Rahmbo or Pelosi could find a nice cushy position for Scozzafava. I mean, we do know that Bill Owens was the 218th vote on the HCR bill right? If there’s one thing Pelosi/Obama does well it’s turning the knife with salt addedd once it’s in the enemy’s back.

Club for Growth sounds more like a male enhancement product to me. Just whack your penis with it several times a day and see the results!

Tell me again why Ambinder is considered a well known blogger/pundit.

Because he works for The Atlantic, which was–believe it or not–a well-respected publication (for decades) before, well, you know. I think that a substantial portion of their readership consists of people who want to believe that, sooner or later, someone will kick the no-hopers out and hire real journalists and essayists.

yep — I was sold by the ActBlue crowd to send some $$$ to Herseth way back then, and I’ve been regretting it ever since. I don’t care how reactionary a state she’s in, if you run as a Democrat there are certain basic principles you don’t break, and she’s broken them all.

That experience burned me so bad I’ve since refused to support any pol online that isn’t in my local ‘hood and that I know really well.

Actually, I think a big part of our problem is ongoing infiltration of the Democratic Party by people who would normally have been moderate Republicans back before the species went extinct in the 80s. I include the Clintons and now Obama in this group.

These days, Lyndon Johnson would be described as a radical firebrand and he would be at best a back bencher in the House. The left-center-right continuum that defined American politics has been replaced by right-far right with both ultimately more beholden to big money than they are to their constituents. Any initiatives that are actually broadly good for us will either be a last resort, unintentional, or a side effect of funneling more of the treasury to the same people to whom they have already funneled so much of it.

That doesn’t make sense to you? Makes perfect sense to me.
“Don’t be such a fucking victim!”

Yes. I can remember donating money to Herseth’s campaign because all the lefty blogs said it was the thing to do. I have regretted it ever since, especially with her most recent “yes” vote, on the Stupak anti-choice amendment. The strategy was always to support Dems that could win; the end result of that being what we have now, a Democratic majority which needs to pander to the right-wing minority to get anything done. Not sure if the alternative would be any better.

the irony of course being that, with the proper leadership, the democratic majority wouldn’t actually have to pander much to the right-wing minority — that minority would be told to toe the party line or else. but in some failed attempt at big-tenting, reid, pelosi and now obama seem to think that lots of carrot and litle or no stick gets you where you want to be. hence, their BFF lieberman got to head a pretty significant committee even though he’d stabbed them in the back, and now — surprise! — he’s going to filibuster their rent-a-wreck of a health reform package. Lame.

You’ve been terrific lately, T.

Thank you. Once I get all the accounting done, I’m have a feeling PP will get a nice contribution in Bart The Stupid’s name.

UgluksFlea, thingwarbler, et al: Thanks for refreshing my memory. I now recall Herseth wasn’t the only pragmatic compromise candidate dKos/ActBlue supported.

I have to say, I still agree with the reasoning at the time: Vote in more Democrats now, and better Democrats later. It does make a difference who has the majority, because whoever has the majority sets the agenda. Surely you wouldn’t prefer we had actual Goopers in each seat currently held by a Blue Dog Dem – with Boehner as Speaker, and Pelosi as Not Speaker? The last 10 months would have been very different, legislatively.

Sometimes – maybe even most times – the choice isn’t between a bad Dem and a good Dem, but between a Bad Dem and a Worse Gooper.

The conservative grassroots have been swept up in fiscal conservatism, and they’re fresh off a semi-victory in NY-23, where the Club backed Conservatve Party Candidate Doug Hoffman and became one of the central financial players in the race, spending almost on par with the big boys–the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee–adding just over $1 million to the race, including bundled donations.

So…they not only lost their Republican seat, but they spent a sh*tload of money doing it? This “semi-victory” meme is half-baked, IMHO.

Feh… I don’t buy it. By supporting and embracing these fake democrats we send the message that their platform of pathetic “republicanism with a human face” is really acceptable as Democratic policy. Once they’re in office, they just continue dragging the party’s overall position to the right. And when exactly would we have our chance to vote in the “better” ones if the party defaults to assume that the best bet is to run with the moderate who can get “the swing votes” — there’ll be no party support for a primary opponent in that situation, so we’re stuck with the sellout until he or she decides to retire or is simply beaten by a Republican who walks the walk AND talks the talk.

“Whoever has the majority sets the agenda.” Maybe, but in the case of an Obama it gets a little more complicated when we’re presented with all the progressive soundbites during the campaign, only to see a Blue Dog emerge, handing over control of key legislation to “the moderates” and the Republicans in spite of a massive mandate and majority.

In light of that, I’m inclined to ignore party politics entirely — of course, I have it easy: I live in Vermont, so when the Democrats disgust me, I can always give to Bernie Sanders…

If tomorrow the government found a mountain of gold on its own land and that mountain of gold was worth enough to pay off the national debt and to give every citizen in America one million dollars, Harry Reid would be unable to get a bill passed in the Senate to make that happen.

This will surely lead to a one term for President McCain so he can step aside and let Sarah Palin take over.

Wolverines! Victory! 9/11!

-G

Well, based on your two comments on this thread, you’re either a lame-ass parody troll, or a stupid, ugly fucktard. Either way, fuck off.

They should also strip John Boehner – just to see whether he was enough of a sport to pay for the Orange Glo Allover treatment or that he was such a cheapskate that he only paid for face+extremities. My money says that he’s frog-belly white from the neck down.

And David Vitter to see if he always wears his diaper or if he saves it for those “special” times.

Ah hahahahahahahaha!

Please share your dope dude!