After Stimulus Vote, Republicans Demand More Rope

When the stimulus passed in the House of Representatives, it did so without a single Republican vote. When it passed in the Senate yesterday, it earned a whopping three Republican votes. Sens. Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe, and Susan Collins broke ranks with their party, voting for a watered down version of the bill. Not content to fiddle while the nation burns, these three senators recognized that we're in an honest-to-goodness emergency. Something needed to be done and, despite pressure from their own party, these three senators did something. Not enough, but something.

How real is this emergency? So real that the world economy came close to literal collapse in late 2008. It was then that there was an electronic run on banks "to the tune of $550 billion dollars" within "an hour or two."

According to [Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-PA)], on September 18, 2008 the Fed tried to "stem the tide" by pumping money into the financial system but it didn't work and decided instead to announce an immediate increase in deposit insurance to $250,000 per account to stop the panic.

Said Kanjorski: "If they had not done that, their estimation is that by 2 p.m. that afternoon, $5.5 trillion would have been drawn out of the money market system of the U.S., would have collapsed the entire economy of the U.S., and within 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed. It would have been the end of our economic system and our political system as we know it."


But, of course, when the market and the economy are this bad, the Republican party decided that it would be a perfect time to do a little grandstanding, score some cheap political points with their base, and put on a show of wingnut solidarity. Three senators didn't play along.

With the Republican party the minority in both houses of congress, you'd think that most conservatives would be concentrating on increasing their numbers their. But, if you did think that, it would mean that you haven't been paying attention lately. The only people who still consider themselves Republican voters are fringe nuts and that means that cooler heads must never, ever be allowed to prevail. The lunatics are running this particular asylum and that's the way they like it. Wisdom is for the weak-willed, true conservatives listen only to their jerking knees. When you have an abundance of rope, the only Republican thing to do is to hang yourself.

[Newsmax.com:]

“Arlen Specter is DONE,” wrote a blogger named steelfish on the FreeRepublic Web site. “He won his last primary by less than 1 percent against a real conservative of Pat Toomey. And only because the President Bush came to PA and campaigned for him. He is DONE.”

Specter is up for re-election in 2010. Washington Republican strategists tell Newsmax this weekend that Specter's defection has sealed the deal: he will face a primary for the GOP nomination.

"We don't care if we lose the Pennsylvania Senate seat to the Democrats," one Washington strategist told Newsmax. "Better to remove Fifth columnists from the party."

The sentiment was echoed in chat rooms and blogs across the web.

“They are frauds. RINOS" Republicans in Name Only, wrote a blogger named Croupier101 on the Fox News blog site.


Let's be clear here, unless things change drastically, the power of incumbency will probably be the only thing that keeps Republicans in Washington for a while. Replacing moderate Republicans with candidates who are sufficiently and acceptably crazy probably isn't the wisest way to go about things. But, as I said, wisdom is for the weak-willed -- most remaining Republicans listen to the weak-minded. For the pretend tough guys of the GOP base, it's better to have a Pyrrhic victory against a fellow Republican than a constructive one against a Democrat.

"Maybe Collins, Snowe, and Specter should just change Parties now and make it official," writes Noel Sheppard of NewsBusters. "It'll be much less painful watching them vote like liberals without the 'R' after their names, don't you agree?" Yeah, because being three down in the senate is much better than not having complete, lockstep party groupthink. If your party can't be a party of clone zombies, you might as well just fold up the tent and quit the government business.

This isn't just a blogger revolt, this is an institutional attitude. "The American people don't want this trillion-dollar political payoff that will just line the pockets of non-governmental organizations who supported Obama in the election," said Scott Wheeler, the executive director of The National Republican Trust PAC. "Republican senators are on notice," he said. "If they support the stimulus package, we will make sure every voter in their state knows how they tried to further bankrupt voters in an already bad economy."

"[Sen. Specter] crossed the line one too many times," Wheeler told CNN. "We're now going to get involved in finding a conservative alternative."

You do that Scott. That'd be great. Find someone just a freakin' nuts as you are. Because, if the last two elections have taught us anything, it's that voters think that Republicans haven't been crazy enough lately.

Want some more rope? There's plenty.

-Wisco