It’s one thing to campaign as a psycho right winger in the primary election. It’s a little tougher to sell in the general election where even mainstream Republicans - if they still exist - have to draw the line somewhere.
Such is the dilemma facing today’s Republican Party.
High profile Tea Party candidates like Nevada’s Sharron Angle and Kentucky’s Rand Paul are discovering that when they walk off the deep end during the primary season, most people, outside of their hardcore followers, don’t take them seriously enough to pay attention.
However, once you become the Republican Party’s nominee you become eligible for an extreme makeover because what sold during the primary campaign isn’t going to sell as well during the general election. And Tea Party activists like Angle and Paul are eager to go along with the makeover because, as we all know, getting elected trumps holding true to your beliefs - however strange they may be.
There’s just one little problem.
What about all those idiotic things you’ve said in the past, that you supposedly believed in, and that inspired your supporters, but can now come back to haunt you?
Simple minds require simple solutions. You take them down from your website as if they never existed. You change the wording because what you said in the past isn’t really what you meant. And, to complete the makeover, you limit interviews to Fox News where the toughest question you’ll have to answer is your favorite flavor of ice cream.
In a hard-hitting, get-in-your-face interview on “Fox and Friends,” Angle said it was “nonsense” that she wanted to get rid of Social Security. She no longer wants to “privatize” Social Security, as she claimed in the past, but now would prefer to “personalize” the program.
Only on “Fox and Friends” and in Angle’s mind is there a difference.
Personalize - as in take Social Security away from the government and put it into the hands of individuals. Privatize - as in take Social Security away from the government and put it into the hands of individuals.
Coming off the financial meltdown in which a stock market crash was apparently averted only because of a $120 billion taxpayer bailout, and given that Wall Street’s financial stability is still in doubt, why would anyone question the need to eliminate Social Security and put all our retirement eggs into the Wall Street basket?
Angle also wants to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education because . . . well, as we all know, education just isn’t important enough to address at the national level. And, says Angel, if the federal government doesn’t change its ways, we are left with no recourse but armed insurrection - as provided for in the Second Amendment.
Yes, the Second Amendment was added to the Constitution as a means of bringing down the government if it’s not the government you want. I don’t see how Thomas Jefferson and James Madison could have been more clear.
And this is the candidate who defeated Sue “Barter Chickens for Health Care” Louden in the primary.
This isn’t the first time that psycho candidates have been hung by their own words. Rand Paul, the Republican Senate candidate from Kentucky, offered that private businesses should have the right to discriminate against blacks and the handicapped, he condemns Medicare as “socialism” and is opposed to anti-smoking laws because, as we all know, the rights of smokers are more important than the rights of non-smokers.
Oh, it’s also “un-American” to criticize BP too harshly for the Gulf oil spill.
These extreme viewpoints are amusing during the primary season. Once the GOP makeover team enters the picture, candidates are advised to avoid interviews with those media outlets that will ask tough questions.
Angle’s controversial views have also been taken down from her website and replaced with more moderate language.
Unfortunately, not everyone plays by the new rules. Nevada Sen. Harry Reid’s campaign stooped to a new low by actually retrieving Angle’s old website and posting it. Angle is angry that her old position is being used against her and has threatened a lawsuit.
Sen. Reid is breaking the law, claims Angle, because what she posted on her website is “intellectual property” and the Democrat Senator “can’t use something that’s not yours.”
First of all, referring to her political viewpoints as “intellectual property” is reason enough to dismiss any legal action. To add that anything you’ve said on your website, as a political candidate, can’t be repeated without permission is . . . psycho talk.
And this is the problem for a Republican Party that doesn’t know what it is or where it’s going. It’s left a void that’s being filled by fruit loops.
And the GOP welcomes them because regaining a majority in Congress is more important than standing for something.
The result is political debate that includes chickens for doctors, discrimination against minorities and armed insurrection as an accepted means for resolving political differences.
Our Founding Fathers would be proud to see how far we’ve come in 230 years.