Alan that doesn’t mean shit. And youre not running against Obama in 16’ either
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there is nothing dangerous than believing your own press.
One of the biggest reasons the GOP presently controls both houses is the lowest voter turnout since WWII.
When Ernst is saying " we the party You sent to congress" the majority of Americans are thinking “I didn’t send you”
Heck the Senate GOP collectively don’t have the higher popular vote count that their Democratic opponents have even though they have more seats.
So doing this “us vs them” and “we’re from Real America” schtick…how is that going to play in states people don’t fly over but who’s votes will be needed to the GOP to take the White House.
Or hold the senate…
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I didn’t think the response was totally horrible, mainly because Jindal & Rubio set the bar so incredibly low. Ernst came off as someone who could read a teleprompter without showing “teh crazy eyez.” Content-wise, of course it was horrible. Optically, it was one of the better responses in recent years.
I agree the hokey personal story was a bit much. For me the (paraphrased) line “I didn’t feel ashamed because everyone else was poor too…” was incredibly telling. The rest of the speech was pretty empty. I guess it probably needs to be because she is not a legislative leader and can’t set the agenda. That pretty much guarantees a substance-free platitude fest.
I think she did fine but also think that nobody will remember she gave the response tomorrow. In other words, she won by not losing.
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“One you’ve probably heard about is the Keystone jobs bill.”
The Government doesn’t create jobs. The GOP told me this.
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Man…for a party so doggedly on message, the GOP last night looked more like one of those countless GOP Presidential “contender” debates. So many messages and none of them coherent and likely watched by about 10 people in a bunker in Alabama or Texas.
You have the “official” party response from Sen. Jodi Ernst who is billed as the spokesperson for the party but whose true positions on issues (largely covered up in her run for her seat) put her closer to the Louie Gohmert wing. She joined a growing cast of party response speech failures (Jindal, Rubio etc.) with a speech that seemed more about her “folksy” road to the Senate and so boring that MSNBC’s response meters showed some members of the audience being measured had fallen asleep. (there were predictions that we’d be seeing a series of “wet dream” profiles of Ernst today based on her performance from such likely suspects as Chuck Todd and Luke Russert and very likely George Will. Post facto, I think the tingles may be a little less intense than was expected.)
Then you have a Spanish language “version” of her official response speech from Freshman Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.) that got more notoriety than praise because it differed from what Ernst said, especially as regards the issue of immigration.
Then you had the official Tea Party response from Rep. Curt Clawson (R-Fla.), who is most famous for sucking up to two individuals he thought were Indian diplomats only to be gently corrected that they were members of the U.S. State Department staff. Can you say “Oopsies” boys and girls?
And now we have Sen. Ted Cruz (because he is Sen. Ted Cruz) delivering HIS own response with a YouTube video that was posted so fast it included a request for a “Take Two” and acoustics that sounded like it had been recorded in a broom closet.
As others have noted, despite the presence of (h/t Charlie Pierce) Obvious Anagram Reince Priebus, there really IS no actual GOP. It is a group of fiefdoms…each with its own ideologies and political dynamics and controlled by nobody.
Reince is trying frantically to avoid repeating the chaos of the 2012 election cycle when the party offered up 27 debates and helped introduce the nation to a clown car full of candidates and a spectrum of political ideas that frightened the women AND the horses. Reince is trying to cut the number of debates in half, but he still has the problem of too many candidates and too many wingnuts and not a single candidate who can come within 15 points of Hillary…including Jeb Bush.
And that is perhaps the best analogy to the party today…a group of fiefdoms, united by a single cause…to take us back to the Middle Ages.
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I think she was talking about this type of bag! She got the part of the body she was hiding wrong!
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good observation…
The GOP contenders and others don’t need debates to make embarrassing to the party comments…just a YouTube channel and an iphone
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RE: Ernst - Not only was the response awful, but did they really think giving a different response in spanish would really be a good idea? Talking about immigration reform, but ONLY in spanish?
Really?
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None of these ever actually sound like a response. It sounds like they are just talking about different stuff. It is not really a response other than that they apparently disagree. I do not see the point in these at all. I know they are media tradition but I just do not see much of a point. Most of the stuff she brought up are more political in nature or not as important. Like Keystone, is it really as important as income inequality?
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Sad part is after the pipe line construction is finished, so are the vast majority of the jobs. Only a few hundred will keep working on the pipeline after construction ends.
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Sometimes I think if Obama had just hinted at tax cuts for the rich, the republican’s would have rushed the tax increase through so fast, it would be law before they realize they were had.
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Yes, that’s what the reports are saying (I saw Ernst’s but not the Spanish version one)
The middle class can’t be restored without pissing off greedy rich people, and neither party is willing to do it. The Democrats are finally talking tough, because they know the Republicans will do nothing about economic injustice, and they can use that against the GOP in 2016. Democrats held a congressional supermajority in 2009, and instead of going after Wall Street and tax dodgers, they let Blue Dogs like Max Baucus call the shots for the entire party.
Does anyone honestly think President Hillary Clinton will take on Wall Street? They’re her biggest supporters! https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cycle=Career&cid=n00000019
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Good article. But from the headline, I was sure it was going to be about average IQ.
Gail’s wife squished them hog oysters between her bare toes 
She represents the Koch Kongress and just as equally the Koch Bros., who have a huge investment in the land rights of the Alberta Tar Sands, owning over a million acres of that land for tar sands oil extraction. Doesn’t matter that the pipeline doesn’t go through Iowa…Her #1 job in the Senate is to do Koch’s bidding. That’s how she was primarily financed during her campaign, and now its time to pay back her biggest donors by being their stooge in the Senate.
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“Ciceronian”. Just had to say it again.
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A pipeline that Krugman points out might only create a 0.03% increase in the number of jobs, and most of those will be temporary. And the lowering of oil prices already are causing things in the Texas economy to slow down, what will that pipe line add to that?
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So… the heart of GOP-land. Sounds on point to me!
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It’s not just possible, it’s actually highly probable that the hognuts lady’s peak castration potential petered out months ago as her personality morphed into a skirts-&-pantsuits version of Chuck Grassley, the politician most proximate to the GOP ideal of a bled-out, dessicated, gnarley, wizened old piece of tertiary cut recycled from the kill floor.
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