Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham are not the only ones who believe that the Republican Party will be destroyed if Mitt Romney loses to Obama in November. Bryan Fischer, who can always be counted on for serious, rational and well-considered opinions, thinks so too.
“If Barack Obama wins this election the Republican Party as we know it is finished, it is dead, it is toast — you can stick a fork in it,” he told TPM Friday at the Values Voter Summit in Washington. “And conservatives, grassroots conservatives, are either going to start a third party or they are going to launch a hostile takeover of the Republican Party.”
I’m all for either of those outcomes, though the second one is rather silly — the religious right already controls the GOP. All you have to do is look at the party platform for that.
While he did not predict Romney would lose, he had some advice for conservatives looking to rebuild the party in the wake of an Obama re-election.
“I think if Mitt Romney loses this election that the pro-family leaders in the United States should get together with Rick Perry on Nov. 7 and start planning for 2016,” he said.
Apparently, Fischer didn’t watch Perry’s primary campaign.
21 comments
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Gregory in Seattle
September 18, 2012 at 9:10 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I find it funny that as the Tea Party extremist branch has gained more control of the GOP, the Republican “brand” has become more loathsome to the American people. And it is downright hysterical that the TP extremist solution is to grab more control and become even more extreme.
dingojack
September 18, 2012 at 9:22 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Oh please Ed, if you have any powers of persuasion, can you get the teabaggers to form a third party with Lil’ Ricky at the helm for 2016?
It’ll provide a distraction (in the form of an irresistible car-wreck of a campaign) from the dull, stodgy and stage-managed affairs of the two ‘grown up’ parties, at least.
Dingo
Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort
September 18, 2012 at 9:29 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Oh, I’d love the Tea Party to form a third party. Please, please do it!
hexidecima
September 18, 2012 at 9:34 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
so “grassroots conservatives” is the new code for “bigoted theocrats”. As Gregory said, it’s pretty amusing that again we see such idiots willing to double down on failure.
I just dread such idiots becoming violent when they lose.
Eric R
September 18, 2012 at 9:34 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Given Fischer’s usual accuracy this probably means Rmoney wins. Either that or the old bromide “Even a blind squirrel finds a nut from time to time” applies
nigelTheBold, Venomous Demonic Hater
September 18, 2012 at 9:38 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So, their platform isn’t working, and their solution is to double down?
jhendrix
September 18, 2012 at 9:46 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It’s much like religion, and YEC/presuppositional apologists rejecting evidence stating the earth is more than 6000 years old.
Their cherished beliefs “Can’t be wrong!” so the evidence you have against it is what’s wrong/faulty.
Ibis3, member of the Oppressed Sisterhood fanclub
September 18, 2012 at 9:46 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Well the platform may be a teabagger scrawl, but the real power still resides with the wallets. The theocrats didn’t get the candidate they wanted, so they will blame the plutocrats for losing them the election. The plutocrats will blame the theocrat nutcases for turning off the electorate with their unpalatable focus on things like those pesky incubation machines, when they could have fooled everyone yet again if only they’d been able to go solely with their standard conservative “we’re good for the economy” propaganda. It would be really nice if their alliance does break after Mitt’s defeat, but I’m doubtful.
John Hinkle
September 18, 2012 at 10:05 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
And what better way to plan for 2016 than a big giant honkin’ prayer rally!
Michael Heath
September 18, 2012 at 11:05 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Ed reports:
By 2016 the GOP should be ready for Rick Perry. The governor of Texas was just ahead of his time in 2012.
naturalcynic
September 18, 2012 at 11:34 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Oh darn, I was hoping that he would have finished with “…and start planning to secede.”
baal
September 18, 2012 at 12:33 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Fisher fails (again, always(?)) to understand that he and his poisoned the GOP. I didn’t always disagree with the republicans of the 1990s (just to pick a time in the recent past), I do now disagree with pretty much everything they have voted to pass (aside from consent decree stuff) 100%. My politics haven’t moved much, theirs has.
whheydt
September 18, 2012 at 12:48 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I could see the Tea Baggers/Theocrats/Fundies et al. “taking over”, but they’d do it by purging anyone even marginally to their left. It would be the “moderate” Republicans that would have to choose among voting for Democrats, going independent, or forming a third party.
Under that last option, there would be a chance for near-permanent, but at least plausibly respectable “third party” to emerge and become the second party, displacing an extreme right “Republican” party.
However, since, under the US system, third parties have never proven viable, it would be likely that the “Republican” party would fairly quickly be marginalized into single digits (and probably low single digits) just like all the other minor parties we already have.
abb3w
September 18, 2012 at 12:53 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
While the religious right faction maintains enough control over the GOP to demand that candidates kowtow (such as with Romney), they do not maintain enough control to be assured that candidates must be of their faction to be nominated (EG, the failure of Santorum, Bachmann, and Perry).
That said, between the Tea Party and Religious Values voters, they’re almost a majority of the GOP. If they can just drive out a few more RINOs (like the young “Window Shoppers” and the “Old School” Rockefeller types), they’ll have utterly secured the reins of the GOP… and utterly doomed the GOP in national politics.
Azkyroth, Former Growing Toaster Oven
September 18, 2012 at 1:31 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Why couldn’t they be right about this one thing? :(
computerguy
September 18, 2012 at 8:03 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
My first thought is that it is crazy not to consider the independant voters but as your voting is not compulsory, I understand that it just isn’t a matter of convincing the middle you also need your voters to go out and vote. Is there a large block of people on the right who aren’t voting but may vote for one of the crazier GOP candidates?
I read somewhere that there is a large group of people who would lean Democrat who never vote.
computerguy
September 18, 2012 at 8:07 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
As for a third party, I can’t see how this will be different to the last election. Romney will be declared a RINO who was foisted on them by the establishment.
Even if Romney wins I think that he will wear that label (unless the economy manages to start another bubble)
paul
September 18, 2012 at 8:29 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I saw an editorial elsewhere that claimed that the Republicans are trying to win this year’s election with the white vote only, and they know that this is the last time they can do that. It certainly matches what they are doing.
So, the GOP as it exists today is finished after this election, irregardless of who wins. If it is to continue as a national party, it will have become something else. In some states, the current “straight white Christians only” version of the GOP may be able to continue for some time yet.
sezme
September 18, 2012 at 9:40 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Ya know, paul, one reads about the demise of both parties whenever they lose a national election. Think back to the landslide of 2008. The wailing and gnashing of teeth was everywhere. Two years later? SLAM DUNK.
Shawn Smith
September 19, 2012 at 1:58 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Oops.
stace
September 19, 2012 at 8:32 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Always amusing to watch the circular firing squad in the process of formation.