Rick Snyder: Reactionary Politics With the Ethics of a Telemarketing Scam Artist
And, yes, people who are conned into voting for Republicans because they pretend to be moderates are suckers who shouldn’t be surprised by this, but still.
And, yes, people who are conned into voting for Republicans because they pretend to be moderates are suckers who shouldn’t be surprised by this, but still.
c u n d gulag:
December 12th, 2012 at 5:12 pm
Even if, giving at least SOME of the Republican politicians credit for intending to try be at least fairly moderate, they have to crank their dial up to “CRAZY!!!”, to please their moronic knuckle-dragging mouth-breathing Evangelical and Bircher bases, or else be primaried and lose their next election.
Self-preservation is the first rule of politics.
patrick II:
December 12th, 2012 at 5:13 pm
You can add Mitch Daniels to the list of lying republican campaigners who pushed and signed right-to-work law at his first opportunity.
Murc:
December 12th, 2012 at 5:32 pm
To be fair, a lot of people just haven’t kept up with the times. People are busy and have lives.
My Dad still votes Republican in part because he liked John Chafee. And why shouldn’t he like him? Chafee was a good man, a fine Senator.
Who has been dead for nearly thirteen years and whose son was basically declared apostate.
I will note that for a long time it was Democrats who were the beneficiaries of this, as during the 80s and 90s there were a lot of, for lack of a better term, Zell Miller Democrats who were still handing the party victories in places like Tennessee because of inertia.
Charlie Sweatpants:
December 12th, 2012 at 5:43 pm
From the link:
“Given Scott Walker’s similar actions in Wisconsin, it seems that this is becoming a favored approach for Republican politicians. Campaign as a moderate defender of the status quo, and then—when the spotlight has moved—unleash a maximist, hyper-ideological agenda.”
This is hardly a new phenomenon. I seem to recall a certain Texan pulling this twice on the national level.
MAJeff:
December 12th, 2012 at 5:45 pm
And I recall Ralph Reed encouraging Christian Coalition candidates to lie about their beliefs back in the late 1980s/early 1990s.
Cols714:
December 12th, 2012 at 5:47 pm
The media generally gives these guys the cover they need. This is what I feared from a Romney presidency.
somethingblue:
December 12th, 2012 at 5:56 pm
And what was it that guy said? Fool me twice and … I forget the third thing.
CaptBackslap:
December 12th, 2012 at 6:01 pm
In this specific case, Dick DeVos and Charles Koch told Snyder they’d support a Teabagger primary challenger if he didn’t sign the bill, and he’s not the kind of dude who would react by telling them to go ahead and suck his ass.
mpowell:
December 12th, 2012 at 6:06 pm
There is a lot of truth to this. On the one hand, this is why you vote for politicians based on their party ID and not what they say during campaigns. The party ID tells you a lot more about what they’ll do in office. On the other hand, you have to stay up-to-date on what that party ID means. And a lot of voters are 10-20 years behind the times.
rea:
December 12th, 2012 at 6:25 pm
And note: Michigan voters just turned down a constitutional amendment that would, among other things, forbidden a “right to work” law–but in the context of the governor saying that he didn’t support enacting such a law.
Bill Murray:
December 12th, 2012 at 6:25 pm
you’re supposed to forget what 8 was for
Bitter Scribe:
December 12th, 2012 at 6:32 pm
I hope every union member in Michigan who voted Republican because the Democrats are the ni-clang party feels like a schmuck.
Lev @ LibraryGrape.com:
December 12th, 2012 at 6:33 pm
If he was willing to give up his job to protect Democratic constituencies, he wouldn’t be a Republican.
Still, Tea Party seems to pick their primary targets pretty randomly. If they went after all the moderates that’d be one thing, but they don’t. (Snowe and Scott Brown were not targeted in any real way.) If they went after everyone who backed the TARP, that’d be another, but nobody’s been trying to primary Paul Ryan or John Thune. It mostly seems to be targets that they could realistically take down and try to come up with some pretext for doing it, in hopes of freaking everyone out into supporting their preferences. This is the very definition of terrorism, and it’s worked.
Linnaeus:
December 12th, 2012 at 7:05 pm
Frankly, I long suspected that Snyder was the most dangerous of the recent class of Midwestern Republican governors precisely because his image of being a moderate would give him the opportunity to enact what his more brash neighbors like Walker and Kasich could not.
DrDick:
December 12th, 2012 at 7:15 pm
To be fair, all Republicans lie about their policies and intentions. They cannot get elected if they tell the truth (as we saw in the last election).
Uncle Kvetch:
December 12th, 2012 at 7:18 pm
heh +1 indeed
NonyNony:
December 12th, 2012 at 7:21 pm
I hope every union member in Michigan who voted against the constitutional amendment because “teachers are stealing our tax money” feels like a schmuck too.
cambio:
December 12th, 2012 at 7:45 pm
Maybe some Democrats should campaign as status quo centrists and then govern as leftists. Anyone we can disguise a centrist for 2016 who isn’t actually a centrist? Tom Udall? Linda Sanchez pretending to be her sister?
James E. Powell:
December 12th, 2012 at 9:46 pm
There is less ‘bait and switch’ in Republican campaigns than there is belief among certain voters that the Republicans’ policies will never affect them. It’s all about ‘those people’ and their wretched children. And screw government employees because, like, the DMV, right?
I don’t believe in heightening the contradictions and I don’t say this just be an ass, but unless and until those loyal Republican voters get well and truly screwed by the people they trusted, they will never abandon their tribal loyalty.
This week in Michigan, the mask is clearly off. Who is looking? Who is learning?
The Republicans Want To Shrink Your Paycheck! has to become as widely and deeply believed as The Democrats Want To Take Your Guns!
Scott Lemieux:
December 12th, 2012 at 10:51 pm
Right, it seems likely this would have affected how the initiative played out.
witless chum:
December 12th, 2012 at 11:44 pm
+2
witless chum:
December 12th, 2012 at 11:55 pm
That’s not really how it went down. Snyder got elected in 2010 on the Republican ‘boy the economy sucks’ wave. That plus a shit load of gerrymandering and you’ve got right to work laws.
witless chum:
December 13th, 2012 at 12:00 am
The fucked up thing, also, is that Snyder really is what passes for a moderate Republican. Cares about roads and bridges and such. Is pretty openly holding his nose at the anti-gay and anti-woman parts of the party. The state party establishment’s choice for governor was Pete Hoekstra.
The moderation is pretty hard to see, but it does exist. My adage of politics (and lots of things) is that things can always get worse.
bradP:
December 13th, 2012 at 7:27 am
Well, there’s also his waffling position on the drug war, government transparency and whistleblowers, immigration, and his opposition to lobbyists, but I’m sure he’s getting to those.
And “Its not on my agenda” isn’t exactly a categorical statement of opposition.
And from Google searches, I’m seeing RTW polling at 50% and above in Michigan. I don’t think its possible for 50% of a population to be extremists.
Malaclypse:
December 13th, 2012 at 7:56 am
And from Google searches, I’m seeing RTW polling at 50% and above in Michigan. I don’t think its possible for 50% of a population to be extremists.
I’m willing to bet that 80% of the population can’t define RTW.
bradP:
December 13th, 2012 at 8:14 am
Could be. That would be a pretty major problem in a union-heavy state like Michigan.
NonyNony:
December 13th, 2012 at 9:13 am
There’s no money in pretending to be a centrist while actually being a leftist.
There’s a lot of money in pretending to be a centrist while actually being a right-wing nut.
spencer:
December 13th, 2012 at 9:47 am
Even those who can define it are by and large unlikely to think it through to the point where they see the obvious (to me, anyway) free rider problem.
bradP:
December 13th, 2012 at 9:59 am
And the free rider problem laid out in layman’s terms – that unions must represent all employees, while collecting dues from only those who wish to pay – one may be tempted to ask why minority unionism isn’t allowed.
Its easy to look at this as piling on bad law on to bad law.
wengler:
December 13th, 2012 at 8:15 pm
‘Minority unionism’. So the company will collectively bargain with say 14 employees, while the 7 employees who opted out bargain individually.
Hey, look at who is getting hours. Oh, your break lasted 1 minute too long union member, that looks like a write-up. I could go on…
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