Ryan Lizza is Confused

Eli,

I read the New Yorker piece by Ryan Lizza you suggested. I usually don't read many pieces like that because more often than not I get bored. But since I respect your opinion, I gave it a shot. Boredom won.

It just seems like another one of those ever-present lefty pieces that desperately attempts to self-validate its own opinion by calling the right crazy or extreme.

Along the way he repeats the conventional wisdom that Romney is hated by his party, despite the high likelihood that Romney is going to win the nomination. Just who does Lizza think is voting for Romney? Someone must be voting for him since he has more delegates than anyone else. Someone must be working for him since he has a better organization than anyone else. I just don't understand how Lizza and others think Romney is winning without support of "The Party."

Then he gets really confused because he characterizes the Republican Party as "almost entirely composed of ideological conservatives," but earlier he called Romney's position, "unreliable conservatism," and to point out again, ROMNEY IS WINNING. So how can this unreliable conservative be winning in this party that is a super-majority of ideologues.

Somehow this "shift to the right" has "brought risks" and the example Lizza brings up is absurd: the 2010 election. This was the election the Republicans "shellacked" the Dems. But Lizza is convinced the Republican strategy has risk because.... they didn't win the Senate and capture even more of the House? I mean, this is all so laughable. The Republicans nominated some truly loopy candidates: Sharon Angle, Christine O'Donnell. And the loopy candidates lost. But at times it was close. Remember this. Reid beat Angle 50% to 45%. In the 2004 election, the election Bush beat Kerry, Reid won with 61%. How is it Lizza concludes the shift to the right as brought risks when the Republicans nominate a completely incoherent candidate to run against the Majority Leader of the Senate, and he has to sweat it out. Good God, which party is the one really running risks?

Lizza has conjured up a Republican Party out of touch with America, but one that gets more votes than the Dems, but Lizza's solution to correct this mistake of not winning enough is to nominate more Democrat-looking candidates. Huh?

He says political parties aren't supposed to act suicidal, implying the GOP is acting suicidal. But what single piece of evidence does he have that the GOP is acting suicidal? Maybe the Republicans will lose the House, but I've seen little to predict that. Maybe the Republicans won't take the Senate, but it still seems most predictions are for the GOP to re-take the Senate. And as far as the Presidency goes, I still think Obama will win, but what surprises me is how weak he still seems to be. So where is the suicide?

I really don't like defending the Republicans. I don't think they, as a massive over-generalization, are as free market as I. I don't care much for cultural issues and cringe whenever they start preaching morality to me.

But let's say everything Lizza says is true. So what. The Republicans will lose, which Lizza I suspect would applaud. And at that point the Republicans would get a new message, get a new messenger or get a new party.

Bill