the way of the Whigs.
It’s time to brush out the Whig Party analogy again.
Like, if the Republicans follow the path of Ted Cruz, they will go the way of the Whigs.
Like, if the Republicans don’t go the way of Ted Cruz… they will go the way of the Whigs.
“Texas likes a fighter,†Mr. Patrick said. “He’s only been there 10 months, but he’s proven to be a fighter. If our party doesn’t lead as a bold conservative party, then we will disappear as a party.â€
Or, we’d have some kind of splintering party working here. Hillary Clinton versus Elizabeth Warren versus Jeb Bush versus Ted Cruz. Something like the 1860 election battle between what was essentially two Democratic Parties and two Whig Parties. And if we throw out the electoral vote, and the first to 26 percent of the vote wins!
Or… you know… whoever gets the most money into the right coffers will decide which Republican Party is victorious. Jim Demint and Club for Growth into Cruz and the Chamber of Commerce into Bush. All this bickering back and forth becomes a sideshow. Though, I suppose, we’ll probably see … urm… John McCain speak at the Hillary Clinton convention (though not the Elizabeth Warren one), and the Jeb Bush convention (though not the Ted Cruz one). Does any of this make sense.
I see we’re getting the old diatribe on John F Kennedy: Conservative. Being hawked all about… it’s the cover feature of the American Spectator. The Reason interview here is a little too flip in by-passing the point that… er… sure, Senator Al Gore Senior belly-ached on Kennedy’s “Kenynesian Tax Cut” proposal, but it was still… taking the top marginal rate from a really high rate to a merely high rate.  And it faced opposition from a “balance the goddamned budget” right of — oh, Eisenhower and Byrd. So what does this bring us to in terms of today’s policy fights? I don’t know.
No, I don’t much think the Tea Party — which I guess is how I’m obliged to define “Conservative” right about now — would much like Kennedy. Sure, he threw his lot in with Nixon against the Hollywood Left star Helen Gahagan Douglas in 1950.  So we have some definition on what he considered too far out of bounds as he hewed to some conceived center, and ebbed and flowed with political currents.
The American Spectator image of Kennedy alongside Reagan is … rich. At this time everyone was running around calling him a Marxist.  The entire city of Dallas, actually. And the same people insisting Kennedy as a conservative wouldn’t call Lyndon Johnson one, even as he pushed forward on Kennedy’s unfulfilled policy attempts.  I suppose we can think that generally the story goes that Kennedy was saddled with a Democratic Platform further to his left than his … somewhat non existant and inconsequential Senate record.
Look! A New Kennedy assassination debunking book, which surely will silence everyone.
This bundle of Kennedy conspiracy theories will never go the way of the Whigs. Which reminds me… just who did kill Zachory Taylor? When we get to the bottom of that, we’ll see the real story behind the death of the Whig Party.