Primary Victories for the GOP: The glee of establishment thinking
Those who love the status quo enjoyed the primaries of May 2014. After failing a school levy in November, Fairfield got their money six months later putting the issue on the ballot again and having next to nobody show up to vote. Cindy Carpenter kept her Butler County Commissioner seat, the Butler County police got their money in Liberty Township and across Ohio 90% of all school levies passed—again due to extremely low turnout. Several Tea Party Central Committee seats were thrown back to the GOP loyalists and the biggest GOP representative of all, John Boehner easily kept his seat against Tea Party type challengers. Big government lovers, like the Cincinnati Enquirer enjoyed thoroughly the retention of the safe old and beatable GOP strong holds and big tax initiatives against challengers. Here is how they described Boehner’s win:
Tea party challenger J.D. Winteregg, a 32-year-old high school French teacher from Troy, could do nothing to push Boehner from a spot on the November ballot.
Throughout the night, Boehner blasted Winteregg, taking 66 percent or more of the vote.
With 41 percent of precincts reporting, Boehner had 71 percent of the vote with Winteregg trailing at 23 percent. Liberty Township businessman Eric Gurr had 6 percent.
The GOP and its supporters are happy that they were able to survive a challenge to their authority. They are short-sited enough to believe this primary year will get them off the hook forever with the Tea Party—which they supported in 2010 to take control of the House of Representatives, but abandoned by 2012 leading largely to the reelection of Barack Obama. In the end Obama and Boehner are a lot closer together in political ideology than an average farmer or member of the Tea Party. In GOP circles the common belief is that everything will now return to normal. Radical Tea Party types—those who believe in the United States Constitution will drift away into oblivion once again to hide in discontent behind the shadows. The statists once the polls closed Tuesday night celebrated. Good times were back—there would be a return of the dinner parties, the back slapping, and the golf games—and gone would be all this crazy talk of Constitutional value. Progressive advancement of the old socialist doctrine would continue unencumbered—at least that’s what they believed.
I listened with patience to my many friends that night disappointed with the results and their showings in the election. The school levy issue is a predictable strategy—in Fairfield if they didn’t get their money this time, they’d try again in November—and again and again until they were successful. This is the way of the game, if the public does not give the money the first time, take away some services, make it hard on the public, then ask again once the extortion measures have taken place. In a lot of ways, the GOP has done much the same thing. They simply waited out the storm, dumped large amounts of money at public perception, and put selections to the public during a primary season where most people are far more concerned about the upcoming NFL draft, and the new summer movie releases.
The Enquirer was very happy that most of the potential voters out there stayed away from the polls and those who did vote, supported their social concerns. They will continue to be happy so long as this cycle continues. But it can’t. The GOP is operating in an unsustainable fashion, the communist oriented Democrats are even further out of touch, the school levy increases cannot continue forever, and eventually the police levies will run out because their wages like their teacher counterparts are too high for the services they provide. The reason the GOP and Enquirer enjoyed their primary night was not because their social objectives are superior, but because most people just don’t care anymore. They don’t want to vote because they don’t see the point.
When it is said that “Boehner blasted Winteregg, taking 66 percent or more of the vote” the enthusiasm wasn’t even hidden, yet 66 percent of nearly nothing is the reality. Boehner had 66% of a voting group that was small and already behind him to begin with, so the results are not a surprise. The tragedy is in the apathy of the voters who see so little hope in going to the polls to vote, that they didn’t even bother. And in their absence, public school looters, career politicians, and general scum bags were allowed to resume their activities of treachery.
Oblivious to them all while they knocked glasses of wine together and whispered in each other’s ears about their plans for the next golf game is the end game of this whole election mess. What happens to them when the next generation simply doesn’t care enough to vote—because most of the voters in this primary are from the old days—those over 50 years of age and still believe in civic responsibility? What happens to the GOP when those people are gone?
Their extinction is a forgone conclusion. They cannot continue. The system will not withstand the pressures and apathy of the future. The Enquirer is happy that Boehner had 66% of the vote from a group of participants who are in the extreme minority. The majority cares more about who the Bengals will draft in the first round of the 2014 NFL draft than they do if Boehner is Speaker of the House. And because of the choices everyone involved in the 2014 victories made, from the Enquirer to Boehner’s handlers—the end of the road will hit them hard sooner than later. When that happens, the Tea Party will still be there when the mountainous network of lap dogs have left the GOP vulnerable and chewing their own tails. When that happens it will be remembered the choice of words used in those elections. And “blasted” will find a resurrection to fit the cause of the new day against the old GOP.
Rich Hoffman
