More Of This Winning/Losing Theme

Well, yeah, in a way...

So, the GOP is mulling over their loss of a reliable Republican seat in a special election.  Boehner, as usual, is the only one who makes a nod towards reality, in saying that the Ryan budget was a "small part" of the issue.  But he blames most of it on Jack Davis' Tea Party candidacy, as do most innumerate Republicans.

Look, Davis hurt Corwin more than Hochul, but likely not enough to tip the election to Corwin.  But there's some strategic merit in blaming it on Davis, because the hope is that this will discourage Teatards from jumping on the ballot to challenge the insufficiently insane pure.

When it comes to the Ryan budget itself and the overwhelmingly negative reaction it's gotten since people actually started digging into the numbers, the GOP response has been fascinating and revealing.

The standard line is that this is a messaging problem.  People don't understand the issue or how "brave" and "serious" this proposal is.  So what we need is better messaging.

Well, no.  People understand the Ryan budget just fine.  It effectively ends Medicare and shovels mountains of cash to the richest Americans in tax cuts and does nothing to balance the budget - unless you think we're headed for 2.3% unemployment.  Now, for most people this takes the form of "ends Medicare" and maybe "shovel mountains of cash to the richest Americans", I doubt they have much understanding of how nuanced a piece of crap this budget is.  But for the most part, people get it.  They know that Ryan's vouchers aren't going to cover much of anything.

But the GOP's insistence on messaging as the problem is revealing.

The GOP is truly masterful at messaging. They do a great job packaging pretty whacky ideas in ways that seem appealing.  Racism?  Law and order!  Transferring wealth to the richest?  Economic liberty!  Anti-gay bigotry? Traditional family values!

As someone over at Daily Kos noted, the GOP is usually more surefooted than this.  Usually, they would just push the tax cuts and force the spending cuts on guys like Clinton.  But their problem is that this message has run out of juice.  The tax cut argument is broken.  And the spending cuts are tougher and tougher to find.  Eventually, you have either go after cherished programs or admit the tax cut boondoggle doesn't work.

But they are so sure that they can fix this problem with "better messaging" that they are only digging themselves deeper into their hole.  Hey, have at it guys.  Here's a shovel.  Because this is the ultimate price of worshipping at Our Lady Of Perpetual Tax Cuts.