Dave Weigel notes that Senator Jon Cornyn (R-TX), in charge of helping GOP Senate candidates, is being surprisingly friendly with former Rep. Pat Toomey who’s mounting a challenge-from-the-right to Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA). Dave notes that “it becomes much, much harder to hold the seat if Specter loses.”
Matt goes on to say that this is pretty similar to what happened in the Virginia senate race last year and wonders why the GOP is essentially committing suicide. It’s a good question, and despite the general wankery involved it makes it almost irresistable to try to psychoanalyze the current Republican soul. It’s all just too weird otherwise. Having gone crackers during the Bush years, and getting convincingly drubbed at the polls for it in 2006 and 2008, the almost unanimous reaction among conservatives has been to double down: focus even more on tax cuts to the exclusion of everything else; focus more on pure obstructionism; focus more on defending torture and insisting that it works great; focus more on gun nuttery even though Obama plainly has no intention of doing anything dramatic about guns; focus more on the absolute craziest pundits. It’s as if they’re convinced, so deep in their souls, that America couldn’t have really turned against them, that they can’t even conceive of any strategy other than amping up the lunacy even further.
I dunno. It’s all crazy. I can’t even begin to understand it.
