All Stuck, No Middle

Here he goes again. Last November, Senator Dean Heller (R-46%) tried to reinvent himself as "Senator No Labels Post-partisan". The shtick even started to seem somewhat believable when he flip-flopped came around on comprehensive immigration reform.

Yet over the course of this year, as Senator Heller has felt the ire of a distrustful 21st Century Know Nothing base, he's been changing his tune yet again. As spring turned to summer and summer turned to fall, Senator Dean Heller was sounding less "No Labels Post-partisan" and more standard issue G-O-TEA (all over again). Why is this?

I'd like to think Sam Shad was looking for answers. Unfortunately for all of us, Senator Heller provided none in his most recent "Nevada Newsmakers" appearance.

Shad: “War on Republicans, the Libertarian side of the party versus the moderate side of the party. How is this going to affect future of the party and where do you stand?”

Heller: “Well obviously it has had impact. We saw during the last election cycle, in fact, if you take a look at the United States Senate two years ago we were sitting here thinking the Republicans were going to take control. I’m a big believer that to win a race you have to have a good campaign, you have to have a good candidate, and you have to have both. You can have both and lose, but you can’t win without both. So we are seeing the same dynamics now going in two years later. The state of Georgia has some very conservative candidates and the key is to win races. I want the most conservative candidates that can win being the nominee for the Senate races. If we do that I think we can take the majority.”

[Ralston:] Could someone please translate that into English for me? And the follow-up? Still waiting---

While I don't always agree with Jon Ralston, I do sympathize with him here. I think I also need a translation. I don't speak gibberish, either.

To be fair to Senator Heller, he's not the only Republican stuck in an increasingly confusing G-O-TEA civil war. Now that the G-O-TEA's latest and greatest manufactured crisis is falling apart fast, Congressional Republicans are quickly turning on each other.

As the deadline for a federal budget is fast approaching, Republicans are now busy fighting each other. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) bashed the G-O-TEA shutdown strategy on the Senate floor earlier today, only for the G-O-TEA culture warriors to turn around and denounce him. The Wall Street Journal editorial page again decried the G-O-TEA shutdown debacle, only for "the base" to throw yet another temper tantrum amd demand even more "purity".

Republican "leaders" are now saying they're pushing for "conservative principles"... But so are the G-O-TEA culture warriors. So who's to be believed?

And is there any wonder any more why Senator Heller is so afraid of saying anything substantive? His party is stuck as it's starting to feel blowback from its latest manufactured crisis. And right now, all it's doing is consuming itself alive. Senator Heller is afraid of being consumed alive. He's just lucky that his next election won't be until 2018.