This Week's Republican Death Watch

Commentary By Ron Beasley

The Republican death spiral only seemed to continue this week.

First we had Dick (18%) Cheney telling the Republicans not to moderate, every thing's just fine the way it is.

“I think it would be a mistake for us to moderate," Cheney said. "This is about fundamental beliefs and values and ideas … what the role of government should be in our society, and our commitment to the Constitution and constitutional principles. You know, when you add all those things up, the idea that we ought to moderate basically means we ought to fundamentally change our philosophy. I for one am not prepared to do that, and I think most of us aren’t. Most Republicans have a pretty good idea of values, and aren’t eager to have someone come along and say, 'Well, the only way you can win is if you start to act more like a Democrat.'"

And then of course we had spicy mustardgate.  Joe Gandelman reports that Kraft Foods saw a marketing opportunity in Hannity making an ass of himself and the Republican Party.  Keep digging Sean.

And Mike Hukabee warns the GOP it could become irrelevant if it ignores the social conservatives.

"Throw the social conservatives the pro-life, pro-family people overboard and the Republican party will be as irrelevant as the Whigs," he said in reference to the American political party that largely disbanded in the mid 1800s.

Sorry Mike, hate based Christianity is not the road to salvation for the Republican Party.

And finally John McCormack of The Weekly Standard is terrified at the thought that a moderate, Charlie Crist, might win the Florida primary for Senate in spite of the fact he would probably win the general election.

Comments

[RAM]

I was trying all week to figure out what the hell the mustard thing was all about. Us folks here in Illinois take our mustard seriously. I just counted, and I've got five varieties in the fridge right now, which is about average. I've got two spicy browns (Guldens and Aldi's house brand, depending on the variety of sausage) for brats; yellow for hot dogs; horseradish for burgers, and Dijon for ham sandwiches.

We have major arguments here about mustard, including whether you can be an actual American and put anything but yellow mustard on your hot dog along with the kosher dill spear, pickle relish, onions, sport peppers, and celery salt. Lepers are more socially popular here than folks who put ketchup on hot dogs, by the way. Mike Royko was known to get physically violent on the subject, in fact.

So listening to Obama organizing the condiments to be put on his burger sounded about right, although a bit hurried because of the situation he was in at the time. Most of us Illinoisans would spend a little more time contemplating exactly what kind of spicy mustard we wanted. But hey, the Prez is a busy guy, so I'm personally cutting him some slack.

[Ron Beasley]

I'm a big fan of Guldens although I must admit I don't put it on my burgers - it's mayo for me. Ketchup is actually not very healthy since it's mostly high fructose corn syrup.