Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Where is the "Chicago Project"?

The utter failure of the teabaggers has left me trying to figure out why the modern-day grassroots seem so ineffective in comparison to 1993. Then, as now, the outrage was fueled by talk radio and funded by monied conservative institutions. I can think of a dozen possible explanations, including "at this point in 1993, the conservative grassroots weren't all that effective", but what do our readers think? Why doesn't Ted Olsen have an army of lawyers roaming around Chicago trying to find people with dirt on Barack Obama? Why isn't Eric Cantor calling for a special prosecutor to investigate Obama's non-dealings with Tony Rezko? Where's the beef?

2 comments:

drip said...

I think that there are 2 reasons. First, the republicans have lost all credibility on all issues. The only people who still listen to them are each other and they don't understand. The second reason is that many republicans believe that Obama is right on at least one major issue (Afghanistan, financial system, tax reform, health care, diplomacy, torture) and recognize that if he fails, we all fail. The second is, I admit is farfetched in its credit to wingnut brain power.

What are yours?

Ron E. said...

What drip said plus in 1993 the GOP was arguably the dominant party having held the White House for 20 of the previous 24 years. And there was no liberal blogosphere or shows on MSNBC and Comedy Central at that point to counterbalance the wingnut echo chamber. Today the Republicans and conservatism in general are totally discredited by the last 8 years, Democrats control all the elected branches of government in Washington, and liberals have a strong voice in the public square thanks to blogs and TV.