Haley Barbour, Mississippi’s Republican Governor, BP apologist, and former Republican National Committee Chairman (what is it with RNC Chairmen these days?…) was quoted this morning in The National Review bragging that “[t]he political climate today is better for Republicans than it was in 1994.”
OK. Well, Gallup agrees. In this piece in Tuesday’s New York Times, Nate Silver analyzes the “poll stealing the headlines” that gives the Republicans a “whopping 10-point lead on the generic ballot.”
That’s fine.
But Barbour, a former lobbyist for big tobacco, tips his hand and the Republicans’ modus operandi all in one fell swoop. Here’s the entire quote, emphasis mine:
“The political climate today is better for Republicans than it was in 1994. People are scared for their country’s future, for their children and grandchildren, scared for their businesses. My fear [for months] has been that it would reach a crescendo too early, but it hasn’t. The polling has gotten even better for Republicans. But we can’t assume that means we’re home free. We’ve got to keep the foot on the accelerator and show her the wheel. We must take nothing for granted.”
Get that?
Instead of working to make things better, instead of working to alleviate pain and fear, Haley Barbour, the head of the nation’s Republican Governor’s Association and the man many in the GOP would like to see run for president, just said that he is glad that “[p]eople are scared for their country’s future, for their children and grandchildren, scared for their businesses.”
Good God!
Does anyone not see the travesty in this? The sheer and utter moral abdication by Barbour and his party?
(If not, read this: “Impeach. . .Haley Barbour,” a little piece in The Daily Dish about how Barbour “has had a Bill Frist like problem of not being blind about what was inside his blind trust.”)
If you don’t, please, tell me how and why?