The latest run-around-with-your-hair-on-fire from the radical right involves a donation made by an individual being characterized as a 'bundler' for Obama, who made a donation of a piddly $11k to the VA Libertarian candidate. (Oh NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) Snd bashing Libertarians for not voting for a scandal plagued right wing extremist. If you factor the number of voters from the election who might plausibly have been influenced by that $11,000......it comes out to $0.005 per voter, not a significant amount. That is arguably NOT a game changing donation. The faux outrage is grossly disproportionate.
If you consider the Tea Party running fake Democratic candidates in election, the Teabagger also have no moral high ground from which to proclaim their outrage. The Tea baggers lost any right to throw that wobbly by dirty politicking.
The Tea Party, notorious for requiring personal responsibility from others fails, AGAIN, to take it themselves.
Glenn Beck and the Breitbart site have been leading the hysteria, with the right wing fringe, including locally, foaming at the mouth right behind them, pointing the fickle finger of BLAME at everyone but themselves for pursuing unpopular politics. A few others are even trying to claim that Robert Sarvis was not Libertarian ENOUGH to be permitted to run as the Lib candidate -- because in their funny alternate reality, the Tea Party gets to determine who is and who is not the candidate for other parties (including running their own candidates as fake Democrats in Wisconsin).
The Libertarian vote didn't 'lose' the election for the Cooch, WOMEN fed up with the vaginal ultrasound current governor and Tea Party governor-wannabe WON the election for McAuliffe.
BLACK voters, fed up with voter suppression, sh*t they didn't want to have to fight over AGAIN, including the most recent examples of unjustified, unwarranted voter roll purges, WON the election for McAuliffe.
Moderate Republican voters, fed up with the government shut down and other Tea Party antics, including the many, many, many kabuki theater money-wasting, time-wasting attempts at repealing Obamacare, which rose 3% in popularity in late September/ early October, WON the election for McAuliffe.
The Reuters / Ipsos poll:
That McAuliffe electorate included Republican women, and Conservative black voters, and a lot of young voters who aren't homophobic or anti-sex religious fanatics. Combined, that was some 56,000 voters who rejected the Cooch in favor of McAuliffe; and another 145,000 Libertarians who rejected the Cooch, for some 200,000 voters who DID NOT LIKE the Tea Party in this election. It is the 200,000 figure that should be worrying the radical right, because it is a number that is likely to grow, as a percentage, in the next election cycle.
The Tea Party is now trying to lay the blame on the Libertarians for voting for THEIR candidate instead of the radical rightie, Ken 'the Cooch' 'Vacingal Ultrasound / invasive Sodomy persecutions ' Cuccinelli, and his side-kick candidate for Lt. Gov. E.W. Jackson, who wanted women to be investigated by law enforcement if they miscarried a pregnancy.
Given the number of women who voted for McAuliffe, it's a safe bet some of them were Lady Libertarians who want the transvaginal ultrasound out of their lady parts; who want the creepy Cooch the hell out of their bedrooms , and who Do NOT want him telling them how they can or cannot make love with their spouse or spousal equivalent.
The reality is that had Lt. Governor Bill Bolling been the GOP candidate, instead of the creepy Cooch and his Lt. Governor candidate, the crazy fringe bigot Jackson, Democratic candidate McAuliffe might or might not have lost. But NOoooooooooooooh! The Tea Party had to go to the radical right extreme, instead of a more right of center candidate. It did not help that the Cooch was not honest about his closet of scandal skeletons, but the demographics don't support that as the key factor that lost the election for the Tea Party.
Just a casual observation, but there seems to me to be plenty of reasons for a Libertarian to find the Tea Party candidates not to their liking --- STRONGLY not to their liking, in their right wing polices, and especially in the obviously big corruption scandal of the Cooch.
And it is worth noting that in the analysis leading up to the election, while it was anticipated that there might be somewhat more Republicans than Democrats who would vote this election for the Libs, it was by no means true that those votes came exclusively from the right. But the far right is hectoring and lecturing and flat out BLAMING the Libertarianss for not meekly falling in line behind them.
Now if this were said by the left, to ANYONE, we'd be hearing ad nauseum about how the left is intolerant of differences, of dissent. In the case of the radical right, this is just one more example of their same-old same-old double standard.
Let's look a the numbers. The total vote was 2,224,264. That breaks down to 1,067, 114 for McAuliffe (47.7%), 1,011, 377m(45.3%) for the Cooch, and 145,773 96.5%) for the Libertarian candidate, Robert Sarvis. Sarvis was widely considered to have UNDER-performed; potentially the Libertarians could have done much MORE damage than they actually did.
The GOP/Tea Party raised approximately $5.7 million (reported so far)... BUT, Bill Bolling, the GOP candidate who withdrew, had another $2.8 million collected - that he chose NOT to spend on the Cooch, and in addition he did NOT ENDORSE (or otherwise support) the Cooch. IF you add together the right wing money donated for this election, it EXCEEDS the donations to McAuliffe, significantly, FAR more than the piddly few hundred thousand spent by the Libertarians, including that $11k donation.
The Dems raised approximately $7.4 million(reported so far). The Virginia League of Conservation Voters donated just under $1 million of that, much more significant than anything raised by the Libertarians, and from INSIDE the state.
And the Libs raised a few hundred thousand, of which $11k came from a liberal Obama supporter in Texas. Big deal (NOT).
Seriously -- does anyone REALLY believe that piddly donation from Texas made the slightest bit of difference? No. Of course not; rather this is more smoke and smears from the right, trying to point their snarky blame finger up anyone else's nose they can find, instead of taking a good hard long look in the nearest mirror.
The Tea Party has gone too far right, the GOP has pushed too much voter suppression, Conservative have alienated and antagonized women, and the backlash has begun - including, most significantly ON THE RIGHT.
The bit news this election cycle: the GOP doesn't love the Tea Party anymore.
THAT is the more important message - the GOP is supporting Democratic candidate Michelle Nunn in Georgia, and the establishment GOP, with cooperation from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, took out the Teabagger primary candidate in Alabama.
Who gives a hearty god damn if the Tea Party throws a wobbly over that? No one.
