One point I've been making on Twitter is that Rubio deserves to lose for believing the self-serving, ridiculous claims made by the Republican Consultant Class in the aftermath of the 2012 election. If you remember, soon after that loss, the party apparatus put forth a claimed "post-mortem" of the defeat, and talked about their plan... to do all the stupid shit they've done between 2013 and last week.
And most of us were screaming about it at the time, and we continue screaming about it.
And you who listened to us, inside the party? No one.
People like David Brat knocked off Eric Cantor and still the did not, and would not, listen.
There was simply no moving them off their ideological priors that they were going to sell the same shit sandwich they'd been trying to sell us since 2006. This time, they were going to give us the Comprehensive Immigration Shit Sandwich, and this time, they'd force it down our throats with a stick and a sponge, because this time, all the Corporate Class people were going to give Jeb Bush so much damn money he'd "shock and awe" all other alternatives out of the race.
That itself only brought in new recruits to the rebellion -- you could say that Jeb Bush's candidacy is Just What the Tea Party Wants (TM).
You could even say that the Tea Party is showing videos of Jeb Bush as a recruitment tool.
And still, no matter how much we reject Jeb Bush -- and we don't just reject him as Jeb Bush, although he is a weak candidate; we reject him chiefly as the avatar of the Corporate Class/Consultant Class' high-handedness and unearned dominance in the party -- they still don't, or rather won't, take the message.
I have come to believe that all this arguing about who could win the general is cynical and wishcasting. Because I don't believe the elite care, really, who can win the general election. Frankly, Mike Huckabee, a guy I don't like and neither does the Corporate Class, could be well-positioned to win a general, but I don't hear the Corporate Class agitating for him.
All this crap about Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio being great general election candidates is cynical, dishonest nonsense designed for one goal: To "Win" the argument on immigrationwithout having to have the argument at all.
There are people in are party who favor Open Borders. They simply do. But they don'targue in favor of it; rather they argue on collateral matters, such as Marco Rubio's alleged strength in a general election, so that they'll win on the immigration issue on unrelated issues (the issue of the supposed electability of Marco Rubio and unelectability of all persons not named Marco Rubio).
Thus, they win the argument without ever having to have made the argument in the first place.
Read the rest here...