POWIP Piece of Work In Progress

Peter Schiff: good economist, bad loser and maybe I was wrong about the Teaparty

 via The Daily Caller (specifically, objective reporting machine, Jon Ward):

Connecticut Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate, Peter Schiff, could tolerate mockery when he foretold the economic collapse, but he's having trouble coping with his imminent primary loss to professional wrestling CEO, Linda McMahon.

“I’m the best candidate but unfortunately I’m not going to be the nominee,” Schiff said in an interview by phone as he criss-crossed the state in an RV...  “I’m not saying I’m not going to win. I can still possibly pull it off. But if I end up not being the nominee, it’s just really unfortunate, because not only am I the only person that can deliver the kind of change that the country needs, but I actually have a better chance of beating Dick Blumenthal,” he said.

At first glance, it's easy to believe his loss will be because of McMahon's oodles and oodles (a KT-nomics term) of money.  But a closer look shows his weak campaign and the fact he's a single issue candidate are also factors (although, if there's going to be single issue voting right now, the economy is the issue).

And if you're going to run on economics alone, Linda McMahon is a formidable opponent.  She has that real world experience the Teaparty cherishes.  McMahon's spokeperson, Ed Patru:

“(McMahon) has never claimed to be an academic theorist or a celebrity cable talk show economist. She spent 30 years in the real world building a global enterprise from a company that started with one desk...  She was the CEO of an NYSE traded billion dollar company that employs nearly 600 people. She understands how jobs are created and how budgets are balanced in the real world, and she clearly has a firm grasp of economic principles.”

Sounds pretty Teaparty/Palinesque to me.  Schiff also doesn't have national Teaparty support (whatever that means lately).  Strangely, that makes my love/hate relationship with the Teaparty movement *ducking* tip towards love.  It often seems that a very vocal sector of the  Teaparty faithful agree that the nation is in a state of emergency with the Obama administration at the epicenter, but they're solution is to vote for any candidate they've never heard of who has no chance of winning.  So long as that candidate is a true conservative (TM), a term with a pretty murky definition.  Frankly, I find that to be the same kind of feel-good-startin'-a-revolution rhetoric the O-bots fell for.  That doesn't make sense to me, so I've respectfully distanced myself from identifying with them. 

B-b-but per...haps I was wr-wr-wrong.  I'm curious what my fellow wingnuts thinks about this.  (Not so curious what trolls who visit my blog everyday with the sole purpose of finding a new way to inform me they don't like me have to say, but they can comment too!)

Regardless, the Paul Revere costumes have to go.

Crossposted at KillTruck and Snark and Boobs

P.S.  Since the above paragraphs encompass everything I know about Connecticut politics I asked a Schiff supporter I follow on twitter what she thought of Ward's article:

Schiff was never going to be the nominee, but when he debated McMahon and Simmons I just thought that he didn't feed us b.s.  And he just said what he thought, and didn't care. He has good financial ideas, whereas McMahon donated money to a whole bunch of democrats, and Simmons was my congressman, I met him a few times, but he still royally f-ed up some votes in 2006.

Kill Truck

KillTruck is a wife, mother, blogger and native midwesterner now living in Eastern Washington state. She writes about politics, pop culture, parenting, wifing and a few other subjects she has no authority to write about. She has macabre fascinations with prostitution and/or cannibalism. In her free time she enjoys eating and/or drinking her feelings, liveblogging Lifetime movies, thinking about Scott Brown and mocking things she doesn’t understand.

Website - More Posts