Wait... The Republican party is "grass roots"? Since when?

Back when the Democrats were getting humiliated every four years, when any decent Democratic blog would have an excoriation of Bob Shrum et al (and,, to be sure, Shrum et al are objectively pretty worthless), it was standard practice to admire the relatively less corrupt and self-dealing practices of the Republican Presidential Campaign consultants. You see, at the time it was standard practice for Republican consultants to accept a flat fee for their services, while Democratic consultants were paid a percentage of the advertising expenses. The Democrats therefore suspected that they were being fleeced y consultants who were wasting maximum dollars on expensive and ineffective TV ads, rather than spending money on other efforts.

I guess the lessons are:
1) These high-level campaign consultants rake it in.
2) When they do so and lose, it looks corrupt rather than merely pricey.
3) The Republicans like to prate about how it's wrong to resent the high salaries paid to CEOs and other elite professionals (often in return for poor performance), but as soon as they suspect the money is coming out of their pockets and the results aren't to their liking, their tune changes tout suite, no matter how many times they've insisted that the travails of American companies like Hostess are the fault of the workers wanting a secure livelihood rather than financial games and rapacious self-dealing in the corporate suites.

Astroturf, yeah-grassroots? Nope...This guy is like Captain Renault in CASABLANCA: "I'm shocked-shocked to see that gambling is going on here!"

I'm shocked, SHOCKED!, to find that gambling is going on here!

@3,
Damn! I lost the race

Actually, @3 (warren terra), what would be so bad about adopting the republican tactic of blaming the worker not the overpaid ceo (consultant) in this case? What's wrong with giving them a dose of their own medicine? What would be so bad about pointing at every ordinary middle-class republican voter and telli g them "It's your fault!"

I see your point and agree with it, it is a very good analogy. But lets keep rubbing the everyday average republican's nose in this too.

...reveals a tangled web of incestuous relationships among Republican consultants who have made millions all while the GOP went down the tubes...

HAHAHA! What do they think Fox News is?

Look, we know that campaign consultants who command large fees must know what they are doing, because making lots of money is the only meaningful proof of expertise. That's also how we know that anybody with a billion dollars must be creating jobs, and also must be an expert in a host of other things, such as education reform. So the problem with the Republican loss can't possibly lie with the self-motivated go-getters who ran the campaign; the problem must lie elsewhere. Probably it's the fault of all the voters, many of whom aren't rich at all, and are therefore incapable of making good decisions.

Is it just me that always seems to read "Reince Priebus" as "Prince Reibus" ?

The christians can't even quote their own bible correctly. The love of money is defined as the root of all evil, not money itself.

It's not just you, treacle. . .

One has to wonder whether Republicans believe their won rhetoric. How could they think that short of having extraordinary GOP candidates combined with complete Democratic incompetence, they had any significant chance of overcoming 8 calamitous Bush years plus their constant shilling for plutocrats? I rather tend to believe that faced with overwhelming odds and to keep a semblance of relevance, they have to pretend their nasty narrative still resonate with the American public at large (versus the usual ~25% of cynics or dimwits)

I can suggest one way that the Republicans could have positioned themselves to win.

They could have taken Obama's offer to cut Middle Class taxes.

Even better, what they could have done then, and should do now, is to take his offer, and double it -- offer to radically cut taxes for anyone making less than $100,000 and couple those with cuts for the rich and spending cuts.

The fact that they didn't take a tax cut that was for "only" 98 percent of the people suggest that those really in charge, not the consultants, must be some subset of a subset of the 1%...the non-Gates and Buffet types who really want to keep their money, not give it away to foundations and starving kids.

Finding out who those guys are...would be...fascinating.

The Bubble is made of tough stuff. It'll take an extinction level event to pop it.

@#14
Ah. So, your plan is to "radically cut taxes" on 95% of all Americans, and also cut taxes (possibly not "radically" - perhaps only "bodaciously") on the wealthiest. And also to make "spending cuts".

Sorry, I mis-wrote. I meant, your "plan". Because, once you've basically slashed our tax revenue dramatically the way you want to, you might eventually get around to defining those "spending cuts" that will somehow enable us to "radically" reduce our taxation without so crippling our government that it can't do the things we want it to.

I see your "plan", and I respond with my own "plan": we make enormous savings on our healthcare expenses by realizing the enormous curative properties known to be possessed by ground unicorn horn; between this and finding the pot o' gold at the end of the rainbow, we'll be able to "radically cut taxes" for everyone. I promise you, my "plan" is just as realistic as is your plan to slash taxes across the board and balance the lost revenues with unspecified "spending cuts".

News flash, Einstein: Democrats don't like imposing taxes - they just like getting Government to do the things it can be good at, and that it's uniquely well-placed to do, and are willing to see the taxes raised to pay for those things. If it were actually possible to slash everyone's taxes and pay for it with "spending cuts" that wouldn't imperil our society, Democrats would leap at the chance - because they don't love taxes. You just throw out these buzzwords, smugly not caring that the "spending cuts" you so vaguely envision can't be done except at enormous and unacceptable cost.

The only people for whom this is news are apparently those making the complaints; the rest of us have known this for literally years!

For fuck's sake, when you have the likes Ed Rollins, of all people, working as a top GOP consultant in 2012, how hard is it really to make this connection? It's just another indicator that your typical GOP operative has the long-term memory capacity of a 1970's era digital watch.

But you know, they'll keep going back to Rollins, Morris, Rove, et al because they're all fucking insane to begin with, and if there's one thing crazies like to do it's stick to the established game-plan, no matter how many times they lose, because, you know, eventually it HAS to win.

The consultants keep saying so, after all...

@14:

Oh, that's easy-peasy: just point to any GOP member, functionary or consultant who works above the state level.

OMG! The GOP full of old white guys with too much money! Time for the iceberg to sink that ship!

Ugh. From the very beginning, he gets the premise wrong. As catsnbanjos pointed out, the axiom is that the love of money is the root of all evil, not money itself. But after all, the GOP has been hostile towards facts since at least the birth of the term "trickle down economics", so why should anyone be surprised.

I ride my bike past there every day (on the Mount Vernon Trail) and had no idea that that quiet little office complex housed evildoers.

The comments on that article seem universally reasonable and articulate. (Sorry, conservatives, for being a little surprised).