March 16, 2011 07:28 PM UTC

Tipton's Gotta Go

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• by: FrenchFinn

For the life of me I can’t figure out why Americans keep electing people who don’t like government to run government. Because the budget for the fiscal year that started six and a half months ago still hasn’t been passed, our government was again on the verge of a shutdown.

We are over half way through the budget year and we still don’t know what we are going to spend. We are over half way to a new budget year and we still haven’t started talking about what the next budget should look like.  Another continuing resolution (CR) was passed, with 54 Republicans voting against the Republican bill.

The GOP is in complete disarray. Boehner actually needed to attract Democratic votes in order to get the CR passed so that government could continue running. He can’t keep his own caucus together. Republicans make fun of Nancy Pelosi, but she managed to lead her caucus and get things done. Boehner is proving to be a very ineffective leader.

It’s probably not totally his fault. American voters sent a bunch of people to Washington who think they would like living in a world with no government. Sensing the mood of party activists back home, they are unwilling to enter into the compromises necessary to actually pass bills.

Some are planning on a run for a different office in 2012, and know that the people who show up at caucuses will not stand for anyone who doesn’t walk the untra-conservative walk. The only fly in the ointment is that the people who show up at caucuses do control who gets to represent the party on the ballot, but they don’t represent the typical, much more moderate, voter.

Catch 22! Follow the leader and end a political career, or hang with the extremists, crash the government, get on the ballot, lose the election. Same result either way.

Just in case you didn’t already know, Representative Tipton of the 3rd Congressional district is one of the freshmen legislators that Boehner doesn’t know what to do with. He did not support his leadership, presumably because he thinks that he needs to cling to the far right in order to be re-elected in 2012. I don’t yet know who will be running against him, but Tipton can’t get reelected without moderate Republicans, Independents, and a few Democrats.

Right now I’d vote for a duck before I’d vote for Tipton. Quack.

ColoradoPols already has the odds of Tipton winning reelection at 5 to 1 (generally incumbents are given 2 to 1 odds), with two Democrats possibly running against him-Sal Pace, the current minority leader in the house, and Bill Thiebaut, Pueblo’s D.A.