Saxby Chambliss out: Mediaite & Morning Joe hardest hit

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I remem­ber in the wan­ing days of the first term of the Obama admin­is­tra­tion the left through their pri­mary organ of com­mu­ni­ca­tion MSNBC decided that Grover Norquist was the root of all evil when it came to taxes.

The great­est suc­cess of this cam­paign came when Geor­gia Sen­a­tor Saxby Cham­b­liss decided to renounce it:

Appear­ing on a local Geor­gia tele­vi­sion sta­tion Wednes­day evening, Sen­a­tor Saxby Cham­b­liss (R-​GA) said that fix­ing America’s debt woes may require him break­ing with anti-​tax activist Grover Norquist‘s long-​standing pledge, say­ing that “I care more about my coun­try than I do about a 20-​year-​old pledge.”

It was a great day for the left, and the MSNBC crowd praised Cham­b­liss and pooh poohed Norquist when he answered thus:

Norquist responded on CNN tonight, find­ing it odd that Cham­b­liss would tar­get him specif­i­cally when the Amer­i­cans for Tax Reform pledge is a promise not to him, but to a politician’s constituents.

Norquist said Cham­b­liss’ remarks were “con­fus­ing” because the pledge was not made on his behalf, but on the behalf of Cham­b­liss’ own constitutents.

Norquist not with­stand­ing the left con­tin­ued to cel­e­brate Cham­b­liss’ After all they were in a no lose sit­u­a­tion. If the GOP pri­maried him and he won that would sim­ply strengthen the spine of those in the GOP will­ing to betray the vot­ers con­sider rev­enues, if he was defeated in a pri­mary, well I’ll let a com­men­ta­tor at Medi­ate explain:

This is won­der­ful! I look for­ward to the teabag­ger who pri­maries him and wins the nom­i­na­tion, à la O’Donnell/Mourdock, hand­ing his seat over to the Democ­rats. Repub­li­cans don’t seem to real­ize how screwed they are after court­ing the cra­zies for short term polit­i­cal gains in 2010.

Edwin from NJ would have been less encour­aged if he read Stacy McCain who said at the time:

Mark my word, the hand­writ­ing on the wall will become clear enough pretty soon and, by mid-​2013 at the lat­est, Cham­b­liss will announce that he will retire rather than seek re-​election.

But the thoughts of a mere blog­ger (decades in jour­nal­ism not with­stand­ing) meant noth­ing to the real jounoalists like Mike Bar­ni­cle:

“Grover’s taken a big hit since the elec­tion, there’s no doubt about it,” Morn­ing Joe’s Mike Bar­ni­cle said. “I’ve talked to a cou­ple of United States Sen­a­tors who said there’s at least 10 to 12 Repub­li­can sen­a­tors who are will­ing to walk away from Grover Norquist on the tax pledge.”

and John Heilemann

“San­ity is contagious,”

And on Morn­ing Joe they dis­cussed Frank Bruni’s piece: Is Grover Over?

Visit NBC​News​.com for break­ing news, world news, and news about the economy

As late as Decem­ber you had posts at Morn­ing Joe say­ing:

Sen. Saxby Cham­b­liss, 69, isn’t afraid of anti-​tax bogey­man Grover Norquist,

Cham­b­liss was at worst going to lose a pri­mary and give Dems a shot at an unreach­able seat, and at best Cham­b­liss wins a pri­mary encour­ag­ing oth­ers in the GOP to spend spend spend! Yup MSNBC & the MSM has spo­ken anti-​tax pledge was fin­ished, the con­ven­tional wis­dom had changed…

…right up until the point when it had not:

Geor­gia Sen. Saxby Cham­b­liss said Fri­day he will not seek a third term next year, express­ing deep frus­tra­tion with Wash­ing­ton grid­lock that he doesn’t see chang­ing in a divided government.

…deep frus­tra­tion with Wash­ing­ton Grid­lock? Funny just two months ago the Wash­ing­ton Grid­lock wasn’t frus­trat­ing enough for him to keep him from seek­ing re-​election.

Let this an object les­son to every mem­ber of the GOP cau­cus liv­ing inside the media bub­ble. Reports of both Grover Norquist and the Tea Party’s polit­i­cal demise have been greatly exaggerated…reports of Saxby Cham­b­liss’ polit­i­cal demise have not.

The media will no doubt spin this as an indict­ment of grid­lock and bemoan Sen Cham­b­liss depar­ture in the same way they did Olympia Snowe. As for the hoped for vic­tory in GA I regret to inform Edwin from NJ that GA is not Maine.

John Heile­man was right. Saxby Cham­b­liss IS con­ta­gious and mem­bers of the GOP who catch this dis­ease are likely to suf­fer the same polit­i­cal fate.

Update: The most hilar­i­ous piece on this story comes from the Atlanta Jour­nal Constitution’s “Polit­i­cal Insider” piece that in 777 words on Cham­b­liss’ deci­sion doesn’t men­tion his flip flop on the Norquist at all.

Move on noth­ing to see here