Unparodyable/The Bubble Republicans

A conservative Republican reader who is also a Catholic sends this in from the Corner:

Huck: There's a World of Hurt in America [Andy McCarthy]

This is the Republican primary, right?

The reader adds, sarcastically:

Because, you know, Republicans aren't supposed to care about the working man.

I am beginning to think that so many conservatives don't give a damn about the common good.

UPDATE: Don't know if you caught it, but here, via The Corner, is what Limbaugh had to say the other day to a caller who phoned to tell Rush he was a rich man out of touch with how much it costs just to get by in America today:

You can talk about my wealth, but let me tell you something, sir. I don't depend on anybody else for anything, and it was one of my objectives when I grew up. I didn't want to be obligated. I didn't want to be dependent. I didn't want to owe anybody. I don't buy into insurance plans because it's a hassle! Now, I know a lot of people don't have that freedom. I used to not have that freedom, either. But I do now because I worked for it — and if I can do it, a lot more people can do it than think they can, and that's conservatism again.

Good to know. Meanwhile, today's NYTimes reports on some pathetic whiners in Ohio, who apparently don't listen to enough Limbaugh:

Middle-aged men moving in with parents, wives taking two jobs, veteran workers taking overnight shifts at half their former pay, families moving West — these are signs of the turmoil and stresses emerging in the little towns and backwoods mobile homes of southeast Ohio, where dozens of factories and several coal mines have closed over the last decade, and small businesses are giving way to big-box retailers and fast-food outlets.

Here, where the northern swells of the Appalachians lap the southern fringe of the Rust Belt, thousands of people who long had tough but sustainable lives are being wrenched into the working poor.

...Shari Joos, 45, a married mother of four boys in nearby Wellston, said, “If you don’t work at Wal-Mart, the only job you can get around here is in fast food.”

Between her husband’s factory job and her intermittent work, they made $30,000 a year in the best of times, Mrs. Joos said. Since last fall, when her husband was laid off by the Merillat cabinet factory, which downsized to one shift a day from three, keeping anywhere near that income required Mrs. Joos to take a second job. She works at a school cafeteria each weekday from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m and then drives to Wal-Mart, where she relaxes in her car before starting her 2-to-10 p.m. shift at the deli counter.

Her 20-year-old son went to college for two years, earning an associate degree in information science, but cannot find any jobs nearby. He still works at McDonald’s and lives at home as he ponders whether to move to a distant city, as most local college graduates must. Her 22-year-old son works at Burger King and lives with his grandparents — “that was his way of moving out,” Mrs. Joos said.

In late December her husband landed a new job, driving a fork lift at a Wal-Mart distribution center, a shift that ends at 2:30 a.m. It pays a little less than he used to make and is an hour’s drive away, so gasoline soaks up a painful share of his wages.

“We never see each other,” Mrs. Joos, 45, said on a recent morning as she packed a roast beef and cheese sandwich for her evening meal. “We never even think of taking a vacation.”

What does the party of Family Values have to say to people like this, whose families are being chewed up by the economy? "Losers! Pull yourself up by the bootstraps and become a conservative talk show host with a mansion in Palm Beach!" Nah, that's not quite it.

Look, I don't think the Democrats have the answers here, but at least they -- and Mike Huckabee -- are aware of the questions. David Brooks remarks today:

Meanwhile, the Republican prospects in the fall just got even dimmer. I say this not only because a weak general election candidate won a primary, but because Mitt Romney’s win pretty much guarantees a bitter fight for the nomination. If you doubt that, here is what Rush Limbaugh said about McCain and Huckabee on his program today: “I’m here to tell you, if either of these two guys get the nomination, it’s going to destroy the Republican Party, it’s going to change it forever, be the end of it.” This week, Rush and his radio mimics have been on the rampage on the party’s modernizers, from Newt Gingrich on over.

This thing will only get uglier.

The GOP "modernizers" are Republicans who wish to live outside the bubble, in reality, and retool the party's philosophy and message to better suit the times. It's not 1980 anymore, and it's been 20 years since Ronald Reagan was in the White House. The Bubble Republicans are going to go down this November, and they're going to go down very, very hard.