The increased radicalism on the blight wing has been discussed as heels digging in against a lost 2012 election combined with gerrymandering that created dead red districts in which the only threat to a red candidate comes from even deeper red upstarts.
There is another factor in this that is the mystery of the emerging radical leaders in the Rabid Frothing Clown Party. Ayn Rand Paul, Calgary Rafael Cruz, Yacht-lift Rubio and some of the other hatchling leaders are apparently crazier than the mainline Republican, but why are these bright guys placing their bets on that side of the asylum?
They obviously can count and know that their opportunities for acquiring the presidency are dwindling quickly and may have already passed. Demographics grind their chances into smaller particles daily. They appeal to an increasingly small portion of Americans and by their anarchistic actions are not going to swing independents their way. They know they have little chance of winning the presidency in 2016.
So what are they doing?
With the inexorable force of demographic changes grinding on the blight wing chances of winning the presidency, the game has changed for those most ambitious of the Rabid Frothing Clowns. I'm going to guess these guys looked at 2012 and drew two conclusions:
1. Blight wing chances to win the Presidency are small unless there is some factor that causes a pretty significant wind shift.
2. There is a nearly infinite amount of money that can be had from the big-money blight wing donors.
Conclusion 2b might be that you don't have to win to get the money. Big money on the blight wing went to people who had no chance as well as to the rich guy who did. Ask Karl Rove how much you need to win to get rich. Hell, you do not even need to run to get the money. But the guy who gets the money will own the trough from which party candidates will need to feed, and that guy will collect some serious obligations.
The big lesson is that whomever emerges as the lead clown soon will be the recipient of limitless money and power for however that clown wishes to wield it, or until brought down by scandal.
That actually may be lesson 3 from recent years: the only scandal too big to handle is one that gets you indicted. There is no accountability.
The calculation is not for becoming president, but for becoming the biggest power broker on the blight wing of this country. Wealth and extraordinary power without having to actually be president looks like a pretty good deal. The power to select candidates and issues allows that lead clown the ability to raise whatever mischief he or she desires, without accountability. If the winds were to blow the blight way, favoring a clown candidate for president, the lead clown would be in position to either claim the candidacy or control whomever was to become candidate, both in choosing the candidate and controlling the candidate him- or herself.
All the noise coming from the Rabid Frothing Clown party right now is an admission of the relatively permanent minority status.
The battle is for the right to claim the money and power.
And that, as we all know, is all the blight wing cares about.