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The Republican civil war is just getting started
Yahoo! News / The Week ^ | October 18, 2013 | Jon Terbush

Posted on 10/18/2013 9:03:41 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

The future of the GOP?

With the government shutdown and debt ceiling fight in the rearview mirror, Republicans can move on to more important matters — like determining which of the party's warring factions will control the GOP going forward.

The recent fiscal fist-fighting ostensibly pit Republicans against Democrats, but the real power struggle was between Tea Partiers and the GOP establishment. The conflict, bubbling beneath the surface for some time, finally boiled over into a messy public spat that, even as the shutdown came to a close, showed no signs of stopping.

The fissure has been growing since 2010, when the Tea Party ousted establishment candidates in favor of their own contenders. What was then a populist revolt has since rocketed congressional neophytes like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to the forefront of the party's ideological and tactical debates, giving the hard right newfound legislative muscle. Just look at how Cruz and company dragged the party into a shutdown strategy that even Karl Rove said "no sentient being" believed would ever work.

As the shutdown came to a close Wednesday night, Cruz seized the microphone to mourn his failed strategy — and to once again lash out at his colleagues. In a bold display of hubris, he accused his fellow Republican senators of spoiling his gambit by "bombing our own troops."

Moderate establishment types struck back. Perhaps the oldest of the old guard, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) — who called Cruz and his cohorts "wacko birds" earlier this year, and who criticized the shutdown tactic from the start — took a victory lap on Twitter.....

(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: Texas; Issues; Parties; U.S. Congress; U.S. Senate
KEYWORDS: cruz; gopcivilwar; mccain; teaparty; tedcruz; texas
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Re: “The fissure has been growing since 2010”

Wrong - the fissure has been growing for 25 years.

Internal warfare began to openly simmer when G.H.W. Bush broke his “No new taxes” pledge around 1990.

The Newt Gingrich implosion/betrayal from 1996-2002 added gasoline to the fire.

In that same time period, both “National Review” and the “WSJ” editorial page, at one time the intellectual leaders of the Conservative movement, began moving to the Center under the guidance of Rich Lowry at NR and Paul Gigot and David Brooks at WSJ.

Bloody, unabashed political warfare began around 2005-2006, when George W. Bush nominated Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court and then partnered with John McCain trying to push Amnesty down Conservative throats.

Today, after Marco Rubio’s Amnesty, after our passive acceptance of ObamaCare and gay marriage, and after relentless attacks from RINO’s and GOP elites, this old boy is looking for a new political party.

41 posted on 10/19/2013 1:23:22 AM PDT by zeestephen
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To: John Valentine

I had no idea Kerensky survived the purges.

Died in New York City, 1970, almost 90 years old.

Where and when did you shake his hand?


42 posted on 10/19/2013 1:43:14 AM PDT by zeestephen
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To: zeestephen

Actually, it pre-dates even that.

It goes clear back to when Reagan ran for POTUS in ‘80. Even back then, the Rockafeller Republicans were trying to out conservatives from the party.

Reagan told them to go pound sand - and won.

Remember, Geo. H.W. Bush was campaigning for POTUS back then, too. Reagan chose him as Veep to mollify the country club/Ivy League set.


43 posted on 10/19/2013 1:45:43 AM PDT by NVDave
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To: zeestephen
Where and when did you shake his hand?

1959, Syracuse, New York, after a very interesting talk at LeMoyne College.

44 posted on 10/19/2013 2:27:40 AM PDT by John Valentine (Deep in the Heart of Texas)
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To: John Valentine; PaleoBob
Well, more accurately, he lost because he kept Russia in World War I and was responsible for one last, disastrous campaign against the Germans, at the behest of the French and British.

I like Kerensky too, but he completely underestimated the threat that Lenin and the Bolsheviks posed to his government, and when the October Revolution came, he had no clue about how to deal with them.

45 posted on 10/19/2013 3:07:05 AM PDT by Timber Rattler (Just say NO! to RINOS and the GOP-E)
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To: Girlene

For corporations surrender to the forces of amnesty is merely wealth redistribution under a different guise.


46 posted on 10/19/2013 3:19:10 AM PDT by monocle
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To: Timber Rattler
...when the October Revolution came, he had no clue about how to deal with them.

This is true. He himself readily admitted that was the case. Just like at least half of the American population completely misses the Obama agenda.

47 posted on 10/19/2013 4:35:01 AM PDT by John Valentine (Deep in the Heart of Texas)
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To: zeestephen

The GOP needs to be torn down and from its ashes build a new, conservative party. If it means losing the house in 2014,so be it. A major realignment is the only long term solution for the future of conservatism. Compromise and harmony with the moderates and inside the beltway Republicans is a recipe for failure.


48 posted on 10/19/2013 4:40:02 AM PDT by Russ (Repeal the 17th amendment)
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To: AlexW
You have made my main point. The Mexicans will no longer be CHEAP labor.

Of course they will along with many Americans. When you have 22 million Americans unemployed or underemployed and you bring in 1.2 million legal immigrants a year, most of them low skilled and uneducated, and you add in hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens entering annually, you have a surplus of labor, which vastly exceeds demand. Real wages will continue to go down as they have since 1969.

With only 7% of the private sector unionized, the influence and power of unions (except in the public sector) are declining. Only when the Dems become the permanent majority party will you see an expansion of unions.

49 posted on 10/19/2013 6:47:23 AM PDT by kabar
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To: monocle

Yes it is.


50 posted on 10/19/2013 9:08:19 AM PDT by Girlene (Hey, NSA!)
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To: nathanbedford

The war is not D vs R, or conservative vs liberal, but is actually statist vs libertarian. There are plenty of statists in the R party who see government as the solution and would squash individual liberties to serve the state. They are the enemy whether they have an R or D after their name.

We would be better served leveling our guns at the media who tip the scales toward more Fedgov. Brawling with R statists does us little good. We need a war against the fourth estate.


51 posted on 10/19/2013 10:27:05 AM PDT by ez (Muslims do not play well with others.)
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To: GeronL
This author seems to assume the GOP should lose, whether by surrender or by “suicide”.... some how those are the only two options?

He ignores what remains- prevail or go down fighting.

52 posted on 10/19/2013 10:30:30 AM PDT by JimRed (Excise the cancer before it kills us; feed & water the Tree of Liberty! TERM LIMITS NOW & FOREVER!)
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To: ConorMacNessa
I am a registered Conservative...

Not an option here in NJ; our choices are R, D or unaffiliated.

53 posted on 10/19/2013 10:33:22 AM PDT by JimRed (Excise the cancer before it kills us; feed & water the Tree of Liberty! TERM LIMITS NOW & FOREVER!)
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To: JimRed

Those 2 options are much better than the ones that were presented.


54 posted on 10/19/2013 10:44:28 AM PDT by GeronL
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To: ez
Going back to before John McCain's loss to Obama in 2008 I posted long (you can well believe that) and often about the need to preserve party unity and the futility of breaking off to form a third-party. I still adhere to this view.

The Republican Party is an indispensable vehicle for winning political power and saving the Republic. A third-party option is suicidal.

Yet we cannot continue on as we are. We are not vassals of Republican elitists. Their interests are undeniably different from ours. More, they have demonstrated in this fight over defunding Obamacare that they are willing to resort to treachery to deny tea party partisans a victory, probably because that would pose a threat to their domination of the party.

We have seen that they have declined to fund Steve Lonigan in New Jersey. We have seen what they have done to other tea party senatorial candidates across the country. Their treatment of Ted Cruz is but a foretaste of what is to come.We know that Karl Rove set up his organization to control funding and, unabashedly, control the primary process over the selection of Republican candidates. The examples are many and the conclusion is clear, the establishment intends to rule or ruin and it will employ tactics which amount to treachery.

Therefore, control of the party must be taken away from these establishment figures. That is because no initiative against radical democrat statist programs can be conducted when anyone who sticks his head above the parapet risks having it shot off not just by the enemy but by fellow Republicans.

This situation is intolerable. We will always be at the mercy of any opportunist, quisling Republican who sells out to the Democrats. Chuck Schumer, in effect, will be running the Republican Party. There will be no hope of achieving a coherent party platform or message. We will be at the mercy of the media and the Democrats who can offer any John McCain wannabe 15 min. of fame if he is willing to sell out his own. It will be impossible to have a unified party in this atmosphere.

What is intolerable must be resisted.

But that does not mean that the party machinery which is so indispensable should be conceded to the enemy. We should wrest it from them and use it to put real conservatives in office who will advance real conservative policies.


55 posted on 10/19/2013 10:52:38 AM PDT by nathanbedford ("Attack, repeat, attack!" Bull Halsey)
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To: nathanbedford

Then we can join in the same battle, since the elite that control the R party are the Saale ones I identified as statists. Individual liberty is a quaint notion to these quislings.

For my part I intend to divine a way for Freepers to use the net to shine light on the duplicitous media that keep the playing field slanted. Something will come to mind.


56 posted on 10/19/2013 10:59:26 AM PDT by ez (Muslims do not play well with others.)
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To: ez
Let me know, let us all know when the epiphany strikes, we need all the help we can get.


57 posted on 10/19/2013 11:01:38 AM PDT by nathanbedford ("Attack, repeat, attack!" Bull Halsey)
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To: Russ
I agree, but demography is against Conservatives.

Our political base is non-Hispanic white voters.

We make up only 63% of the population.

That number is deceptive, because the Census Bureau counts everybody, including Green Card Americans and illegal immigrants.

So, in terms of voting, non-Hispanic whites are probably close to 70%, plus, our voter participation rate is usually higher than non-whites.

However, every election for the last 20 years, the number of non-white voters goes up, and their voter participation rate goes up, too.

If anything like the current Amnesty bill passes, and if our current 1 million per year new citizen rate continues, Democrats will take PERMANENT control of the White House and the Congress by 2020.

58 posted on 10/19/2013 12:35:51 PM PDT by zeestephen
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