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Head of centrist GOP PAC: Let’s go beat the snot out of tea partiers in the primaries next year
Hot Air ^ | October 24, 2013 | Allahpundit

Posted on 10/26/2013 5:45:05 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

Dude, they’re feeling it. The RINOs are ready to charge.

Assuming they’re successful and a bunch of tea-party incumbents get bounced from the House, it’s pretty much third-party time for grassroots conservatives, right?

From Alabama to Alaska, the center-right, business-oriented wing of the Republican Party is gearing up for a series of skirmishes that it hopes can prevent the 2014 midterm election from turning into another missed opportunity. This will not be a coordinated operation. It will be messy, ugly, and prone to backfiring. And if the comeback succeeds, it will be in fits and starts, most likely culminating in the selection of a presidential nominee in 2016.

“Hopefully we’ll go into eight to 10 races and beat the snot out of them,” said former Rep. Steve LaTourette of Ohio, whose new political group, Defending Main Street, aims to raise $8 million to fend off tea-party challenges against more mainstream Republican incumbents. “We’re going to be very aggressive and we’re going to get in their faces.”…

Tactics being discussed among Republican strategists, donors, and party leaders include running attack ads against tea-party candidates for Congress; overthrowing Ron Paul’s libertarian acolytes dominating the Iowa and Minnesota state parties; promoting open primaries over nominating conventions, which can produce Republican hard-liners such as Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli and shutdown-instigator Mike Lee of Utah; and countering political juggernauts Heritage Action, the Club for Growth, and FreedomWorks that target Republican incumbents who have consorted with Democrats…

“This conflict could be the new normal,” warned Rob Jesmer, former executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “Until we have a nominee people can rally around in 2016, I think we’re going to be the wilderness for a while.”

Political media has been filled with stories like this post-shutdown, but the establishment plan to counter-primary tea partiers is months old. News about it first started bubbling up around New Year’s, when GOPers were still licking their wounds from the Democratic rout in November. LaTourette, a longtime Boehner ally in the House who’d taken to calling his tea-party colleagues “chuckleheads” as the fiscal cliff battle raged, had just retired and taken the helm of the Republican Main Street Partnership. Among his first acts: Dropping “Republican” from the name and vowing to reach out to Blue Dog Democrats. A month later, Karl Rove’s American Crossroads Super PAC announced that it was creating the Conservative Victory Fund, which was supposedly designed to make sure that only quality candidates were nominated in GOP primaries (i.e. fewer Angles and O’Donnells) but which many righties saw as part of an establishment effort to torpedo tea-party insurgents en masse, regardless of their caliber. Now, with RINOs and TPers at each others’ throats over Ted Cruz and the merits of a shutdown driven by the “defund” effort, it’s all come flooding back, replete with LaTourette scrapping for a punch-up with the right.

So here’s the question: What’s the real goal of all this? As much as these guys undoubtedly hate tea partiers, a broad-based indiscriminate assault on conservative candidates in the primaries would be poisonous for party unity ahead of 2016 — and maybe even self-defeating, as it would render a potential nominee whom they favor like Christie even more toxic to righties than he already is. Is the goal to bloody a few noses in order to teach the conservatives in Boehner’s caucus that it’s not just RINOs who can be primaried if they step too far out of line? Is it, as Rove’s group claims, an effort only to weed out the more Akin-esque right-wing candidates before they claim the nomination and end up as sitting ducks in the general? If so, why is Mike Lee suddenly hearing primary thunderclaps in Utah? I think his “defund” strategy was goofy but he’s solidly conservative, a serious legislator, and not prone to the sort of rhetorical bombthrowing that normally turns RINOs off to tea partiers. It’d be a genuine shame to lose him, no matter how ill advised “defund” was. Or is the big Rove/LaTourette/Chamber of Commerce centrist initiative here really just about muscle-flexing, to prove to grassroots righties that moderates and business interests are still very much in the driver’s seat of this coalition? If that’s the case, there’s no need to jump into eight to 10 races to prove the point. They could pick one big-name guy, on the order of Lee, and then go all out to take him down. Although maybe that gets us back to the problem of party unity in 2016: The bigger the scalp taken by centrists, the more righties will bristle and consider walking away.

One semi-silver lining here, though. Because the tea party didn’t elect its first members of Congress until 2010, no one in the Senate is at risk of an establishment primary challenge until 2016 — a presidential election year, when it would be exceedingly dangerous for either wing of the GOP to do something to fatally alienate the other. This may be why you’re seeing the centrists scramble now to take out some people in the House next year. If they defeat a few tea partiers, the wounds might heal in time for everyone to come together against Hillary two years later. If, on the other hand, they wage war against someone like Lee in 2016, the rift could be too deep to repair in time.


TOPICS: Campaign News; Issues; Parties; State and Local
KEYWORDS: defendingmainst; gop; gopcivilwar; mainstpartnership; mikelee; rinos; romney; romneyagenda; stevelatourette; teamromney; teaparty
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To: elpadre

if that were to happen say goodbye to the Constitutional American republic
*********

GOP already shares significant responsibility for the erosion of our liberties, the catastophic rise of our national debt, and the massive expansion of government. Look hard at the GOP over the past couple of decades. I respectfully submit that it is not what you think it is.

The GOP woulnd’t have a majority in the House if not for the Tea Party. Yet the GOP marginalizes the TP at every opportunity and sees it as the threat instead of the Democrats who are destroying the country.

We need more than one party but the GOP is not representing the views of conservatives. It is not a party that stands for anything or plays to win.


21 posted on 10/26/2013 6:35:27 AM PDT by Starboard
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Hah...I was getting calls every week from several differnt GOPe Rino organization asking for money to defeat some left-wing cause...

I always started laughing at them...telling the gig is up...I will never in a trillion years give them another thin dime until they stop targeting Tea Party candidates...

I would ask them how can they target their own party...acting like liberals

Click...

22 posted on 10/26/2013 6:38:46 AM PDT by Popman (Liberal wars are about killing people for humanitarian reasons...)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
THE GOP IS MORE OF MY ENEMY THAN THE DEMOCRATS.

FUGOP.

23 posted on 10/26/2013 6:44:26 AM PDT by Lazamataz (Early 2009 to 7/21/2013 - RIP my little girl Cathy. You were the best cat ever. You will be missed.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

All efforts need to be focused at the state level. The GOP is largely antagonistic to constitutional limited government at the Federal level.
The Democrats have pushed the envelope insofar as punishing the competitive private sector (the productive classes, small and medium businesses). The GOP-e has done little aside form lip service to support the free market economy. Both parties are dominated by large multi-national corporate interests which oppose free market start up competition.
We need to take a stand against the Federal government now while we still possess the resources and a political solution is still possible.


24 posted on 10/26/2013 7:08:39 AM PDT by grumpygresh (Democrats delenda est. New US economy: Fascism on top, Socialism on the bottom.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

The passion lies with the tea party supporters. Establishment GOP members are defined in part by the lack of enthusiasm for anything — lukewarm across the board. Invisible in all matters. Possibly the most ridiculous strategy in political history. The establishment GOP: We are going to be concerned on the beaches, disagree on the ground, support the enemy wherever there is media pressure. Let it be known by nobody (because nobody will notice us) that our hearts and minds are resolutely bland!

The R party is dangerous to freedom and is in a battle with its former base. How senseless of the author of this piece to suggest the R party thinks it can avoid losses in 2014 by weakening its support. Just how far does the establishment GOP think those few large campaign donations will go when it takes votes to win. The tea party supporters would be wise to knock on those donors doors and start building relationships that will lead to long-term wins—and the removal of the perpetually failing establishment GOP’ers.


25 posted on 10/26/2013 7:08:51 AM PDT by iacovatx (Conservatism is the political center--it is not "right" of center)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
What we really need to concentrate on is people, alive or dead, who vote multiple times.

Stop that nonsense, and we start winning.

26 posted on 10/26/2013 7:09:07 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (Who knew that one day professional wrestling would be less fake than professional journalism?)
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To: Starboard

GOP is done. Stick a fork in it.

Pull it out and reinsert .

Repeat ad infinitum.


27 posted on 10/26/2013 7:35:04 AM PDT by Da Coyote
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
"“Until we have a nominee people can rally around in 2016, .....” "

Less likely everyday.

28 posted on 10/26/2013 8:25:12 AM PDT by Paladin2
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
"Stop that nonsense, and we start winning. "

Karl Denninger's math says differently.

29 posted on 10/26/2013 8:26:01 AM PDT by Paladin2
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To: Starboard

I am a Tea Party proponent but submit we need everyone or we’ll lose everything. See Post #12.


30 posted on 10/26/2013 8:28:54 AM PDT by elpadre (AfganistaMr Obama said the goal was to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-hereQaeda" and its allies.)
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To: Starboard
This is why the GOP will NEVER reform itself. The status quo culture is too deeply ingrained in it.

The GOPe is bought and paid for. They have promises to keep and pork to deliver and are scared sh**less they will not be able to..............

31 posted on 10/26/2013 8:32:42 AM PDT by varon ( para bellum, remove Obama)
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To: Renegade

The scum is rising to the top so one and all can see whose who.


32 posted on 10/26/2013 8:39:30 AM PDT by ExTexasRedhead
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To: Paladin2

Karl Denninger is underestimating the fraud.


33 posted on 10/26/2013 8:40:51 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (Who knew that one day professional wrestling would be less fake than professional journalism?)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
“Hopefully we’ll go into eight to 10 races and beat the snot out of them,”

Tea Partiers are consistent. We trash both Democrats and RINOs. RINOs are inconsistent. They will trash Tea Partiers but they don't do the same with the Democrats.

34 posted on 10/26/2013 9:01:30 AM PDT by FreeReign
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Exactly WHAT is the GOP’s anti-Tea Party platform?

- More Compromise with Progressive Principles
- More Cross Aisle Fraternizing
- We support Obama

.??


35 posted on 10/26/2013 9:04:40 AM PDT by Yaelle
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To: Yaelle

Tax, Borrow and Spend.


36 posted on 10/26/2013 10:02:20 AM PDT by Paladin2
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To: FreeReign

Beat McConnell with a ‘rat in the General, if necessary.


37 posted on 10/26/2013 10:03:41 AM PDT by Paladin2
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To: elpadre

I am a Tea Party proponent but submit we need everyone or we’ll lose everything.

*********
I understand where you’re coming from. However, the reality is that the Tea Party just wants a seat at the table but the GOP doesn’t even want them in the room. The GOP is kind of like a syndicate. It is a centrally controlled organization that does not welcome outside influences, even if they are positive or beneficial.

In recent decades the GOP has largely stood idly by and/or been an enabler for big government policies, spending and socialism. It is going in the same direction as the Democrats albeit at a slower pace. That’s really the only difference between the two parties.

The Tea Party is our only hope IMO.


38 posted on 10/26/2013 3:13:49 PM PDT by Starboard
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