Posted on 06/26/2014 8:09:54 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
When news broke that Eric Cantor had lost his primary, Ed Gillespie, the Republican nominee for the Virginia Senate seat, immediately tweeted congratulations to David Brat. The rest of the Republican party establishment, the non-sentimental lot that it is, fell into line and pledged to support the winner.
Cantor had been defeated. There was no talk of starting a third party or sitting the election out. Sure, there was some anger and disappointment, but rank and file Republicans moved on.
Contrast with the news of what happened last night. Long before it became clear that Thad Cochran, a long-time Republican incumbent and overall highly respected senior Statesman, had been reelected, Tea Partiers had a existential meltdown. Sarah Palin went on Sean Hannity’s Show and threatened to start a third party. Prominent bloggers cried that if they didn’t get their way, they would drop out of politics entirely. Laura Ingraham, who led the charge against Cantor, threatened to join Palin.
The biggest epithet the Tea Party crowd likes to throw at prominent establishment types (like me) is that we are RINO’s. A RINO is a Republican In Name Only. But who is really the RINO? The one who fights for the nominee no matter who he (or she) is or the one who threatens to bolt the party every time a primary election doesn’t go their way?
This ideological fight has been going on a long time.
It started when Teddy Roosevelt – who is most famous these days for occasionally winning the President’s race at Nationals stadium – started the Bull Moose Party because he thought his successor wasn’t doing a sufficient job in continuing his legacy.
Roosevelt accused William Howard Taft of not really being a Republican, and vice versa.
The fight continued in the 1920’s, when Joe Cannon of Illinois battled with Bob LaFollette of Illinois. In the 1950’s, Robert Taft accused the Eisenhower Republicans of being insufficiently opposed to the New Deal, in the 1960’s, Goldwater Republicans drummed the Rockefeller Republicans out of the party, in the 1960’s, Ford battled Reagan, and in the 1980’s, the Bushs fought the Reaganites.
In the late 1990’s and into the 2000’s, a great ideological sorting took place among the parties. There was no longer a moderate wing to the GOP. The Republican party was the pro-life, pro-defense, pro-growth (and pro-business) party, while the Democrats were pro-choice, pro-labor and the largely pacifist.
The failures in the Iraq War and the financial crisis of 2007-2008 shook the three-legged stool, and in 2010, a new force, the Tea Party, came to the table. The Tea Party is far more libertarian, far more isolationist, far less in favor of big business, far more anti-immigrant and far more reactionary than the typical Republican regular.
They are far more likely to want to bolt the party if things don’t go their way.
This is a familiar, but not dominant, strain in the Republican Party. They are the Lindbergh isolationists in the 1930’s, the John Birchers in the 1950’s, the Yaffers in the 1960, the Libertarians in the 1970’s. They supported Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan in the 1990’s.
And now they are very, very angry that the Republican Party beat them in Mississippi. Some of them will leave the party, some will sit out the next election, and some will continue to agitate within the party structure and within the Tea party movement.
And ironically, they will be the ones to call out the rest of us RINOs. But we know who they are and who we are.
I wonder how this guy feels about when the tea party guy won the Alaska primary and then the GOPe supported the loser’s write-in efforts, eventually getting her elected?
"The time has come to take a stand and say no to the tea party. No to their obstruction. No to their disrespectful treatment of the first African-American president. If we do nothing, tea party candidate Chris McDaniel wins and causes even more problems for President Obama. With your help we can stop this. Please commit to voting against tea party candidate Chris McDaniel next Tuesday and say ‘no’ to the tea party!"
So here's the takeaway:
And we see how GOP treats Tea Party Dave Brat
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3172830/posts
Big difference between Cantor and Cochran processes. Cantor was soundly defeated without fraud. McDaniel was robbed by fraud; Cochran needs to be disciplined severely for his treachery.
To demolish Feehery’s theory or whatever, one needs only look at the Lankford - Shannon results. Lankford defeated Shannon fairly and as a result those with a Tea Party state of mind accept it and support Lankford in November.
If Cochran had won fairly without calling for fraud to rob McDaniel of victory, Tea Partiers would be behind Cochran in November.
As for others, McConnell-McCain-Graham, Tea Partiers cannot stand these people because they are slimy weasels in character, dishonest and duplicitous, and big goverment statists. No matter what their election results were or will be, they are not the face of the Republican Party that Tea Partiers want to see. It is difficult to support such people in any scenario.
Others like Cornyn that won against weak Tea Party supported candidates will get votes in November from Tea Party folks. The votes will not be enthusiastically made but will be there because Cornym and his ilk are followers and will follow conservative leaders like Ted Cruz.
Feehery’s remarks and comments are selective and biased as a result; his view is not worth the bandwidth he has received on FR.
what an idiot...Bob La Folette was an avoid Progressive (I don’t care that he claimed to be a ‘Republican’). This so called consultant has his history WRONG. May I simply point out that both parties wanted ‘Ike” as their candidate....he never claimed to be anything other than what he was a kind of wishy washy politician who happened to be in charge when the war was won by those that did.
I never heard of him before this so if I saw him I wasn’t impressed...still not.
John Feehery looks stoned in that photo.
Thanks. With that, you just neutered the stupid bastard’s whole article.
“We love immigrants. We don’t like lawbreakers or those who can’t tell the difference.”
I’m with you. My wife of 43 years is an immigrant from south of the border. Legal, that is.
Isn’t it amazing how the gopE talk but don’t hear what they say? They support the nominee no matter what? Are you kidding me?
The gopE says “Come join us or we’ll all lose.” I say TO the gopE “Come join us because with you we’ve already lost.”
using this guy’s logic, when Mcdaniel won the first primary Cochran should have stood down, not done another and supported McDaniel.
Play dirty, butthead, and you’ll suffer the consequences. So we should lay down and say “Please, sir, may I have another ?”
It’d be one thing if Turd had won legitimately. Playing the race card and fostering racism is NOT legitimate. It’s utterly despicable.
Slime doesn’t deserve allegiance.
And I like it well enough I’m going to give money to Travis Childers !
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