Posted on 02/24/2014 5:30:12 AM PST by xzins
The leaders of the Big Government Republican establishment are beginning to get desperate. They are finally starting to grasp that the limited government constitutional conservatives of the Tea Party movement and other liberty-minded voters now understand that the first, and most important, fights in the battle to restore America are the Republican primary elections.
In a desperate effort to hold on to power they have begun to deploy one of their oldest tactics in the 100-year civil war in the Republican Party – calls for Party unity to back Big Government Republican incumbents who have betrayed conservative principles and are rightly facing primary challenges.
Conservative author and commentator Ann Coulter whose incisive critiques of liberal policy follies and witty jibes at liberals and Democrats in general, make conservatism interesting and entertaining is only the latest in a long line of “conservatives” to get suckered into the idea that keeping establishment Republicans in power somehow advances the goal of governing America according to conservative principles.
It doesn’t and it never has.
"Of course, I love the Tea Party," Coulter said to Sean Hannity, but she limited the Tea Party movement to people in the "heart of America" who want to see change. She said Tea Party groups such as the Senate Conservatives Fund are just trying to bilk donors.
In other words, now that the Tea Party movement has grown politically sophisticated enough to adopt the tools that the establishment uses to stay in power, such as PACs, and the Senate Conservatives Fund PAC is being effective against incumbent Big Government establishment Republicans, Coulter wants to disarm the opposition.
But here’s where Ann Coulter is really full of it.
“If it weren’t for shysters running against establishment Republicans we would have 51 Republicans senators right now,” Coulter told Sean Hannity referring to the 2012 blow-ups of the Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock Senate campaigns.
Coulter’s comment shows just what a deep draught of the establishment Kool-Aid she has taken and is indicative of how the Big Government Republican establishment is desperately trying to rewrite history to advance the idea that only establishment candidates can win and that conservatives should “unite” behind Republican candidates who have records of betraying conservative principles.
Akin and Mourdock weren’t first time rookie candidates; they were experienced Republican politicians with many campaigns under their belts.
What’s more the comments that blew up their campaigns had nothing to do with the Tea Party’s limited government constitutional conservative agenda. They got suckered by the Democrats’ “war on women” strategy, put their foot in their mouth, were quickly abandoned by the GOP establishment despite conservative calls for Party unity, and consequently got beat.
As our friend Chris Chocola of the Club for Growth put it so well, “the question isn’t why Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock lost — we know why they lost,” said Chocola. “The question is really why did Heather Wilson in New Mexico, Rick Berg in North Dakota, Denny Rehberg in Montana, Tommy Thompson in Wisconsin, George Allen in Virginia and Linda Lingle in Hawaii — why did they lose?”
We could add Mitt Romney nationally and Connie Mack in Florida to Chocola’s list, but you get the point.
The fact of the matter is that of the three Republican Senate victories in 2012; Nebraska’s Deb Fischer, Arizona’s Jeff Flake and Texas’ Ted Cruz all ran as Tea Party-oriented or anti-establishment candidates.
There’s no evidence that running as a principled limited government constitutional conservative automatically made a candidate “unelectable” in 2012 and a whole lot of evidence that running as a Bush-type establishment Republican did make one “unelectable,” because despite the millions Karl Rove and his establishment Republican funders spent on them they all lost.
Tit-for-tat is a poor reason to do anything, so we will forego the opportunity to explore where exactly were the establishment calls for Republican Party unity in campaigns where the conservative won the primary, such as the Goldwater, Reagan and Cuccinelli campaigns, when the Republican establishment did everything they could to undermine the conservative candidate after the primary.
Calls for Republican “unity” and a free pass in the primary for incumbent establishment Republicans like Mitch McConnell, Lamar Alexander, Pat Roberts and Thad Cochran will only accomplish one thing; keeping ineffective and unprincipled establishment Republicans in power. And anyone, including our friend Ann Coulter, who thinks that advances the cause of conservative governance is full of it.
Agreed. What good is having 51 Senators if they are all like “power sharing” Trent Lott?
Let’s be real about Ms. Coulter, shall we? She is no better than Karl Rove. Talk about a shyster that is bilking people out of their money.
Pot. Meet Kettle.
“Who knows... but if we did, they’d be engaged in “power sharing” in a vain attempt to get media approval, acting just like Democrats and giving Barry everything he wants.”
Exactly.
Actually, Lee did a mass attack en echelon from right to left on the Second Day, driving from his right against the center of the Union line, but it had too many moving parts and too tight a choreography, and Union Gen. Dan Sickles's mindless advance into the Wheat Field screwed everything up when he offered up his men as a stumbling block to Gen. Hood's assault. Sickles lost his division but Hood lost his battle -- and his arm.
Then Lee did the impatient center attack that went down in history as "the high tide of the Confederacy".
On both the second and third days, Lee turned down Longstreet's suggestion of a turning movement on the right, that would try to maneuver the bulk of Lee's army between Meade and D.C., forcing Meade to the attack up long, farm-cleared slopes in just the way that ruined Pickett.
Funny, that's about where Atlantic Seaboard "conservative" Jennifer Rubin scores against issues important to the Tea Party, to Midwestern conservatives, and to Southern social conservatives. She's there for you -- 53% of the time.
In fact, she's emblematic of, and completely down with, neocons, Jewish intellectual conservatives, and big-city "conservatives" in general ..... the kind who like to call themselves "economic conservatives". Which is a euphemism for "liberals with bank balances who know how to count".
Any wonder, then, that Rubin's the newest "conservative" correspondent at the Washington Post, replacing the fraudulent Dave Weigel?
Republican “unity” if necessary can wait until after the Primary elections. And the voters, not the lobbyists / consultant class on K Street inside the Beltway, who decide who is and who is not “electable.”
Fairfax County, VA (largest county in the state) went to paper for statewide elections in 2013. They’re teting ew equipment for ‘14.
Your post says this: And how did Reagan do that? By capitulation and compromise of his conservative principles? No, he beat the left and the moderates in the court of ideas, and sold the country on his vision.
You're acting as if that's two entirely different statements, it's hard to understand your chippiness or why you deem it necessary to attack a statement that has little basis to be attacked.
Well, go back through our comments and note your own chippiness. As usual, you and I are at odds over the question of purity vs pragmatism.
My apologies, but I had to go to work and missed the rest of this discussion.
I still claim a 50% GOPe is better than a 0% Democrat. For example, some say Speaker Boehner is for amnesty, so Boehner must go. I agree! But what if he wins his primary? The Democrat will vote against us 100% of the time. That’s pretty much guaranteed, so I think I’m being pragmatic when I say sometimes winning is better than always losing.
Again, I understand the anger and frustration. What person in their right mind wouldn’t be frustrated and angered by our present government—including many in the GOP? What I’m saying is we shouldn’t let that anger cloud good judgment.
BTW, should Speaker Boehner win the nomination and general election, I think we should continue to fight him for speaker, and then continue opposing him whenever he votes against our interests. Fortunately, we would probably still be able to cooperate with him on some legislation, which is exactly why I say it’s better in general elections to vote for RINOs versus Democrats.
The time to express our anger is in the primaries. BTW, I think Hostage’s proposed two-stage war is exactly what I’ve said all along. Defeating them in the primaries is stage one, controlling the majority to fight Democrats is stage two. How can we get to stage two if we sacrifice Republican-held seats whenever a RINO wins a primary?
“How much of that 50% is due to sneaky tactical voting like the one he just pulled, voting for cloture on the debt ceiling debate so he could pretend to vote against it on the final vote?”
Even then, a Republican coalition (RINOs and conservatives) that allows us to hold the majority means conservatives have a better chance of influencing the agenda. A Republican coalition might even vote with the conservatives from time to time. Compare that to Harry Reid and his ilk. Enough said?
Why don't we start in Maine? Maine ought to be a solidly Republican State, if for no other reason that the Democrats are keeping it mired in poverty.
“...I think you miss the zeitgeist involved with this...far more important that purity be maintained rather than victory achieved through compromise...”
You know, I think we should strive for purity. That should be the goal. However, I’ll gladly settle for anything that moves us in the purity direction over what we have now.
I don’t think people really understand that what we have now is better than if Democrats held the US House. It infuriates me every time Speaker Boehner passes something with Democrat votes, but let’s not forget he’s only able to do that because every last Democrat is a guaranteed vote against us.
Coulter and Boehner and the rest of the RINO establishment have a problem.
They ain't really fakes. You see, they truly believe in their heart of hearts, that victory at the polls is all that counts and that this victory depends upon offering the voters "more" than the Democrats, but in a more efficient, family sensitive way!
What Boehner, Coulter, Rove, McConnell et al are just trying to do is sell US their idea, holding us among the faithful, while attracting they hope, more of the imaginary "middle" which will win them election.
That's their plan, Stan. They think that's what elected GW,* and was their plan with Juan McLame and the Mormon Milquetoast, not to mention Viagra Dole.
*Pure Rove-Think at its most inane. Karl (The Architect, Latinos Republicans of The Future Rove) took an easy landslide and damn-near turned it into a loss that cost GW a true mandate.
The built-in evil of the "Two-Party" System. Of course, at this time, the "Two Parties" are the same party. Constitutional authority has passed from the elected to the agencies created by them to carry out the "programs" that they hope will get them re-elected.
The agencies have become the permanent government and are now the absolute masters of the elected officials who created them. What this means is that candidates for office ask for your vote on the basis of getting YOU "more" and by the power they claim to intercede on YOUR behalf with the agencies that run our lives.
What about the guy up in RI who was an R, then went D? Can’t remember his name. Pretty squishy. I think he retired, or ran for Gov, something like that.
Lincoln Chafee. Another good example.
That's just the thing, though. You're not being pragmatic at all if you willingly support people who have no intention of honestly fighting the leftists in Washington.
I don't know why it's so hard to understand that our fundamental way of life and system of government are being overturned, and that national politics is merely the public face of the coup.
You are losing your country. We've practically reached a point where elections are meaningless. There's an entrenched ruling class oligarchy in place who have successfully rigged the system so that it almost doesn't matter who runs the show. The Dems and the GOP-e only spar in public for our amusement. Behind the scenes, they're very much allies with a common enemy - the people.
The only possible hope we have of turning this around, is to send an army of people like Ted Cruz to Washington. Voting RINO will not help. You may as well send a Democrat, because the overall result will be the same.
Comes a point where you have to be willing to get up and walk away from the table, rather than continue to play a sucker's game. We're just about at that point.
My original post, to the originator of the thread, simply acknowledged a quote from Glenn Reynolds, that both sides of the GOP debate need to take a deep breath if they hope to take out the dems in 2014.
You've now taken it beyond where it was meant to go, implying it meant something it didn't. If you want to join the "I'm so pure I can't engage someone with the slightest difference" brigade, be my guest. It's NOT what Reagan did, and NOT what Cruz does, and has never been your MO before.
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