MSNBC's Chuck Todd: Tea Party Conservatives 'Love to Complain,' 'Don't Want to Lead'(VIDEO)

News Busters ^ | June 13 2014 | Connor Williams

[PoloSec]

Reacting to news that Texas conservatives Pete Sessions (R) and Jeb Hensarling (R) would not challenge Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for House Majority Leader, MSNBC’s Chuck Todd felt compelled to rip the Tea Party for their supposed lack of leadership. According to The Daily Rundown host, Tea Party conservatives “will blind quote ‘leadership’ to death. They love to complain, moan, gripe, you know what, but when the chips are down, they don’t have the guts to run.”

NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell was unwilling to raise much of an objection to this blatantly partisan analysis And they’ll keep doing that, and they get something out of it,” she noted. Refusing to back down from his original point, Todd asserted, “What do they want, just to complain? They like complaining, but they don’t want to lead?”

[House Atreides]

Chuck, you idiot...maybe they know how to count votes. The real leadership challenges will come after the November elections when a number of current RINOs have retired and there are conservative reinforcements coming in who are newly elected.

[Norm Lenhart]

Its a lesser evil. We need more of that.

/s

[DaxtonBrown]

Like Chuck Todd would follow us if we told him the sky was blue.

[Norm Lenhart]

Actually he’s partly right. The so called conservatives pussed out on us AGAIN. Another sterling example of principle mattering and electing lesser evil squishes being a bad idea.

[VanDeKoik]

Uh, so we have been refusing the offers?

[tennmountainman]

Exactly.

That is the only explanation why NO conservative stepped up.

Much better odds with the new incoming congress.

Conservatives are keeping their powder dry, for the moment.
However, a knock down brawl is coming.

And who knows. Between now and then, there may be more
“Cantor Surprises” in the coming primaries, which will strengthen
conservatives in congress.

Wise more to buy some time.

[tennmountainman]

Norm.

The odds are not good at the present moment.
House is right that a dozen of GOPe’s are retiring
And new reps are coming in.
A knock down brawl is coming with the new session.
Buckle your seat belt, my friend.

[Cheerio]

Obama is a “leader”??

[Norm Lenhart]

The powder excuse got us to where we are. Powder dry on budget, on amnesty on lots of things. We tend to use it as soothing balm to cover for the anger of our ‘leaders’ caving and screwing us. We better admit it to ourselves.

Power is taken, not kept in storage for a better day.

[Norm Lenhart]

Don’t forget Tenn, they can call a vote any second of any day they choose to. Do it now. Lose? Do it again in the new session.

Why wait? People need a copy of the 48 Laws of Power by Robert Green badly in the conservative (I wonder) wing of DC.

[tennmountainman]

Norm,

It’s only a couple of months. We may get more “Cantor Surprises”
in the coming primaries. That will be huge leverage.
About 13 Bonehead allies will be retiring, with new reinforcements
coming in.
If one is going to take down the King, you got one shot.
The timing is not right for one shot. It will be with the new coming congress.

I am certain we are going to get our knock down brawl and victory
with the incoming New Congress. Keep the faith, my friend.

[VRWC For Truth]

Effe effe Chuckie.

[Norm Lenhart]

I get that. But what is on the table ‘in’ the next couple months? Amnesty.

My faith tells me that the GOP is going to give Barry what he wants. We can fight now or cry later fighting a rearguard battle after it gets legalized.

[Old Retired Army Guy]

People forget that Chuck Todd used to be on the staff of Iowa’s ultra liberal Senator Harkin.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Wasn’t upChuck saying the TEA party was dead just last week?

[tennmountainman]

That is true, they can call a vote at any moment.
And if the elites try to pass amnesty, that leadership vote will be called.

Give it a little time. More “Cantor Surprises” are in the works.
That will only strengthen our conservative demand for leadership power.

There is a reason NO conservative stepped up NOW.
With the key word being NOW.

A knock down brawl is coming. Be patient.

[Political Junkie Too]

I have to agree with you, Norm.

Conservatives whiffed during the caucus vote after the 2012 election, allowing Boehner a smooth ride back to the Speakership even after sacking conservative committee heads. They got very close, but got wobbly at the last minute and backed down.

Now they're repeating that behavior.

I'm tired of the "keeping the powder dry" excuse because tomorrow never comes with the GOP (conservative or e), the next battle is never engaged, we're always told to wait for the right time.

Well, now is the right time. There is a wind blowing into the sails now. Cantor's loss is the call to arms. It's disheartening to see, again, that our leaders are failing to see that. Or, if they see it, they are going wobbly again.

It's about building "street cred," so to speak. As you said, lose and do it again next time. But if they never even try, if they never ever engage, then the threats become bluster because nobody will ever believe that anyone will actually act, because nobody ever does in the end.

-PJ

[God luvs America]

meanwhile:

Idaho Rep. Raul Labrador said Friday he will run for the House majority leader position being vacated by Eric Cantor. The decision sets up a race next week between Labrador, a leading conservative voice, and Kevin McCarthy, the current House majority whip.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3167375/posts

[Bratch]

...maybe they know how to count votes.

You might be onto something.

Is The One Potential Conservative Candidate For House Leadership In Trouble?

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Legislative leadership races are weird things. While they have tremendous influence on policy they are rarely informed by ideology or political positions. Relationships and favors are the key to realm to advancement. And that's how it's very possible the GOP could wind up with a leadership team of the K-Street Republican John Boehner from Ohio as Speaker, the amnesty supporting moderate Kevin McCarthy from California as Majority Leader (42%ranking from Heritage Action) and possibly another moderate in Peter Roskam from IL as their Whip(52% rating from Heritage Action).

Where's the red state conservative represenation of the leadership team? It seems Steve Scalise from Louisianan (81% from Heritage Action) looks to be running into some trouble in the Whip battle.

"Scalise may have charged hard out of the gate with his PR campaign but we understand he's stalled out at that 100 number, and we're gaining rapidly - our team is adding more hard YES votes, and these aren't just undecided members," the Roskam source wrote in an email.

A person in Scalise's operation said the Louisiana Republican hoped to reach the 117-vote majority threshold by the end of the day on Friday. Because of the secret ballot, it is impossible to verify how solid any candidate's support is. Scalise was making calls until midnight on Thursday and remained in his office until 3 a.m., the person said. He plans to return to his district Sunday for Father's Day.

Aides said Stutzman, another RSC member who entered the race on Thursday morning, did not have a chance to win and had only about 20 firm votes. The House GOP will hold a candidate forum on Wednesday for members to make their case.

Obviously there's a long way to go and a lot of spin but one telling thing is Scalise bailed on a scheduled Fox News appearance set for this weekend.

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Robert Costa        ✔ @costareportsFollow

Word is that Scalise didn't want to go on if votes weren't all there, race was fluid. Allies say he wants to make low key calls instead

12:28 PM - 13 Jun 2014

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As for the Majority Leader race, there doesn't seem to be one. Yesterday Pete Sessions of Texas said he'd run and then withdrew a few hours later. There's chatter that Raul Labrador of Idaho might jump in to give conservatives a chance but nothing yet.

The GOP clearly has decided that there's no bigger message that they need to take away from Cantor's loss. Maybe they are right and they can stick with moderate leadership from blue states and be just fine. Or maybe at some point in the not to distant future they will find themselves tossed out (and not by necessarily by conservatives) and they'll be left asking themselves, "why didn't we see it coming?"

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