Posted on 12/31/2014 11:01:31 AM PST by SeekAndFind
I considered saving this for tomorrow night, just to send you off into 2015 on the most depressing, eeyorishness note possible. But then I reconsidered.
For maximum eeyorishness, I should really end the year with a “Romney 2016″ post instead, no?
Team McCain’s goal? Unseat conservative activists who hold obscure, but influential, local party offices.
Under the byzantine rules of Arizona Republican Party politics, these elected officials, known as precinct committeemen, vote for local party chairmen. The chairmen, in turn, determine how state and local GOP funds are spent, which candidates are promoted in an election year, and which political issues are highlighted — all matters of central concern for McCain heading into 2016, when the threat of a primary looms.
Prior to Aug. 26, when the races for the party offices were held, the vast majority of the 3,925 precinct slots were filled by people McCain’s team considered opponents. Now, after an influx of candidates were recruited by the senator’s allies, around 40 percent of those offices — 1,531 to be exact — will be held by people McCain’s team regards as friendly. They will have the power to vote down hostile Republican chairmen in each of their respective localities…
McCain advisers believe their campaign to alter the state GOP will strengthen his hand in 2016; a more sympathetic Arizona Republican Party, they reason, will be less likely to lodge a censure resolution against him and rally activist support for any would-be primary opponents.
Control the committeemen and you control the local chairmen. Control the local chairmen and you control the party, at least enough to keep it from being a thorn in your side when you suddenly revert to your embarrassingly phony once-every-six-years “build the dang fence” border hawkishness. If any of this seems familiar, it should: Orrin Hatch used a similar tactic two years ago to cruise to reelection in Utah. Utah was the very first state to oust a Republican Senate incumbent in favor of a tea partier when GOP delegates bounced Bob Bennett in 2010 and replaced him with Mike Lee. Hatch, a fellow establishment dinosaur, feared the same would happen to him; an early internal poll of the delegates who defeated Bennett showed similarly low levels of support for Hatch. So Hatch huddled with his team and came up with a plan — instead of trying to win over the delegates, which was unlikely given the ideological rift between them, he would try to replace them. He recruited thousands of people to run as delegates and then thousands more to turn out at their local precincts on election night and vote for those delegates. Result: Not only did Hatch comfortably win reelection in 2012, he came within less than a point of winning the 60 percent of delegates he would have needed to bypass a primary altogether and win his party’s nomination by de facto acclamation. That was a true Empire Strikes Back moment for establishmentarians. No wonder McCain wants to emulate it.
In fact, apart from Bennett and Dick Lugar, who took for granted how loyal Indiana Republicans would be to him in a primary and didn’t campaign hard early against Richard Mourdock, GOP Senate incumbents have been mostly (and increasingly) successful against tea partiers. It’s not always easy: Pat Roberts failed to break 50 percent in the primary earlier this year against three opponents and a somnambulant Thad Cochran barely held on against Chris McDaniel, and only thanks to help from black Democrats. Then again, sometimes it’s been much easier than you’d expect. Hatch’s victory is one striking example; another is Lindsey Graham’s easy reelection in South Carolina earlier this year, avoiding a runoff in the primary against six challengers by taking 56 percent of the vote. How’d he do it? I wrote about it back in April but the short version is smart organization and plenty of political favors to locals, the same blueprint McCain is using and the same blueprint that all incumbents will use in years to come. We may have already reached the point in the young life of the tea party where it’s next to impossible for the movement to knock off a senator who expects a challenge and begins preparing for it early. There won’t be any more Bennetts or Lugars who are caught off guard by the threat, and there won’t be any more Cochrans allowed to dodder their way to near-defeat before the national party quietly intervenes with financial and organizational support. The next incumbent the tea party ousts will need to be hobbled in some other way, perhaps through scandal, to give the movement an opening with voters. It’s hard to beat someone with lots of friends in Washington and lots of money from the donor class when they can see you coming.
And it’ll be especially hard in 2016. There are some incumbents, like, say, Kelly Ayotte, whom righties ideally might challenge but who’ll be given a break simply because the national map is so foreboding for the GOP. Fully 24 Republicans are up for reelection compared to just 10 Democrats and the fact that it’s a presidential election year means a bluer electorate overall. Do you want to try to knock off Ayotte in a purple state like New Hampshire when it might very well mean an extra seat for Democrats, imperiling the GOP’s Senate majority? Do you want to target Mark Kirk in the blue state of Illinois? How about Lisa Murkowski in Alaska, a red state but one where Democrat Mark Begich lost by just two points in his own reelection bid earlier this year? One of the reasons tea partiers are eager to beat McCain, I think, is because Arizona may well be the only state where a Republican sees a serious primary challenge. Go hard at him. But don’t stray too far from eeyorishness about your chances.
Fine. I’ll settle for a Democrat in his seat.
Oh , dump this sad sack of you know what
I’ve always been opposed to a third party after what Perot did to us, but it’s becoming inevitable. That would leave us with hard core socialist (Democrat), Democrat (GOP-e), and Republican (Conservative).
I take it that “tea party foes” does not mean foes of the tea party.
Interesting phenomenon: A political “party” sans a list of dues-paying members, while having a title/name un-capitalized.
Anyone who thinks we are going to stop this juggernaut in Oligarchy and tyranny at the ballot box is seriously deluded.
We have been fundamentally transformed into an Imperial Fascist Oligarchy with a Roman Senate under a Caesar with a media Praetorian to enforce the dictatorship’s agenda.
If folks think they can just vote more Republicans and stop them, I submit they have a fatal case of Normalcy Bias.
Hey Mac!
At some point it doesn’t matter how much money is backing your socialist capitulation.
The voters have come to recognize you for the self promoting, NON-CONSERVATIVE that you are and will REJECT YOU in favor of someone with CORE CONSERVATIVE VALUES.
That is why the Republican party will never be purged of the Old Guard Elites.
Even if they die or retire, they are replaced by new Old Guard Elites who learned to toe the line early on.
==
Sadly, conservatives keep voting for the same and expecting a different result.
RINO should always be primaried. Always. And if they don't toe the line, they should be opposed.
If McCain were to run on the right ticket, I’d vote for him.
It would be a one way ticket to a retirement home with locked doors.
So don’t rule out my support. If the man has the right agenda, I’ll vote to put him away.
In Arizona they have open primary voting.
So you not only have to deal with idiot Republicans who can’t tell the difference between McCain and a better guy, but you have the Democrats voting against the good guy too.
This is where the GOPe leadership outs itself. It has no problem with this at all. It doesn’t lift one finger in any state where this takes place, to stop it. It suits their purposes.
J. D. Hayworth was 90% better than John McCain. He might have voted against us every once in a blue moon, but the guy got it. Yes he made some mistakes, but to think of him as inferior to John McCain. I’m not even convinced Ted Kennedy was worse then John McCain.
McCain is a dirty back-stabbing turn-coat that has voted on almost every side of every issue.
It’s a tough sell to blame Conservatives in part for what this demon is, or that he has been returned to office.
Tea Party members and Conservatives see this pig for exactly what he is IMO.
Sadly they can’t buck the RINO establishment, in-state RINOs, and the Democrats.
“I’ve always been opposed to a third party after what Perot did to us, but it’s becoming inevitable. That would leave us with hard core socialist (Democrat), Democrat (GOP-e), and Republican (Conservative).”
Yeah, I agree. But, a third (Conservative) party might be interesting. Obviously, it would diminish the GOP and would hand elections to the Dem’s - unless this new third party should choose to caucus with the GOP. Of course, there would have to be agreement by the GOP to deliver on key Conservative care-abouts in for this to happen.....
Dump them all, and the hell with the Senate!
OH MAN what a diva
Fight back.
There's one there already. It's just that he carries an R after his name.
Yes, yes, and yes.
And I don't give a flying damn about his purported 'service'.
LOL!
Will Sarah come out and support him again?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.