Happy New Year…It’s War,
While America was celebrating the holidays, the Wall
Street Journal ran a page one story
the day after Christmas headlined as follows:
GOP, Business Recast Message: Republican Leaders, Allies Aim to Diminish Clout of Most-Conservative
Activists
The story said this right up front:
Meanwhile, major donors and advocacy groups, such as the
Chamber of Commerce and American Crossroads, are preparing an aggressive effort
to groom and support more centrist Republican candidates for Congress in 2014’s
midterm elections.
Translation?
Karl Rove (i.e., architect of the American Crossroads
SuperPAC), the Chamber of Commerce, and the Washington GOP Establishment have
declared war on the Reaganite conservative base of the Republican Party.
Welcome to the 2014 election.
An election which, by all accounts, both historically and
in terms of the specifics of President Obama’s sinking ratings, should be a
winner — a big winner — for the GOP.
Unless.Unless there is a deliberate, willful attempt to sabotage the GOP from within. Using the GOP Establishment as a launching pad to ensure that Reagan-style conservatives — the base of the Republican Party — are defeated by Establishment, statist Republicans. Republicans who will in turn so anger the GOP base that the base simply refuses to turn out in November. Thus handing President Obama and the statist forces of Big Government a victory they should never have had and in fact would be unable to earn on their own.
Or? Worse?
The GOP Establishment wins under the ruse of being…
honest, they promise, cross-their-hearts-and-hope-to-die… conservative. And
then they do the inevitable… the usual… GOP version of the Socialist Deal.
Being “realistic”… seeking (Margaret Thatcher’s hated word) “consensus.”
Harrumph, yada yada yada and all of that. This isn’t
rocket science. Let’s be candid here, shall we?
This is the latest round in the GOP civil war that has
been ongoing for decades. And, while that WSJ story does not mention Mr.
Rove by name, the name of American Crossroads — the Rove-created SuperPAC — is
mentioned front and center in this story.Back in February of 2013 the New York Times ran this story on Mr. Rove’s Crossroads group, describing it as follows:
The biggest donors in the Republican Party are financing
a new group to recruit seasoned candidates and protect Senate incumbents from
challenges by far-right conservatives and Tea Party enthusiasts who Republican
leaders worry could complicate the party’s efforts to win control of the
Senate.…The group, the Conservative Victory Project, is intended
to counter other organizations that have helped defeat establishment Republican
candidates over the last two election cycles.”
The Conservative Victory Project, which is backed
by Karl Rove and his allies who built American Crossroads into the largest
Republican super PAC of the 2012 election cycle, will start by intensely
vetting prospective contenders for Congressional races to try to weed out
candidates who are seen as too flawed to win general elections.
The backlash against American Crossroads was
considerable. The very fact of the New York Times piece signaled the
Reagan base of the GOP — these days called the Tea Party — that the GOP
Washington Establishment was out to undercut Reaganites as the war against GOP
statists picked up steam.
Now that 2014 has arrived, the WSJ story indicates
the war on Reagan conservatives by the Bush/Ford/Rockefeller wing of the GOP is
on again in earnest. Over at Breitbart, Tony Lee reported another aspect of
this story,
headlined as follows: Karl Rove’s
Crossroads Reloading Against Tea Party
Reports Lee: Even though Karl Rove’s American Crossroads
brand has been damaged after the group declared war against conservative
candidates, the group will reportedly try to influence the 2014 midterm
elections by bullying campaigns and creating groups that, on the surface, do
not seem to be affiliated with them.
According to the New York Times, Crossroads
“appears to be testing” its “new approach” in Kentucky. The Conservative
Victory Project, the group formed to take on conservative candidates, has
stayed out of Kentucky’s Senate primary between Senate Minority Leader Mitch
McConnell (R-KY) and Tea Party challenger Matt Bevin. Instead, a group called
“Kentuckians for Strong Leadership” is curiously backing McConnell while
getting most of its cash from Crossroads donors. It is “legally separate from
Crossroads”; but Stephen Law, the president of Crossroads, sits on its board,
and the two groups share a treasurer.
Crossroads may set up “similar groups in races in which
its brand may be less appealing to voters or donors.” The Times notes
that this is an approach Crossroads may have to take because Rove’s
organization has been so tarnished among the conservative base that candidates
fear donors will not contribute to any group associated with him.
In other races, Crossroads has been threatening Senate
candidates, saying the group and its affiliates will not support them if they
accept support from other super PACs. According to the Times, Law warned
a Republican West Virginia Senate candidate (Rep. Shelly Moore Capito) that if
her campaign formed its own super PAC, Crossroads would not offer it support.
So even if it appears on the surface that Mr. Rove and
the GOP Establishment have taken a pass on primary X, in fact Crossroads, the
Chamber and other tentacles of the GOP Establishment may be well present and
accounted for by another name. Actively seeking to sabotage conservative
candidates exactly as the Breitbart story pinpoints in detail with the
Kentucky Senate race.
Let’s be clear. This isn’t some petty squabble over the
personality of candidate A versus candidate B. This is decidedly not about the
ineptness of, say, Missouri’s Todd Akin (whom we urged to withdraw after his
rape nonsense). Notice that none of the losing moderate candidates from 2012,
whether Mitt Romney at the top or in various Senate or House races, are being
cited by the Establishment as problems.
This is about whether the Republican Party will abandon
its Reagan/conservative base — the base that elected Reagan in two landslides,
Reagan’s vice president (running as Reagan’s heir) in a 1988 landslide, the
Gingrich Revolution in 1994 and made John Boehner Speaker of the House in 2010
— to become Republican socialists, a paler version of the Obama/statist party.
Obama Lite. Unwilling not only to challenge the President’s left-wing agenda
but insisting on acceptance of that agenda — just a cheaper, better managed
version of it.
This is exactly how the nation got into its $17 trillion
debt in the first place — not to mention repeated GOP defeats at the polls —
with too many Republicans using their time in office not to keep pledges of limited
government but rather to grow the government. And the debt and deficit that
went along with it.
As we have noted before, this fight is a mirror image of
the battle that occurred in Britain between the late British Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher and the “wets” — moderates — of her own British Conservative
Party.
After the Tories lost the 1974 elections to Labour, in
1975 as she prepared to challenge Edward Heath — the Gerald Ford of British
Conservatives — Mrs. Thatcher penned a column for the Daily Telegraph
that said, in part, this:
Indeed, one of the reasons for our electoral failure is
that people believe too many Conservatives have become socialists already. Britain’s progress towards
socialism has been an alternation of two steps forward with half a step
back…And why should anyone support a party that seems to have the courage of no
convictions?
Americanize Thatcher’s point and this is exactly the
problem posed by Mr. Rove, American Crossroads and the Chamber of Commerce.
To Americanize Mrs. Thatcher: Indeed, one of the
reasons for our electoral failure is that people believe too many Republicans
have become socialists already.
Exactly. Again, as pointed out before in this space, Mr.
Rove is a symbol of this problem. When the Ted Cruz-Mike Lee-led effort to
defund Obamacare was gaining steam, the GOP Establishment was out there saying
that the way to do this was not to defund Obamacare but to win elections that
gave the GOP control of the White House and Congress.
Left unsaid was the fact that once upon a time, when Mr.
Rove himself was the White House Deputy Chief of Staff in the Bush 43 era, the
GOP did in fact have control of the House and Senate both.
Was, to pick one example, the Department of Education
abolished? No. In fact, Mr. Rove boasts in his memoirs of expanding the
Department with the passage of No Child Left Behind, legislation that was
passed by partnering with then-Senator Ted Kennedy, the “Liberal Lion” of the
Senate. And oh yes, a GOP Congressman named…John Boehner.
In other words, given 100% control of the federal
government, something Reagan never had, the GOP went out of its way not
to limit the growth of the federal government — but to expand it. As it were,
the GOP Establishment joined hands with the other side.
This is exactly the problem Margaret Thatcher spent a
career fighting. Not to mention Ronald Reagan. As Mrs. Thatcher’s ally, the
late Sir Keith Joseph called it, this was the “socialist ratchet” effect.
Assuming office on a so-called “conservative” platform, British Conservatives
and American Republicans immediately settled in to assimilate the last spurt of
government growth from the preceding Labour or Democrat administration — and
then expand it.
Which brings us back to these stories in the Wall
Street Journal and at Breitbart.
What these stories are exactly describing is a massive
war on the conservative base of the GOP in 2014 by the people Ronald Reagan
labeled the “fraternal order” or “pastel” Republicans.
And what happens if they succeed? Assuming they don’t ignite
a furious backlash that costs the GOP the election?
The Republican Party can control every last seat in
Congress after 2014 and the White House in 2016 — and it will not make a lick
of difference. Because just as occurred when Rove was a man with clout in the
White House and John Boehner was on an earlier ladder of the GOP House
leadership passing No Child Left Behind with Teddy Kennedy — the Washington GOP
Establishment will do everything they can to fight efforts to limit the size
and growth of the federal government.Why is this? The answer is as simple as it is blunt. Follow the money.
The major industry — the trough, if you will — in
Washington, D.C. is the big, bloated federal government.
And groups like the US Chamber of Commerce wallow in this
trough. A few days before Christmas Mark Levin spent some time focusing on this
issue, correctly pointing out
that the Chamber, the epitome of the GOP Establishment, was “not about
capitalism, they’re about cronyism.”
Over at OpenSecrets.org, one learns
that the Chamber has been busy funneling its nominally conservative cash
to…yes…Democrats. Specifically the Democratic Governors Association and the
Democratic State Attorneys General Association. And here in the Los Angeles
Times — back in 2010 — was this story
headlined:
Republican-leaning U.S. Chamber
of Commerce buys ads supporting Democrats
The story went on to say: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce,
which has been a powerful ally for Republican candidates in this year’s midterm
campaigns, quietly moved across the aisle this week and bought ads touting
nearly a dozen Democratic House members.
Mind you, 2010 was the year of the Tea Party rebellion
that gave the House GOP its majority and produced Speaker Boehner. And the
Chamber of Commerce was out there giving some $1,899,772 for those “nearly a
dozen Democratic House members” — all of whom had cast their votes to make
Nancy Pelosi Speaker of the House.
This kind of thing is exactly why Mark Levin said the
Chamber is “not about capitalism, they’re about cronyism” and continued:
We need to shake up that place like it’s never been
shaken before. And the problem with groups like the United States Chamber of
Commerce is they’re not conservative, they’re about business. They’re not about
capitalism, they’re about cronyism. The reason there is a United States Chamber
of Commerce is so they can get Congress to cut deals for them, or the White
House to cut deals for them, or the bureaucracy to cut deals for them. That’s
what they’re there for.
Mark went on to say of the Chamber: They’re part of the
problem. The idea that big companies are necessarily conservative is absurd.
Who do you think funds the left? Who do you think funds the Democrat Party? Or,
all their little organizations? Big businesses do. Corporatists do. They’re
trying to buy favors. That’s what they do…
Mark is correct. But it would be considerably
wrong to leave the impression this is simply about the Chamber of Commerce and
American Crossroads.
The fact of the matter is that Washington is laced with
Republican lobbyists who are paid big bucks to lobby the federal government for
client A or B. They may even give lip service to the idea of “limited
government.” But to seriously limit the government would be to cut off a very
handsome way of living for these GOP lobbyists. Which is why when serious
conservative Republicans — today’s Tea Party members for example — actually
make it to Congress, the GOP Establishment gets the cold sweats.
Which brings us back full circle to the real problem, as
seen in this story
in the New York Times from the period of the 2013 government shutdown
headlined: Business Groups See Loss of
Sway Over House G.O.P.
Reports the Times:
WASHINGTON — As the government shutdown grinds toward a
potential debt default, some of the country’s most influential business
executives have come to a conclusion all but unthinkable a few years ago: Their
voices are carrying little weight with the House majority that their millions
of dollars in campaign contributions helped build and sustain.
This kind of reality terrifies the GOP Establishment.
Listen to this quote from — shocker — the top lobbyist for the Chamber of
Commerce, Bruce Josten. The Times quotes him this way, bold print for
emphasis supplied here:
“What we want is a conservative
business person, but someone who in many respects will be more realistic, in our opinion,” said Bruce Josten,
the top lobbyist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the single biggest lobbying
organization in Washington.….“The name calling, blame gaming — using slurs like
jihadist, terrorist, cowards, that kind of language — it does not get you to a deal,” Mr. Josten said of the advice he
is giving to Democrats and Republicans.”
Catch the phrases? The words “more realistic” and “deal”?
This isn’t simply Inside-the-Beltway language — this is the coded language of
what Reagan once disparaged as the “fraternal order” Republicans. It is exactly
what Margaret Thatcher was referring to when she said “too many Conservatives have
become socialists already.”
Mr. Josten, Mr. Rove, the groups they are connected to
are speaking the language of Republican socialists.
What Mr. Josten is saying in his own fashion is that he
has accepted the “socialist ratchet” method of governing. He wants — and the
Chamber he represents wants — no part of reversing this Leftist governing
assumption. Josten’s job, the Chamber’s role, is simply to be in Washington and
make “deals,” to be “realistic.”
The $17 trillion debt? The $90 trillion in unfunded
liabilities? Hey, no big deal. Let’s manicure the next budget deal a tad and
move on.
And ever further into the hole.
This was exactly the method of government Ronald Reagan —
perhaps one of the first modern Tea Party activists before there was a modern
Tea Party — saw as the problem. And that problem is now getting worse by the
day, setting up Americans for a massive economic free-fall.
Let’s cut to the chase, shall we? These various stories
that popped up in the Wall Street Journal and at Breitbart over the
holidays about Karl Rove, American Crossroads, and the Chamber of Commerce are
about, to Americanize Thatcher, nothing more-or-less than Republican Socialism.
They are not about changing Washington — they are
Washington. They talk a great game about limited government, but as noted, when
they had 100% charge of the federal government in the Bush years they set about
not limiting government but expanding government.
The real reason these people will be out there trying to
defeat Reaganite conservatives/Tea Partier candidates is precisely because
these candidates in victory have shown themselves to be a direct threat to the
Washington way of doing business. So job one for the GOP Establishment is to
deliberately pick Republican socialist candidates — candidates who are
perfectly happy to talk the talk but once in Washington will refuse flatly to
do what they promised to do.
As the 2014 election year proceeds, we will have many
opportunities to spot these Republican Socialist candidates and their backers
at work out there, just as our friends at Breitbart put a spotlight on the
behind-the-scenes machinations of American Crossroads in the Kentucky Senate
race.
The 2014 elections should be a bumper year for the GOP. But
it will quickly turn to disaster if those who are intent on making this year a
victory for Republican Socialism get their way — and in turn drive the Reagan
conservative base away from the polls. Suffice to say? The battle is on.
Source: http://spectator.org/articles/57314/karl-rove-and-gop-socialists
Comments:
The Reaganites also include a third of us who
voted for Ross Perot in 1992.
There are lots of big lies we are about to
hear from Socialists on both sides. The
first is that we can’t just stop printing money. The next is that we can’t just stop giving
billions in foreign military aid. The third is that increasing the money supply
to 350% may not turn into inflation. The next is that high levels of immigration are good for our economy.
In addition, we will be encouraged to ignore
the death of the global warming hoax, the causes of the 2008 Meltdown that have
not been fixed and the damage done by UN Agenda 21 implementation, the EPA,
HUD, Education and most other federal agencies.
We need to take over the Senate and primary John Boehner and Mitch
McConnell. Both have high disapproval ratings.
That would set the stage in 2014.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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