(AP) — From county chairmen to national party
luminaries, veteran Republicans across the country are accusing tea party
lawmakers of staining the GOP with their refusal to bend in the budget impasse
in Washington.
The Republican establishment also is
signaling a willingness to strike back at the tea party in next fall’s
elections.
“It’s time for someone to act like a grown-up
in this process,” former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu argues, faulting Texas
Sen. Ted Cruz and tea party Republicans in the House as much as President
Barack Obama for taking an uncompromising stance.
Former Mississippi Gov. Haley
Barbour is just as pointed, saying this about the tea party-fueled refusal to
support spending measures that include money for Obama’s health care law: “It
never had a chance.”The anger emanating from Republicans like Sununu and Barbour comes just three years after the GOP embraced the insurgent political group and rode its wave of new energy to return to power in the House.
Now, they’re lashing out with polls
showing Republicans bearing most of the blame for the federal shutdown, which
entered its 11th day Friday. In some places, they’re laying the groundwork to
take action against the tea party in the 2014 congressional elections.
Iowa Republicans are recruiting a
pro-business Republican to challenge six-term conservative Rep. Steve King, a
leader in the push to defund the health care law. Disgruntled Republicans are
further ahead in Michigan, where second-term, tea party-backed Rep. Justin
Amash is facing a Republican primary challenger who is more in line with – and
being encouraged by – Republicans more in line with pro-business Gov. Rick
Snyder than Amash’s tea party base. And business interest groups, long aligned
with the Republican Party, also are threatening to recruit and fund strong
challengers to tea party House members.
Tea party backers are undeterred and
assail party leaders.
“They keep compromising,” said
Katrina Pierson, a former Dallas-area tea party organizer now challenging Rep.
Pete Sessions of Texas in the 2014 GOP primary. “They all campaigned on fiscal
responsibility. They just need to do what they campaigned on.”
In more than a dozen interviews,
Republican leaders, officials and strategists at all levels of the party blamed
Obama for the shutdown but also faulted tea party lawmakers in the House, who
have insisted that any deal to reopen the government be contingent on stripping
money for the health care law.
An Associated Press-GfK poll
released Wednesday showed why these party loyalists are so concerned: More
Republicans told pollsters that the GOP is mishandling the shutdown than is
handling it well. And among those who say it’s being poorly handled, twice as
many Republicans say the party is not doing enough to negotiate with Obama than
those who say the party is doing too much.
Party leaders interviewed said the
tea party’s demands to defund the health care law – and the House leadership’s
willingness to follow suit – were distracting from what they said is the GOP’s
best strategy to recover from its 2012 losses: a focus on reducing long-term
spending. They said defunding the health care law would not achieve that goal
because the money was already flowing to the law.
“At the end of the day, you’re
fighting legislation that’s already passed,” said former South Carolina
Republican Party Chairman Katon Dawson, describing the fight to defund the
health care law as a lost cause.
Republican activists around the
country also said in interviews that the shutdown – and House Republicans’
demands – have deflected attention from problems with the launch of key parts
to the health care bill.
Thousands of Americans were unable
to shop for health insurance on the online marketplaces when they went live on
Oct. 1 because of software glitches. And, these Republicans say, the GOP in
Washington – and specifically tea party House members – got in the way of the
troubled rollout, which the GOP could have seized on if the government were
still open.
“We’re not saying Obama is right.
We’re saying what Republicans are doing is wrong,” said Matt Cox, a former
executive director of Ohio’s Cuyahoga County GOP. He said that instead of
pursuing the shutdown strategy, Republicans in Washington could have passed –
and taken credit for – a spending measure that kept dollar levels at those set
by the automatic $1.2 trillion across-the-board cut approved last year, also
called the sequester.
Generally, these Republicans said
that because of the tea party’s effort to defund the health care law, the
Republican Party had missed an opportunity to hammer Obama after he hit a rough
patch over Syria just a month ago.
Former Illinois State Sen. Laura
Douglas wants to believe that the holdouts can win. But she has her doubts.
“My heart says, `Keep fighting,
don’t give up,’” said Douglas, a resident of Quincy in western Illinois. “But
my head says, `If we keep this kind of thing up, we’re going to get creamed
next year.’”
Her worries are reflected in the
AP-GfK poll. Roughly three-quarters of Republicans nationally said their party in
Congress deserves a moderate degree or most of the blame for the shutdown.
Even among Republicans, those who
don’t support the tea party mostly disapprove of how the GOP is handling the
budget issue. Just 17 percent of Americans overall consider themselves tea
party backers.
And tea party allies are fighting
back.
The Senate Conservatives Fund, an
independent political action committee, has run ads asking tea party supporters
to recruit primary election opponents for Republicans who voted for a measure that
would have kept the government running with modifications in the health care
law.
In South Carolina, Fairfield County
Republican Chairman Kevin Thomas is among those on the side of tea party
lawmakers.
“The only leverage we have is the
budget,” he said.
Source: Tea Party.org http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SHUTDOWN_GOP_TEA_PARTY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-10-11-03-56-20
Comments:
The Republican “Old Guard” has it
wrong, again. They plan to run Mr. Rogers for President in 2016. (It’s a
beautiful day in the neighborhood…) Their
rationale for not letting House Republicans assert their Constitutional right
to withhold funding of ObamaCare is to let the “People” get a beating from
premiums too high to sign up to.
Tea Partiers know the House can stop
this before it goes that far. So, whose
on the side of the “People”? It’s the Tea
Party and the Liberty groups and the Constitutionalists, and Harley dudes and
truck drivers that make up 60% of the country.
You can’t negotiate with globalists,
Palestinians, statists, communists, banksters or terrorists, particularly if
you are on their payroll. The best time to kill cockroaches is when you see
them.
Voters have identified the Constitution as the road-map
back to taking their country back. I’m
sure the RINOs will at least claim to have warmed up to the Constitution by
November 2014, or they will be “primaried”.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
Norb-
ReplyDeleteYou can always make up your own "facts". Fact is the T.P. and Liberty groups do not make up at least 60% of the country, well maybe 60% or the population, but not 60% of the voters. Did Mitt get 60% of the popular vote? If you choose to "primary" another electable Republican, you'll simply get another Dem. in the White House
Will you ever learn?