(Breitbart) – Perhaps the Republican
leadership and its Establishment apparatus don’t realize just how dangerous is
the game they’re playing against conservatives, or perhaps they just don’t
care. There is a part of the GOP power structure that has always been most
happy to serve as the permanent minority, personally enriched by serving as
minor, ineffective obstacles to the ruling Left.
They win elections by cadging millions from
conservatives desperate to Do Something about the mess in Washington, then sink
comfortably into that mess as though relaxing in a Jacuzzi, rousing themselves
only to display true fury against the occasional cage-rattling, boat-rocking
conservative insurgent.
There are always conservatives who denounce
this state of affairs and pronounce themselves tired of serving as
campaign-cash piggy banks for politicians who view them as far worse enemies
than the Democrats, but in this election cycle, the “Let It Burn” caucus of
disgusted, demoralized, and disengaged voters is particularly loud. I don’t
think the Establishment understands just how bitter and dispirited their base
has become.
Republican leaders said they needed the Senate
to get anything done, and they got it, in a historic midterm election
landslide. They’ve done absolutely nothing with it. Sen. Harry Reid
(D-NV) is still the effective Senate
Majority Leader – in fact, he’s sitting prettier than ever, because he gets to
watch Republicans use his grubby tactics to stymie conservative votes, while
his hands remain clean.
A Democrat will most likely get the official
Majority Leader post back in 2016, and there won’t even be any sweat
stains on the gavel when Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) hands it
back to him. Can anyone point to a significant event in the post-midterm
Senate that would have gone much differently if Democrats were still the official majority party?
We get no action on Planned Parenthood, even
as the nation recoils in horror and disgust from their baby-organ-harvesting
operation.
We get no votes on anything of substance to
conservatives, no votes that would force Democrats to spend political capital
or take uncomfortable on-the-record positions that would alienate voters.
The vote to block Obama’s hideous Iran sellout
was pre-sabotaged by changing the rules so that Democrats can’t lose.
All we get is the crony-capitalist
Export-Import bank brought back from the grave, with Republican fingerprints
all over the shovel.
Here’s how Politico describes the latest encounter between
Senator Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and the GOP leadership on Sunday:
Republican leaders, led by Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), delivered what senators described as punishment for
Cruz’s brazen floor tactics — the Texas senator first accused McConnell of
lying and later sought to change Senate procedures in order to push for an
Iran-related amendment.
So when Cruz came to the floor looking for 16
senators to agree to hold a roll-call vote, only three raised their hands.
McConnell, sitting at his desk, turned around and peered at Cruz, who looked
stunned at what had just happened. The Senate dispensed with his effort by a
voice vote and quickly moved on, doing the same to Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) (R-Utah),
a Cruz ally who sought to use arcane procedures to force a vote on defunding
Planned Parenthood.
It all went down in an instant, but the
message was clear: If Cruz doesn’t want to play nice with his Republican
colleagues, they will respond in kind.
“You learn that in kindergarten: You learn to
work well together and play by the rules,” said
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) of Tennessee, a close McConnell
ally who was beaming after Cruz and Lee were handed such lopsided defeats.
“Another thing you learn in kindergarten is to respect one another.”
How’s all that kindergarten respect for
Democrats working out for you guys? Do these buffoons have any idea what
they’re doing? Do
they have a clue how badly their stupid schoolyard smack-downs play with their
base voters? Wait until Senator Alexander is comfortably back in the minority,
whining like a toddler about how good little boys and girls are supposed to
respect each other, while the Democrats ruthlessly stamp his minority caucus
into the dirt.
A great deal of what Senator Cruz, and other
upstarts like Senator Mike Lee of Utah, are trying to do involves turning the
tactics of Democrats back against them. They want to fight with liberal
ferocity for conservative causes. Ten minutes spent listening to Cruz makes it
clear he understands exactly how the Left’s tactics work, and he’s ready to
pull off the Republican gloves – which look like kid gloves, except
they’re also connected by a short handcuff chain – and fight under the same
rules of engagement.
The only time the bloodless, weary, collegial,
ineffective Republican leadership fights that way is when they’re beating down
conservative upstarts. If only they would go after Democrats the way they just
went after Ted Cruz!
Cruz made that point himself:
The rebuke was the latest in an increasingly
testy rivalry marked by accusations of deceit and grandstanding. Cruz, who is
running for president, has sought to use his battles with his colleagues — on
everything from the 2013 government shutdown to last year’s battle over the
debt ceiling — to tell conservatives that he’s the one candidate who will take
on an entrenched party leadership. But Republican senators view Cruz as a
divisive figure who is only seeking to lift his profile by waging war with his
colleagues.
Cruz, his voice rising, tore into McConnell
just off the Senate floor.
“Granting a sufficient second for a roll-call
vote is done customarily in the United States Senate,” Cruz told reporters.
“Denying it is extraordinary, and it was done as a consequence of Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell being afraid of this issue.”
He accused McConnell of scheming with
Democratic leader Harry Reid.
“To see the so-called Republican leader whip against allowing a
vote to defund Planned Parenthood … makes clear that the McConnell-Reid
leadership is united in favor of Big Government,” Cruz charged.
If you dessicated gentlemen of the GOP don’t
relish watching Democrats seize total power in 2016 and returning to your
comfortably padded back benches, you’d better learn how to do a bit of
“grandstanding” yourselves.
Ted Cruz didn’t start this war with the
Republican establishment. Why aren’t their conservative-bashing tactics considered “divisive?”
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is openly discussing a big-bucks effort
to not only freeze out conservative primary candidates in 2016, but actually
take out sitting conservative
Republican representatives. Isn’t that awfully “divisive?” Especially when one
of the big reasons the Chamber is beating the war drums is their hunger for
open borders illegal-alien amnesty – one of the most divisive policies ever
inflicted on the American people against their manifest will, and an agenda which
pretty much guarantees permanent Democrat political power.
Ted Cruz is a top-tier Republican presidential
candidate, according to current polls. The GOP Establishment is doing a great
deal of damage to its own brand by handling him this way, whether they like it
or not. (Sure, the Democrat establishment has said a few nasty things
about Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), but that stuff will all be memory-holed
by the media the instant he’s not a factor in the primary any more, and the
Democrat aristocracy is careful to make a play for an upstart liberal’s voters, rather than publicly
plotting to marginalize them and treating their issues like annoyances.)
The current front-runner, Donald Trump,
is defined by his
very loud willingness to tackle Establishment forces, especially the media,
which works to set the stage for every presidential election by telling
Republican voters which acceptable, genteel losers they’re allowed to support.
Trump critics argue that he’s staging an anti-Establishment burlesque, or maybe
even running a false-flag operation ultimately intended to hand the election to
Democrats… but there’s no doubt a large number of people are responding to what
he’s saying, and interpreting the more arrogant responses as assaults upon
their own character, not just Trump’s.
Does anyone believe for a microsecond that
Republican voters would rally behind the limp battle flags and tinny plastic
trumpets of Mitch McConnell and Lamar Alexander to win the presidential battle
of 2016? No, the Republican candidate, whoever it is, will spend a good deal of
time apologizing to voters for
what the GOP leadership has been doing, much as the Democrat candidates are
trying to run against the Obama disaster without implicating him personally.
Spoiler alert: it’s going to be a lot harder
for the Republican candidate to dump their leadership baggage, partly due to
the media, and partly because Republicans simply do not enjoy as many automatic
votes as Democrats do. Segments of the Republican base have proven time and
again that they will stay
home, especially if they think voting is futile, or would involve
supporting politicians who actively dislike them.
While we argue about tone and tactics, and the
Beltway media bemusedly wonders if Cruz or McConnell has the more accurate recollection
of some lunch meeting, the actual record of the GOP leadership is a mountain of
failure they simply cannot hide. Something has to change in Washington.
Everyone knows it. The Republican establishment line used to be, “We can’t do
anything when we’re the minority in both houses.” Then it became, “We can’t do
anything with only the House.” Now they’re saying they can’t get a blessed
thing done, or even start a political fight that would draw some Democrat
blood, unless they’ve got the White House too.
Meanwhile, parts of the Democrat base are
angry about certain issues, they’ve got a bad case of Clinton fatigue already,
and their leadership has been a disaster for America… but Democrat leaders
don’t have to apologize to their voters for being an ineffective minority,
because they’re not. They don’t back down from tough fights, or stroll across
the media landscape bayonetting their own wounded after they lose one.
From the very first hours after those stunning
2014 midterm results began rolling in, Democrats have acted as if the election
was an insignificant, maybe even illegitimate temporary
interruption of their power. President Obama openly derided the election as
meaningless, while liberal pundits hammered out editorials musing that we
shouldn’t waste time and money on midterm elections at all. The Republican
leadership has given little indication that they disagree.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/07/27/gop-establishment-wages-war-against-cruz-and-conservative-voters/
http://www.teaparty.org/gop-establishment-wages-war-cruz-conservative-voters-110248/
Comments
Conservatives have a list of RINOs they want
to primary into retirement. These RINOs
include Senators McConnell, Alexander, McCain, Representatives Boehner, and all
others with a grade F on Conservative Review Scorecard.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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