Speaker Boehner and the GOP elite: stuck on stupid

On Christmas Day, The Wall Street Journal reported on the GOP Establishment's all-out attack on its conservative base:

Republican leaders and their corporate allies have launched an array of efforts aimed at diminishing the clout of the party's most conservative activists and promoting legislation instead of confrontation next year.

GOP House leaders are taking steps to impose discipline on wavering committee chairmen and tea-party factions. Meanwhile, major donors and advocacy groups, such as the U.S. 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.

"Promoting legislation instead of confrontation"? "More centrist" candidates? Most Tea Party Patriots would prefer the repeal of Progressive legislation and unconstitutional Executive Orders - even if that means confrontation with the socialist Progressives in both parties. Most Tea Party Patriots would prefer candidates who will put Tea Party principles before party. 

The WSJ reporter identifies several GOP-proposed measures that will do nothing to stop the downward spiral caused by runaway spending, regulations that strangle free enterprise, and job-killing legislation. Thomas Lifson at The American Thinker pounced on the report with some blistering criticism of Speaker Boehner's ham-fisted "leadership" - based on intimidation and marginalization of any members of the House who dare to vote against Boehner's party line, even when it means breaking campaign promises and breaking faith with constituents: 

This is a recipe for suicide. We saw in November 2012 how well it works when a party pushes a presidential candidate who alienates the base. The GOP turnout was far too low because Romney did not inspire the base. Does anyone think John Boehner does? Does anyone care how turnout will go in November next year?

The GOP Establishment lives and breathes the Beltway, where the combined weight of the media, government bureaucrats, and all those lobbyists leads them astray. They have no idea how their arrogance plays to their natural constituency.

The midterm elections should be a slam-dunk. But the Beltway Republicans, traumatized by the media campaign against the shutdown, are fighting the last war, completely unaware that the base doesn't want another shutdown, it wants repeal of Obamacare and sees it in sight with victory on 2014 and then 2016. If only the Establishment can stop attacking them while it sucks up corporate money.

It does look like Tea Party Patriots have to challenge a GOP party run by establishment and Progressive “elites” AND a Democrat party controlled by establishment and Progressive “elites”. And Speaker Boehner thinks the best strategy heading into 2014 is to alienate the conservative base. He is Stuck on Stupid. 

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