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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