It's put up or shut up time Mr. Priebus. We're waiting to hear from you. We are not, I repeat NOT, going to forget Mississippi.
Posted on 07/15/2014 12:17:15 PM PDT by Syncro
By Sal Russo - 07/14/14 08:08 PM EDT
If the recent Mississippi Senate primary was a GOP establishment bellwether, the Republican Party is in deep trouble.
By resorting to a disingenuous and morally bankrupt campaign to win at all costs, the establishment exposed itself to be into politics only for the power. In order to grow the GOP and consistently win at the ballot box in November, Republicans need to start earning votes with conservative ideas, not government handouts.
Since the Republicans’ dismal showing in the 2012 elections, party leaders have been working to revitalize the GOP by expanding the tent. The Growth and Opportunity Project — more commonly referred to as the GOP’s autopsy report — was supposed to chart the political course to achieving a broader, more appealing image. However, the Mississippi election makes you question the commitment of Republicans who cannot resist playing the fiscally destructive game that Democrats have fallen into: promising goodies to everyone in exchange for votes.
Impoverished black communities throughout Mississippi received inflammatory mailers, robo telephone calls and targeted radio get-out-the-vote advertisements that were libelous against Chris McDaniel and the Tea Party and pro-Sen. Thad Cochran. The reason why Cochran (R-Miss.) would be a good candidate, according to one call, was because “[McDaniel] causes even more problems for President Obama and pushes damaging cuts to our public education system.”
Another pro-Cochran radio ad urged people to vote in order to stop McDaniel, who would “take away all of my government programs, such as food stamps, early breakfast and lunch programs, millions of dollars to our black universities. Everything we and our families depend on that comes from Washington will be cut.”
These disgusting advertisements stand in stark contrast to the vision laid out by Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus and the Growth and Opportunity Project. Priebus has correctly said, in reference to reaching out to minority voters, “This is not just about winning elections. It’s about doing what’s right for America. Republicans know our principles, when applied through smart policy, can do the most good for the most Americans.”
It actually sounded like the Republicans were going to get back to the Ronald Reagan/ Jack Kemp playbook of offering constructive policy ideas directly to ALL Americans, and especially with an eye to the large minority communities that have been failed and exploited by big government policies and have not been effectively courted in past elections.
Unfortunately, top-dollar GOP consultants ignored Priebus’s calls for a bold conservative vision. Do they really believe that food stamps, federal aid for education and unabashed subservience toward President Obama were the only things the GOP has to offer the black community? The operatives responsible for these attack ads should be ashamed of themselves.
The Tea Party believes the GOP can do more than just promise to dole out more federal dollars that we don’t have. Tea Party legislators have been in the forefront over the last 5 years in pursuing real policy alternatives to the failed agenda of Obama and the Democratic Party.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has proposed Economic Freedom Zones — a plan to dramatically decrease the chronic unemployment in America’s poorest communities. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) has introduced the Family Fairness and Opportunity Tax Reform Act, which would simplify today’s complex tax code and restore opportunity and economic growth for struggling families. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is fighting to reduce energy costs by removing the government’s regulatory stranglehold with the American Energy Renaissance Act.
These are the kinds of bold, conservative solutions that will broaden the party’s appeal by strengthening the economy and helping disadvantaged minorities. Instead of embracing a new direction that could have won over hearts and minds, GOP operatives in Mississippi just pandered and promised like the failed politics of old.
Cochran’s campaign, with an obsession with power before principle, epitomizes the failures of the GOP that must be abandoned. Unless Republican Party leaders want to continue writing autopsy reports and disappear into the history books, it’s time to stand against pandering and power-clingers. It’s time to fight for the next generation of conservative leaders who have ideas to solve America’s problems.
Republican leadership can start in Mississippi by publicly supporting McDaniel’s legal challenge to the results and demanding a new election. Let Republicans pick a nominee who is committed to the conservative principles that will work for all Americans.
Russo is co-founder and chief strategist of Tea Party Express.
Since the Republicans’ dismal showing in the 2012 elections, party leaders have been working to revitalize the GOP by expanding the tent. The Growth and Opportunity Project — more commonly referred to as the GOP’s autopsy report —
It's put up or shut up time Mr. Priebus. We're waiting to hear from you. We are not, I repeat NOT, going to forget Mississippi.
The Republicans’ dismal showing in the 2012 elections was due in large part to their dissing the Conservative wing of the base, who simply stayed at home.
To date, there have been a number of similar instances; the run-off in Mississippi being the most egregious example. Because of this, I’m not as optimistic for Republican prospects in 2014 as are others.
I do know one thing, though—I will no longer hold my nose and vote for the lesser of two evils. Henceforth, my vote must be earned.
No one’s doing a good job of that so far.
“This is not just about winning elections. It’s about doing what’s right for America. Republicans know our principles, when applied through smart policy, can do the most good for the most Americans.”Yup, you said it Ricie, now do it!
Stop stomping on conservatives and Tea Party types who are trying to restore our Constitutional Republic.
Yep, good comments.
I’m with you on the NO MORE lessor of two evils, evil is evil.
They can get behind and run Constitutional type candidates or the GOPe is going to be hung from their own petard.
After Reagan, I no longer identified myself as a democRAT. After Mississippi, I no longer identified myself as a republican.
lol Yeah I liked that too.
Priebus is an irrelevant, monumental joke.
Well said, very well said. Yet given the accelerating shift of demographics in the nation, the conservative voices in fly over country will soon be moot in national elections. The question that will remain is how softly do we go into that night.
Evil pure and simple.
McConnell declared war on the TEA party. The GOPE really meant it too.
You can expect that TEA Party-backed candidates will get very little help from the establishment.
Didn’t the guy who beat Cantor see the local GOP send all their GOTV money to other districts?
[Quoting art.] The Growth and Opportunity Project — more commonly referred to as the GOP’s autopsy report — ....
The writer doesn't get that Priebus is hip-deep into Cochran's renomination and re-election. And that Priebus thinks we Tea Party conservatives are all a bunch of cockroaches: "It's not what they eat, or what they carry away. It's what they fall into and spoil." </ ex-Texas coach Darrell Royal, on the subject of the University of Houston Cougars>
Furthermore, the writer doesn't get it that the top GOP'ers are under orders from the Business Roundtable and the Chamber of Commerce (Father, forgive my pleonasm) to execute what the Japanese called a gyokusai "smashing the jewel" attack (suicidal banzai charges and we-aren't-going-home naval raids), to sacrifice the existence of the GOP itself to the greater goal of achieving a fascist uniparty state (no matter how dystopian) in which goods could trade at First World prices, supported by workers paid at Third World rates. Norman Rockwell's America would cease to exist in any real sense, and the material and social rebalancing achieved by the middle class (wage gains, syndicalism, suburbanism) since the loss of the Civil War and the institutionalization of the Gilded Age victors would be swept away, and the vision of the pseudocapitalist visionaries who built the first "company towns/prisons/fortresses" would be realized.
Interesting post.
The gop wing of the uniparty exists for the same reason as the rat faction: to achieve and retain power at any and all costs. The naked ambition is not usually so much on display as it was in MS.
With such high standards we know we can count on you for . . nothing. Dropping out of the fight is not a sign of courage.
Get over yourself, pal.
You don’t know the first thing about me.
Just quoting what you said. :-)
Not new, Jack French Kemp became well known for this idea, but was it ever even tried?
Catch up Kenny or you will find yourself dying each and every week.
So you can be depended upon to vote for the GOPe candidate who will let what ever woman the dems run win?
The dems and republican elite love your attitude.
I don’t know if it was tried, but the author was a good friend of Kemp...not mention Reagan and some other high profile Conservatives.
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