Posted on 10/24/2013 9:47:14 AM PDT by Bigtigermike
It took a tea party insurrection that disabled the federal government and wrecked the Republican brand, but after months of handwringing, establishment Republicans are preparing to attack ultra-conservative ideologues across red America.
From Alabama to Alaska, the center-right, business-oriented wing of the Republican Party is gearing up for a series of skirmishes that it hopes can prevent the 2014 mid-term election from turning into another missed opportunity. But this will not be a coordinated operation. It will be messy, ugly, and prone to backfiring. And if the comeback succeeds, it will be in fits and starts, most likely culminating in the selection of a presidential nominee in 2016.
"Hopefully we'll go into eight to 10 races and beat the snot out of them," said former Rep. Steve LaTourette of Ohio, whose new political group, Defending Main Street, aims to raise $8 million to fend off tea party challenges against more mainstream Republican incumbents.
[...]
Tactics being discussed among Republican strategists, donors, and party leaders include running attack ads against tea party candidates for Congress; overthrowing Ron Paul's libertarian acolytes dominating the Iowa and Minnesota state parties; promoting open primaries over nominating conventions, like the ones that produced Republican hardliners like Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli and shutdown-instigator Mike Lee of Utah; and countering political juggernauts Heritage Action, the Club for Growth, and FreedomWorks
(Excerpt) Read more at nationaljournal.com ...
Isn’t it amazing that the middle, centrist, “moderate” side is exactly the same as the leftist, socialist, commie, “Democrat” side??
Too bad they don’t work as hard getting rid of DEMOCRATS instead of someone in their own party!
The enemies of liberty will never rest. But at least they’ve broken cover.
“LaTourette disparaged fellow legislators, referring to them as “knuckledraggers that came in in the last election that hate taxes”
Yes, that is what is wrong with DC...people ELECTED to CUT TAXES! LaTourette is a fool!
exactly
The RINO-Dems are united against a common enemy: grass-roots conservatives
They're not center-right. The RINOs are the Trotskyite wing of the far-left, right beside the Leninist/Stalinist wing (the Democrats).
Yet another guy who had to pretend to be a Republican to get elected
"LaTourette disparaged fellow legislators, referring to them as "knuckledraggers" that came in in the last election that hate taxes"
"We're going to be very aggressive and we're going to get in their faces."
Where have we heard that before?!
OBAMA TO SUPPORTERS: "GET IN THEIR FACE!"
Bump for later...
F the Whigs.
“New,” sort of. It’s just another spin off “inside” part of the Main Street Republicans. No conservative should vote for a member of the Republican Main Street group.
GOP group: No more free pass for Club for Growth
A self-described centrist Republican group says it will go “dollar for dollar” against the Club for Growth in upcoming House races.
“The era of the Club for Growth getting a free pass is over,” said former Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-Ohio) in a statement from the group, Main Street Advocacy.
The Club PAC fired back to what it called an attack from Simpson’s “liberal allies.”
Fighting between the groups has been underway for some time this year — in February, LaTourette called the Club “a cancer that has attached itself to the Republican Party,” a charge he repeated this week.
The former lawmaker, an ally of House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), said at the beginning of 2013 that he was aiming for the group’s super PAC to raise $10 million.
Political arms of the Club for Growth spent $17.9 million on federal elections during the 2012 cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
******
One day out of office, former Rep. Steve LaTourette on Friday slammed GOP House members who didn’t support John Boehner for speaker.
“I really wish these new folks well, but yesterday was not a good sign that that’s going to happen,” LaTourette said on CNN. “Twelve people, it was either nine or 12 who just left the reservation and don’t vote for the speaker. That vote is a no-brainer. It’s all about whether or not your party is going to control the agenda.”
LaTourette, a close Boehner ally, also defended the speaker from tea party criticism following the House’s passage of the fiscal cliff deal earlier this week.
“What, these chuckleheads think that having Nancy Pelosi speaker of the House is better for the Republican Party? I don’t think so,” the Ohio Republican said. “So they really have to come to terms why are they here? If they’re just here to vote no — we can train a monkey to vote no.”
King: Halt donations to House GOP
LaTourette: Tea party claim is 'crap'
LaTourette blames polarizing climate
******
Wind credit stalls despite bipartisan support
On one level, the wind credit is just another casualty of the ongoing tussle between conservative budget hawks who want to rein in government spending and business-minded Republicans who support subsidizing industrial innovation. But what makes this tax break unusual is the damage that's already being done — and the possibility that inaction could devastate an industry that Congress has propped up for two decades.
“It’s a horrible way to do business,” Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-Ohio) said. “But that’s the way the place works.”
Main Street @MainStreetGOP 21 Oct
Will a Moderate Republican Movement Rise from the Ashes of the Shutdown? Via @buzzfeed http://www.buzzfeed.com/katenocera/will-a-moderate-republican-movement-rise-from-the-ashes-of-t …
Retweeted by Steve
https://twitter.com/LaTourette
Steve LaTourette 8 Oct
Thanks to @CNN for having me on this morning!
Steve LaTourette 21 Sep
Check out my oped in today’s @washingtonpost on who is to blame for dysfunction in DC http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dont-blame-boehner-for-house-dysfunction/2013/09/20/511aa3a0-2208-11e3-a358-1144dee636dd_story.html …
Steve @LaTourette 18 Sep
For those who missed my appearance on MSNBC last night: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/45755883/ns/msnbc-the_last_word/vp/53037950#53037950 …
Steve @LaTourette 17 Jul
Great Washington Post story on Centrist GOPers Fighting back against the Club for Growth http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/07/17/snowe-centrist-gop-group-go-to-war-with-club-for-growth/ …
Home of Arlen Specter too, when he was living.
I see Freepers who finally realize that the Republican Party have been sabotaging Conservatives for 30 years running.
Who realize that the GOP hates us, and wants us gone so as not to embarrass them anymore.
Why is refusing to play the battered wife somehow a bad thing?
Apparently the party will now suffer from LaTourette’s syndrome...a new neurological disorder characterized by physical and vocal tics...based on Tourettes syndrome, in which people say inappropriate things creating awkward moments...in this case, perhaps a third party
Not a single problem with that plan in the Northeast or California. Only way it goes further than that is if they control the voting machines.
Either way I do not care, there is no way will I ever voter for another rino no matter what conservative they pin to his coattails to make him palatable to conservatives....NO VP MATTERS. I was over that with McCain and nobody could convince me Romney would be making a difference today, he would be part of the McCain wing being idiots today throwing us into communism as fast as they can.
Steve LaTourette leaves Congress with bipartisan praise
“It really is not going to be the same around here without my good friend Steve LaTourette, but our friendship will continue,” said Boehner.
“We need more members of Congress like Steve,” added Fudge, who applauded LaTourette’s votes with Democrats against defunding National Public Radio and holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress. “Words cannot begin to describe the void Steve’s departure will create.”
When he announced his retirement from Congress this summer, LaTourette said his chief reason for leaving was frustration with partisan gridlock that was blocking enactment of everything from a deficit reduction package to a long-term transportation bill.
“The atmosphere today and the reality in the House of Representatives no longer encourages the finding of common ground,” he told supporters at the time.
http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2012/12/steve_latourette_leaves_congre.html
Recently Retired Boehner Ally Opens DC Lobbying Shop
Brian Beutler – January 9, 2013
In his first national interview since retiring at the end of the 112th Congress, Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-OH) — an outspoken ally of House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and a critic of the hardline conservatives driving GOP politics — made light of what’s become of serving in Congress.
“I’ll go back and find something productive to do with my life,” he told The Atlantic. “As opposed to the last 18 years.”
Just three days later he figured it out. And his decision reflects one of Washington’s central and most controversial rites of passage.
LaTourette is combining forces with his lobbyist wife to help an Ohio-based law firm stand up a D.C. lobby shop. It will be called McDonald Hopkins Government Strategies.
LaTourette “will head a new subsidiary of McDonald Hopkins LLC, a business advisory and advocacy law firm with a more than 80-year history and offices in Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit, Miami and West Palm Beach,” reads a McDonald Hopkins press release celebrating its influential new influence peddler:
Before Steve and Jennifer LaTourette were married, she served in his Capitol Hill office as chief of staff. She left in 2003 and became a lobbyist for Van Scoyoc Associates, where she advanced the interests of Ohio-based clients, according to disclosure forms.
“Theoretically he’s banned from lobbying,” says Kathy Kiely, a managing editor at the Sunlight Foundation. “But what this shows you — and you see it all the time — former members go to what are essentially lobbying shops, or go to organizations that have lobbyists, even though they’re not doing the reaching out to their former colleagues, everyone knows who they’re working for, everyone who knows them.”
“These firms are ballyhooing the fact that they have these ex-members on staff,” Kiely adds. “They’re not hired for their beauty. They’re hired because they’re people who are well-connected.”
Spouses benefit from the lax rules too.
“Tom Daschle, when he was Democratic leader of the senate, his wife was a lobbyist — so that’s not unusual [either],” said Kiely. “Nor is it unusual for members to go directly to what are essentially lobbying shops. Tom Daschle is not technically a lobbyist, even though he works for what we call a rainmaker firm.”
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/recently-retired-boehner-ally-opens-dc-lobbying-shop
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