Posted on 11/13/2013 9:48:16 AM PST by IChing
Back in January of 2010, I drove my old Honda from D.C. up to Massachusetts to help out the Scott Brown campaign in the final days of the push to get him elected to the U.S. Senate. It was a very stimulating experience, because the entire country was caught up in the special-election drama of a charismatic Republican’s bid to win what had for decades been Democrat Ted Kennedy’s senate seat, and of course because Brown did end up winning.
It was exhilarating, to join in and be part of what seemed to be such an historic accomplishment in American politics.
Something very unsettling happened on that trip, however, which illustrates and exemplifies the ongoing rift within the GOP–the sort of civil-war split between the grassroots, Tea Party rank-and-file in the “flyover” states(whose voting-turnout loyalty to the GOP can be somewhat fickle depending on the conservative bona-fides of a candidate) and the elitist, establishment,cocktail-party/consultant types, who frequently call most of the shots and dole out the mother’s milk of politics, the money, sometimes to whom they often incorrectly deem more electable “moderate” nominees(also known as “squishes” to those on the hard right).
When I arrived at Brown campaign headquarters, I was given a hotel room (lodging paid for by the campaign) with another arriving male campaign volunteer as a roommate. Like me, he had just traveled(in his case, flown) all the way from Washington, D.C., to lend a hand for the final get-out-the-vote effort in the last 72 hours of the campaign.
There was some kind of instant tension between the guy and me. He was a lot younger than I, incidentally, by about 20 years. I was eager to make friends among the crew of campaign staff and numerous volunteers who had come in from all over, but to me he seemed a bit irritated that he had to hob-nob with what I think he saw as the riff-raff, the hoi polloi of GOP activists. I soon found out why.
It turned out that this guy(whose name I remember, but will not mention), despite working on the Brown campaign as a volunteer, was actually a paid, professional political consultant on Capitol Hill. He was there mainly to network, and to enhance his resume, I could tell.
Whereas I had taken unpaid leave from my full-time ordinary job to make the trip, he did this kind of thing for a living–most of time that he wasn’t manning the phone banks alongside myself and others for the Brown campaign, he was in a frothing frenzy on his cell phone to his D.C. colleagues, loudly arguing and screaming about the political advertising campaign they were trying to create and coordinate for whoever, wherever.
Like many Capitol Hill political operatives, he came across as very tightly-wound, abrasive, and intense, to the point of being obnoxious.
Mind you, now, it wasn’t necessarily his preoccupied, frequent, agitated hollering into his phone that I found particularly unsettling while we were back in the hotel room together at the end of the day–I understood fully how trying to collaborate with others on a competitive, creative project on an urgent deadline can often compel one into hysterics to get one’s points across.
But this guy seemed arrogant, and angry that he even had to share a hotel room with me. I sensed that to him, my political acumen wasn’t sophisticated enough or something, seeing as he’d accurately sized me up as an ardent Tea Party activist, and an amateur. Despite my having served as the Republican precinct captain in my McLean, Virginia neighborhood, and as a state delegate to the 2009 Virginia GOP convention, to him I was just another rube of the rabble, by virtue of my identifying with the Tea Party.
It was contempt.
People had literally come in from all over the country to pitch in on the Brown campaign, and this was at the height of the massive Tea Party tidal-wave that was sweeping the land in response to the massive stimulus bill, the Obamacare bill, the quasi-nationalizing of GM and AIG, and so on.
I met and talked with excited, enthusiastic volunteers who had driven to Massachusetts from as far away as Tennessee and Ohio. We all knew the score as far as Scott Brown was concerned; that he wasn’t necessarily a Tea Party candidate(more like a RINO, of course), but that getting him elected in “blue” Massachusetts would not only give us the needed, promised additional republican vote that we thought could block Obamacare in the Senate, and would also send a loud and clear message to Washington about the seismically-shifting political landscape in the country.
My roommate definitely seemed more interested in using the occasion to connect with other professional political types, and with prospective clients, than discussing the mood and direction of the country with us ignorant, God-guns-n-guts Tea Party bumpkins.
I even caught him in an under-handed, vain attempt at one-upsmanship, which can only be explained as egotistic mind-games or something along those lines: We had been working the phones all day at rows of tables in a big hotel banquet room, calling up registered voters from lists in a computerized phone bank system. He was sitting a different table than I was all day, and seemed to be avoiding me, but in what appeared at first to be a rare moment of collegiality, he suddenly sauntered over to where I was and asked me how I was doing; how many calls had I made?
I looked down at the digital display on the phone itself, which gave me the number, and told him what it was. He then smirked and scoffed at my number, saying how he had me beat by whatever number it was he stated. Then he waltzed off to the men’s room or somewhere, out of the room. I got up and went over to the phone he’d been using–the digital display showed that he’d actually made fewer calls than I had.
I felt a mixture of mild disgust and a teensy bit of pity for him.
I could go on and on with other details of what transpired between he and I over the course of three days, all the way to the pandemonium/aftermath of the victory party in downtown Boston(site of the original Tea Party, don’tcha know), when his luggage was still in the trunk of my car after he’d persuaded me to give him a ride there(because of his behavior on the trip into downtown, I considered ejecting him from my car and leaving him to fend for himself in the January rain). But I’ll cut to the chase, as they say in show business.
At some point, my roommate let it be known to me, in the open: ”I hate the grassroots,” he blurted out sullenly, in response to what specifically, I can’t recall. But his utterance rings in my ears to this day, especially when I listen to Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, and others describe how the Republican establishment elites hold us Tea Party types in disdain.
It’s a fact. They do have contempt for us. I have to confess, there’s definitely some mutuality to the sentiments. What the ramifications are, and what should be done about it all, may have to be the subject of another column.
Maybe I should look up my roommate from the 2010 Scott Brown campaign and get his professional opinion about it all…?
Flash! The feeling’s mutual.
The GOP needs to go the way of the Whip Party. The GOP is terrified that the TEA Party will take them over and put them out in the cold.
The guy sounded very immature. Sounds like he didn’t get enough beatings as a child.
And that makes me wonder exactly why do those few stick around knowing they are despised by tho ones who are supposed to be on their side.
Because their social and business life will take a dive without the Republican Party? Better to rebuild political, social, and business life with real Americans in a real America than hang on for fear of the overlords in a Marxist, facist, NWO America.
I vote with my wallet and I vote for the Tea Party and their candidates.
It is a threat to the Republican elite just as much as it is to the democrats. Neither of which give a rats butt about the country.
They are in it for survival, plain and simple. They do NOT have the best interests in the country in mind.
Eff em.
The change we need is to: _go_back_ to the future. The future is in our past; brutally restore the USConstitution and destroy the mutant DC monster that has taken its place.
As you point out in WTF, these arrogant elitist 'consultants' are why the gOp is the stupid party.
And we will put them out in the cold.
They deserve and we are growing in spite of them.
They can get with the program or get tossed.
I hate all of them more than they hate me.
Of course they hate the tea party, the TP has shined the light of truth on the dotted-line alliance of the GOPe with the dems. The gig is up!
I am of the opinion that most are apolitical and will switch sides for the best $, revenge (Dick Morris). They are all in the same circle jerk as to what’s in it for them.
Consultant is code word for: I can’t get a job anywhere else.
People like you will save our Republic. People like him will have less work in Washigton.
-Clyde Wilson
- http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2013/08/09/pardon-sam-a-slight-amendment/
He just described Santorum when he was an early rino operative, mocking the Reagan supporters during the 1980s, working only for moderates, only switching to pro-life for his 1990 campaign, always supporting Specter, whether for president, or for the Senate, even in the 2010 race, which few people are aware of, being an early supporter of Mitt Romney.
Say what you will about Elizabeth Warren but she grilled the bank regulators in a way Brown wouldn’t dare to. No matter her sins, that fact alone puts her morally ahead of Brown.
Even unhinged Alan Grayson can look down at tin man Brown because he’s had his moments of standing up for the people. For a recent example, google “TPP Grayson”. I guess my point is there’s no point of putting the effort into electing Reps if they’re just GOP-e tagalongs.
LOL!
I did not know that about Santorum. I gather that recently he is one of those who have come out against Ted Cruz. Barf.
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