Excerpt: “Club for Growth Action spent more than $430 million to oppose Republican front-runner Karen Handel”
Wow.
Blame lies, too, with outside groups angling to control both the state GOP and the citizen activist upstarts. These groups put on different faces and talk different talks depending on whom they’re courting, but at the end of the day, they’ll throw their influence anywhere to keep hold of it.
On the Republican side of the 6th District race, Club for Growth Action spent more than $430 million to oppose Republican front-runner Karen Handel. It’s fair to say that Club for Growth’s meddling nearly cost Republicans a congressional seat, and there is still time for Republicans to lose when Handel and Ossoff face each other in the runoff on June 20. The same people who donate to Club for Growth fund scores of organizations appealing to citizen activists and other grassroots activists across the Right. But they don’t deal with them openly and honestly.
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This is the meat of it.
The Cheap Labor Express would rather lose to the Democrat than allow the citizens to elect anyone who stands for the citizens and the rule of law.
That’s why until Trump we always have had amnesty candidates for President.
I’m happy with the Georgia GOP regarding this election. Rather than the insiders choosing “our” candidate, they stayed hands-off and allowed the voters to make that decision. They monitored the election and stepped in to boost turnout when that became a threat. Whether or not the voters made the decision I would have made, the point is that it was their decision and not the party’s establishment’s place to choose. I’d like to see them present the outcome that way, because it’s true.
Published journalistic sources report that the Club for Growth spent about half a million dollars in the race. The number asserted in the article posted — 430 million in spending by the Club for Growth — is off by a couple of orders of magnitude.
Tina’s analysis seems accurate from where I sit in the adjacent GA 5th District. There are several additional points that could be made.
1) The GA GOP and the County and local organizations have an uneasy relationship between the SamNunn Democrats who switched to Republican but are still big government on most things on one side and true abolitionist small government Republicans on the other side.
2) As in the nation, Republicans BE Republican. Conservatives BE conservative. This implies no action, just being. Most have no concept of action, of DOING Republican or DOING conservative things. In the campaign there was no message of action from any Republican candidate. In contrast, the Democrats emphasized what they DO, they emphasized action.
Action is loved by the media. Action draws eyeballs. Eyeballs draw advertisers. The media is not interested in covering someone who is being what they are. That is boring. Trump ran on action. The Republicans have not learned from that.
3) Offense vs Defense? In most games it is easier to score on offense and the best score wins. The GA GOP mentality is all Defense and not offense. It is rare to find a Republican or Conservative in GA who thinks in terms of playing offense. They let the Democrats play offense. They let the Democrats define the Republican candidates. Currently Handel’s campaign manager is allowing Ossoff campaign manager to define Karen Handel. Handel will no doubt respond with a defense of herself ... a defense that will look very defensive ... if her past is any indication.
4) “One of us”. So far, the Republican theme has been: “Ossoff is not one of us. The Republican is one of us.” But 2/3 of the voters in the 6th District are not from Georgia. Like me, many are from the Rust Belt cities. When we carpet baggers hear this ad, we react “Well, I’m not a Georgia native either. So maybe the Republicans are excluding me and are telling me that I fit in better with the Democrats than the Republicans.” In short, the Republican messaging seems very stupid.
5) Twisted issues. Prior to 9/11 All Republicans and All Conservatives except Pat Buchanan were pro-free trade, pro-immigration and hiring illegals. Only old style Democrat Labor Unions were anti-free trade/ anti-immigrant. Post 911 that flipped with the activists. But has it flipped with the voters?
Congress is currently facing: Fund the WALL or SHUTDOWN government. The media and Democrats (but I repeat myself) have effectively made the shutdown issue one of wasteful spending on a WALL that was prominent in Trump’s campaign promises.
My sense is that many RepublcIans and conservatives and centrists and people in general see the WALL as a waste of money. Many of us voted for Trump to drain the swamp and because Hillary was unthinkable. His immigration and trade positions were the evil part of the lesser of two evils.
What if Ossoff (or Handel) were to take this week’s #1 media event to make spending money on the WALL an issue. I think of Dave McSweeney’s race for Phil Crane’s seat. McSweeney and his campaign manager allowed the Democrats to define him on inconsequential issues as being “out of the main stream”. That was just the build up to Dave McSweeney, the EXTREMIST.
Ossoff is about to accomplish the same strategy. He has defined himself as against wasteful spending and had defined Congressional Republicans as for wasteful spending. He could take this opportunity to label spending money on the WALL as wasteful spending. Handel would be backed into an unwinnable corner. Regardless of what position she takes she loses voters.
But what do dedicated voters in a special runoff really think about the WALL? The truth is nobody knows... or maybe Ossoff campaign has done some research and does know.