Rush Limbaugh and the Need for Spine

RedState ^ | May 2nd, 2013 | Erick Erickson

[iowamark]

The Politico is reporting (read: let’s wait for a second source to confirm it) that the RNC, well, “[t]he Republican National Committee has chosen a Karl Rove-linked voter data project called Liberty Works to help it compete with Democrats in the digital arena. Liberty Works will team up with Data Trust, whose chairman of the board is former RNC Chairman Mike Duncan, committee spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski confirmed to Politico.”

This is deeply troubling, if accurate, because I maintain the GOP must distance itself from the Bush administration players to start being successful again. Further, for all of Karl Rove’s fine attributes, he is also largely a direct mail guy who learned at the foot of Lee Atwater and never really learned anything after Atwater passed. I’m just not sure, after the 2012 race, that this is a wise investment. Direct mail guys believe the data is the value and what Team Obama discovered is that the tools to analyze the data are the value.

This concerns me. As a friend said on twitter yesterday, the GOP motto for fixing itself seems to be “incest is best.”

And this whole thing, excepting the incest crack, gets me to Rush Limbaugh.

I keep hearing people say Rush Limbaugh is a detriment to the Republican Party, holding it back, and if we cannot move beyond him we will never win again. Frank Luntz and S. E. Cupp both have taken after Limbaugh lately and they are not alone.

The way I see it, Rush Limbaugh is a fighter. The guys who have taken to actually fighting on values like Rush does, i.e. Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and Rand Paul have been putting all the points on the board. They’re keeping the fight against Obamacare alive just as the GOP is trying to cave and public animosity for the law grows. But for those three, we’d have gun control legislation. On the House side, the Republican Fight Club of Congressmen Amash, Bridenstine, Broun, Gohmert, Huelskamp, Jones, Massie, Pearce, Salmon, and Yoho have been the only ones leading the fight to stop the Republicans from expanding government at a time distrust of government is a commonly held sentiment.

Limbaugh gives voice to them and those who listen to Limbaugh encourage them. The guys with the spine are the ones we should be supporting and they are the ones Rush Limbaugh supports. But there is something else, which goes full circle to Karl Rove controlling the data.

If you disagree with Rush Limbaugh, he may note that disagreement on the air. You might get some angry constituents calling your office. But that’s it. He’ll be right, you’ll be wrong, but life will go on.

If you disagree with the other side of the GOP, though, they’ll plant stories about you in the New York Times, make sure the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal attacks you, threaten donors and demand they withhold money from you, take away your committee positions, shut down all your legislative initiatives, etc. That’s why the GOP should not put data in Karl Rove’s hands.

The establishment has a worse track record on candidates that those who’d side with Rush Limbaugh. They have an even worse track record on policy (how’d steel tariffs in Pennsylvania work out?). And if you do not tow their line that often loses, they will punish you in ways Rush Limbaugh never would or even could.

But these guys would have you believe it is Rush Limbaugh on the outside, and Senators Cruz, Lee, and Paul and Congressmen Amash, Bridenstine, Broun, Gohmert, Huelskamp, Jones, Massie, Pearce, Salmon, and Yoho who are the ones holding us back. Only among Washington Republicans is that fantasy a reality.

I think the RNC is making a big mistake. The one hope is that conservative super PACs will respond in kind or Karl Rove and the RNC can make clear now that they will not treat the data and the tools to analyze the data as treasure, denying it to the rest of the Republican coalition they just happen to disagree with or cannot control.

[sickoflibs]

RE:”Your PDS is legendary”

'legendary' You make my head spin with your complements. Coming from you its an honor. SOL= legendary.

But was I really supporting Romney at any point?
I dont remember that part. I recall a Mitt poster I created that I used to post here in 2011 and 2012. You missed that?
I do remember two of your best buddy bros joining the Romney team. You three were like family. They both worship Rush too.

[sickoflibs]

RE:”And thanks in small part to your/those like you’s ongoing efforts across conservativedom, we were all able to later come together as a unit and elect the finest conservative since Reagan to compete against the communist.”’

So you think I got Romney nominated by my posting that Palin wont run, which turned out true. You make me sound sooo important.

But I am so misunderstood.

Here's a Romney-bot mad at me because I called Mitt a liberal, and my poster response.
34 posted on Sunday, June 24, 2012 1:21:24 AM by sickoflibs (Romney is a liberal. Just watch him closely try to screw us.)

I am sure that RINO blames me for something too.

[Impy]

I can’t even listen to talk radio, the ads drive me insane.

[stockpirate]

“I just hadn’t heard a conspiratorialist invoke it for about ten years...”

Then you must not read much because the pol’s and the press use it quite often, it is now spoken about openly by those who have it on their agenda, and for you to suggest it is not true is interesting.

[Norm Lenhart]

I see the last couple years has done little to help your sense of perspective or honesty.

Sol, in the last 2 days on FR I have learned the following things here on FR. Nazis had no homos in their ranks as that was just propaganda to discredit them, that anyone saying a bad word about the GOP’s lack of action is to become Barack Obama himself, that gays should be allowed to adopt children, that anyone not supporting every repub to the hilt regardless of their actions is a purist and thus destroying America, and a dozen other things just as absurd.

Since the last several hundred moments we shared, I had completely forgotten your capacity to rewrite reality. But where once you were an oddity, today you are just one of many.

Anyone comparing what I wrote to what you responded with can see the two don’t match up. You took quite a few liberties. Exaggerations as it were. But as usual, your trademark shines through. Creative writing.

You are so creative in fact that you wrote completely around the fact that not only did you predict Palin wouldn’t run, you spent hundreds of posts mocking anyone who supported her, siding with and egging on every PDSer that entered the fray and ‘creatively’ altering what we and she said, did...pretty much everything on the subject.

So by all means. continue. Because you will of course regardless what anyone says or does and then bitch about the circumstance we find ourselves in. Because you and those like you absolutely did get us here. You contributed most assuredly to it with all your snark, sowing of dissension, pot shots at people working toward a solution, high school teen girl cattiness and pages of posts doing the opposite of anything good for America. Anyone wanting to dig back through your post history can read it. Back during the height of the PDS wars you were second only to Pissant. As you seem proud of collecting such honors, That’s probably the height of them all.

So post away. And good luck spinning a single thing I said. You will, but if anyone cares enough to look back, they will easily determine which of us is lying through their teeth.

Have a nice day oh honored Oracle of Delphi ;)

[sickoflibs]

RE :”Sol, in the last 2 days on FR I have learned the following things here on FR. Nazis had no homos in their ranks as that was just propaganda to discredit them, that anyone saying a bad word about the GOP’s lack of action is to become Barack Obama himself, that gays should be allowed to adopt children, that anyone not supporting every repub to the hilt regardless of their actions is a purist and thus destroying America, and a dozen other things just as absurd.”

You I get that myself sometimes(this one over Ryan):

To: sickoflibs
I do not associate with brain-dead “principled conservatives”. You and your ilk are the creeps that kept the RATS from being swept into the dust bin of history back in the late 90s.
SOL the brain-dead “ principled conservative“ #17 March 14, 2013 Ryan’s Plan Deserves Kudos, Not Boos

[central_va]

The biggest difference between the jackasses and the dumbos is the jackass party caters to its base, the dumbo party hates it’s base.

[sickoflibs]

RDE :”You are so creative in fact that you wrote completely around the fact that not only did you predict Palin wouldn’t run, you spent hundreds of posts mocking anyone who supported her, siding with and egging on every PDSer that entered the fray and ‘creatively’ altering what we and she said, did...pretty much everything on the subject.”

Mocking anyone supporting her ?? How could I do that?

[Norm Lenhart]

The defense rests, your Honor. ;)

[sickoflibs]

Enjoyed talking with you again :)

[Norm Lenhart]

The pleasure is all mine ;)

[jpsb]

"I knew Bush was a fraud when he praised Ted Kennedy and signed the “No Teachers Union Left Unfunded”

I knew it in 1999 and was all in for Steve Forbes, so there, ;)

I did vote Bush in 2000, Gore was simply unthinkable. Dido Kerry in 2004, McCain in 2008 was just a bridge to far for me, even with the great Sarah Palin on the ticket.

[NFHale]

“...If the Republican Party had any BALLS, they would have fought tooth & nail ...”

Nail = head = hit

Crux of the problem. Lack of testicular fortitude - OR - outright FEAR of the democommie smear machine - OR - they have dirt on them that the dems will expose.

Either way, we need to get folks in there who are NOT afraid of the Dems.

Hence, LtC West, Gov Walker, and folks like them.

[NFHale]

“...Instead of run-of-the-mill political stupidity and incompetence...??? “

My boss always says “Never attribute to conspiracy to what can be easily explained by stupidity.” I think he’s spot on the money with that one in regards to some in the current GOP.

But we are where we are with these clowns. What do we DO going forward is the question...

I think in the case of some in the GOP leadership it’s just a fundamentally ignorant lack of understanding who they are dealing with now in the Marxist Dems, i.e., they bring a feather pillow to a full-auto weapons gun fight, and then sit back in stunned astonishment when they get their asses handed to them.

Is there some collusion with Dems amongst the GOP ranks? Yeah, sure there is. We have turncoats that keep getting re-elected and “reaching across the aisle to my good colleagues”.

We’re engaged in a vulgar brawl for the soul and very existence of the country, and we have team mates who have no stomach - and no understanding of Sun Tzu and the Art of War - folding on our flanks.

[stephenjohnbanker]

I didn’t vote for McCain either, not that it mattered, as he was sure to lose : )

[stephenjohnbanker]

” Either way, we need to get folks in there who are NOT afraid of the Dems.

Hence, LtC West, Gov Walker, and folks like them.”

Well, you named 2.....can you name four? : )

[stephenjohnbanker]

” Is there some collusion with Dems amongst the GOP ranks? Yeah, sure there is. We have turncoats that keep getting re-elected and “reaching across the aisle to my good colleagues”.”

Yeah, and the big problem, is that the number colluding is increasing at an alarming rate.

[sickoflibs]

RE :” Either way, we need to get folks in there who are NOT afraid of the Dems.”

the GOP conservative Lion of congress is Ted Cruz. He is the only one that kicks butt.

[stephenjohnbanker]

Correct.

One guy

[NFHale]

“...Well, you named 2.....can you name four...”

Add Cruz in there, Mike Lee, and...dare I say the name...

Palin? (Ducking under the impending SOL barrage...) Hahaha!