Posted on 11/07/2013 6:02:53 AM PST by cotton1706
Senate Republicans are spoiling for a fight this primary season as they try to take back control of the party from conservative activists.
The strategy: prop up the most electable candidates — even if they are more moderate than ones demanded by tea party activists — and punish those who get in their way.
After witnessing the business community help save the candidacy of Bradley Byrne, an establishment-backed candidate in a GOP runoff Tuesday for a House seat in Alabama, Republican senators are calling for the same type of support from well-funded GOP groups in Senate primaries next year.
“If you have an unlevel playing field, then you get predictable results,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who faces a primary challenge next year, said Wednesday. “The people who want to support a more traditional, Ronald Reagan-like Republican also need to get in the game.”
The fight between the establishment and the tea party has been brewing since 2010, but it has taken on new urgency in the aftermath of the Tuesday elections and as the midterm elections draw near. Many congressional Republicans were quick to argue that the 2013 elections bolster the case they’ve been making for the past three years: Candidates matter.
Gov. Chris Christie romped to reelection in New Jersey by positioning himself as a deal-cutting pragmatic Republican who did not adhere to strict conservative orthodoxy. But to his south, Ken Cuccinelli lost his bid for the Virginia governor’s mansion in part because Democrats seized on his hard-line conservative credentials. And even further south in Alabama, Byrne beat back Dean Young, a staunch conservative who likened himself to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
Republicans said they must replicate the tactics by choosing the best candidates in 2014 — regardless of the demands of tea party-aligned groups.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
Hey Lindsey! Those are the very ones you are trying to lock out.
Anymore, many independents are conservatives who have left the GOP. The GOP cannot win—anyplace—without them. Ergo, you can’t run them off the reservation and hope to win.
If he is an incimbent with 46% support, how is he the most electable?
——Ken Cuccinelli lost ——
The term for the phenomena is “Damn Yankee Creep”
Has Virginia become Maryland South?
So in other words, party base be damned. We're going to nominate whoever we want to.
Fire the old mens club and bring in the new hungry folks who have what it takes to fight.
Bull. He was neck and neck with a guy who had unlimited funding. Had the flaming RINOs in Washington not seen him as the political enemy rather than McAwful, he'd have taken that seat.
It wasn't the TEA Party that blew that election. It was the RINOs who blew that election.
Defund the RINO GOP. It's the TEA Party or nothing.
The career politician is a pack animal. He will defend his heard to the death no matter the consequences.
Within the past hour on Fox & Friends, Orrin Hatch (Rino UT) blamed Cuccinelli’s loss on “two Senators who shut down the government.” Names were not mentioned but he meant Ted Cruz and either Rand Paul or fellow Utah Senator Mike Lee.
I think it is time for those two senators, to break from this once-party which is slowly suffocating our great nation.
Bring back US jobs.
Bring back US growth.
Elect Tea Party. How about it Cruz? Paul? Lee?
Sarah?...
And open primaries will certainly do it. We grassroots had better get a handle on this.
“If he is an incimbent with 46% support, how is he the most electable?”
Excellent question. But as we all know, the establishment would rather have a democrat win than a conservative (see Virginia on Tuesday), so all they have to do is get Cornyn over the primary or runoff finish line, so that either way somebody of like mind is elected. And if Cornyn is removed, they will get behind the democrat to destroy the conservative.
We are at war. And I’m going to keep pounding by posting as many stories as I can. Graham has been weakened. McConnell has been weakened. Alexander has been weakened. Cornyn has been weakened. Cochran no has a serious primary challenge. Enzi has a primary challenge but he’ll likely survive, and he’s forced to vote like a conservative till he’s safely reelected. And Collins will probably be taken out by a democrat.
A government of the government, by the government, and for the government? Is that what they're saying they want here?
Leni
The reality is that it's the Tea Party against the Dems/Dem-Lites. The GOP is a memory.
I wish they had the same drive to beat the rats. Bunch of rino cowards.
I refer to it as "The TEA Party vs. the Republicrats."
Also, since Cuccinelli just barely lost, and won the independent vote by nine points, the establishment is shaking in their boots. They are going to ratchet up the attacks, the annihilation strategy.
KC also won married women. Let the liberal Republicans put that fact in their pipes and smoke it.
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