Posted on 02/03/2014 8:57:59 AM PST by cotton1706
On Friday, every political campaign had to file its 2013 year end report with the FEC. The reports delivered two big surprises. The Democrats are dominating the Republicans in fundraising. More surprising, perhaps, though, is that Tea Party and conservative SuperPACs raised around three times as much as GOP establishment SuperPACs. The DC GOP may have started the war against the Tea Party, but it won't finish it.
Not long after their stunning losses in 2012, Karl Rove and other establishment Republicans announced a new effort to engage in primaries to ensure the "right" candidates got the party's nomination. Rove and the party leadership argued that the party lost because of "flawed", i.e. too conservative, candidates. There were indeed some flawed candidates in 2012, but far more establishment, "electable" candidates went down to uninspiring defeat.
The GOP attack on the Tea Party came about for two reasons. The first was to deflect from the massive defeat suffered by Rove and other GOP consultants. Rarely in the history of mankind have so many resources been squandered so spectacularly. Perhaps the more important reason, though, is that the Tea Party movement is becoming a serious thorn in the side of Washington insiders.
The movement has effectively ended earmarks. It threatens any corporatist giveaway. It calls out cronyism in both parties. It demands that Congress repeals ObamaCare, while business interests would rather "fix" the law to push the obligation for health benefits onto the government. More importantly, though, it wants rational immigration reform that doesn't simply flood the market with cheap labor as business would desire.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Just keep the slogan alive: “We come to punish establishment Republicans in the primaries, and Democrats in the generals.”
Your slogan died when Romney lost and the GOPe ramped up their attacks on conservatives.
The new one slogan is: “GOP, if you want the support of conservatives uphold your sworn duties and defend our Constitutional rights against attacks from all enemies foreign and domestic” So far it’s been pretty much fail across the board on that account.
So don’t be surprised when many conservatives take a powder in November if no conservative is on the ballot. If the GOP can’t be bothered to be an engaged opposition party with a rampaging marxist in the WH there is simply no reason to support them. See in you 2016, FRiend.
Apparently the Chamber of Commerce has a willing mouth, but the wallet is weak.
It’s more likely they are spreading the wealth around to Dems. Nobody likes losers and that is what the GOP has been doing lately.
Big donors will see this data and trend. Some will start shifting support to Tea Party organizations. We must keep fighting. Never let your opponent get a break till that opponent is irretrievably defeated.
“The conventional wisdom used to be that Rove engineered GWB’s sliver-thin victories. The view was that he was a genius. It’s becoming clear that he was just lucky.”
I think at that time, Rove did indeed have his finger on the pulse of the country, and was able to make the most of that by dialing down those elections to the extreme local level to achieve those (slight) victories.
But he has since lost that connection, and with it, his influence.
Beware of Republican incumbents bearing roses.
The establishment republicans have already played the third party card in Alaska, (Murkowski), and Florida, (Crist). If they think we are afraid to play that card because it will split the vote, and give the win to the Dems, that didn’t happen in either case.
To win we need to come together very early on one sound conservative Tea Party candidate! Only then will there be any chance of avoiding the 2008/2012 fiascos.
Romney laughed his ass off in 2012 while conservatives split their votes and allowed him to waltz to the nomination.
That will be when the conservatives stay home or the Tea Party introduces a third pary candidate.
The idiots like Boehner don’t believe this will happen."
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It already happened with Mitt.
And there are still %@#$#%@%@$'s on good ol FR calling us unpatriotic traitors because we couldn't and wouldn't violate our principles and vote for a career long flaming liberal who suddenly claimed to miraculously have turned conservative overnight.
&#^$ them.
Time for us Bitter Clingers to take it to both the Democrats and the GOP-e.
It's a given that when conservatives attack moderates, they will reply in kind. Ultimately, the real battle has nothing to do with ideological hair-splitting, and everything to do with the purple states, where a big chunk of the middle (union members, blue collar workers and lower end office workers typically) see the GOP as the party of plutocrats stomping on the middle class by championing unlimited outsourcing (via free trade agreements) and open borders. No amount of pro-life rhetoric and anti-gay marriage posturing will fix that perception problem.
In 2004 Rove tried his best to cooperate with Kerry and the donkeys to sabotage and squelch the Swift Boat Veterans. Official Washington was in a state of boiling rage over the plebeians increasing success in showing that Kerry new clothes were invisible and that he was a fraud and a probable traitor. This strikes at the heart of the incredibly narcissistic mentality of official Washington where the people who have bribed and maneuvered their way to the top are far to important and dignified and splendid to ever brook any direct criticism or truly negative comment. Bush never thank the Swift Boat people and treated them like s-it on his shoe. Rove and Daddy Bush kept up an endless barrage of vitriol against these people to G W. The reason is simple, these were outsiders and they were effectively impacting what is supposed to be a closed system run by and for the political class. Rove and his ilk would rather lose every election than damage the political class in anyway. That is the secret masonry of the Beltway Insiders at work.
I don't think they care. They'd rather lose to dems than to cede power to constitutional conservatives. They've got a real good gig going as the minority party to be paid off for votes.
If the first were true, GWB would have won landslide victories. Even in the 80's, amnesty was so toxic, the most popular GOP president of the 20th century, RWR, waited until his second term to push for it. For Rove to push for it, after the political debacle that was Iraq had started affecting Bush's poll ratings, was idiotic in the extreme.
You know what… that's ok.
I'd rather get flamed then have to admit voting for Romney. ;)
The other likelihood is that there will be many more, near a totality, of conservatives who will not vote for Romney or Jeb or Boardwalk Boy in the next election.
I hope so. I'm tired of the Texas Party* — all talk, banking on reputation and image/brand, and no real action.
(* Referencing Texas's gun-friendly image vs. the reality of its laws.)
It’s a given that when conservatives attack moderates, they will reply in kind. Ultimately, the real battle has nothing to do with ideological hair-splitting, and everything to do with the purple states, where a big chunk of the middle (union members, blue collar workers and lower end office workers typically) see the GOP as the party of plutocrats stomping on the middle class by championing unlimited outsourcing (via free trade agreements) and open borders. No amount of pro-life rhetoric and anti-gay marriage posturing will fix that perception problem.
Pushing amnesty and playing bystander to history isn’t going to put purple states in the GOP column.
Romney ran a timid campaign and lost. Then the GOP establishment put out that stupid autopsy and went hard left. They just can’t be bothered to engage the Dems. Preemptive surrender across the board. Zero substantive engagement on the IRS assaults, blank check funding of Obamacare, cutting vet pay and on and on. It’s been a non stop horror show from beltway “Republicans” since Romney lost.
All of this has nothing to do with social issues. I have no idea where you pulled that out of.
“If the first were true, GWB would have won landslide victories.”
You may be right. But my impression at the time and now, is that the American electorate was very evenly balanced in 2000, and then again in 2004. Then there was a very well choreographed swing to the democrats in 2006 and 2008 and then the pendulum swung back hard in 2010. 2012 was a status quo election due to the moderate at the top of the republican ticket who refused to make the most of his political environment, and we have yet to see the results of 2014.
“Apparently the Chamber of Commerce has a willing mouth, but the wallet is weak.”
It’s called “having an alligator mouth and a hummingbird a$$”
“....no longer matters what the GOP does. There are new people in town. For the last four years they have had the grass-roots. Now, they also have the money.”
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That last line was my fave in the entire Article. “They have had the grass-roots. Now, they have the money” HELL YEAH!!!
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