Posted on 02/24/2014 5:30:12 AM PST by xzins
The leaders of the Big Government Republican establishment are beginning to get desperate. They are finally starting to grasp that the limited government constitutional conservatives of the Tea Party movement and other liberty-minded voters now understand that the first, and most important, fights in the battle to restore America are the Republican primary elections.
In a desperate effort to hold on to power they have begun to deploy one of their oldest tactics in the 100-year civil war in the Republican Party – calls for Party unity to back Big Government Republican incumbents who have betrayed conservative principles and are rightly facing primary challenges.
Conservative author and commentator Ann Coulter whose incisive critiques of liberal policy follies and witty jibes at liberals and Democrats in general, make conservatism interesting and entertaining is only the latest in a long line of “conservatives” to get suckered into the idea that keeping establishment Republicans in power somehow advances the goal of governing America according to conservative principles.
It doesn’t and it never has.
"Of course, I love the Tea Party," Coulter said to Sean Hannity, but she limited the Tea Party movement to people in the "heart of America" who want to see change. She said Tea Party groups such as the Senate Conservatives Fund are just trying to bilk donors.
In other words, now that the Tea Party movement has grown politically sophisticated enough to adopt the tools that the establishment uses to stay in power, such as PACs, and the Senate Conservatives Fund PAC is being effective against incumbent Big Government establishment Republicans, Coulter wants to disarm the opposition.
But here’s where Ann Coulter is really full of it.
“If it weren’t for shysters running against establishment Republicans we would have 51 Republicans senators right now,” Coulter told Sean Hannity referring to the 2012 blow-ups of the Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock Senate campaigns.
Coulter’s comment shows just what a deep draught of the establishment Kool-Aid she has taken and is indicative of how the Big Government Republican establishment is desperately trying to rewrite history to advance the idea that only establishment candidates can win and that conservatives should “unite” behind Republican candidates who have records of betraying conservative principles.
Akin and Mourdock weren’t first time rookie candidates; they were experienced Republican politicians with many campaigns under their belts.
What’s more the comments that blew up their campaigns had nothing to do with the Tea Party’s limited government constitutional conservative agenda. They got suckered by the Democrats’ “war on women” strategy, put their foot in their mouth, were quickly abandoned by the GOP establishment despite conservative calls for Party unity, and consequently got beat.
As our friend Chris Chocola of the Club for Growth put it so well, “the question isn’t why Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock lost — we know why they lost,” said Chocola. “The question is really why did Heather Wilson in New Mexico, Rick Berg in North Dakota, Denny Rehberg in Montana, Tommy Thompson in Wisconsin, George Allen in Virginia and Linda Lingle in Hawaii — why did they lose?”
We could add Mitt Romney nationally and Connie Mack in Florida to Chocola’s list, but you get the point.
The fact of the matter is that of the three Republican Senate victories in 2012; Nebraska’s Deb Fischer, Arizona’s Jeff Flake and Texas’ Ted Cruz all ran as Tea Party-oriented or anti-establishment candidates.
There’s no evidence that running as a principled limited government constitutional conservative automatically made a candidate “unelectable” in 2012 and a whole lot of evidence that running as a Bush-type establishment Republican did make one “unelectable,” because despite the millions Karl Rove and his establishment Republican funders spent on them they all lost.
Tit-for-tat is a poor reason to do anything, so we will forego the opportunity to explore where exactly were the establishment calls for Republican Party unity in campaigns where the conservative won the primary, such as the Goldwater, Reagan and Cuccinelli campaigns, when the Republican establishment did everything they could to undermine the conservative candidate after the primary.
Calls for Republican “unity” and a free pass in the primary for incumbent establishment Republicans like Mitch McConnell, Lamar Alexander, Pat Roberts and Thad Cochran will only accomplish one thing; keeping ineffective and unprincipled establishment Republicans in power. And anyone, including our friend Ann Coulter, who thinks that advances the cause of conservative governance is full of it.
Sadly, some here would rather cut their own throats by sitting out general elections or voting third party if the conservative doesn’t advance.
...I think you miss the zeitgeist involved with this...far more important that purity be maintained rather than victory achieved through compromise...
Victory has never been achieved by capitulation.
Compromise? Like the “clean debt ceiling” increase?
Lee’s strategy at Gettysburg was a mass attack against the center of the union position. It failed. Who gets the credit(blame)? The general does.
...Lee was forced into that stratagem by the failure of both his wing operations, due in no small part to dilatory actions by both commanders...the opportunity to force Meade to withdraw towards Washington was palpable the first two days at Gettysburg, and was frittered away, with reprehensible carnage the result...
Mike Castle.
-PJ
-PJ
Victory has never been achieved by capitulation.
...who said anything about capitulation...?
Compromise? Like the “clean debt ceiling” increase?
...I simply explained the ideal to the misguided poster...theoretic purity will always trump authentic compromise...
...and that works particularly well when your voter base is a fraction of an ever decreasing population...
Nonetheless, Pickett didn’t care much for Lee down through the years, did he?
It is also looking like many of those backing the RINO’s have their own purity tests.
The problem with the article is that with anti-establishment candidates there will always be some like Akin or Murdoch or O'Donnell who lose races that another candidate could have won.
At the same time, there will always be moderate candidates who fail to win seats in liberal states or districts that they really didn't have much chance to win.
Pickett didn’t care much for Lee down through the years, did he?
...Pickett was only too happy to be chosen to lead his part of the offensive...and had he coordinated more effectively with AP Hill’s divisions, things might have been interesting...
...and what’s that they say about hindsight...it’s always 20/20...?
Those early West Pointers were all trained in a Napoleanic view....looking for the epic, decisive battle.
Lee had found his, he gambled all, threw all at that center, and he failed. And DESPITE Longstreet’s advice, who history tells us was a defensive genius and knew when someone was charging into death.
You are very kind, Sister Onyx, and one I’m proud to call FRiend.
And DESPITE Longstreet’s advice,
...ah yes, the famous Longstreet ‘should’ve gone to the right’ kerfuffle...the same Longstreet who marched his troops in circles of the morning of the second day because he had no idea of where he was or where he was going...but he just ‘knew’, with out a doubt, that the right flanking movement was there...
...Lee could have opted for that maneuver, and more likely than not would have run smack dab into the massed Sixth Corps of the Army, who barely saw action at Gettysburg and was willing and able to go...
Lee never lost confidence in Longstreet. The defense of Richmond is said to be the defensive genius of Longstreet creating what became trench warfare in WWI.
In any case, I’m personally convinced that the south lost the war on Jackson’s death. He was the amazingly gifted wild card.
Had he been at Gettysburg, Lee would have won...would have been smoking cigars in Meade’s own tent before Meade knew it.
Longstreet: *** I found a way that gave some promise of results, and was about to move the command, when he rode over after sunrise and gave his orders. His plan was to assault the enemy’s left centre by a column to be composed of McLaws’s and Hood’s divisions reinforced by Pickett’s brigades. I thought that it would not do; that the point had been fully tested the day before, by more men, when all were fresh; that the enemy was there looking for us, as we heard him during the night putting up his defences; that the divisions of McLaws and Hood were holding a mile along the right of my line against twenty thousand men, who would follow their withdrawal, strike the flank of the assaulting column, crush it, and get on our rear towards the Potomac River; that thirty thousand men was the minimum of force necessary for the work; that even such force would need close co-operation on other parts of the line; that the column as he proposed to organize it would have only about thirteen thousand men (the divisions having lost a third of their numbers the day before); that the column would have to march a mile under concentrating battery fire, and a thousand yards under long-range musketry; that the conditions were different from those in the days of Napoleon, when field batteries had a range of six hundred yards and musketry about sixty yards.***
McFlake is from Arizona. He is from the Lindsey Graham school of politics...ie, whatever McCain wants, he wants too. IIRC, he voted for going to war in Syria and for cutting military retiree pay.
Flake is using McCain as cover. I doubt a freshman GOP Senator from AZ would have quickly sprinted so far left without those protective wings. Flake is an example of progressive Republicans willfully damaging conservative resistance to the obama agenda.
If the Senate GOP had a real leader McCain would never be able to get away with the crap he pulls and Flake wouldn’t feel so free to stab conservatives in the back. That’s why McConnell must be removed at all costs.
Lugar just endorsed a Dem senate candidate. We won’t hear anything about that from beltway GOP bootlickers.
Aw, thank you so much, dearest you, xzins.
I also treasure your friendship.
The problem with the article is that with anti-establishment candidates there will always be some like Akin or Murdoch or O’Donnell who lose races that another candidate could have won.
The difference is the Dems pull there lousy candidates like Rep. Hank “Guam Is Sinking” Johnson over the finish line and into the winners circle. The GOPe quickly abandons weak candidates lest a conservative damage their progressive Republican credentials.
And how did Reagan do that? By capitulation and compromise of his conservative principles? No, he beat the left and the moderates in the court of ideas, and sold the country on his vision.
Yes, he had to work with Republicans who were softer on principle than he was, but they always knew they weren't on equal footing with him. He never ever allowed other Republicans in his circle to get the idea that their moderate views were in any way the better, truer path.
Ted Cruz is (thankfully) following The Gipper's lead -- and so should we. Don't be afraid to stand on your principles, and insist that others do likewise. Equivocate even slightly, and you open the door to the complete ruin of everything you hold dear.
Remember that, but for Reagan, the ratchet has been moving in only one direction for the last one hundred years. Relax the pressure, and it will unerringly continue in that direction.
I'm sick to death of people talking of "tactics". What utter bullshit.
The country is being destroyed before our very eyes. In an earlier age, the rifles and cannons would already be firing on the traitors, and we'd be decorating lamp posts with their worthless carcasses.
The people elect representatives to Congress to represent their interests and their beliefs. They don't elect them to become part of a ruling class oligarchy who tinker around the margins while the middle implodes. These people need to fight for us, or they need to be retired.
ENOUGH!
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