Posted on 01/23/2008 3:57:44 PM PST by Jacksonville Patriot
The Senate GOP Leadership Embraces the Minority By Erick
The Senate GOP has been having its retreat. This is the first retreat since Lamar Alexander (R-TN) was named Chairman of the Conference. In this position, Alexander is charged with developing the GOP agenda and controlling the message.
Today, the Republican Senators are at a retreat and they are getting their first taste of Lamar Alexander's leadership. His message: embrace being in the minority.
According to Senate staff familiar with the conversations, Senators have been hearing from multiple pollsters including Dave Winston. Winston has consistently been presenting polling to the GOP caucus over the last year that has shown that he war, spending, and corruption were three major issues leading to GOP defeat. You can get a sense of Winston's thinking here.
“What you’re seeing is a greater awareness of earmarks,” said David Winston, a GOP pollster who has done work for congressional Republicans on the issue. “As a result, people have been concerned about waste in government and now view earmarks in conflict with accountability.”
As if orchestrated, other "experts" who were invited by Republican leadership gave reports downplaying the GOP's struggle with spending and pork and focusing mainly on the war in Iraq as the problem. Senators were told that what the American people want most is cooperation in Congress and to see lawmakers get things done: Read -- Pass Democrat legislation. In fact, by the time it was over, I'm told you would have thought the Appropriators themselves had arranged the presentation to completely undermine Winston's assertion that waste and earmarks had anything at all to do with the GOP loss in 2006.
Lamar Alexander's central theme of the day now is that the GOP must work with the Democrats on "bipartisan legislation" to show the American people the Senate can get things done. Whoa unto the Republican Senator who obstructs the will of the majority.
Read on . . .
As if to drive home Senator Alexander's point that there can now be no more stands on Republican principles to upset the will of a majority of appropriators Senators, his Legislative Director, David Morgenstern, sent out two emails to other GOP Senators' Legislative Directors ("LD's"). A Senate source tells me these are the only emails the LD's got before the retreat asking for input on legislative items for the coming year.
In fairness to Senator Alexander though, I emailed Jill Bader, the Press Secretary for the Senate Republican Conference, and asked about the emails sent by David Morgenstern. She wrote back:
The email you sent me is just one small piece of our research as we look for ways to make the Senate more effective and the conference more successful.
The people expect us to work together to get things done, and one obvious place to do that is legislation that's consistent with our principles and already has bipartisan support.
Considering, however, that these were the only two emails David Morgenstern sent out before the retreat and they mention nothing about conservative principles that the Democrats agree with nor anything about wedge issues popular with the public, but not the Democrats, I'm a bit concerned. After all, this is a planning retreat for the coming year. You'd think Senator Alexander would want those wedge issues too.
Read them and weep for the state of the party:
From: Morgenstern, David (Alexander) Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2008 1:06 PM To: Subject: Need your assistance...
Hello,
As part of Sen. Alexander's new duties as GOP Conference Chair, he's collecting examples of legislation introduced by Republican senators that has bipartisan support. He was hoping to discuss these at next week's GOP senators' retreat. Today or tomorrow, can you email me 1-2 examples that your boss has introduced this Congress? Thanks!
Thanks, David
From: Morgenstern, David (Alexander) Sent: Friday, January 18, 2008 9:33 AM To: Subject: FW: Need your assistance...
As a follow-up to my message yesterday…
I was actually out of the office sick the last 2 days and dictated most what was sent out below under my name. (The second "thanks" was added by someone else – I'm not that nice.) Since then, I've gotten a little additional clarification on the types of examples we're looking for:
* Legislation that hasn't passed the Senate yet.
* Most interested in Republican legislation with Democratic cosponsorship, but also interested in Dem-sponsored bills that your boss is the lead Republican on – if it's something your boss really cares about.
Hope that helps. Thanks to those who have already responded.
David Morgenstern Legislative Director Sen. Lamar Alexander
Some of them were Democrats, then swtiched over to Republicans when they saw which way the wind was blowing. They corrupted the conservative movement in the party. A real conservative party is sorely needed. Then the Rinos can let their hair down and show their true selves.
Many people on FR decry a third party claiming that all it will do is allow Democrats to get elected. They are correct about this. In the beginning Republican party Rinos will lose. The die-hard liberals in America don't like Democrat Light Republican Rinos anymore than conservatives do. Brainwashed liberals want the real thing too!
Eventually the Rino Republican Party will die off, destroyed by the hard core Left wing DemonRAT Party. That will leave a real conservative party standing as the only opposition. And then Americans will see that they have a real choice. It will be difficult for the country and for conservatives for some time. But I don't see any way for real conservatives to make any headway except by forming a party that will really stand up for conservative principles. Let the pseudo-conservative Republican Party die off.
We all seriously need to successfully create The Conservative Party for the long-term! The Republican Party at every political level can just die for all I care.
If it really is as bad as this I’ll be looking for another party. I can’t vote for a Schwarzenegger version of the Republican party.
You mean like Chester Lott? They would be the obvious ones, but I think that there are "always was" 'pubs who have been been moles.
I doubt if a "conservative" third party will succeed in this country, simply because the rhetoric and zealotry that a lot of nominally "conservative" people exhibit (such as right here on FR) turns off too many who might otherwise consider such a move. Just because one is right does not mean that one is palatable.
Mr. niteowl77
This is not acceptable. It’s not an opposition party. It’s a patsy party.
I have no idea who the “you” you keep referring to might be. Many of us have fought, spent our money on campaigns, been disappointed by men without character or morals. Many of them even hid behind their Christian facade. But, we continue to fight, and recognize that the world is what it is. If the best we can hope for today may be a stalemate, then so be it. It is also our responsibility to find people who are of character and still willing to walk into our snake pit of a government.
I could have saved them the $ they wasted on polling. They should have either interviewed a couple of the people the RNC hired to call people for donations, or asked to see the returned envelopes' contents that were intended for donations. That would have given them a clue.
Quick, somebody give him a red flannel shirt, maybe he will abandon the Senate for another harmless run.
Alexander the Puny.
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