Posted on 01/08/2015 3:27:46 AM PST by Timber Rattler
ank-and-file Republicans are fuming at what they see as the heavy-handed tactics of Republican leaders, one day after a divisive vote that narrowly handed Speaker John Boehner the gavel for another term.
Members who opposed Boehner on the floor are frustrated that two rebels have already been stripped of committee assignments, while the speaker's allies, angered by an embarrassingly close vote that played out on national television, warn darkly of more punishment to come. And some conservatives who backed Boehner complain that they are now facing a different kind of retribution—from the Right.
(snip)
Retribution is not being enacted simply against those who participated in the attempted coup, and members are using that fact in a plea for leniency for their colleagues. Members who have often butted heads with the speaker but who voted for him on Tuesday said leadership should understand they are facing consequences from the Right for supporting Boehner in the face of an onslaught of people demanding they depose him.
Rep. Raul Labrador rose in front of his colleagues at Wednesday's Conference meeting and said he has already drawn a primary challenge over his vote for Boehner. Labrador read from his smartphone from the more than 4,000 comments people had posted on his Facebook page, including one calling him a "scumbag asshole" for supporting Boehner—and joked that it's all true. Conservative talk-radio host Mark Levin had specifically directed listeners to target Labrador for his vote, he noted.
Other members spent Wednesday afternoon defending their vote for Boehner to local press, and some said that after December's omnibus vote and Tuesday's display on the House floor, they have never been under more pressure from constituents.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationaljournal.com ...
This time around it would me much harder, and without a war to solidify domestic power, as I say it would take 4-5 elections.
All that said, we may soon have no choice.
And we already have our list of those to target although they are passing excuses like a goose.
Who’s being a defeatist?
The GOP doesn’t represent conservatives. I’ve been on the inside of elections. I’ve been a GOP candidate.
I’ve had party operatives “forget” to invite me to events specifically related to my race (while donating to my primary opponent). I’ve been refused admittance to GOP events -AS A GOP Candidate.
The GOP wants your votes, not your opinions and certainly not your activism unless it supports the establishment.
The problem is that the donors and the base hold two very different points of view. GOP candidates need the votes of conservatives and money from the establishment. So. The establishment spends tons of money calling it’s candidates “conservative” at primary election time in order to muddy the waters. In the last election I was in, 43 PACs did this very thing for my establishment opponent.
Conservatives can’t compete against that. Brat vs. Cantor is an exception, not the rule. The RULE is that money is message and when 43 PACs scream that your establishment opponent is really a conservative, it’s hard to be heard over the shouting. Indeed, Brat won because his opponent underestimated him and those PACs didn’t bother because they didn’t think they needed to do so.
No. It’s not defeatist to point out reality. The reality is that so long as conservatives vote and donors gives, the donors will be heeded. Winning candidates need both and the current formula is that the money buys the votes and conservatives have nowhere else to go. See 2014 election results:
It’s a winning formula for the GOP to take its money and ignore the constituents with nowhere else to go (The DNC does this same thing with the black vote).
Until the GOP has to deal with defections from its base, the current formula holds.
Acknowledging that the GOP doesn’t represent conservatives isn’t defeatist; it’s reality. It’s necessary to understand what is going on in order to fix things. The only strategy that will work is giving MORE money or fewer votes. The establishment doesn’t care if individual donors withhold money. In fact, it only makes it easier to listen to donors that support the establishment POV. In the short term, conservatives aren’t going to out-donate the COC and their PACs.
You say a third party is a losing formula for the GOP. It’s not conservatives that need to get that message: it’s the establishment. The GOPe needs to be forced to confront what a third party will do to its electoral chances.
You want to take back the GOP? Only a third party at this point will force the establishment to re-evaluate their current formula. Only outright defections will alter the current electoral math within the party.
Fortunately, I don’t have to leave the GOP to help form a third party. They left me.
Good. He should have to explain his vote favoring surrender to his constituents.
We can complain or change things.
If we (conservatives) don’t do something to stop the madness, we’re just as bad as the politicians who won’t stand against the establishment or worse, part of it. We have to find another party we back and escape the prison we are in. We are letting them ruin our kids and grandkids future and believing the lies of the lessor of two evils. Anyone who tells us it will be worse under the democrats will be proved liars. Boehner and Mcconnell is giving obama everything and pretending outrage. So many of us don’t vote because of we know what both parties are doing. We need that third party. I personally like The Conservative Party. We also must move in unison to the same party or we won’t make an impact. Most important we need a passionate, well spoken and well informed leader. Someone who will explain to the public what both parties are doing, specifically. Yes, they will be demonized...nothing new for us. We need TRUE hope of fixing what the leftist in this country has destroyed. We have to try. At least we are fighting a political war and not a war where blood and lives will be lost. At least not yet. If our forefathers were willing to put their lives on the line, can’t we at least be courageous and try something new?
We need to get all the info agencies and countries have on the one. His words and actions demonstrate he is not one of us - Country loving patriot.
Thank you for this post. There are a few people at FR who actually get it. Thank you for being one of them.
Conservatives are so used to defeat at the hands of the GOPe that it won’t really bother us much to see the next “moderate” Republican candidate be defeated by Hillary Clinton in ‘16.
If conservatives have truly had enough abuse by that election and stay home or only vote for local candidates leaving the federal election lines blank, the GOPe will be smashed once again. This shouldn’t bother them because hey will get along better with Hillary than they do with conservatives.
If you want to talk about that OK. Why throw a childish tantrum over the failure to oust Boehner when it was something we all knew was extremely unlikely to happen in the first place? Seems rather childish to me.
My biggest problem is this crap of tossing people like Mia Love and Trey Gowdy overboard at the first sign of weakness. The GOPe loves that kind of moron because all the GOP needs to do is sit back and wait for the morons to defeat themselves. If the GOPe keeps outsmarting you, maybe the problem is closer to home.
Frankly a lot of you people have become a mirror image of the left. Nothing but total agreement allowed in an echo chamber.
Boo Hoo. These so called conservatives think they can just betray their constituents and we will never get mad. Never get rid of them. I think we are going to be getting rid of our rep in 2016.
From the article:
“’I think the majority of the conference would like to see … something done with them, because they put the conservative agenda at stake with their wanting to be on television,” said Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, a close Boehner ally. “A couple people got up, and they were whining about they didn’t want retribution, the speaker shouldn’t do it. They don’t realize the speaker’s not one of the guys who wants to do it, but all of us think they should have retribution, and it tells me how weak they are if they’re getting up there whining about having retribution against them.’
“And Rep. Peter King said that if this had happened in New York state politics, the consequences might have been more severe. ‘Guys take on a speaker and lose, they’re never heard from again,’ he said.”
I don’t know anything about this idiot Nunes, but I do know about the nutjob Peter King. It’s rich that Boehner’s fan club are accusing the 25 principled congressmen who dared vote against Orange Boy merely wanted TV face time when Peter King is one of the biggest media whores around.
Unlikely? It was pretty darn close.
If the GOPe keeps outsmarting you, maybe the problem is closer to home.
Yes, I figured that out and that's why I've decided that my doing the same thing over and over, hoping it will be different this time-- I must change. I won't do the same thing any longer, I'm going to try something new.
If K street has it's way? Someone just as bad. K-Street owns the party. Just about anyone's congresscritter is easily accessible by K-Street Lobbyist. I would say to the point of a same day personally returned call. Who do we get to talk too about our concerns? The Grand Niece of some big donor answering the phones as an intern or a Liberal DC area resident who could care less.
We have no elected representation anymore and that was one of the reasons the Founding Fathers paid the price so we could have such. For all the good it does which isn't much when I call my Reps office now I call the local office back home.
If they aren't K Street puppets when they get elected they quickly become one like Rand Paul. When I see Karl Rove on the TV several times a day I know who my government represents and it's not me.
Changed my party affiliation yesterday.
After 37 years.
If you are a conservative there is no party to represent you.
I would characterize voting for Boehner and his cronies right out of the gate as a little bit more than a "slight offense."
Then you have no chance of ever winning.
Exactly what I said.
It’s an interesting thing that happens after We the People participate in elections and choose those that we want to represent us in Congress. The representative form of government, wherein those elected are supposed to represent their constituents, gets turned on its head. Suddenly the Senate and the House become dictatorships. The Majority Leader in the Senate and the Speaker in the House are transformed into dictators. Each dictator rules with an iron fist. Nothing happens in either chamber unless it is approved by its dictator. That’s the sad state of affairs in the Legislative Branch and, of course, we know the Executive Branch is controlled by a dictator. So, we have, basically, twelve people - two in the Legislative Branch, one in the Executive Branch and nine in the Judicial Branch - running our country. I don’t think the Founders meant for our government to be run this way.
216 for Boehner, 25 not with.
He wins re-election as Speaker with less than a majority of the House, something that has happened only four times since 1917
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/01/06/boehner-wins-re-election-with-less-than-majority-of-house/
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