Posted on 03/31/2015 12:33:26 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The blood is in the water. The game is afoot. And the Republicans are brawling.
While Democrats are usually viewed as the undisciplined, fractious party, it is Republicans who sharpen their knives and slice each other up when the White House is at stake.
The struggle is between two groups within the GOP.
The establishment finally recognizes that the party must broaden its base. If the party appeals to only white, Christian conservatives, it will wind up as a regional party, capable of winning Senate and House seats but incapable of winning a national election.
We must nominate a presidential candidate who can reach across racial, religious, cultural and ideological lines, the establishment says, and so the moderate middle is the place to be.
The far right of the party, especially the religious right, hears this and goes crazy. It says we keep nominating moderates and we keep losing! We nominate Mitt Romney and we lose. We nominate John McCain and we lose.
It is time to wake up and coalesce around a true Christian conservative who is unafraid to endorse Christian values and talk about God and Jesus Christ, it says. This is where America is and that is where the Republican Party needs to be.
The establishment has almost always won this fight, by the way. The religious right of the Republican Party has not gotten the nominee it has wanted since Ronald Reagan. (And he wasn’t religious personally.)
But this time could be different, the right says. Hillary Clinton is going to be very, very vulnerable in the 2016 general election. Voters by then will have had eight years of a Democratic presidency and they are weary to the bone.
So this is the perfect time to pick a true conservative, a true Christian conservative, who will take this country back. This is no time to be muddling around in the middle, searching for moderate voters who will never vote Republican anyway.
And so the knives have come out.
As Trip Gabriel wrote in The New York Times on March 25: “Fearing that Republicans will ultimately nominate an establishment presidential candidate like Jeb Bush, leaders of the nation’s Christian right have mounted an ambitious effort to coalesce their support behind a single social-conservative contender months before the first primary votes are cast.”
So when Ted Cruz, a right-wing, Christian conservative announced for the presidency on March 23 (at a Christian university founded by Jerry Falwell, no less) the establishment instantly fought back.
The establishment isn’t called that for nothing. It is established. And the word went out on Cruz: bright, articulate and without any record of accomplishment. A loser, in other words.
Charles Krauthammer said on Fox News: “Cruz talks about you have to walk the walk, rather than talk the talk. You have to have done something, but that’s not his record in the Senate.”
And The Wall Street Journal editorial page, which is as Republican establishment as you can get, recoiled in horror at the idea of Cruz as nominee and dismissed him as another — you are reading this right — Barack Obama.
“Can a smart, articulate, 40-something first term Senator trained in constitutional law, who disdains his colleagues and lacks executive experience, make the leap to the White House?” the editorial began. “President Obama proved it was possible in 2008, and now Ted Cruz will try to show that a Republican can do it too …”
But while Obama got to the White House, the editorial strongly suggested that Cruz will not. And that’s because the religious right is hopelessly wrong in its assessment of what it takes to win a presidential election in this country.
The editorial said it is hopeless for a Republican to depend solely on the Republican base to win in 2016 and that a Republican nominee must reach beyond the base, be inclusive and appeal to minorities and the “working class.”
(I grant you that it is an open question as to how closely connected the editorial writers of the Journal are to the American “working class.”)
Cruz’s “hard-edged message against immigration” may help him in the Republican primaries, the editorial said, but “it is a dream come true for Hillary Clinton.”
“Mr. Cruz’s challenge will be showing that his polarizing style is a better bet than the conservative governing success that many of the others [in the GOP presidential field] have already had.”
The religious right, however, does not care about sniffy editorials. This time, it believes, the party will finally wake up and smell the blood.
“Conservatives smell blood in the water,” Kellyanne Conway, a Republican pollster, told the Times. “They feel they’ve got the best shot to deny the establishment a place.”
The establishment, they believe, must be elbowed aside like the geezers that they are. It doesn’t matter how much money the establishment can raise or how many voters it can deliver. The Republican establishment does not understand religious America and the true power it has.
“Far too many Christians have ceded the public arena to people that aren’t believers,” Cruz told David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network.
And that is the secret weapon.
“God isn’t done with America yet,” Cruz said at his announcement.
And the religious right isn’t done with the Republican Party.
Just curious, how did the RNC give us their candidate?
The last I recall, there were a host of runners back in 2012 who we, the electorate, had the opportunity to vote for our choice.
I studied the issues, knew who I was voting for and cast my ballot.. Just like everyone else did.
Did my choice win the primary? Nope..........
Sadly, I'm stymied, I can't for the life of me understand how the RNC can control my vote or others such as yours and create their own chosen candidate.........If you have insight into that magic then I'm all ears.......(Kudos to Ross Perot).....
Do you honestly believe that McCain or Romney were the choice of a majority of GOP voters?
They have the calendar and open primaries set up to have the nomination clinched before most red states even get to vote. We’ve been force fed amnesty candidate after amnesty candidate. I will never vote for Jeb Bush, EVER!
Mediocre Mass. Mitt had by far the most dough and won the most primary votes (10m of the 19m cast)
I’m convinced it’s all about the dough. While he didn’t have much voter enthusiasm, he had the most advertising (positive and negative).
So noted! Good catch!
Well said.
Rove was wrong when he said "Demography is destiny." Demography is pretense -- pretense for identifying and catering to narrow interest groups.
Morality is destiny. As American government usurps such moral actions as charity and tolerating open homosexuals, morality is removed as a reference. American society has become increasingly amoral, and America's morality is what will determine its destiny. Morality transcends demographics.
Amen! LOTS of them, who may not be church-going declaring Christians, but who pretty much live like Christians. It's what made America great. We are a Christian nation, founded on specifically Christian principles and values, and that's the American way!
Thumbs up!
If they weren't then you're accusing our own team of voter fraud............Whats up with that?
I’ve watched the last two GOP primaries very closely. McCain was broke, flying coach by himself in June 2007 , about as popular as poison ivy after pushing amnesty TWICE, yet by March 2008, he’s the GOP nominee.
Mitt Romney, father of Romneycare, blueprint for Obamacare, father of gay-marriage who nobody wanted because he neutralised two of the biggest issues, yet by March 2012 he’s clinched the nomination before many red states voted.
Yes, I do think the RNC has the process rigged to get the nominee they want.
You watch, by next March Jebster will be the presumptive nominee and FreeRepublic will become a free-fire zone between the noseholders and real conservatives who will rightly refuse to vote for Jebster.
True...as far as it goes. But Cruz' appeal extends well beyond these limits.
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