Posted on 03/07/2016 10:26:57 AM PST by xzins
A week ago I attended the funeral for my friend and one-time boss Drew Lewis.
Drew — formally Andrew L. Lewis Jr. — was famous as President Reagan's secretary of Transportation who fired the air traffic controllers. He had been the Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania in 1974, and as both the party GOP finance chair and longtime Pennsylvania Republican National Committeeman, he was a considerable presence in what is today referred to as "The Establishment."
But there was more to the Lewis story than that, and an episode from his life comes to mind as we watch an all out civil war — frequently described as a "hostile takeover" — break out between today's GOP Establishment and Donald Trump.
A few days ago, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the GOP's 2012 presidential nominee and the very embodiment of the GOP Establishment, made a frontal attack on Trump.
Romney said Trump was "a phony, a fraud." Which was considerably different than four years ago when Romney begged for Trump's endorsement and, winning it, praised Trump for his ability to"understand how our economy works and to create jobs for the American people."
The utter windmill changing hypocrisy that has so infuriated the base of the GOP could not possibly be better illustrated than by Romney's attack on Trump. No wonder there is a move afoot for a "hostile takeover" of the GOP.
Reagan's Pa. 'takeover'
The Trump campaign is a modern replay of the Reagan and Lewis "hostile takeover" of the Pennsylvania GOP in 1980.
The episode that comes to mind from Drew's life and a "hostile takeover" of the Pennsylvania Republican Establishment begins in 1976, when his best friend from childhood, Pennsylvania's Republican U.S. Sen. Richard Schweiker, was surprisingly selected by Reagan as Reagan's choice for a running mate if Reagan won that year's GOP presidential nomination over President Gerald Ford.
Ford was the GOP Establishment's man. So too, went the thought, was Lewis, who was running Ford's Pennsylvania campaign.
In fact, the selection of Schweiker was in part targeted to get old friend Lewis to abandon Ford and bring the state's national convention delegates with him, thus putting Reagan over the top.
The maneuver failed, Reagan lost to Ford and the Establishment was pleased, particularly with their man Drew Lewis.
But they misjudged Lewis. His loyalty to Ford was simple: he had given his word and would not go back on it. It had nothing to do with being the Establishment's man.
Four years later it was a different story altogether. So impressed was then-former California Gov, Reagan with Lewis in opposition that he made a point of courting the young Pennsylvanian. The two men hit it off — and the rest of the story was told to me by Lewis himself.
It seems that once Drew made up his mind and endorsed Reagan for president in the lead-up to the 1980 campaign — over Reagan's very Establishment opponent George H.W. Bush — his peers in the Pennsylvania GOP Establishment were aghast.
One of them, a very prominent man who had been one of Lewis' predecessors as the Republican National Committeeman from Pennsylvania, sat down and penned a sharp and very unpleasant note to Drew.
Essentially, Lewis was being accused of being a traitor to his class.
Drew's response was, as always, polite. But that note was a declaration of political war, making of Pennsylvania one battle in the massive war between Reagan and the national Republican Establishment.
To use a term that frequently surfaces today with Trump, Lewis — a world class businessman himself — was executing a hostile Reagan takeover of the Pennsylvania Republican Party.
While the Bush campaign concentrated on winning the Pennsylvania GOP primary, Drew was driving the length and breadth of Pennsylvania to hand pick prominent local Reagan supporters to put their names on the ballot as Reagan delegates.
In Pennsylvania, GOP delegate candidates have only their names on the ballot — with no indication whom they support.
Thus Drew's determination to go congressional district by congressional district and find Reaganites well-known in their own right. He did.
And come the night of the Pennsylvania primary the headlines went to Bush, who won the popular vote.
But the actual delegates? They went overwhelmingly to Reagan, thanks to Drew's strategy. Not long after, Bush yielded to Reagan. The "hostile takeover" of the GOP by Ronald Reagan — in Pennsylvania and everywhere else — was complete.
A page out of history
The other day the doorbell rang at my home in Camp Hill. Standing there was a young woman seeking my signature to put her brother on the ballot as a Trump delegate to the Republican National Convention. It was a Sunday — and 19 degrees outside.
Her brother the candidate — local lawyer Marc Scaringi — shortly appeared. The two were working the neighborhood house by house to carry the day in the April primary for Trump delegates.
They had no idea I was a Trump supporter — and no other supporters of any other candidate have appeared at my door. It was the Drew Lewis "hostile takeover" strategy for Reagan right at my front doorstep. This time, for Donald Trump.
Make no mistake. What is unfolding from my doorstep all across the nation with the Trump campaign is a modern replay of the Reagan and Lewis "hostile takeover" of the GOP. And as in 1980's ferocious battle between Reagan and the GOP Establishment — an Establishment Reagan derided as "fraternal order" and "pale pastel" Republicans — Trump is winning.
In retrospect? Sitting in the Central Schwenkfelder Church in Lansdale surrounded by hundreds listening to the emotional tributes to Drew Lewis, the historical reality of Lewis's role in the Reagan "hostile takeover" of the Pennsylvania GOP of the day reminds exactly why Trump is succeeding in his own bid to update and renew what has become known to history as the "Reagan Revolution."
In 2016 — 36 years after the Reagan-Lewis hostile takeover of the Pennsylvania Republican Party — the Trump hostile takeover is literally at my doorstep. Suggestion to the GOP Establishment in Pennsylvania?
Pay attention.
Jeffrey Lord is a former Reagan White House political director, author, columnist and CNN commentator. He writes from Camp Hill.
The Trump revolution is not likely to reduce the size of government, empower small business in the free market, oppose the degeneracy of post modern culture or improve our standing as the shinning light of liberty for the world.
I like Cruz but he hasn’t shown me the leadership it’s going to take to make progress on any of these things. It takes more than ideas and personal conservatism to get congress to move.
“The Trump revolution is not likely to reduce the size of government, empower small business in the free market, oppose the degeneracy of post modern culture or improve our standing as the shinning light of liberty for the world.”
____________________
The first step in achieving any of the (worthy) goals you list is to stop illegal immigration and counter the jihad.
Trump will do that. Everything else is secondary.
I think he already made that bed and is lying in it, that’s why he’s not trying to get re-elected. He was supposed to be a TEA Party guy, and got into bed with the establishment as soon as he got to Washington.
The state party might let him back in (they’re a good ‘ol boy network if I ever saw one), but I don’t see him representing Florida on the national level any more. If he can’t cash in on the lucrative “also ran” speaking circuit because no one cares about him, he might be able to find a district and get back into the House, but I think that’s as far as he’ll go, at least until he’s older (and, hopefully, wiser).
I’d like to think he’s done forever after his TEA Party betrayal, but people have short memories, and you never know if he might wind up running against someone much worse in comparison.
After yesterday’s vote in Puerto Rico, maybe he should go live there and become its governor. :>)
Huh? Business owners hate waste and inefficiencies. It cuts into their profits, preventing them from growing the business further. Based on intuition, Trump will be seen as the grim reaper. Slashing, burning, eliminating departments and agencies. He already said he’d eliminate the EPA, and Dept. of Education.
bookmark
The second time as farce.
I know you’re kidding but I suspect you’re not too far off the mark.
Polls be damned, I think Trump is the only one who stands a chance against Hillary. If the GOPe and the media are successful at blocking him, Hillary is going to win. When that happens, I expect the cheap labor apologists who came up with the 2012 “post-mortem” to resurface hollering about how their study is “proof” that all the GOP needs to do is pander to illegals more if they want to win elections again.
Rubio will be resurrected at the forefront of the “We Told You So” cheap labor agenda, if that all comes to pass.
Between now and next Tuesday we’ll have Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, North Carolina, Missouri, Mississippi, and Florida all completed.
We will have to choose at that time which candidate has a legitimate chance to win the nomination to prevent a brokered convention.
We’ll either prove we really were anti-establishment or not, because the establishment made the rules and the establishment runs the convention.
If we don’t unite behind the most likely to succeed by next Wednesday, then we’ll get an establishment pick: my guess would be another Romney or a Bush.
Monmouth Mich poll today T -35 C-26. Means Cruz is in good shape there.
I am in FL. Absentee votes probably give it to Trump.
My vote goes to the true constitutional conservative who will enforce laws and protect the constitution, who gets no coverage but bad on many so called conservative sites and is the true anti-establishment candidate.
Trump threw down several 4-5 red flags at the last debate, would be surprised if that does not affect the vote.
As I said from the first, this is the wished for revolution!
He is the voice of We the People who have been ignored by the corrupt career politicians.
Get behind him and vote!
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