Posted on 11/15/2022 5:53:45 AM PST by Heartlander
Anyone who cares about the Republican Party needs to understand that the ongoing campaign to blame the midterms on Donald Trump and throw support behind Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for 2024 is a GOP establishment scheme to avoid responsibility for their own failures.
Forget about the Trump versus DeSantis question for a minute. Right now, the far more important and pressing task at hand is to hold Sen. Mitch McConnell, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, and other GOP leaders like Rep. Tom Emmer, the head of the National Republican Congressional Committee, and Ronna McDaniel, the Republican National Committee chair, accountable for their massive failures this election cycle.
Any time wasted speculating on the 2024 primary is time not spent talking about McConnell’s dereliction of duty as the leader of the GOP — not just his horrible funding decisions during the midterms but also the past two years of facilitating President Biden’s agenda.
As my colleague Tristan Justice argued in these pages last week, McConnell didn’t just prioritize his allies over winning a majority in the midterms, long before the cycle began he capitulated to Biden’s agenda, helping to raise the debt limit, pass a massive infrastructure package, and facilitate a CHIPS Act that benefits corrupt special interests. McConnell’s success in appointing federal judges is admirable and will stand as his legacy, but now that Democrats have secured a Senate majority that legacy might well be eclipsed by Sen. Chuck Schumer, who has proven just as adept as McConnell at confirming judges.
And then there’s McCarthy. As House Republicans meet this week to elect a new speaker, rumors are swirling about a plan among conservative members to derail McCarthy’s bid for the speakership. Good. It isn’t even clear at this point whether Republicans will win a majority, and if they do it will be razor-thin, narrower than Democrats’ current eight-seat majority. As minority leader, the lion’s share of blame falls on McCarthy, who should have come up with something better for Republicans to run on than his anodyne and uninspiring “commitment to America.”
But McConnell and McCarthy aren’t the only ones whose feet need to be held to the fire. The dust hadn’t even settled after Election Day when Emmer, a complete RINO from Minnesota who should be kicked out of the Republican Party altogether, launched his bid for House GOP whip, the third-highest ranking position in a Republican House majority. As head of the NRCC, it was Emmer’s job to ensure Republicans won House races, a task he miserably failed.
As Nate Hochman explained recently in National Review, Emmer, who has chaired the NRCC since 2019, “has already fallen far short in his position as chairman of the NRCC, and his shadow campaign for whip during the closing months of the campaign demonstrates a willingness to place his own interests over those of his caucus. He has not earned a promotion.”
If the disastrous midterm results weren’t by themselves enough to disqualify Emmer, his arrogant response to the outcome, that House Republicans should just be happy to be in the majority, should leave no question that he’s not only not the man for the job of majority whip, but he should also be fired from the NRCC.
Continuing the trend of Republicans who think they can fail upward, McDaniel, the RNC chairwoman and a close Trump ally, signaled Monday she plans to run for reelection as party chair, a post she would hold through the 2024 election. But what, in light of the midterm fiasco, has McDaniel done to deserve the post? Nothing.
When the RNC decides the chairmanship at its January meeting, it would be far better to give it to one of the few Republicans who surpassed expectations this cycle, like Rep. Lee Zeldin, whose strong bid for governor in New York did more to help down-ballot races and secure whatever slim House majority Republicans end up with. As columnist Robert George noted on Twitter, “Lee Zeldin had the most successful GOP gubernatorial result in 20 years. Even more remarkably, he had more coattails (as seen in House results) than the winning Democratic governor.”
Whatever happens, the manifest failures of Republican leaders shouldn’t go unpunished. At the very least, those whose job it was to win strong majorities in the House and Senate shouldn’t be promoted for botching it. As Sen. Marco Rubio tweeted Monday, a leadership vote in the Senate should be delayed “until we have a clear explanation for why our 2022 campaign efforts failed AND until we have a clear understanding of the political & policy direction for the GOP Senate moving forward.”
What Rubio is saying isn’t radical, by the way. It’s the bare minimum for any GOP senator right now, given what happened. As my colleague Mollie Hemingway noted, any Republican unable to say this should be primaried.
Now is not the time to get distracted. The 2024 primary fight will take care of itself, and it deserves attention only after there’s been a reckoning among Republican leaders over their failures in this cycle.
If not, we can expect the same class of weak GOP leaders to continue aiding and abetting Biden’s disastrous presidency, working hard to facilitate Democrats’ harmful agenda, and putting their own priorities ahead of Republican voters.
1. The Speaker of the House is elected by the entire House, not just the majority party.
2. There is no real election for the official "Senate leader." The Vice President of the U.S. is the President of the Senate, but from a formal standpoint that role is really just limited to casting tiebreaking votes.
3. The Senate majority and minority leaders are elected by their respective party members in the Senate. The majority leader functions as the de facto Senate leader.
What this means is: The easiest person to replace in a fouled-up party environment is the Senate minority leader. The GOP has no latitude in the vote for House Speaker (lose a couple of Republicans and you can end up with a DEMOCRATIC House Speaker even if the Republicans are the majority party), and doesn't even play a role in the vote for Senate majority leader.
As I see it, this means Mitch McConnell should be tossed out on his ass.
They are not failed, that’s the issue. They won’t go away. They’re there fraudulently wiring for the left. McConnell has a 7% approval rating among gop. He doesn’t care. What’s his approval rating among Dems and anti trumpets? Schumer loves him
He is not failed.
As the GOP swamp dwellers appear to be grooming Pence to be the 2024 nominee
What message? That they suck less? They offered no vision at all, except for their Trump hate.
I love DeSantis, but we need to be clear. He won big in Florida because cheating is difficult in Florida.
Clean up the elections and the “red wave” will take care of itself.
And he was opposed by the Democrats mimimally. Wait until they fight him every inch of the way tooth and toenail on everything. As they did and are doing President Trump.
“They offered no vision at all, except for their Trump hate.”
They had a message. Rick Scott and Linseed Ghramm said the GOP would get rid of SS and ban abortion worldwide.
They still can’t see why they lost.
Totally agree. Neither one of them was running for national office or had even announced, DeSantis probably won’t run although Trump obviously will...and it doesn’t matter anyway.
We let this silly issue - which was kind of last minute - put the nail in the coffin for undecided voters, independents, etc.
Legalized cheating by election office engineering was what won it for the Dems, but if we had had just a few thousand more votes in some close races, we could have done it.
But the squabbling turned off a lot of people. And in any case, most of them had no idea of the central policy positions of our poorly run party which can’t even get off its backside to get funding for our candidates.
I saw a comparative chart of the difference between Dem spending and GOP spending. Stunning.
We need new management.
Florida has been a critical plus to Republicans certainly for President elect and then President Trump since 2016.
Just a few days ago we were shown the absolute, undeniable proof and truth about voter I.D., drop boxes, tightened voting regulations and practices, drop boxes and everything else that we "election deniers" are accused of.
WHO did all of this ?
Governor of Florida Ron DeSantis.
DeSantis took every element of the reported problems with the 2020 election(s) and actually made those suggested corrections and LO! ..... A Conservative state, reported completely within hours of poll closing . . . . IN SPITE OF the so called disenfranchised "voters".
Why, you should ask yourself . . . . would President Trump, who may announce his candidacy for 2024 want to screw such a secure vote from his adopted home state ?
THAT is a sure loser... even the DNC will give funding to Pence (no one is MORE beatable!)
The GOP establishment placed the midterm blame on Donald Trump
<><>not b/c Mitch McConnell’s $10m to the treacherous Murkowski, rather than in Az, Ga, or Mi.
<><>Not Kevin McCarthy’s embarrassing “Commitment to America” attempt to recreate the 54 “Contract with America” win,
<><>Not McConnell’s Aug derision of MAGA candidates,
<><>Not mcConnell’s claiming the party lacked “candidate quality,”
<><>Not McConnell’s handpicked Co candidate losing by 13 points, 3 times as much as Oz lost.
No, it was Trump.
GOP’s under-performance in the midterms is “100%” Trump’s fault they say.
Of course, there’s no stink on D.C. Republicans —
<><> not Kevin McCarthy, not Mitch McConnell, not Ronna McDaniel,
<><>not Tom Emmer (chairman, RNCC),
<><>not GOP consultants and pollsters…
<><>Nor on any Republican who hangs out at the Capitol Hill Club.
(American Thinker)
And get this. Rep-elect George Santos (R-NY) argued he wants no part of divisive investigations of
<><>Hunter Biden, the president’s son,
<><>the origins of COVID-19,
<><>Big Tech censorship,
<><>the FBI’s raid of Mar-a-Lago,
<><>the Justice Department’s memo on outspoken parents at school board meetings,
<><>or the crisis at the southern border.
What does he think we voted in Repubs for?
To make daisy chains?
He thinks we voted for him and to make sure he can get re-elected and serve forever and live like royalty so he doens't want to make waves.
Deceit and the fact that they obviously do not stand up for those of us who worked, donated and voted to put them in office. They have turned their backs on us and our Constitution.
We will never get term limits, because those making the laws do not want them and forget this is a representative government.
Check.
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