Free Republic

The United States Chamber of Commerce’s chief political strategist has resigned from the business group after its endorsement of 23 House Democrats in swing districts across the country. Scott Reed, the Chamber’s longtime senior political strategist, has resigned, according to the New York Times‘ Maggie Haberman. “Scott Reed, who’s been the top political strategist at the US Chamber for years, tells me he has resigned, amid a perceived drift to the left at the Chamber on heels of nearly two dozen endorsements of House Dems,” Haberman posted online.

The plot to save Thad Cochran was hatched at Off The Record, the subterranean bar inside the Hay-Adams hotel in downtown Washington. In mid-June, just days before the Mississippi Senate runoff election, Tom Donohue, the hard-nosed CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, was commiserating over drinks with Scott Reed, his senior political strategist, and Chip Pickering, a former Mississippi congressman-turned-telecom lobbyist. The trio were smarting. After racking up an enviable 10-0 winning streak in midterm races, Mississippi voters dealt the powerful business lobby a major blow: Cochran, a Senate stalwart supported by the Chamber and its allies in the...

If U.S. Chamber of Commerce strategist Scott Reed really wants “no loser candidates” and “no fools on our ticket,” as he told the Wall Street Journal last week, then he might want to start by banishing himself from any involvement with the 2014 elections. It takes a truly foolish Republican consultant to declare war on the party’s most energized troops — the same foolish politico who once advised Republicans to work in favor of gun control and who ran the incompetent 1996 presidential campaign of Bob Dole. If Reed wants “no loser candidates,” presumably he will be working to rid...

Inside the cozy enclaves of GOP bonhomie—hunkered at the tables of see-and-be-seen Washington restaurants—Republican leaders are sourly predicting a party-busting independent presidential bid by a tea-party challenger, like Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., in 2016. To them, the GOP apocalypse looms larger than most realize. Dueling State of the Union rebuttals and Karl Rove’s assault on right-wing candidates are mere symptoms of an existential crisis that is giving the sturdiest Republicans heartburn. And yet, the heart of the matter extends beyond the GOP. My conversations this week with two Republican officials, along with a Democratic strategist's timely memo, reflect a growing...

Now, this piece in the New York Times illustrates the obstacles Tea Party lawmakers are up against. All these Republican freshmen in the House, for example, this article makes it plain how difficult their job is. There's even a section in this story on compromise, the bad kind of compromise, the kind of compromise that Republicans have been known for, get along with the Democrats, please the media, show that we're not the unreasonable Tea Party types. That's what's shaking down here. The Tea Party is under assault from the Democrats and the Republican elite, and now the battle has...

RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, there's a big piece in the New York Times Magazine coming this weekend. It is entitled: "Does Anyone Have a Grip on the GOP?" The subhead: "The Republican Elite Tries to Take Its Party Back." This article prints like 24 pages. It is a major, major New York Times Magazine piece. It confirms everything that I have thought, everything I have speculated, everything I have said about the battle between the Republican elite and the Tea Party. I can't read the whole thing on the program; I don't intend to. I've got some highlights or quotes...

Step 1: The first rule of the establishment is: Do not admit you are part of the establishment! Step 2: Disarm them with praise Step 3: Moderate whoever they pick as the 2012 nominee. Step 4: Teach them about compromise. Step 5: Never forget reality

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and his rivals for the Republican nomination will face a tough crowd when they address the religious conservatives at the Values Voter Summit starting Friday. “I think what we can expect is a lot of folks talking about how dissatisfied they are with the choices they have,” former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) said. Giuliani’s positions on abortion and gay rights continue to dog him as he looks for support within the leadership of the religious conservative movement, and those leaders say they want to hear more from the former mayor this weekend than...

By all accounts, there are a herd of additional shoes yet to drop in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. The question is whether or not this public scrutiny will be limited to just the low-lying fruit, or if some serious investigations will take place - including an investigation of one of the chief investigators: St. John McCain, Arizona Republican. When stories of Jack Abramoff taking various Indian tribes to the cleaners first hit the press, McCain - Chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee and author of the un-American, anti-free speech McCain-Feingold campaign censorship law - decided this would be...