.
The GOP seeks to avoid another pesky landslide victory like the Tea Party gave them in 2010. With help of Karl Rove and Fox News, Beltway GOP is getting more involved in primaries under the pretense of protecting us from "democrat influence:"
1/4/13,
"GOP scrambles to fix its primary problem," Politico, Jonathan Martin
"The disastrous 2012 election and embarrassing fiscal cliff standoff has brought forth one principal conclusion from establishment Republicans: They have a primary problem.
The
intra-party contests, or threat thereof, have become the original sin
that explains many of the party’s woes in the minds of GOP leaders. It’s
the primaries that push their presidential nominees far to the right
(see “self-deportation” and “47 percent”); produce lackluster Senate
candidates (Todd Akin has almost become a one-word shorthand); and, as
seen most vividly in the last two weeks, dissuade scores of
gerrymandered House members from face-saving compromise while
politically emasculating their speaker.
What to do about the primaries has become Topic A in many a
post-election Republican soul-searching session, and now the first steps
are being taken to address the issue. For Senate Republicans, that
means a modified return to their 2010 posture of openly playing in
primaries. A retiring House Republican is starting a super PAC to help
House members challenged from the right. And an RNC commission is
mulling over changes to the party’s presidential primary.
In the Senate, where at least five GOP losses in the past two
election cycles could be attributed to primaries, Republican leaders are
planning to intervene in selected 2014 races to ensure preferred
candidates win the nomination.
High-profile Senate Republicans are going to try to pre-empt ***bloody***
primaries with aggressive, early recruitment and support — effectively
trying to clear fields.
“Instead of worrying about resolving a contested primary and
upsetting a lot of folks on both sides … you recruit the best candidate
on the front end,” explained Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio.), a newly named
NRSC vice chairman and close ally of Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell.
Further, expect Senate Republicans to insert themselves in those 2014
primaries when Democrats attempt to influence the GOP nominating
process as they did in the 2012 Missouri Republican contest that
produced Akin."...
[Ed. note: Not what happened in this case. First, Akin was a sitting member of congress not some guy who just walked off a corn field. The primary had many candidates several of whom did well. The results were necessarily splintered and Akin happened to edge out others. It wasn't "democrats'" fault. If anything, establishment GOP prefer democrats.]
(continuing):"“If you catch wind of (Democrats playing in Republican primaries),
it’s a tough decision but you’ve got to have the ability and flexibility
to say, ‘OK guys, we’re headed down a track here, so is there a better
candidate who has more appeal, can raise more money, is more
representative of the state they’re in?’” said Portman."...
[Ed. note: Portman, you mean like when a GOP establishment PAC spent money encouraging Indiana democrats to come out and defeat Tea Party candidate Richard Mourdock in 2012?]
(continuing):"Added Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire: “When they are up to those
things, then I think that the committee has to say there are
some
primaries that we will get involved in because
we’re not going to let
the Democrats pick our nominees.”"...
[Ed. note: What a phony you are Ayotte.]
(continuing): "Further, top Senate Republicans have made clear to outside groups that
they’d like the third parties to not exist simply as entities that air
attack ads against Democrats in general elections but to play a more
hands-on role in GOP primaries.
“It’s important for the groups that have been sitting
on the sidelines in primaries and ceding the field to groups to be more
involved,” said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.). “You’ve got certain groups
that are very active in primaries, in many cases behind candidates that
have had, as we’ve experienced in the last couple of cycles, trouble
winning general elections. We’ve got to have support for candidates that
can win.”
Translation into non-Senate speak: The big-money establishment
Republican super PACs like American Crossroads need to serve as a
counterbalance in primaries to conservative outfits such as Club for
Growth and former Sen. Jim DeMint’s Senate Conservatives Fund.
Crossroads, at least, is already preparing to do just that.
While they won’t become entirely invested in the business of
incumbent protection — something McConnell has signaled he’d like them
to do — they are moving toward a more robust presence in GOP primaries.
That means a thorough and cold-eyed assessment of which Republicans will have the best chance to win general elections
“To be effective, you have to go well before the primary and identify
well-qualified candidates using a number of criteria,” said one source
familiar with Crossroads’s thinking. “It’s not who’s more or less
conservative, but putting together a more discriminating evaluation of
candidates.”
In an interview in the Capitol, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the NRSC
chairman in the past two elections and now the Senate’s second-ranking
Republican, said, “I think you’re going to see more people involved in
primaries,” right as he rounded a corner and nearly ran into Crossroads
CEO Steven Law.
“Speaking of the devil and he appears,” joked Cornyn. “He said what’s
going to happen in the primary process and I said well I think you’re
going to see more people get involved. “
“Yeah, that’s right,” said Law, on cue. “More people are going to get involved.”
After Law departed, Cornyn said he was confident it wouldn’t just be Crossroads wading in.
“This is too important to leave to any one organization,” said the
Texan. “You’re going to see other super PACs getting involved.”
The case of Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) makes clear that they’ll be needed.
Just
hours after Capito announced in November that she would run for the
Senate in 2014, the Club for Growth panned her candidacy with a scathing
statement.
With one press release, the conservative group offered a
vivid reminder about why the establishment’s attempt to take hold of
the primary process
won’t come without some ***blood*** on the floor.
Portman hopes that Capito’s early move and the support she received
will send a message.
“I endorsed her, others stepped up, we’ve encouraged her to run for
years,” said the Ohioan, adding: “That avoids the problem. You try to
prevent the problem.”
Ayotte, making the case for the party to play on a “case-by-case”
basis in primaries, said Capito is “a prime example” of where
Republicans should rally early.
“When we see a candidate like her, people need to know many of us stand by her,” said Ayotte.
But, and this is the challenge for the establishment crowd, such
early support doesn’t necessarily mean other potential aspirants will
stay away.
For example, one senior Republican who was heartened by Capito’s
decision was just as quickly dispirited upon chatting with West Virginia
Rep. David McKinley a few days after her announcement. Questioning
whether Capito has the fire to run statewide — she has been wooed for
years to make a Senate bid — McKinley said he would consider making a go
at the seat currently held by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, according to this
Republican.
In the House, look no further than the Plan B debacle and the 151
Republican “no” votes on the final compromise to
understand how
primaries have become the chief political threat in a GOP caucus in
which
more than half the members faced nominal general election
opposition this year.
As Speaker John Boehner put it last month when explaining why he
couldn’t bring his fiscal cliff bill to the floor: “We had a number of
our members who just really didn’t want to be perceived as having raised
taxes.”
Some senior House Republicans scoff at such fear.
“If you can’t win your primary by securing tax cuts for 90 percent of
your constituents, you’re not a very good politician,” said Rep. Tom
Cole (R-Okla.), an early advocate for compromise on the fiscal cliff. “I
would beat somebody to death if they tried to run against me on this
issue.”...
“A lot of the Republican Conference strategy has been to not put
members in a difficult primary situation and that makes it tougher for
us to sign off on a deal,” lamented former Rep. Steve LaTourette
(R-Ohio), a Boehner ally.
LaTourette wants to make it easier for those GOP congressmen who are
willing to work toward a grand bargain
and is leaving Congress to do
just that.
He’s taking over the Republican Main Street Partnership
—
the slimmed-down group of congressional GOP centrists — and is going
to create a super PAC to serve as a counterbalance to the Club for
Growth in House Republican primaries.
“When a center-right Republican is in a primary and is
being targeted by some group as a RINO, we’re going to make sure we have
their back,” said LaTourette. “Not just with speeches and press
releases but with money.”
LaTourette said his initial goal for the group’s super PAC would be
to raise $10 million and he had already gotten favorable responses when
he brought up his plan with senior House Republicans on committees that
make it easy to raise money.
“We’re going to hit the road [to raise money] as soon as I’m off this payroll,” he said of his congressional tenure.
As for the NRCC, incoming Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.), another
Boehner ally who backed the cliff deal, said the group would most likely
continue its policy of staying out of contested primaries but did note
that the House campaign arm is an “incumbent-driven organization” that
wants to ensure its incumbents “are as strong as they can be.”
And by way of subtle warning to his fellow backers of the compromise,
Walden said advance preparation was key for any incumbent worried about
being primaried.
“The textbook case is Upton,” said Walden, alluding to Rep. Fred
Upton (R-Mich.), the center-right chairman of the Energy and Commerce
Committee who took steps to protect his right flank well before a
long-anticipated primary he won easily last year.
On the presidential level, the prolonged and debate-a-week 2012 GOP
primary has become central to Republican post-mortems about how Mitt
Romney was so soundly defeated.
A session devoted to the primary at Harvard’s quadrennial
post-election conclave was dominated by grumbles from Romney officials
about the multitude of debates.
Stuart Stevens, Romney’s top strategist, likened the hyped-up TV forums as something close to “American Idol.”
And Romney’s political director, Rich Beeson, said in an interview
for POLITICO’s ebook on the election that the primary, which stretched
until mid-April partly because of the proportional distribution of
delegates, cost the Republican nominee precious time in setting up his
general election operation.
“It was probably worth 350,000 votes,” said Beeson.
A committee tasked by RNC Chairman Reince Priebus with assessing what
went wrong in 2012 and how the GOP can rebound will consider changing
the 2016 primary back to a winner-take-all format. But such a proposal
is likely to run into serious resistance from RNC members who hail from
states whose primaries and caucuses have typically taken place long
after the nomination has been decided.
What’s more likely, according to one committee member, is an effort
to take control of the debates, by which the RNC would have more say
over the number and format of the forums.
“[There’s a] clear appetite to change the primary debate structure,”
said Henry Barbour, a top Priebus ally. “[There were] too many and too
much control with the media.”" via Mark Levin show
====================================
In 5/8/12 primary, Establishment GOP urged democrats to vote against Tea Party Republican:
4/28/12, "The Ultimate Treachery," Daniel Horowitz, RedState.com
"I’m at a loss for words; I’m really not sure what to think of this.
What word would you use
to describe someone from party A (Republican) asking members of party B
(Democrat) to vote down a member of party A (Republican) for supporting
a fundamental view of party A?
Politico’s Maggie Haberman is reporting that the leadership-affiliated Young Guns Network
has sent out mailers asking Democrats to vote for Dick Lugar (not
exactly a young gun) in the Indiana Republican primary against Richard
Mourdock on May 8."...
---------------------------------
commenter
-----------------------------
"I lost respect for Cantor the day of the House vote on ObamaCare.
About 15 minutes after
the conclusion of the vote, as I sat on the couch watching in
disbelief, I saw a group of about 10 Congressmen (some Dems, some
Repubs) laughing and joking around. Cantor was right in the middle of
it. I don’t pretend to know what they were discussing, but while the
rest of us saw this piece of legislation as the beginning of the END, Cantor was laughing his a$$ off on the House floor. I’ll never forget."
=====================================
Ed. note: Ordinary Americans are Jeb Bush's only potential headache. The establishment believes Bush deserves to be elected without comment.
---------------------------------------------
P.S. Please excuse unpleasant white background behind part of this post. It was put there by hackers who dislike free speech.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment