2/3/14, "Theory: Republicans Want to Win the 2014 Election Narrowly, Without the Tea Party," Rush Limbaugh
*1/31/14, RealClearPolitics: "On Immigration, What Are the Republicans Thinking?" - Sean Trende. 1/31/14, RushLimbaugh.com: "Making Sense of the Senseless"
"Everybody's trying to figure out, "Why in the world are the Republicans acting suicidal with this amnesty business?" Everybody. It doesn't make sense no matter how you slice it,
unless the Republicans are trying to damage themselves.
.
That's the only way it makes sense. The only way a Republican push for amnesty and immediate citizenship and all that makes any sense is if, for example, they don't like the Tea Party base and they're gonna do anything they can to anger them and get rid of them. So I ran across a theory that's being bandied about out there, and I'm gonna run it by you, just to show you how wacko this is getting.
One of the theories to explain what the Republicans are doing is they are nervous at the possibility, nervous at the prospect of winning the midterms in November in landslide. They don't want to win that big. There's too much pressure involved winning that big. So they're doing amnesty to anger a lot of their own voters to stay home so that they win narrowly and do not have a huge mandate.
And, at the same time, they are trying to win an election without the Tea Party to demonstrate that it can be done. That is a theory I ran into. Now, part of that theory makes some sense, but I have never heard that -- and I don't know how you would do it in politics, in an election, structuring things so that you barely win it. I don't know how you would go about doing that. There are too many variables."...
[Ed. note: Mr. Limbaugh says at the end of the post this isn't his theory, just one he's seen or heard from others. While the GOP is desperate to get rid of the TP and conservatives, he says the current amnesty push is more about donor money and pleasing the media.]
(continuing): "Apparently, the polling data is so bad for the Democrats in the midterms, and I think that's true, that the Republicans (so goes this theory) are afraid to win too big....
There are many sources for this. I first came across this sometime during the day on Saturday....
I came across a piece at RealClearPolitics by a young man named Sean Trende, or pronounced Trende....He has a very, very lengthy piece at RealClearPolitics on this.
Point five here is: "Republicans are afraid of winning." I read this, and it dovetails with a couple/maybe three other places. Here, in a nutshell, is the thinking -- and the thinking, by the way, derives from people who can't make head nor tails of the Republican strategy. They think it makes so little sense that there's got to be some conspiratorial reason. There has to be some hidden reason that we wouldn't figure out immediately to explain this because it doesn't make any sense.
When, in fact, the simplest and most easily understood explanation is probably the reason. But since that's so unacceptable, people have had to search and come up with theories to explain this. And again, it's: Why are the Republicans committing suicide? Why are they advancing an issue that otherwise is dead? Why are they advancing an issue that the base of their party opposes virulently?
Why are they advancing an issue that only 3% of the population deems important right now, given everything else going on? This is "amnesty" or "pathway to citizenship" or "comprehensive immigration reform." Why are they doing it? The simple answer is that moneyed Republican donors, as epitomized by the Chamber of Commerce, are demanding it, and money is the mother's milk of politics.
These donors are saying, "If you want our money -- and further, if you want a high-paying job with my trade association when your career is over in Congress -- then you'll give me this." That's the simple explanation. They're simply responding to the money people. But that's not good enough for some. "It's got to be more. It can't be that. They wouldn't be willing to commit suicide."
Well, they're not. The people who are gonna score with high-paying jobs after doing this are not committing suicide. They are, in effect, greasing the skids. So here it is, the grandchild to 2010 big, Republican landslide win, brought on by who? The Tea Party.
In 2010, the Tea Party comes to life outta nowhere. Nobody saw it when it was happening; nobody knew what it was. When it was growing, nobody knew how to define it because there wasn't a single leader. There wasn't a headquarters....
They saw an unresponsive political class in Washington. They didn't see an opposition party in the Republican Party. They didn't see anybody trying to stop Obama. They saw a party paralyzed by media criticism....
As a result, the Republicans picked up 50-some-odd seats when they weren't even trying to. A lot of those new seats were held by people from this new so-called Tea Party, and they were real conservative Republicans -- and the Republican leadership, the Republican establishment was not happy, it turns out.
I mean, they liked winning, they liked getting the House back, but they didn't like the fact that the reason for it was the Tea Party. And the 2010 midterms...happened not because the Republicans put forth any ideas....That was strictly an anti-status quo election....
It would seem to me an automatic match-up for these people with the Republican Party. And, therefore, it would make sense to me if the Republican Party began outreach to 'em. Try to bring 'em into the fold, make 'em Republicans. That didn't happen. In fact, just the opposite happened. As the Democrats mounted their criticism and began calling them "teabaggers," the Republicans themselves expressed suspicion and consternation and anger with these people for one reason or another.
So they remained isolated, even though they were the sole reason there was any pushback against Barack Obama. Well, the theory begins with the notion the Republicans do not want that happening again, because the Republicans are trying to get rid of the Tea Party influence within the party, because the Tea Party doesn't understand the role of government in politics or in people's lives.
The Republican establishment right now happens to believe that the game is over in terms of Big Government being involved in people's lives. Some very astute -- well, not astute. Some intellectual Republican theorists, commentators, writers, journalists really believe that the debate over big and small government is over and that Big Government has won. And they believe that the vast majority of the American people want a Big Government.
Therefore, the Republican establishment believes that their future success is tied to convincing Americans who want an active, involved government, that they are better at running such a government than the Democrats are.
But at no point and at no time are Republicans to talk about limiting government or reducing it because, standard operating procedure today, Republican establishment, Democrat establishment is that...Americans have accepted and want an actively involved Big Government in their lives. The Tea Party is devoted to the exact opposite premise. And therefore, the Tea Party is a problem. And so, therefore, are conservatives a problem, because conservatives and the Tea Party, to the extent that they differ, are now the old-fashioned fuddy-duddies, out of touch and out of tune with the mainstream of America....
Which, again, has bought the notion that Americans, by large majorities, want an active, Big Government with a strong executive, but doing it smartly and wisely and with the proper respect on limits.That is how they're trying to differentiate themselves from the Democrats.
So now if you come forward to 2014, the polling data is such --
George Miller, another congressman from California who has been there since before the Sandinista days. George Miller was the Sandinistas' liaison in Congress. George Miller was the liaison for communists in Nicaragua -- well, wherever he could find them. George Miller is resigning, and a bunch of Democrats who do not want to be in the House if they're not running it or retiring. So it tells us that the Democrats' own polling data is such that it's lost in 2014. The House, the Democrats don't have a prayer getting it back. In fact, the same polling data shows that the Republicans could win the Senate.
But let's stick with the House because the theory is that it's so bad for the Democrats that the Republicans are again going to win by default simply because they're not the Democrats, because they didn't have anything to do with Obamacare, because they hold no responsibility for anything that's happened....I mean, there's no way you can put Republican fingerprints on anything because the media has spent the last five or six years bashing the Republicans for not helping.....
There's no way you can turn around now on a dime and do a 180 and blame any of this on the Republicans.
Obama's tried to get their fingerprints on stuff with tricks, on debt ceiling increases and so forth, but there aren't any. Until you get to amnesty. And then that's being set up that if that happens, that's gonna be only the Republican's fingerprints. The only owners of it will be the Republicans. Now, theory holds that the Republicans were not happy with what happened in 2010 because of who made that majority possible, who made that landslide possible, and they don't want to go through it again.
They're trying -- you know this is true -- Republican leadership is trying to get rid of Tea Party influence in the House, trying to get rid of conservative influence, trying to get rid of anybody who believes government should be limited. They're trying to get rid of anybody who believes the role of government should be rolled back.
So reading now from Mr. Trende: "In the course of my musings on Twitter, AmishDude suggested that the real motive here is that the GOP leadership is actually concerned about the implications of a landslide. Of all the suggestions put out there, this seems to make the most sense, and synthesizes the above theories reasonably well while addressing most of my pushbacks on them. The idea is twofold. First, a landslide would present as much of a problem as it does an opportunity for those who might want to revisit the issue in 2015."
Oh, that's another thing. If there is a landslide for the Republicans brought on by the Tea Party in 2014, it's not good for people like Christie and others who want the Republican nomination in 2016.
If the Tea Party delivers another landslide, then the Republican establishment is in deeper trouble when it comes to time to nominate their presidential candidate because the Tea Party is going to demand one of them, a conservative, limited government, roll it back.
So the theory is the Republicans will do anything to limit the power and influence of the Tea Party, including championing an issue that's designed to make them so mad, they don't vote in 2014. And that the Republicans' position is so strong that they can still win the midterms while ticking off the Tea Party. The best of all worlds would be if the Republicans hold the House, minus Tea Party votes, by passing amnesty. They get their money from the Chamber. They get to say they've run out and bridged the gap to the Hispanics, and they get their high paying jobs with the Chamber and its companies and related businesses when they retire, and the Tea Party has no influence in the win and therefore no influence when we get to 2016 and presidential nominee time....
Let me just wrap up this theory bit 'cause it's not my theory, but a lot of people hold it because they're unable to look at what is probably the simple logical explanation and reject it because it's too simple and too logical. And the simple, logical explanation for why the Republicans are pushing amnesty is because their moneyed donors want it....
Money is the mother's milk of politics, and there it is. The Chamber of Commerce, who may, in fact, have been infiltrated and taken over by the left, 'cause this is very un-Chamber-like. But we want it, we want it now, we're paying for it, here are the donations and you're not getting the money if you don't.
And then, as Ann Coulter said, who is more likely to hire John Boehner at 400 grand a year when he leaves the Speakership, you or somebody at the Chamber of Commerce who's satisfied with amnesty? It's a question that she raised in trying to explain, 'cause it's party suicide, not to mention what it's gonna do to the country. If you want to find out what it's gonna do to the county, look at California. If you want to find out what it's gonna do to the Republican Party, look at California....
So that theory is being bandied about out there and it's got some support....It makes sense they weren't happy with what happened in 2010. They didn't like the fact the Tea Party won, because it is established, folks. I wasn't trying to irritate or make you mad. I mean, fact of the matter is, at the Republican establishment level, party level, consultant level, in many Republican so-called conservative media level, it is now accepted that the people of this country want a Big Government, and therefore, the idea of a limited smaller government is a guaranteed loser.
This is what the Republican establishment thinks, and this is one of the many reasons they want to get rid of the conservative influence in the party, because the conservative influence, of course, is defined by the limited role of government as defined in our founding. And that's not where the Republican establishment is now....We Republicans, we know how to do Big Government smarter, in less obtrusive ways....
If they pulled this off, if they win getting amnesty, they're done. The same level of anger that's directed at them now will exist. In fact, it'll be worse. The day-to-day life of a Republican will be worse if they win while guaranteeing the Tea Party has no role in it. And I know they've gotta be thinking about that....
I have seen entities not care about winning. I've seen it in sports teams. I have seen it in certain politicians. Some don't want to win.
And I could believe that some of the Republicans don't care about winning. I don't believe they want to win small. I just think there's some that are indifferent about winning 'cause it's harder. When you win, you've got pressure. When you win, you have to be aggressive and do things. When you win, the people that voted for you expect you to carry out the mandate. And that's hard.
"The media's gonna criticize us and they're gonna call us bigots and racists and, oh, man, we don't want that." ...
So why would it make sense in politics?...For some of them, it's comfortable. You go back to the old Bob Michel days. They were comfortable in the minority. There was no pressure. They could never be blamed for anything that went wrong. It was a safety net, in a way, and it was a low-pressure existence, and they didn't have to do any work. They didn't even go to half the meetings 'cause the Democrats wouldn't let 'em in, and that was okay, too. Back when we had 135 members in the 435-seat House. That's just recently as 1987, '88.
So you can certainly see where some RINO Republican types would be saying "Yeah, okay, we're gonna do some things that are gonna tick off the base, might cause us to lose, but so what. The media might love us then. The media might love us if we bleed all over the Tea Party. The media might actually love us if we kick the Tea Party around." And believe me, they want to be loved by the media. Oh, folks, do not doubt that for a moment.... Just do not doubt me. They would love to be loved by the media. They would love to be able to go, for example, to the White House Correspondents Dinner and be heroes, or be popular at the White House, rather than, "Oh, no, here come the Republicans," and everybody starts making jokes about 'em. They love to be loved by the media.
So if they can secure a defeat by killing the Tea Party off, they might be heroes. Any number of possibilities for believing that, but I don't think anybody ever plans to win -- but not by too much. So I don't think there's some diabolical plan here. I just think it's run-of-the-mill indifference by people who are worn out. They're tired of being ripped and criticized. They just are, and they want to get some praise from the people ripping 'em to shreds.
They don't care about being ripped by the Tea Party 'cause they don't particularly like the Tea Party anyway. They would love to be loved by the media. ...Well, John Boehner and the media, "Love to have you love me, Baby." Don't doubt me on this." above image from RushLimbaugh.com
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