.
Former Republican Senator Danforth said he was "counting on nausea" of voters to deprive Republican candidates in Nov. 2006 elections. (2/2/2006, Washington Post, p.1). 27 Republican incumbents were defeated (23 in the House, 4 in the Senate) in Nov. 2006.
Danforth's 2006 book, “Faith and Politics“ asked, “Are Christians reconcilers or dividers?“ Today Danforth
is on Board of Directors of powerful "Commission on Presidential Debates," and is fundraising for Jeb Bush.
2/2/2006, "'St. Jack' and the Bullies in the Pulpit," Washington Post, Peter Slevin, St. Louis
 |
| Sen. Danforth |
p. 5: "The retired senator...is writing a book to be released during this year's (2006) political
campaign, and he is counting on the anguished, the aggrieved and the
annoyed to push back against the Christian right."...(near end of p. 5)
p. 1: "Jack Danforth wishes the Republican right would step down from its
pulpit. Instead, he sees a constant flow of religion into national
politics. And not just any religion, either, but the...velvet-fist variety of Christian
evangelism....
As he sees it, many Republican leaders have lost their
bearings and, if they don't change, will lose their grip on power. Not
to mention make the United States a meaner place.
Danforth is no squalling liberal. He is a lifelong Republican....The lanky figure once dubbed "St. Jack,"...expects
people will sour on the assertive brand of Christianity so closely
branded Republican.
"I'm counting on nausea," he says.
In a political year that promises a fresh battle for the national soul,
religion is emerging as a tool and a test, with Danforth's words marking
a fissure within the GOP. The conservative evangelical Christian
movement that helped propel President Bush and congressional Republicans
into power has become a big, fat target, even as Democrats and GOP
moderates agonize about how to capture more votes from the faithful.
"The Republican Party has been taken over by something that it's not,"
Danforth says over a suitably austere lunch of steamed vegetables in a
well-appointed 40th-floor St. Louis club overlooking the Mississippi.
"How do traditional Republicans put up with this? They put up with this
because it's a winning combination, for now. It won't last." Why won't it last?
"It won't stand the light of day," Danforth says in one of several
conversations. "The more people think about it, the more people will
resist it. People do not want a sectarian political party, including a
lot of people who are traditional Republicans."
Richard Land gets a big laugh out of that. The combative voice of the Southern Baptist Convention and confidant of
White House political guru Karl Rove has little use for Danforth,
however grand his religious and political pedigrees. He describes the
former senator as "what was wrong with the Republican Party and why they
were a minority party....
p. 2: The struggle for hearts and minds gets reflected in the ballot box,"
Land says, setting up the twist of the knife. "It just sounds to me like
Danforth's sore that he lost the argument with a majority of the
American people."...
p. 4: "In March (2006)...he (Danforth) wrote an opinion
piece for the New York Times. It opened with the blunt assertion that
"Republicans have transformed our party into the political arm of
conservative Christians."
In that essay and another in June, Danforth argued publicly for the
first time that the Republican right is a divisive force in the party
and the nation. He traced a relationship between increased activism by
Christian conservatives and the collapse of collegiality....
The articles rocketed around the Internet. Liberals, along with a raft
of lonely Republican moderates, loved them....
Commentator Z. Dwight Billingsly, writing in the St. Louis
Post-Dispatch, pointed out a cold calculus, that when Danforth took
office in 1977, there were 143 Republicans in the House and 38 in the
Senate, compared with 232 in the House and 55 in the Senate last year:
"Danforth-style Republicans can forgive our own party anything except
success, probably because they never knew it and didn't bring it about.
In fact, it happened in spite of them."...
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In Nov. 2010, Danforth told the NY Times that if Sen. Lugar wasn't returned by voters for a sixth term (for a total of 36 years) in 2012, then the Republican Party has “gone so far overboard that we are beyond redemption:"
11/27/2010, "Senator Lugar Charts His Course Against the Winds," NY Times, Jennifer Steinhauer
"“If Dick Lugar,” said John C. Danforth, a former Republican senator from Missouri, “having served five terms in the U.S. Senate
and being the most respected person in the Senate and the leading
authority on foreign policy, is seriously challenged by anybody in the Republican Party, we have gone so far overboard that we are beyond redemption.”"...
Mr. Danforth, who was first elected the same year as Mr. Lugar [1976 for term beginning 1977], added, “I’m glad Lugar’s there and I’m not.”"
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"A political
party was not a “fraternal order” he (Reagan) said tartly to the Times (in 1976),
and that was the real problem with moderate, Establishment
Republicanism. Which is why they kept setting the party up for repeated
defeats."
11/8/2013, “The Sabotage Republicans,” By Jeffrey Lord, American Spectator
"Up until now (Nov. 2013) not much has been made of the long, disgraceful trait of
Establishment Republicans to demand party unity — unless they lose a
primary or a convention. In which case they simply refuse to unite
behind the winning conservative. And deliberately, with malice
aforethought —
actively seek to sabotage that conservative....
There was one notable exception to this....A month after the 1976
election, Reagan made a point of breaking the traditional conservative
silence on losing Establishment races and turned the tables. A political
party was not a “fraternal order” he said tartly to the Times,
and that was the real problem with moderate, Establishment
Republicanism. Which is why they kept setting the party up for repeated
defeats.
In fact, one of the real problems here...is that moderate Republicans not only refuse
to pull together. They go out of their way to sabotage the conservative.
Say it again? That word is sabotage. Betrayal. The Establishment GOP goes out…of…its…way to sabotage....
Let’s name some names here, shall we? Present and past to illustrate the point. We’ll start here with this story in Breitbart by Matthew Boyle. The headline?
Cantor’s Ex-Chief of Staff Helped McAuliffe to Victory
The story begins thusly:
The
ex-chief of staff for House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA)
helped Democrat Terry McAuliffe beat Republican Ken Cuccinelli in
Virginia’s gubernatorial election race.
Boyle goes
on to detail how GOP House Majority Leader’s ex-chief of staff Boyd
Marcus, who had supported the GOP moderate Lieutenant Governor Bill
Bolling over Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli for governor. Cuccinelli
won the day — so what to do? Why but of course! Marcus was out the door
to help defeat Cuccinelli by actively working to elect Democrat Terry
McAuliffe.
Marcus is quoted as saying — and I have supplied the bold print for emphasis:
“I
was looking at the candidates, and I saw Terry McAuliffe as the guy who
will work with everybody to get things done…Virginia needs an
experienced businessman who will put the practical needs of our people ahead of political ideology. I’ve never before supported any Democrat, but this election Terry is the clear choice for mainstream conservatives. I am excited to work with him to grow the already-long list of prominent Republican leaders who are supporting his campaign.”
Got that?
Terry
McAuliffe — your basic left-wing liberal, huge supporter of Obamacare,
abortion on demand, high taxes and big government among other things
(does the name Hillary Clinton ring a bell?) — and Boyd Marcus the
Cantor/Bolling guy, plus an “already-long list of prominent
Republicans,” see Ken Cuccinelli as the ideologue. And these guys are, they say, the “mainstream conservatives.”
Scratch a “mainstream conservative” on Eric Cantor’s staff, apparently, and what you really have is a left-wing liberal.
Is
there any wonder why the GOP House Leadership has had so many problems
dealing with conservative members? Clearly there is reason to believe
the Leader’s staff of the supposedly conservative party isn’t even close
to being “mainstream conservative.” In the case of Marcus, he has
vividly illustrated that in fact he was all too willing to go over the
side to a far-left ideology.
Marcus isn’t alone in the Sabotage Republican category. In fact, he is merely typical of the breed....
What, pray tell, was going on with Reince Priebus and the Republican National Committee?
With the Chamber of Commerce? Here’s this from Politico:
McAuliffe
outraised Cuccinelli by almost $15 million, and he used the cash
advantage to pummel him on the airwaves. A lack of resources forced the
Republican to go dark in the D.C. media market during the final two
weeks.
The Republican National Committee spent about $3 million on
Virginia this year, compared to $9 million in the 2009 governor’s race.
The Chamber of Commerce spent $1 million boosting McDonnell in 2009 and none this time.
“If
the Republicans would have rallied around the nominee instead of
refusing to support Cuccinelli, he would have won,” said a GOP source
involved in the race.
Then there is Louisiana
Governor Bobby Jindal and the Republican Governors Association deciding
to take their money and, instead of giving directly to Cuccinelli, going
off on their own to do commercials talking about… China. That’s
right…not Obamacare, but China.
Here’s Matt Lewis on this over at the Daily Caller:
“Bobby
Jindal’s presidential campaign is over,” said the Cuccinelli advisor.
“He screwed this up so bad. And I don’t know why. The campaign knew it
was moving numbers over ObamaCare. And the RGA was not very far from
that information, they could have obtained it themselves,” the advisor
continued. “They should have given the money to the campaign to spend as
opposed to running these stupid China ads. They just blew it.”
About the only thing one can say for Jindal is that this was political incompetence as opposed to political sabotage.
And
who will forget Chris Christie? Last year, as the key moment of the
presidential campaign arrived along with Hurricane Sandy, Christie went
out of his way to put his arm around Romney opponent President Obama.
This year (2013)...cruising to a 60% percent victory and asked to spare a few
hours for Cuccinelli, Christie refused. Once again, it was all about
Christie.
And this is the guy who is supposed to be the new leader of the party?
The
fact here is that sabotaging conservatives is built into the DNA of the
GOP Establishment. Unable to win themselves a considerable bit of the
time — and then continuing to move the country left when they do win,
just not as fast and so much better managed don’t you know — they have
never ever changed....
With the conservative base in open rebellion in
the 2016 primaries, awarding the nomination to, say, Texas Senator Ted
Cruz? You can bet that America will be treated to yet another knee-jerk,
reflexive response from the quarters of the GOP Establishment.
Sabotage.
The
GOP Establishment will find a way — quietly or not so quietly — to
sabotage the conservative nominee if there is a conservative nominee in
2016. This is what they do....
The Republican Party has two serious problems on its hands.
The
first is with those like Eric Cantor’s ex-chief of staff who are
invited into leadership positions in the party — when they in fact are
not conservatives at all and quietly or openly seek to sabotage the
party.
The second is with those Establishment Republicans who do
manage to win — and then see their job as merely managing the leftist
status quo.
This time around the target was Ken Cuccinelli. But Ken Cuccinelli wasn’t the first — and he isn’t going to be the last.
That is the Republican Party’s real problem. And it’s a big one."
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