News from the Republican Putsch
Now that Fox News has officially thrown Dede Scozzafava out of the Republican Party (why would they let her stay, after all, now that Rush Limbaugh has outed her for “bestiality,” saying she has “screwed every RINO in the country?” nice way to woo women voters, party boss!) … the next target for the teabagger jihadis is liekly to be our very own Miss Charlie Crist. Crist has already been declared tomorrow’s big loser by TPM (although I would argue that the two biggest losers are actually NRSC chairman John Cornyn, who has lost control of the base and thus become their chief target, and Michael Steele, who never had the respect of the wingers anyway. And throw in Newt Gingrich, too…) since either a Doug Hoffman win or a Doug Hoffman loss in New York will embolden the teabag brigade to attempt to Scozzafava every “RINO” they see — starting with Governor Crist.Crist has been derided as a “loser,” and marked for poltiical death by the RedState storm troopers, who have been at war with the Republican establishment for months over their endorsement of him over nascent fire breathing right winger Marco Rubio. From Politico:
“New York 23, on some scale, is the first battle of a larger internal Republican debate over how to define the party,” said former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, a conservative who is challenging Crist for the Senate nomination. “They want us to vote for their candidates, but they don’t want us to run for office.”
Rubio’s race is one that many on the right point to as the next New York 23, a contest where conservatives and tea party activists are in open revolt about Crist and the national party’s decision to endorse him despite his embrace — literally — of President Barack Obama and his stimulus package during a Florida visit in February.
Rubio has won nearly a dozen county GOP straw polls across the state and is rapidly becoming a darling of the tea party movement.
And in case you doubt that the teabaggers are willing to burn the house down, there’s this:
Everett Wilkinson, an organizer for the Florida Tea Party Patriots, said his group plans to take part in get-out-the-vote activities and other efforts to deny Crist the GOP nomination, despite the fact that Crist leads both Rubio and Rep. Kendrick Meek, the likely Democratic nominee, by a comfortable margin.
To Wilkinson, he’d rather burn the house down if it means saving it.
“We would lose if Charlie Crist got elected or if another person who doesn’t support our policies got elected,” he said. “Our members are actively going to get out there and create awareness of the governor’s actions.”
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), a leading conservative who has endorsed Rubio, said he viewed the Florida Senate race as distinct from the New York special election. But he agreed with Rubio’s contention that the national party needed to broaden its outlook on candidates.
“I’m not saying our party made a mistake, because there’s a debate within the party over what we should be,” he said. “If we just start looking at who can win — sometimes we might miss a gem in the rough in effect. And I said from the beginning, that’s what I think Rubio is.”
In other words: they’d rather lose with an extremist they like, than win (and be electorally relevant) with a moderate they don’t.
The Republican putsch has even gotten the attention of the normally winger-friendly Wall Street Journal editorial board, which wrote today that:
The truth is that some conservatives are as bloody-minded and intolerant of all dissent as the hard left is at the Daily Kos. A majority political party requires a far more diverse coalition than the audience for your average right-wing blogger or talk show host. Some of those voices prefer having Democrats in power because it drives up their own ratings.
(with due apologies to Daily Kos) … and they added that it might not be such a smart idea for Republicans, who are now wholly owned subsidiaries of the teabagger movement, to try and force candidates in Illinois and California to “sound like Tom Delay.
Well, the RedStaters were having none of that, with one jihadi typing in full dudgeon:
First, please name any major conservative politician, pundit, talk radio show host or blogger who has ever seriously said – or even implied – that a Republican candidate need agree with them on every issue. Please be specific.
Um … Erick Erickson of RedState.com??? During the primaries, every GOP candidate felt constrained to flog his “pro-life” credentials (with the exception of Rudy Giuliani — more on him later) and Romney was forced to undergo a full-body conversion on the subject, just to remain viable. Mike Huckabee’s candidacy was trashed daily by everyone from the Club for Growth (which labeled the far right preacher an “economic liberal” and “the John Edwards of the Republican Party”) to RedState.com, because while he was “right on abortion” and guns, he had dared, once during his governorship of Arkansas, to raise taxes. And down he went. If you seriously believe that any Republican could pass through the crucible of the hard right, which now absolutely controls the Republican Party, without being down the line on every issue, from abortion to guns to gays to taxes — you’re deluding yourself. Even now, Col. Von Erickson is declaring that no Republican is qualified to lead the party — and that includes Mitt Romney and Huckabee — unless they get down on one knee and endorse Doug Hoffman. The litmus tests just keep coming…
Second, who is it – specifically – that is as “bloody-minded and intolerant of all dissent as the hard left is at the Daily Kos,” and on what issue or issues in particular? Because comparing a conservative’s intolerance of politicians who fail to support our soldiers, or who appease terrorists, or who confirm extreme activist judges, or who constantly embrace big government spending, or who support economy-killing environmental policy, or who “negotiate” a form of socialized medicine… with those on the left’s intolerance of those who don’t do enough of these things is absurd.
Um … Michelle Malkin? She has now declared Newt Gingrich, of all people to be unworthy of remaining in the party for his apostasy in not supporting the third party candidate against a member of the party for which he served as Speaker of the House. Or what about the wack-job FReepers, who ban anyone foolhardy enough to say the words “George Bush” or “Sarah Palin” in an unpleasant tone of voice … Glenn Beck … Rush Limbaugh … Sean Hannity … and even the supremely arrogant Erick Erickson of … Redstate.com … all have granted themselves the right to decide who is, and who is not, a Republican. Collin Powell? OUT! John McCain? Not good enough! Apparently, the only people who are worthy are those who routinely mangle the English language, know nothing about issues, or who are really, really evil… Remember when skinny minny Laura Ingraham went after Meghan McCain, even trashing her weight, because she didn’t like Ms. McCain’s divergent views? And there’s more:
- It was abortion that made it impossible for John McCain to pick former Pennsylvania Governor and Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge as his running-mate. To do so would have been “political suicide.” So he chose a wacky, Aslaskan religious fanatic instead…
- Despite the right’s adoration of Joe Lieberman for HIS adoration of George W. Bush, the very idea that he might be considered as John McCain’s runningmate set the right into a tizzy … because he doesn’t agree with them on every issue…
- Wingers love Rudy Giuliani, but his liberal views on gay marriage and abortion killed his candidacy before he even got to Florida…
- Elected Republicans are not permitted to even voice the most meager opposition to anything Rush Limbaugh says — no matter outrageous — lest they be forced to get down on all fours and grovel like scullery maids, and that includes the chairman of the party …
More questions from the jihadis:
Third, which “right-wing blogger or talk show host” prefers “having Democrats in power because it drives up their own ratings,” specifically? Rush? Sean? Levin? RedState? National Review Online? Who?
Um … all of the above???
I mean, wasn’t it Col Von Erickson himself, who just days ago announced that “The GOP Establishment Must Be Purged as the GOP Loses in NY-23?” And wasn’t the intense opposition to Ms. Scozzafava based largely on her views on abortion and gay marriage, not fiscal responsibility or taxes, other the stuff RedState claims as principles?
Luckily, there is one honest blogger left at RedState. Someone called “the black conservative” — which translates to, the angry brother with no African-American friends… has declared that “the big tent is closed for renovation” — and just to show how far to the right the once Grand Old Party is moving, John McCain — one of the most right wing guys in the Senate, for any war, anywhere, against all earmarks, even for his own state, and the guy who tried to put Sarah Palin a heartbeat away from the button, is now a “liberal”…
Scozzafava is the straw that broke the camel’s back in terms of who we are as a party. Many in leadership want us to be like Howard Dean, all things to all people depending on the region. I say that principle has not worked for the Republican Party; the more we have expanded the Big Tent as Karl Rove said, the more that conservatism has suffered. The liberals in the GOP have owned the party, and we spend far too much of our time covering liberals like McCain, Lapdog Lindsey and the stimulus voting Maine girls and not enough time advancing a comprehensive conservative agenda.
And they say there’s no purge going on…
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