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The GOP Establishment Celebrates a Victory
Here is a representative of the GOP Establishment on primary night, celebrating the defeat of Tim Huelskamp, one of the good guys in his own party. The same GOP Establishment used valuable resources two years ago in an unsuccessful attempt to defeat Justin Amash, my own Congressman, who happens to be the best person in Congress. (It was through his mailing list that I learned of this tweet.)
Turns out Speaker Boehner is indeed enjoying Kansas primary night. Just received this from former staffer! pic.twitter.com/hIzmFt8hn0
— carl hulse (@hillhulse) August 3, 2016
It’s stuff like this that has shown me that it isn’t just that the GOPe is stupid and lazy. It’s not that that the GOPe wants the pragmatic path forward, while the firebrands in the Freedom Caucus just don’t understand the complications of how to achieve GOP goals.
No, the problem is that the GOP Establishment is vigorously opposed to anything good that the GOP stands for. It doesn’t want spending reform. It doesn’t want to set a good example of the way forward by cutting off Ex-Im and corporate welfare spending. It doesn’t want opportunities for the middle class, opportunities that are stifled by crony capitalism. It is doing well by corrupt accommodation to the Democrats, and doesn’t want anyone swirling up the stink of the cesspool where it has made itself comfortable.
Published in Politics
Yes, indeed, let’s look at each case. The guy didn’t represent his constituency, therefore the GOP summed all the resources it could muster to go into his district to wage a campaign against him. Makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it? I wonder which other sitting GOP congressmen don’t represent their constituencies to the satisfaction of the leadership and can expect similar national efforts against them.
Or is it that the GOP is so narrow and intolerant, so obsessed ideological purity, that it cannot stand to hear dissenting views from two gadflies who have been stripped of their committee assignments, but whose mere presence as the rare Republicans who actually represent Republican principles is so bothersome to the shriveled consciences of the party leadership that they must be driven out.
The GOP that talks about reconciliation and does something like this is a GOP that deserves to die a horrible, gruesome death.
“All the resources it could muster”? I don’t know if you’re referring to the million dollar campaign against him from End Spending Now or Boehner’s glass of wine, but in both cases there’s a lot more where that came from.
Not a lot of them. Walter Jones and a couple of others had minor efforts against them fail, just as George Holding, Paul Ryan, and a couple of others had Huelskamp fans fail in targeting them. In general, no faction of the GOP has spent all that much effort targeting other factions of the party in Congress this year; it’s one of the most positive things about this cycle and is partly why the polls are so positive downticket given the regrettable party fundraising and Presidential numbers.
Wait, the party leadership drove Huelskamp out?
Something like what? Is this still about Boehner drinking a glass of wine? Would it have been okay if he’d chuckled to himself without the wine, or is any celebration whatsoever excessive?