Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
""Hopefully we'll go into eight to 10 races and beat the snot out of them." — former Rep. Steve LaTourette, R-OH
An interesting assertion in the Arizona Daily Star today, Business, GOP establishment: Tea party is over.
Hmmm, I don't think the GOP establishment fully appreciates just how out of control the Frankenstein monster it mistakenly created is.
Are they willing to begin disassembling the Mighty Wurlitzer of the conservative media entertainment complex right-wing noise machine that daily feeds the GOP crazy base?
Are they willing to defund the complex network of interconnected far-right political action committees, so-called think tanks, and 501(c) organizations? Are they willing to stop funding fringe Tea Party candidates, and to only give their money to sane candidates, including Democrats?
And how exactly do they propose to rein in far-right billionaire hedge fund managers and corporate CEOs like Sheldon Adelson, the Koch brothers, Club For Growth, etc.? What kind of leverage can they exert over this rogue gallery of bad boys?
With that said, here is an earlier report by Beth Reinhard at the National Journal on the same subject. Inside the Messy but Moneyed Republican Plan to Neutralize the Tea Party:
It took a tea-party insurrection that disabled the federal government
and wrecked the Republican brand, but after months of handwringing,
establishment Republicans are preparing to attack ultraconservative
ideologues across red America.
From
Alabama to Alaska, the center-right, business-oriented wing of the
Republican Party is gearing up for a series of skirmishes that it hopes
can prevent the 2014 midterm election from turning into another missed
opportunity. This will not be a coordinated operation. It will be messy,
ugly, and prone to backfiring. And if the comeback succeeds, it will be
in fits and starts, most likely culminating in the selection of a
presidential nominee in 2016.
"Hopefully
we'll go into eight to 10 races and beat the snot out of them," said
former Rep. Steve LaTourette of Ohio, whose new political group,
Defending Main Street, aims to raise $8 million to fend off tea-party
challenges against more mainstream Republican incumbents. "We're going
to be very aggressive and we're going to get in their faces."
Tactics being discussed among Republican strategists, donors, and
party leaders include running attack ads against tea-party candidates
for Congress; overthrowing Ron Paul's libertarian acolytes dominating
the Iowa and Minnesota state parties; promoting open primaries over
nominating conventions, which can produce Republican hard-liners such
as Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli and
shutdown-instigator Mike Lee of Utah; and countering political
juggernauts Heritage Action, the Club for Growth, and FreedomWorks that
target Republican incumbents who have consorted with Democrats.
LaTourette's
Defending Main Street group has identified its first project: defending
Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho. The Club for Growth threw its support to a
tea-party challenger, Bryan Smith, because Simpson backed the $700
million Wall Street bailout, raising the debt ceiling, and a budget deal
that staved off the fiscal cliff.
Defending
Main Street also is keeping an eye on other House Republicans who have
drawn the wrath of the Club for Growth, including Aaron Schock and Adam
Kinzinger of Illinois and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, who is
running for the Senate.
* * *
Along with LaTourette's group, another player in the battle for
control of the Republican Party will be the Conservative Victory
Project, an arm of the Crossroads super PAC founded by Republican
strategist Karl Rove. The group plans to vet GOP primary candidates with
the goal of sending the most viable conservative to the general
election.
"We
want to avoid situations like 2010 with (Delaware Republican nominee)
Christine O'Donnell, where a candidate gains momentum and the skeletons
come out after the primary," said Crossroads spokesman Jonathan
Collegio. "If skeletons exist, we'll make every effort to make sure
they're known to every group that spends money long before the primary."
The
business community is potentially a major ally in the Republican
establishment's comeback plan. After long fueling Republican campaigns,
corporate leaders were stunned that a wing of the party would refuse to
fund the government and again risk national default in the hope of
moving an immovable object, namely Obama's health care law.
"We
expect politicians to conduct themselves in such a way that respects
the rule of law and the process by which our forefathers constructed
this republic," said Greg Casey, president of a nationwide coalition of
business groups called BIPAC. Like other business leaders and prominent
Republicans, Casey was reluctant to identify specific targets for fear
of antagonizing the conservative grassroots. [The GOP crazy base]
* * *
Because efforts to roll the tea party typically provoke activists to
roar back stronger than ever, the old guard is stumped in some
instances. Ideally, the establishment would figure out a way to channel
the movement's passion into electoral victories in 2014 and 2016. But how do you control Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, the Republican
ringleader of the shutdown, who may not count enough friends on Capitol
Hill to rename a post office but whose real power comes from outside
Washington? How do you influence House Republicans when gerrymandering
leaves them with little to fear?
"This
conflict could be the new normal," warned Rob Jesmer, former executive
director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. "Until we have
a nominee people can rally around in 2016, I think we're going to be
the wilderness for a while."
The Defending Mainstreet Super PAC is allied with Main StreetAdvocacy. According to the Sunlight Foundation, this Super PAC does not have much money on hand. DEFENDING MAIN STREET SUPERPAC INC – Follow the Unlimited Money.