The GOP's Vicious Internal War: Republican Establishment Trying To Exile Tea Partiers And Extremists

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http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/gops-vicious-internal-war-republican-establishment-trying-exile-tea-partiers-and



The Republican Party is seeing some of the nastiest intra-party fights since the 2012 presidential primaries, as corporate lobbyists and national party leaders battle upstart Tea Partiers and loudmouth Washington ideologues over what defines the party now and who will be this year’s candidates for Congress.

The most recent example occurred this week, as Speaker of the House John Boehner brought a bill to the floor raising the federal debt into 2015—with no spending cuts attached—and it passed with only 28 Republicans voting yes. As Boehner’s intentions became known, the GOP’s big schism—pitting party leaders and big business against grassroots Tea Partiers and longtime anti-debt, anti-tax crusaders erupted. The hard-core right-wingers issued threats to Republicans if they voted for it. After it passed, they launched calls for Boehner’s ouster.

“We’re being play like fools,” blared RedState.com Daniel Horowitz’s column. “A complete capitulation,” said Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, which, like fellow GOP extremist groups, FreedomWorks, ForAmerica, Senate Conservatives Fund, are circulating petitions to replace the Speaker.

The dueling in Republican ranks isn’t confined to Washington, where just last week Tea Partiers and right-wingers joined forces and convinced Boehner not to bring a major Senate-passed immigration bill to the floor for a vote, after another rounds of threats to House Republicans and to unseat him.

[pampango]

1. "Whether this fight is a spiraling identity crisis for a disintegrating national party or GOP

leaders are finally relegating backbench status to Tea Partiers and other purists is an open question. The answer is not clear-cut, because even though Washington’s Republican establishment has a lot of money, power and influence, they are not the only GOP faction with money and weight to throw around.

The GOP has always had factions. Since the ‘80s, business conservatives have had to live with the religious right. That uneasy status quo was shaken up after 2010’s Tea Party wave, which elevated white, wealthier and older Republicans who are anti-regulation, anti-spending, anti-tax and anti-compromise. The Tea Party wave revived other longtime scolds, such as Brent Bozell, whose group, ForAmerica, left 5,500 voicemails a week ago saying that voting for the Senate-passed immigration reform bill was “ turncoat” and would have consequences.

This is the landscape sent the most recalcitrant Republicans to Congress, including the faction that forced the government shutdown in October. That episode led the national GOP leadership and its corporate sponsors to try to put the extremist genie back in the bottle by limiting its impact in 2014 elections. But as the Supreme Court has loosened campaign finance rules in recent years, a rash of new GOP operatives—inside and outside of Washington circles—has been raising and spending millions on their agenda.

The GOP’s establishment wing includes the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Karl Rove’s Crossroads and its affiliated groups—which spent $300 million to try to defeat President Obama and retake the Senate in 2012, and the congressional campaign committees that are official party operations. On the outside are Tea Party Patriots and other groups—some based in Washington such as Heritage Action, the Senate Conservatives Fund—and others outside the beltway in the network created by libertarian billionaires David and Charles Koch.

How ironic is this?: "But as the Supreme Court has loosened campaign finance rules in recent years, a rash of new GOP operatives—inside and outside of Washington circles—has been raising and spending millions on their agenda."

The Supreme Court ruling that has given Big Money such an advantage (and has, of course, given the rich and republicans so much more influence) has had the effect of weakening the "GOP's establishment's" hold on republican campaign funding and giving the Koch brothers'-funded tea party groups greater access to funding. (Do you sense any irony there Mr. Boehner, Mr. McConnell, et. al.?)

The "GOP establishment" vs. the Koch brothers. Both bad for the country. Let their intra-party fighting continue and continue and continue. Each side will probably win some battles but I hope they emerge weakened in any case.

[riqster]

2. A very good read. Kick and Rec.