Heads up folks, if you're a believer in our Constitution, they’re a-comin’ for yer hide!
By Jeffrey Lord on 11.8.13 @ 6:10AM
The betrayal of Ken Cuccinelli has the GOP going back to the future.
Call them the Sabotage Republicans.
They have been busily at work in Virginia these last few weeks, sabotaging the gubernatorial campaign of Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.
But first?
Remember these headlines?
- From 2012: Romney Loses; Conservatives Weigh Limiting Clout of GOP Establishment
- From 2008: McCain Loses: Conservatives Call for GOP Reform
- From 2004: Bush Narrowly Beats Kerry; Conservatives Call for Rove Resignation
- From 2000: Bush wins by Supreme Court vote: Conservatives Call for End of “Compassionate Conservatism”
- From 1996: Dole Loses: Conservatives Demand End to Moderate Nominees
- From 1992: Bush Loses to Clinton: Conservatives Weigh Restrictions on GOP Establishment
If you don’t recall these headlines, no, your memory isn’t failing. They were never written.
And if you saw these headlines yesterday your eyes weren’t failing you either. They were written:
- From the New York Times: GOP Weighs Limiting Clout of Right Wing
- From the Washington Post: Close Result in Va. Governor’s Race Hardens GOP Divisions
- From Karl Rove in the Wall Street Journal: Lessons for 2014 From a Virginia Defeat
While we’re at it, let’s throw in one more headline, like the last three from yesterday, this headline too is a real one:
- From 1976 in the New York Times: Reagan Urges His Party to Save Itself By Declaring Its Conservative Beliefs
Now, notice anything here?
Every time some Establishment GOP nominee loses the White House or a hot gubernatorial, Senate or other race — conservatives have been silent about this unending ability of Establishment Republicans to lose either close elections or win them by unnecessarily close margins..
Yet if one conservative — that would be Ken Cuccinelli this week — loses a race, Katie bar the door.
Worse, up until now 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, captured in that 1976 New York Times headline which we have cited in this space many times.
Ronald Reagan had finally had enough — and in the aftermath of yet another Establishment GOP presidential crash he made clear what path the GOP had to follow if it really wanted to win. Losing to Gerald Ford in the battle for the 1976 nomination, Reagan made a rallying speech for Ford at the convention and campaigned for him that fall. Ford lost. 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 — as exemplified by the Cuccinelli defeat — 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. Spelled s-a-b-o-t-a-g-e.
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.
 | |
| Eric Cantor |
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. Finish reading>>
