Politics
Elephant
This Week in Republican In-Fighting
- At a Tea Party rally in Phoenix, Arizona, organized by an anti-illegal-immigrant group called American Citizens United, a scuffle broke out between organizers and two members of the National Socialist Movement. Apparently, one of the organizers became enraged when the Neo-Nazis unfurled an Adolf Hitler flag after being told that displays of racism weren’t welcome. But, Nazis will be Nazis, and so the man with the flag, JT Ready, responded to the protester’s concerns by shoving him to the ground.
- The conservative Club for Growth announced their endorsement of former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio over Gov. Charlie Crist in next year’s Florida Senate race. Crist, once considered by many to be the future of the Republican party (not to mention a potential running mate for John McCain in 2008) has come under fire by conservative groups for his support of Barack Obama’s stimulus plan and his recent backpedaling of that support. Rubio, who hates taxes, Castro, and socialized medicine, is now considered by many on the far right to be the future of the Republican Party.
- Venerable three-term Utah senator and conservative Robert F. Bennett announced that, despite his staunch opposition to higher taxes, bigger government, and financial regulations, and despite the fact that he has supported precisely none of President Obama’s initiatives, he has already had to spend $500,000 and air TV ads (after airing none in 2004) to fend off primary challenges from hard-line conservatives. The Club for Growth has come out against Bennett, criticizing him for his support of the 2008 Wall Street bailout and for daring to communicate with Democrats about health care reform. The also don’t like that he has criticized their use of the word “socialism” as a “buzzword” and a distraction.
- South Carolina Republican Representative Bob Inglis told the Greenville News that the old-school Reagan coalition (of fiscal conservatives, social conservatives, and moderate Democrats) is now “running on fumes” and faces extinction in the face of anti-incumbent pressure from hard-liners and Tea Party agitators. Claiming that these hard-liners are indifferent to abortion and other social issues and would let people without health insurance “die on the steps of the hospital” to make a point about the dangers of socialized medicine, Inglis called on the man from Galilee to draw the distinction between this new breed of conservative ideologues and the breed of conservative ideologues he favors: “I’m thinking there was a guy named Jesus who had some things to say about these kinds of concepts,” he said. “And I don’t want to live in a society that lets a few test cases die on the steps of the hospital.” Inglis is facing a primary challenge from no fewer than three members of his party.
- Finally, Sarah Palin’s biography, Going Rogue: An American Life, was released today and has already being touted as little more than a settling of scores with John McCain’s campaign team, primarily chief strategist Steve Schmidt. She characterizes the campaign as defeatist and poorly managed and Schmidt as an vindictive bully. In response, members of the McCain team have called the book a “fiction” and have reiterated claims that Palin was woefully unqualified for the nomination and refused to prepare for her interview with Katie Couric. Jumping into the fray, conservative columnist David Brooks called Palin “a joke” and said, “I mean, I just can’t take her seriously. We have got serious problems in the country. Barack Obama is trying to handle a war. We just had a guy elected Virginia governor who is probably the model for the future of the Republican Party, Bob McDonnell: Pretty serious guy, pragmatic, calm, kind of boring. The idea that this potential talk show host is considered seriously for the Republican nomination … believe me, it will never happen. Republican primary voters are just not going to elect a talk show host.”
Tune in next week.
Comments
Add a Comment