[Vision2020] Establishment GOP: Tea Party Must be Stopped. This one's for Roger

[Nicholas Gier]

Hi Roger,

As a local establishment Republican, which side are you taking in this
national debate.

Inquiring minds wish to know,

Nick

An excerpt:

An Associated Press-GfK poll released Wednesday showed why these party
loyalists are so concerned: More Republicans told pollsters that the GOP is
mishandling the shutdown than is handling it well. And among those who say
it's being poorly handled, twice as many Republicans say the party is not
doing enough to negotiate with Obama than those who say the party is doing
too much.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — From county chairmen to national party luminaries,
veteran Republicans across the country are accusing tea party lawmakers of
staining the GOP with their refusal to bend in the budget impasse in
Washington.

The Republican establishment also is signaling a willingness to strike back
at the tea party in next fall's elections.

"It's time for someone to act like a grown-up in this process," former New
Hampshire Gov. John Sununu argues, faulting Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and tea
party Republicans in the House as much as President Barack Obama for taking
an uncompromising stance.

Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour is just as pointed, saying this about
the tea party-fueled refusal to support spending measures that include
money for Obama's health care law: "It never had a chance."

The anger emanating from Republicans like Sununu and Barbour comes just
three years after the GOP embraced the insurgent political group and rode
its wave of new energy to return to power in the House.

Now, they're lashing out with polls showing Republicans bearing most of the
blame for the federal shutdown, which entered its 11th day Friday. In some
places, they're laying the groundwork to take action against the tea party
in the 2014 congressional elections.

Iowa Republicans are recruiting a pro-business Republican to challenge
six-term conservative Rep. Steve King, a leader in the push to defund the
health care law. Disgruntled Republicans are further ahead in Michigan,
where second-term, tea party-backed Rep. Justin Amash is facing a
Republican primary challenger who is more in line with — and being
encouraged by — the party establishment. And business interest groups, long
aligned with the Republican Party, also are threatening to recruit and fund
strong challengers to tea party House members.

Tea party backers are undeterred and assail party leaders.

"They keep compromising," said Katrina Pierson, a former Dallas-area tea
party organizer now challenging Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas in the 2014 GOP
primary. "They all campaigned on fiscal responsibility. They just need to
do what they campaigned on."

In more than a dozen interviews, Republican leaders, officials and
strategists at all levels of the party blamed Obama for the shutdown but
also faulted tea party lawmakers in the House, who have insisted that any
deal to reopen the government be contingent on stripping money for the
health care law.

An Associated Press-GfK poll released Wednesday showed why these party
loyalists are so concerned: More Republicans told pollsters that the GOP is
mishandling the shutdown than is handling it well. And among those who say
it's being poorly handled, twice as many Republicans say the party is not
doing enough to negotiate with Obama than those who say the party is doing
too much.

Party leaders interviewed said the tea party's demands to defund the health
care law — and the House leadership's willingness to follow suit — were
distracting from what they said is the GOP's best strategy to recover from
its 2012 losses: a focus on reducing long-term spending. They said
defunding the health care law would not achieve that goal because the money
was already flowing to the law.

"At the end of the day, you're fighting legislation that's already passed,"
said former South Carolina Republican Party Chairman Katon Dawson,
describing the fight to defund the health care law as a lost cause.

Republican activists around the country also said in interviews that the
shutdown — and House Republicans' demands — have deflected attention from
problems with the launch of key parts to the health care bill.

Thousands of Americans were unable to shop for health insurance on the
online marketplaces when they went live on Oct. 1 because of software
glitches. And, these Republicans say, the GOP in Washington — and
specifically tea party House members — got in the way of the troubled
rollout, which the GOP could have seized on if the government were still
open.

"We're not saying Obama is right. We're saying what Republicans are doing
is wrong," said Matt Cox, a former executive director of Ohio's Cuyahoga
County GOP. He said that instead of pursuing the shutdown strategy,
Republicans in Washington could have passed — and taken credit for — a
spending measure that kept dollar levels at those set by the automatic $1.2
trillion across-the-board cut approved last year, also called the sequester.

Generally, these Republicans said that because of the tea party's effort to
defund the health care law, the Republican Party had missed an opportunity
to hammer Obama after he hit a rough patch over Syria just a month ago.

Former Illinois state Sen. Laura Douglas wants to believe that the holdouts
can win. But she has her doubts.

"My heart says, 'Keep fighting, don't give up,'" said Douglas, a resident
of Quincy in western Illinois. "But my head says, 'If we keep this kind of
thing up, we're going to get creamed next year.'"

Her worries are reflected in the AP-GfK poll. Roughly three-quarters of
Republicans nationally said their party in Congress deserves a moderate
degree or most of the blame for the shutdown.

Even among Republicans, those who don't support the tea party mostly
disapprove of how the GOP is handling the budget issue. Just 17 percent of
Americans overall consider themselves tea party backers.

And tea party allies are fighting back.

The Senate Conservatives Fund, an independent political action committee,
has run ads asking tea party supporters to recruit primary election
opponents for Republicans who voted for a measure that would have kept the
government running with modifications in the health care law.

In South Carolina, Fairfield County Republican Chairman Kevin Thomas is
among those on the side of tea party lawmakers.

"The only leverage we have is the budget," he said.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20131011/0a0b0e19/attachment-0001.html>