Steve McCann: The Republican Establishment’s Strategic Blunder

Posted on January 30 2012 – 7:48 PM – Posted by: Doug Brady

An excellent piece by Steve McCann appears in today’s American Thinker.  I won’t add any commentary since it makes many of the same points I’ve been making all along.  That said, I’ll post a few excerpts and urge you to go to the American Thinker and read the whole thing.

There  is no office on Connecticut Avenue in Washington with a sign reading “The  Republican Establishment” or the “The Democratic Establishment”; rather it is an  amalgam of like-minded groups with one common interest: control of the  government purse-strings.

The  Republican Establishment is made up of the following:  1) many current and  nearly all retired Republican national office holders whose livelihood and  narcissistic demands depends upon fealty to Party and access to government  largesse; 2) the majority of the conservative media, including pundits, editors,  writers and television news personalities based in Washington and New York whose  proximity to power and access is vital to their continued standard of living;   3) numerous think-tanks and members thereof who are waiting to latch on to  the next Republican administration for employment and ego-gratification; and 4)  the reliable deep pocket political contributors and political consultants whose  future is irrevocably tied to the political machinery of the Party.

The  overriding interest of this cabal has been and continues to be: the accumulation  of power through the control of the income, borrowing and spending by the  Federal Government.   Thus, with the exception of the presidency of  Ronald Reagan and the Republican controlled House of Representatives from 1995  to 1999, the Republican members of the Ruling Class have been content since 1952  to merely slow down the big-government policies of the Democrats while publicly  decrying their tax and spend policies.

[...]

It  has been apparent for over a year that Mitt Romney has been chosen to be the  next Republican nominee for president.   He is next in line and has  the track record and inclination to slow down but not reverse the downward  spiral in which the nation finds itself; but above all to fall in line with what  is expected of a Republican insider.  Perhaps coincidentally, he has spent  many millions of dollars hiring consultants and beltway pros, and has the  fundraising capacity and personal wealth to keep on employing them.  Thus  he is the ideal candidate of the Establishment.

However  a major problem has arisen.   The machinations utilized in the past  (with the exception of Ronald Reagan who was not the Establishment’s choice) to  maneuver the primary voters into choosing the previously anointed Mitt Romney  has now come out in the open as the awakened silent majority is no longer  willing to be fooled or taken for granted.

There  are six primary methods of eliminating potential challengers with the tacit cooperation of the mainstream  media, and they have been in full display this primary season.   They  are to portray unacceptable candidates as:

• hypocrites in sexual matters (Herman Cain); or
• unstable  (Michelle Bachmann); or
• ignorant  and incoherent (Rick Perry); or
• a  religious fanatic (Rick Santorum); or
• just  plain weird and from another planet (Ron Paul); or
• dangerous  and unelectable (Newt Gingrich).

Sarah  Palin would have been placed in all of those boxes had she decided to run, as  well as anyone else deemed not acceptable to the elites.

[...]

The  Establishment could not have made a more strategic blunder.   They  will, in all likelihood, succeed in securing the nomination for Mitt Romney, but the damage they have inflicted upon themselves is approaching irreversible.   The public now sees the length to which the Establishment will go to make  certain their hand-picked candidate is chosen regardless of the dire  circumstances facing the nation.

Average  Republican or conservative voters are the same people that buy the books or  magazines or subscribe to the websites, as well as buy tickets to hear speeches  by the conservative pundit class.   These are the same people asked to  open their wallets to support the Party every two years.   These are  the same people asked to volunteer at the polls and get out the  vote.   These are the same people who were told every election cycle  to trust the Party and its attendant establishment to solve the nations’  ills.

A  number of them (how many is anyone’s guess right now) will no longer be willing  to support those factions within the Establishment and the Party or to believe what they are told.  These are the people suffering the consequences of the  disastrous policies pursued over previous decades, while those in the  Establishment live lives of relative ease and comfort, which seems to be their  primary concern.

I can definitely relate to that last bit.  I’m one of those to whom McCann refers who are no longer willing to support the Establishment…or their candidate.  Since 1988 I’ve held my nose and voted for Dole, McCain, and the Bushes. I can’t do it anymore. My nose is sore. Read McCann’s entire piece here.

(h/t G. Ridley)

Article source: http://conservatives4palin.com/2012/01/steve-mccann-the-republican-establishments-strategic-blunder.html