Can the GOP’s Young Guns Still Reform the Party?
The 113th Congress was sworn in today with the same aesthetic as most years — glossy congratulations and declarations of kindness and respect that easily give way with the first hard-core debate.
Gone was the palpable excitement of the right after the 2010 midterm Republican rout that transformed the 112th Congress and gave John Boehner the speaker’s gavel — which he retained today with fewer tears and fewer grand declarations as he fended off conservative discontent and rode the lack of serious challengers to victory.
Gone were some of the lawmakers who came to Congress on the 2010 wave of Tea Party angst and ObamaCare fury, like Reps. Ann Marie Buerkle (R-N.Y.) and Allen West (R-Fla.) — though West did win two votes from disgruntled incumbents for the speakership today. Back in the House was an especially abrasive Democrat ousted in that GOP year, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.).
And as the very course of the Republican Party itself, recovering from the defeat of Mitt Romney and congressional losses, is in question, so is the trajectory of the renaissance movement and philosophy crafted years ago by three of the top GOPs in the House.
Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), now majority leader, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), GOP whip, and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), fresh off an unsuccessful vice presidential campaign, preceded the 2010 elections with the book Young Guns: A New Generation of Conservative Leaders. Within its pages, the trio took aim not just at Democrats but at Republican leaders of congresses past who they believe betrayed the party’s principles and neglected to rein in spending or slow the growth of government.
“Under Republican leadership in the early 2000s, spending and government got out of control,” McCarthy wrote. “As government grew, there were scandals and political corruption. The focus became getting reelected rather than solving problems and addressing pressing issues.”
In 2010, 62 candidates out of 90 groomed under the Young Guns program were elected to the House. The batting average this November was less impressive: out of 42 candidates, just 12 won. High-profile GOP hopefuls such as Mia Love in Utah, Joe Coors in Colorado, and Vernon Parker in Arizona were among the unsuccessful Young Guns proteges.
But perhaps the greatest siren about the future of the Young Guns came late on New Year’s Day when the trio broke on a key tax-and-spend vote: Ryan voted (with Boehner) for the Senate’s fiscal cliff deal, while Cantor and McCarthy voted against it.
Ryan, architect of the Path to Prosperity budget plan favored by the right and reviled by the left, defended his vote by saying Republicans can now hold President Obama’s feet to the fire on spending cuts — since the commander in chief got his wish on taxing the rich.
Conservatives began declaring any Ryan presidential candidacy dead, even though the congressman’s attachment to the Romney ticket — and failure to win his home state — put that possibility pretty far in the ground already. Others chalked up his vote as a nasty by-product of the credentials that were praised during the campaign — that he’s a Beltway wonk who doesn’t fit with the Tea Party script of a hero riding in from somewhere beyond the mid-Atlantic to rescue the nation.
Cantor, though, waited to cast his “no” vote until passage of H.R. 8 was assured. Still, he was the go-to name for those interested in mutiny on the gavel.
As grass-roots fury was growing over Boehner’s mangled Plan B and willingness to go along with the agreement forged by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Vice President Joe Biden, conservatives were placing hope in Cantor’s Tuesday declaration after heated caucus meetings that he did not support H.R. 8. One conservative lobbying group spread a rumor Wednesday that there would be enough dissension in the ranks to replace Boehner.
The GOP is dead. It’s time to form a ‘conservative’ party to challenge the Marxist, commie-Dems.
Despite the fact that I am working 7 days a week to keep my business going these days, I took the time to leave the Republican party yesterday. I am no longer a registered Republican for the first time in my life.
I agree. The GOP is too corrupt to salvage. The encroaching police state may not worry the elites, but minorities are aa alarmed at the trashing of the Bill of Rights as Tea Party people.. They also are angry at the massive fraud and corruption of DC-Wall St. Both parties are vulnerable. We will lose the republic if we stick with the GOP.
I goofed. That’s me above. I don’t hide mt name.
Watch Bill Whittle’s speech to see how easy it would be for the Republicans to destroy the Dim-tards if they had the brains (which they don’t) and the spine (which they don’t). My wife showed it to me (she got it from my brother’s Facebook page). The internet is our best hope of getting around the MSM propagandist/lapdogs.
Here’s the link…it’s on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wgxlp2UJI5I
I concur, they are too corrupted.
You don’t try and save a barrel of bad apples by tossing a few good ones in, you pull the good ones out and set them aside.
Right now I don’t believe in any GOP type in the Senate or Congress, there may be some conservative and honorable people among them but at this point my default conclusion is that if their lips are moving they are lying or playing a role for the purposes of political theater.
Lot’s of talk, never any real substantive or bold action. The conservatives with principles, if they still exist, should eject before the burning wreckage of the GOP hit’s rock bottom.
It’s as if we are back in England circa 1938 … and all we can do is return Neville Chamberlin and company to office, again … and again. There’s is no Churchill on the back bench … or on the horizon. The party has no real leadership and no direction. It lacks all inspiration … all drive.
Churchill said that as Americans we always did the right thing … eventually, after trying everything else first. It’s my hope that we are soon to run out of the wrong things … The world is a dangerous place. It needs good old-fashioned American hard-headed values.
Young Guns? They’ll probably be illegal before the month’s out.
You Guns need to break their chains and form/join a new party, untainted by the GOP slime. Do they have the spine?
Why young? How about some old geezers with time on their hands. Run for office instead of sitting around bitching about everything. (Yes, I see the three fingers pointing back at me.)
There is not a snowball’s chance in Hell of the GOP winning the presidency ever. With the recent election we know why:
1) The deck is stacked against the GOP – the media will not allow the GOP or Conservatives to properly give their side nor will the media ever call out the Democrats who can lie with impunity.
2) Any attempt to “true the vote” will be defeated and in those areas where the Democrats need to win they will. In 2016 the illegal voting will be even more rampant.
3) The GOP will once again hire consultants who care not for winning but for just getting a check.
4) The GOP will be considered the party of the nice, the “let’s get along” guys. Sure, they’ll lose every time, but they will at least feel good that they fought the good fight (and still lost).
5) The RINOs will fail to support each other (when Akin made one stupid comment, the RINOs couldn’t get far enough away from him. When Weiner tweeted a picture of his crotch, the Democrats defended him as long as they could).
GMTA, David W, GMTA!
Youve got to go outside the GOP, to affect change. I highly recommend the Constitution Party.
Oh, EV, the problem you and the other radicals that make up this forlorn site is not your party, it’s your ideas.
You see this is a democracy and most people know better than you do. Your ideas are bad and people can see that.
As someone mocking the failed communists said, it’s time for you to depose the people and replace them.
But why do you support the communists, Josh?
Honestly, integrity, fiscal sanity, logic, reason, results.
Who needs those, just vote for the phony hip-hop guy that thinks he’s Jesus, then get back to American idol, what could possibly go wrong?
I wonder if you understand just how stupid you are (hint: that’s a rhetorical question)
I initially thought that the reason Ryan was picked as Romney’s VP was to ruin him as a political force. That looks more true now than six months ago. I didn’t pay much attention to the recent kabuki theater where the Republican’s pretended (heh heh) to be conservatives while they were protecting their positions at the feeding trough, but I didn’t see Ryan’s name mentioned once in the last several weeks.
One might have thought that a white knight would have been leading the forces of good.
Cantor and McCarthy? Boehner, light.
The country is so f*ed it’s unbelievable. Yet not a single RINO Republican has lost a position or a dollar of his net worth.
They are more than happy to be junior partners in the rape of the country that has advanced humanity more than all the others combined.
Well said.
The ‘young-guns” may have been good had they, or were they, guns with a message that was accepted by a mjority of the nation. But in reality they can’t even motivate, much less convert the majority of the party with their — real motives and messaging.
All this talk about a new party concerns me. I’m sure it’s well meant, but I’m almost equally sure that Democrats would wet their pants at the prospect of the opposition splitting. The illusion of the disillusioned is that the formation of a new party would mean the switching of allegiance of the vast majority of Republicans. I don’t believe that would happen. Meanwhile, we would have done to ourselves what the enemy (and it pains me to use that word) wants–the permanent fracturing of the opposition.
No, we have to figure out how to change the Republican brand, not split up with some of us striking out into a third party wasteland. That’s what they want us to do.
Nothing will cange the GOP for the better. Consevatives have more clout when they are free to advocate a positive vision and slam the bipartisan corruption.
This winter and spring is the GOP’s last stand. We either win on this debt ceiling, sequestration and continuing resolution fight, or we let the party go the way of the Whigs and replace them in 2014.
The ‘young guns’ are as phony as the party is. Yes it is time for a new party or change your views to suit them. To continue with the party of stupid year after year expecting different results is insanity. Not another dime to these pathetic losers.
I’d like to see McCarthy get a chance in the spotlight, but he hasn’t been very aggressive about it. Rand Paul is an interesting possibility. Rubio has almost lost me, and Ryan’s vote on the cliff was at least a serious mistake. Cantor just isn’t big league. Have to also mention Scott Walker, of course.
I don’t know that there’s a thing wrong with the Republican party that a good, competent, not even spectacular campaign, could not fix, with a couple of good, solid candidates.
Have to set up a campaign with a full set of cabinet heads to serve as issue proxies, let the candidate stay big-picture. And we want some SERIOUS details, none of this cutesy stuff that Romney tried. Serious details are what we also never get from the Democrats. Republicans want a shot, let’s show some capability, isn’t that supposed to be the story, real numbers, competence to run the machine and get stuff done, rather than the country club RINO choice between being a Democrat light or just letting things drift.
No. What we have is a uni-party system with two branches so as to capture as much of the electorate as possible. Once in office these uni-party members spit in the eye of both the electorate and the Constitution as they feed off the wealth of the nation to perpetuate their sinecures. I have no confidence in McCarthy (unless we’re talking the private citizen Andrew McCarthy), nor Rubio, nor Ryan, and certainly not Cantor — rakes all, of one stripe or another.
The number of decent patriots in Congress is about 10.
Sign me thoroughly jaded.
Oh? Who are these ten? Can you give us some names?
Wrong,wrong. Its not the hostile media or demographics that lost the election. Its the inability of Republicans to take the gloves off and start attacking the Democrats at every opportunity. Romney lost because he tried to look presidential. The Benghazi fiasco should have been enough to wipe the floor with the President. Paul Ryan should have stood up to Joe Biden and lambasted for his ridiculous smirking and laughter. Americans appreciate more than anything else is a winner. When Republicans stop this ridiculous in fighting and begin striking back with a singleness of purpose, then they will start winning again. Why not begin with the message loud and clear.”The country is going bankrupt.”
True.
I’ve got five nephews who served or are serving in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. At our family Christmas gathering, I was stunned to discover that not one of them voted for Romney/Ryan. They voted for the Libertarian Johnson or didn’t vote at all. The only Republican that got their attention was Ron Paul. Yet we all know how Paul was lambasted and vilified by the GOPe and was prohibited from giving a speech at the Convention, as was Sarah Palin. I am convinced that the Republican Party is no longer politically viable, especially after their failure to pursue rampant election fraud and their complicity in the fiscal cliff deal. If they can’t interest the young people like my nephews who have dodged bullets and bombs for this country and are naturally inclined to conservatism, then they have no future at all.
Im afraid that your nephews are more interested in Ron Paul’s isolationism than anything else. Much easier to collect a check from the military guarding the Gulf Coast than fighting in the Persian Gulf.
Who they should be voting for is Alan West, who will stop it with the insane ROE, and let the grunts protect themselves and kill the bad guys.
No, you’ve got it wrong. The fact is our servicemen see no purpose in continuing to sacrifice life and limb fighting unwinnable wars in God-forsaken hellholes all over the world to protect their traitorous countrymen and feckless “allies” who themselves no longer believe in or adhere to the very Constitution that our servicemen are being ordered to die for. The Republicans offered nothing more than the same failed neo-con foreign policy that we’ve blindly followed for too long that only enriches the crony “capitalists” of the military-industrial complex and the Marxocrat-enabled Leviathan state at a titanic cost of blood and treasure to no good end. Your retort to my comment exactly summarizes the ethical bankruptcy of the Republican position and why they won’t ever get the youth vote, even of our war veterans.
You make a lot of sense. The people who want to break free of the ruling elite may well be a plurality, which is all you need in a three way race. The stas quo will lead to the end of our constitutional republic.
Im afraid that the Ron Paul military policy will lead to more and bigger wars…as the security vacuum provides opportunity for all sorts of agendas. But in the meantime we could fire your nephews and massively downsize the military because we just dont need all the personell that is worldwide, drilling in Alabama and Georgia.
But alas…
Your boys proxy voted for Obama. Enjoy, I say!
Escape – Above you “highly recommend the Constitution Party.” Do you even know what their plaform is on foreign involvement? Here’s a quote…
The Constitution Party has consistently opposed American involvement in conflicts in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Europe, and Central and South America. The United States has no interest in these areas which would justify the sacrifice of Americans on foreign battlefields – nor is our country properly cast as a merchant of death in international arms races.
We propose that the United States
■repudiate any commitment, express or implied, to send U.S. troops to participate in foreign conflicts, whether unilaterally, under NATO auspices, or as a part of the United Nations “peace-keeping” operations; and
■cease financing, or arming of belligerents in the world’s troubled areas.
And a little more from the Constitution Party 2012 platform…
Unconstitutional, Undeclared Wars:
Since World War II, the United States has been involved in tragic, unconstitutional, undeclared wars which cost our country the lives of many thousands of young Americans. These wars were the direct and foreseeable result of the bi-partisan interventionist policy of both Democrat and Republican administrations.
The Constitution Party is opposed to the continuation of the same interventionist policy, with that policy’s capacity to involve our country in repeated wars.
The problem is that the wars will come, regardless. Better to nip them in the bud.
We could have stopped Germany and Japan early on, at much less cost.
The problem with modern wars is that the ROE are foolish, and the hearts and minds are to won after unconditional surrender, total destruction. Wishy washy inability to name the enemy clearly is also par for the course.
We didnt have to have half a century of Cold War (continuation of WWII with the Reds), when we had Nuclear Primacy and a mobilized military and production. FDR should have laid down the law, rallied the leftovers of the Wehrmacht and neutered the Soviets immediately. Likewise in Korea, the Chinese should have paid the price for getting involved.
But alas…
I think “Young Wimps” is the new working title.
The Young Guns are fast becoming shut out of real decision making about thing that matter to our economy. First day of the new session? Vote to repeal Obamacare and to fund the defense of DOMA. The Young Guns and the rest of the House can do better than that. If not, they deserve to be ignored and can sit on the sideline while the Senate and a few RINOs actually get stuff done.
Conservatives who think they can find a charismatic leader at the national level who will miraculously convince the majority of the electorate of the wisdom of their position are barking up the wrong tree. First, the Republican party has value, it has an infrastructure in 50 states that would be very hard to build from scratch. Second, it already is making inroads at the state and local level. The key to political success is making gains at the local level, starting at Mayors, City councils, county commissions, state reps, school boards, etc. By demonstrating that responsible government improves local conditions, conservatives will gain the respect of the voters needed to will at the national level. The Democrats spent 100 years building their machine. It will take the Conservatives a long time to build their machine, however the failures of the Democratic Machine (Detroit, e.g.) will make it much easier.
The moral, get involved and make a difference locally and build on that.
Charismatic leader? Miracles? Straw men. The GOP is lame, blind and corrupt. It hates the conservatives within it. Good luck reforming such a cowardly and pathetic organization.
The GOP is split and disfuntional because of a ‘particular group’ within, cloaking themselves as fiscal conservatives and constitutionalists, when in fact, they’re the same failed old Christain Right/Moral majority flock. Their ‘true’ social platform is nothing less than unconstitutional. The constitution protects not only Christians to practice their faith, but rather, ALL individual citizens are constitutionally protected regardless of their chosen religious faiths and values. That is why the First Amendment specffically states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or — prohibiting the ‘free exercise’ thereof…”
The Christian anti abortion people took their case before the supreme court ‘forcing’ a constitutional ruling for which they lost on the merits of their constitutional argument. Likewise, the constitution doesn’t allow the government to play God on behalf of anybody religious faith over another and rather, gives to all individual citizens the right and freedom to exercise their faith and values as they so wish. The same applies to all matters of gay lifestyles and any other such things that come along in the future for which is purely associated with ones freedoms of religious exercise.
The social conservaties either need to respect and accept the constitution or go found their own party to run on.
If anyone bothered to notice, Obama has assembled a coalition of voters that will assure a Democrat will remain in the White House from this point on. His campaign team put together pieces from this group, that group, and other groups until they had a plurality of voters who swore allegiance to Obama and in turn, the Democrat party. Yes, it will carry over from election to election and the rolls will increase with each passing year because the Democrats and RINOs will captiulate to the wishes of the ever growing voters bloc of takers.
Mitt Romney did not have a chance and neither will any Republican in the near future. The country can go to hell in a handbasket, become more and more socialist and the voters will flock to the Democrats because the takers are growing at a much greater rate than the producers. The very wealthy will not be impacted much at all. Their additional tax burden won’t change their lifestyle enough to notice and if anything, the more willing they are to support liberal and socialist causes, the more breaks they will receive from a friendly government.
About the only chance Republicans and conservatives have is to concentrate on the local and state offices. Republican governors are in the majority and if they can continue to win significant victories the way they did in Wisconsin and defeat the union and make Illinois a right to work state, there is a glimmer of hope at the local level but at the national level, the uphill battle has been greased enough so that the productive members of our private sector cannot gain traction enough to overcome the trough feeders.
So, talk about Ron Paul, the Constitution Party, the Tea Party all you like. All it will be in the end is talk. After being around for 69 years and watching as this country has moved further and further to the left and more and more join the ranks of takers, socialism is inevitable and since 2007, the dominos have fallen in place to insure a quicker transition than at anytime in the history of this country.
When you consider that one of the most despicable members of the house to ever occupy a seat, Alan Grayson of Florida, has been reelected, what more evidence do you need to hit you over the head to get your attention?
Obama is a flash in the pan. The fight for this constitutional republic is just getting started.
If I had my way I would start here if I had the people of this country behind me!
The Commission on Presidential Debates is a private corporation headed by the former chairmen of the Republican and Democratic parties. The CPD is a duopoly which allows the major party candidates to draft secret agreements about debate arrangements including moderators, debate format and even participants. The result is a travesty riddled with sterile, non-contentious arguments which consistently exclude alternative voices that Americans want to hear.
This documentary also reveals the big corporations who “sponsor” the CPD and how third party candidates are purposely excluded. One of these sponsors, Annheiser Busch, is partly owned by Senator John McCain’s wife. Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura’s election as an independent candidate proves that opening up debates can lead to real change – something the entrenched Republican and Democratic Parties don’t want to see.
Who’s Afraid of an Open Debate? The Truth About the Commission on Presidential Debates (Full Version)
http://undergrounddocumentaries.com/whos-afraid-of-an-open-debate-the-truth-about-the-commission-on-presidential-debates-full-version/
I certainly agree with you that the Commission on Presidential Debates is a useless, politically ‘bent’ mechanism in the electoral process. Personally, I would like to see two, two-hour general candidate regulated debates, open style. Two two-hour debates moderated by non partisan experts, say in, relevent national economic and financial affairs, foreign relations, and a new area covering the constitutional mandates of the Executive Branch and Presidential authorities, checks and balance theory, etc. maybe schedule these debates during the last fourteen days of their campaign schedule.
If I had my way, the primary debates would be held in ‘each’ state with one (1) State ‘network’ television and radio station selected to air the debates, ONLY in the state of the debate. They should be moderated by professional disciplines relative to that state and national issues. Maybe schedule these debates within the last 60 days of their nearly 2-year campaign schedule.
Anything to eliminate the current levels of political corruption in the debates!
The “young guns” don’t seem to have the will to try to reform the party, though they certainly have the means.
The GOP is split and dysfuntional because of a “particular group” within, the RINOs, a.k.a. neo-cons, a.k.a. leftist 5th-columnists. Its both the hostile media and the unwillingness of Republican “leaders”, i.e. the leftist fifth-columnists, to take the gloves off and start attacking the ever more extreme leftist Democrats every time they say or do something extremely stupid, and every time they try to pervert the language to deceive the public.
Rubio lost me because of his insistence makin gexcessive legal and illegal immigration even worse. Ryan’s vote on the cliff was a serious mistake. Rand Paul is good, but not quite great. Romney and Boehner and Rove and Davis are merely Obummer light.
Re: reforming president candidate debates
Good luck with that. They were crooked when the networks put them on. They were crooked when the League of Women Voters put them on. They were still crooked when they went back to various media, with or without participation by the bi-partisan — i.e. banning most serious candidates — Commission on Presidential Debates. In part, they’re crooked because few candidates would be willing to participate in genuine debates.
Ron Paul was never an “isolationist”. He’s always been a non-interventionist, which would be fine, but he’s taken it a bit too far to excusing foreign threats to the USA simply because we have means to defend ourselves. Even if we didn’t have a single foreign base, even if we didn’t stand by Israel, the violent Islamics would still be trying to establish the global Caliphate by both violence and subterfuge, and they’ve said as much to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear.
“particular group”
That “partricular group” you identify has nothing whatsoever to do with anything refered to by some as RINO. The particular groups thats decimated the GOP and rendered it non functional is the evangelical social conservative movement who want to exert their evangelical religious values upon society in the same manner of Muslims and their of Sharia law. They are the very same old religious right/moral majority folks of the 80s rising up once again under the ‘general’ mantra of conservatism. When weakened by public perception they shift and cloak themselves as fiscal conservatives.