Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said the secret to success for the GOP will be having the Tea Party and the national party on the same page.
Priebus called the relationship between the two entities “a full embrace.”
“The fact is, you know, we come from Wisconsin. That’s a state where you have the Tea Party, the Republican Party, number one, all on the same page. That’s the secret of all the success up there. But on top of it, the secret is you have candidates everyone in the party is proud of. You look at Scott Walker, Ron Johnson, Paul Ryan, people of their word that run for office and govern like they campaign. That’s what you have to do,” he said last night on Fox.
He brushed off observations of deep divides between the Tea Party and GOP, vowing Democrats “will understand the wrath of the Tea Party and Republican Party in 2014 when Obamacare is tattooed on their forehead and they are going to have to run for office and explain in very red states what they did.”
“Now, as far as the Republican Party is concerned, look, I think some of this stuff is way overblown. I was in a lunch just yesterday with all of the U.S. senators on the Republican side of the aisle, and Ted was there and Mike Lee was there and people were talking about procedure. This is not like — you know, there is no — people aren’t throwing spit balls at each other. They are having normal, decent conversations about whether or not a cloture vote is the right way to go on a bill that they support that’s coming from Congress,” Priebus continued.
“I’m not going to speak for Ted Cruz. But from what I’ve seen, I know that he and his colleagues get along well. I know they have intelligent conversations about these things behind closed doors. And he’s passionate. I think what you saw [Tuesday] was a person — for the average person in Wisconsin, they don’t get wrapped up in Senate rules. What they see is someone finally standing up and fighting. And I think for that he’s to be commended. As far as, like, fighting over whether a cloture vote makes sense or not, I think that’s something that’s totally in the weeds.”
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said on MSNBC last night that “Ted Cruz has gotten himself a little isolated on the Senate side.”
“But over here in the House, you have a lot of Ted Cruzes, and so far, they’ve been running the show in the House,” Van Hollen lamented. “…And in the Senate, of course, he is a minority when there is a minority party. But here in the House, the Ted Cruzes of the House really, as I’ve said, they’ve got their hands on the steering wheel so far. So, that’s why Speaker Boehner can’t even tell us today what he plans to do because he hasn’t checked wit his Tea Party caucus.”
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