Cleaning Up After the Election
P. Schultz
December 5, 2012
Well, the
establishment Republicans, aka John Boehner and his gang, are “cleaning up”
after the 2012 election, meaning that they are solidifying their power by
removing those who have refused to support the Boehner agenda.
People
often respond with surprise when I argue that at times politicians don’t mind
losing elections, meaning at those times when a loss will solidify their own
power. Too often, people forget that, say, the Democratic Party winning an
election poses much less of a threat, if a threat at all, to Republicans like
John Boehner than what happens in the Republican Party. This is why it may be
argued persuasively that any landslide for one party should be seen as
threatening to the established leaders of that party and must be dealt with
carefully. So, when the Republican Party was “infiltrated” by “insurgents” –
Tea Partiers, for example – in 2010, this was not an event that Boehner and
other establishment Republicans could take lightly.
And now,
after the loss to Obama and using this loss as justification for his actions,
Boehner has moved to solidify his control of the House. This is one reason I
argued previously herein that establishment Republicans would not look on an
Obama victory as an unwelcome event. The loss, it is fair to say, has been
taken as evidence of the weakness, even the utter unacceptability politically,
of, say, the Tea Party agenda. It was that agenda which cost the Republicans what
was hyped as “a sure thing” for their party – at least this is the message
being sent with such pervasiveness that it is barely visible – and therefore
Boehner and company can move on “the culprits” with dispatch.
"The move is underscoring a divide
in the Republican Party between tea party-supported conservatives and
the House GOP leadership.
"This is a clear attempt on the
part of Republican leadership to punish those in Washington who vote the
way they promised their constituents they would — on principle —
instead of mindlessly rubber-stamping trillion dollar deficits and the
bankrupting of America," said Matt Kibbe, president of the tea party
group FreedomWorks.
"Michael Steel, a spokesman for
Boehner, would only say Tuesday that the party's steering committee
chaired by the speaker made the decision "based on a range of factors."
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