Family Taxpayers Network is doing an especially fine job at setting up the Circular Firing Squad with a couple new pieces–the first from the primary:
Let?s have a little straight talk. The GOP brand suffered terrible damage during the six years between 2001 and 2006 due to the decision making of former Speaker Dennis Hastert and the influence of Presidential Advisor Karl Rove.
The list of failures is long. Run away spending, pork barrel projects, failure to achieve entitlement or tax reform, the Abramoff corruption scandal, the Foley gay sex scandal. Worst of all was the failure of Republicans from coast to coast to explain and defend the War in Iraq. We?ve written about Rove a lot (see examples here and here), and Hastert even more (examples here and here). The public?s attitude about the Republican Party is going to take several years to fix.
If Republicans are to win the White House in November we need to field a candidate that can 1) unite the party, and 2) appeal to independents. That?s a tall order, especially after this rancorous primary process. =========== Now, Republicans for Fair Media?s Dan Zanoza has raised the question about whether corruption-busting U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald would be kept on by a President Romney. For Illinois citizens concerned about political corruption, it?s a discussion worth having. Hastert never wanted Fitzgerald here in the first place, and Kjellander has already been named ?Individual K? by the U.S. Attorney?s office.
For years we?ve watched politicians profess their conservative views and then see almost no follow-through once they’re in office. They all rationalize and whine about what?s politically impossible. Few do the hard work of moving public opinion which is how things become politically possible! McCain the maverick has shown courage, albeit in sometimes in the wrong direction. Like Romney, McCain is moving right.
Like Romney, McCain enjoys the trust of solid conservatives. Unlike Romney, McCain can win the general election. We have regard for Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, but they?d be in a better position to make a case against McCain if the guy they supported was a genuine, long time conservative. They won?t trust McCain. More people can?t trust Romney. Romney has stood on both sides of almost every major issue during the past 14 years. While Newt Gingrich was engineering the take-over of Congress in 1994, Mitt was running to the left of Ted Kennedy in a U.S. Senate race. His tenure in office is a paltry four years in the far-left state of Massachusetts. His private sector experience is laudable, but not enough.
If we?re ever going to clean up the mess left from the Rove-Hastert years, we?re going to need a fighter who isn?t new to the battle. John McCain has what it takes to meet the enormous challenges ahead, and has earned the support of this conservative.
And then they go on the attack against Bill Brady again:
Every honest person who didn?t just fall off the turnip truck knows that Brady stayed in the 2006 Gubernatorial Primary to help spoil the race for Judy Baar Topinka?s benefit. That?s the oldest political dirty trick in the book. Every single poll showed that Brady would do no better than third place, but he didn?t care. In fact he never even attempted to lay a glove on his pal, the frontrunner Topinka during the entire campaign. That?s just unheard of in any serious race. Similarly, it?s tradition that the spoiler expects some payoff down the road like the ability to head-up a presidential campaign in the state.
Even in a losing campaign the state headmaster can increase his name I.D. and harvest contact information and e-mail addresses from unsuspecting supporters. Thompson himself obviously didn?t know any better. But he should have been more diligent.
Any person who wants to be President of the United States should be smart enough to realize that Illinois is a special case, with extraordinary dysfunction in its State GOP. The fact that Thompson obviously deferred to horrible advice from the locals was the first red flag that Fred wasn?t serious about this thing. Thompson failed an important first test.
The full scope of the absurdity of Thompson?s Illinois effort became clear when it was revealed that Nancy Kimmeand The Kjellander Curse recently claimed yet another victim. Kimme of course was Topinka?s top political operative, constant traveling companion, and also had the highest taxpayer-paid job for years in Topinka?s state office.
Many would say it was Kimme?s nastiness and inability to run a political campaign without state workers that eventually alienated most Republicans, and guaranteed Topinka?s eventual downfall. Similarly, Dudley has long been the poster person for The Problem. Our entire State Party remains an embarrassing morass largely so that incompetent hangers-on like this can keep selfishly extracting a pay check with a leg-up from some undeserved, rigged-up political title.
Nevertheless, on January 24th (two days after Thompson dropped out), Brady told political columnist Bernard Schoenberg of The State Journal-Register that he and others still want people to vote for them to go to the convention. Brady also related his real fantasy, Our position is this is likely to be a brokered convention. And by our position, Brady is surely referring to his old buddies like Bob Kjellander. The ludicrous idea of a brokered convention of course has always been the dream of the Kjellander wing.
Why leave the process of choosing our presidential nominee to those pesky Republican voters? Brady?s in bed with those old Illinois scoundrels who think the only problem with our State GOP Convention of 2004 was that the rigging-up wasn?t on a large enough scale. If we did somehow reach the September National Convention in Minneapolis with no Republican candidate having locked-up the nomination, then we would all deal with that scenario at that time. But no serious Republican HOPES for a brokered convention.
Any person who really cares about the GOP doesn?t root for the idea of taking a nomination from the ballot boxes to the back room. Only a person raised in the ooze of the old Illinois GOP would say such a thing. If Brady and Kjellander had their way, our National Republican Convention in September would be turned into a much larger version of the Illinois GOP cesspool. With Romney?s huge personal fortune to play with, who knows what kind of mischief guys like Kjellander could get into in Minneapolis.
The fact that Kjellander inexplicably remains the Vice-Chairman for the Committee on Arrangements for the National Convention would raise additional concerns. And let?s face it, some of these delegates are less than emotionally committed to their candidates. Some from places like Illinois are just old faces who wanted to glom-on somewhere. Some ran with candidates who clearly weren?t their first choices. We can imagine some of these old players selling-out and switching horses for less than the price of their hotel mini-bar tab. Fortunately, there is little reason to worry anymore. McCain is locking this thing up fair and square, on the campaign trail, in the primaries and caucuses.
Absent some unforeseen surprise, McCain will have the nomination sewn-up soon, and long before the National Convention in early September. And that?s a good thing. Guys like Brady and Kjellander obviously don?t care, but our Party and our nominee need to be able to focus on the Democrats as soon as possible not starting in September. This year is going to be difficult enough for Republicans as it is.
McCain needs these extra months to bring Clinton or Obama down to size. But Brady encouraged a course of action that only aided Clinton/Obama. For more proof, here is the plea Brady sent out by email to supporters on the evening of January 29th. This alone should seal the case for why Republicans must look elsewhere for a standard bearer in 2010. This e-mail is proof of a guy living in a bubble, a selfish dream world. Thompson delegates and supporters needed leadership and guidance after their candidate dropped out. But Brady failed to step-up, even on what should have been the simplest of decisions.
Only those pure may join….