Scared of Their Base

[ccharles000]

Yesterday, John Cornyn declared that the Republican Party establishment is afraid of its base:

"We will not spend money in a contested primary," Sen. John Cornyn, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told ABC News in a telephone interview today.

"There's no incentive for us to weigh in," said Cornyn, R-Texas. "We have to look at our resources.... We're not going to throw money into a race leading up to the election."

But just a year-and-a-half ago, the grownups declared that they were going to take charge. Smarting after special election losses in deep red districts which featured a shabby parade of Republican nominees - Jim Oberweis (IL-14), Woody Jenkins (LA-06), and Greg Davis (MS-01) - John Boehner ordered Tom Cole to jump into the muck:

The NRCC will now wade into competitive GOP primaries when appropriate. This is a significant shift, as Cole's policy has been to stay out of such contests even when the party believes one candidate would clearly be the best general election bet. In Illinois and Louisiana in particular, Republicans suffered because they fielded a poor nominee. The race to replace retiring Rep. Vito Fossella (R) in New York, which could draw several GOP contenders, could be the first high-profile test of the new policy.

I have to laugh for a moment regarding the Fossella succession - that was a shitshow for the ages. But in general, this move actually made some sense. After all, did the Republicans really want to drown their chances with more Randy Grafs?

It turns out the answer now is yes. Sure, Cornyn runs the NRSC, and here we're talking about the NRCC. But no doubt Pete Sessions is running scared, too - after all, it was his NRCC that took serious heat from the teabaggers for backing Scozzafava in NY-23, and obviously that race is what inspired Cornyn's newfound wimpiness. So I'm sure we'll see a reluctance on the part of both campaign committees to meddle in primaries. The Republicans are terrified of their base - and they should be.

http://www.swingstateproject.com/diary/5863/scared-of-their-base

[OHdem10]

1. The Teabaggers are not really Republicans, certainly not the base

RR is their base. Yes, they do appear to fear this base at times.
The RR deliberately sat out an election and they lost Daddy Bush's
second term.

The TeaBaggers are Libertarian of the same ilk as Ross Perot
Voters.

The Becks and Bachmans and GOP are courting them trying to bring
them into the GOP Fold.

[mdmc]

2. The dems aint scared of our base

Our base being corporations. Or if liberals.progressives are our base, then we just ignore our base..