Republicans have not even popped the corks of their celebratory champagne bottles yet and already there is a anti-Tea Party coup in the works the goal of which is to torpedo the presidential aspirations of Sarah Palin before her campaign even gets underway. A damming article from Politico which broke just yesterday revealed a concerted if uncoordinated effort taking shape among Republican leaders to see that Palin does not secure the 2012 Republican nomination for president. Quoting Politico:”Interviews with advisers to the main 2012 presidential contenders and with other veteran Republican operatives make clear they see themselves on a common, if uncoordinated, mission of halting the momentum and credibility Palin gained with conservative activists by plunging so aggressively into this year’s midterm campaigns…There is rising expectation among GOP elites that Palin will probably run for president in 2012 and could win the Republican nomination, a prospect many of them regard as a disaster in waiting…“There is a determined, focused establishment effort … to find a candidate we can coalesce around who can beat Sarah Palin," said one prominent and longtime Washington Republican. "We believe she could get the nomination, but Barack Obama would crush her." Thus it would appear that the trains are already on the track for what will be the first  train wreck between the G.O.P. esthablishment and the Tea Party Movement.You can add to this developing drama the existing controversy between Ms. Palin and Tea Party star Joe Miller, the current Alaska Senatorial contender whom Palin backed against Lisa Murkowski only to have Miller short change Palin when it came time to endorse her presidential aspirations. This G.O.P. esthablishment – Tea Party friction has been below the surface since the movement gained traction during the 2009 health care reform debates. Appearing on Fox News with Greta Van Sustern in the summer of 2009, Rush Limbaugh was nothing if not emphatic in his denunciation of the Republican leadership and the veiled contempt that they have for the Tea Party Movement generally and Sarah Palin in particular. Tensions only grew more intense as the Tea Party Movement knocked off several Republican veterans and hand picked contenders during primary season. Thereafter the movement went on to put a number of Republicans not currently running for re-election on notice that they too were in the movement’s cross hairs.  

In an interview with the National Journal, Senate Republican Leader, Mitch McConnell said: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president,” Is McConnell’s rhetoric aimed at placating the Tea Party or does he actually believe that in the depths of the Great Recession, this is the single most important goal for a victorious Republican Party? What happened to the never-ending Republican cry: ”Where are the jobs?” What became of all of the talk of reducing the size of government, of tax policy and talk about how to “grow the economy.”? Now on the brink of victory the Republican elites have shown their hand and it consists first and foremost of political priorities aimed at winning the 2012 presidential election and making sure that Sarah Palin isn’t around to screw things up. What happened to the G.O.P’s big effort to “listen to the American people” this past summer? Thus we see just how important the dire state of the economy is to the elites who fashion Republican political strategy. Have McConnell and his lieutenants already misread the election’s outcome, taking it to mean that they have a mandate in spite of the fact that they are polling at lower favorability ratings then the Democrats that are about to be turned out of office? Have they misread a vote of protest for an endorsement of the Republican Party line which it can’t possibly be given the G.O.P.s historically low standing among voters? That said, how long would it be before the voters come down with that old sinking feeling of buyer’s remorse? Surely if the immediate follow on to the midterm elections is the out break of an intra-party civil war within the G.O.P. what else could a weary and disgruntled electorate feel but buyer’s remorse, dismay and disgust. The election’s outcome will certainly cause the Democrats to circle the wagons and try to regroup for 2012. But it already seems like the G.O.P. and the Tea Party are in the process of circling the rifles into a circular firing squad and that can’t be good at a time like this when the country is desperately in need of solutions to deep seated problems of long standing. The final question from all of this is: Has the Republican Party gotten more than it bargained for in its marriage of convenience with the Tea Party and is it too late to unwind the relationship before it tears the G.O.P. to shreds in an intraparty conflict that could end the Republican Party as we presently know it?

Steven J. Gulitti

11/1/10

Sources:

National Journal: http://nationaljournal.com/member/magazine/top-gop-priority-make-obama-a-one-term-president-20101023

Next for GOP leaders: Stopping Sarah Palin: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/44449.html#ixzz145L2C9cv An

Impending and Inevitable Train Wreck; http://open.salon.com/blog/steven_j_gulitti/2010/10/31/an_impending_and_inevitable_train_wreck