Business Lobby Seeks a More "Governable" GOP

[Cincinnatus]

Since the governor's race in VA there has been a lot of talk on here about the Tea Party, moderate Republicans, the GOPe, and the like. This piece, written by the Group Vice President for Strategic Communications at The Heritage Foundation, may provide some insight into just what is the issue within the Republican Party which is causing so much division and acrimony. Simple put, the Big Business community distrusts and dislikes the Tea Party types because if our principles are adopted, it will be bad for business. Better to go along to get along.

Even before Democrat Terry McAuliffe narrowly defeated Republican Ken Cuccinelli in the Virginia governor’s race, lobbyists representing the business community were rethinking their relationship with the GOP and planning to challenge conservative incumbents in next year’s primaries.

Their goal: to replace principled conservatives with candidates who will be more protective of Big Business interests. As U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue put it, his group will get involved in primary races to produce a “more governable Republican party.”

Which is why the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which says it’s strictly in “the wins business,” is threatening more electoral intervention. “There’s no rules,” NRSC executive director Rob Collins said. “The path to getting a general election candidate who can win is the only thing we care about.”

This shift will certainly surprise those who naively believed that the grassroots Tea Party movement was a creation of big business. But “Tea Party as Wall Street front group” has been a popular belief among the left for years.

When the Tea Party first emerged in 2009, the phenomenon so dumbfounded liberals that the only explanation they could fathom was conspiratorial -- these groups must have been bought and paid for by evil capitalists. “It’s not really a grassroots movement,” proclaimed then Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. “It’s Astroturf by some of the wealthiest people in America to keep the focus on tax cuts for the rich instead of for the great middle class.”

In the real world, however, entrenched corporate elites have always viewed conservatives with some trepidation. Now their lobbyists are readying for war against those who promote principles like limited government, free enterprise, and individual liberty. And liberals are cheering them on.

This potential bootleggers-and-Baptists alliance could be a powerful combination -- one that could render our economy even more sclerotic, weakening innovation, job creation, and living standards. And for what? Anemic long-term GDP growth, predictable earnings targets, and business as usual in Washington.

America is already at risk of falling behind as an innovator and job creator not because of conservative policy ideas or Tea Party activists but because of the increased influence of those businesses who lobby Congress to consolidate their entrenched position at the expense of free market competition.

Lobbying is a constitutionally protected activity. All Americans have the right to seek redress. However, to balance the outsized influence of those corporate interests who seek to preserve their market position in the halls of Congress, we also need citizens making the case for the common good, the kind of Internet-enabled direct democracy that the Tea Party represents.

To get America back on the path of sustained and robust economic growth, we must break the stranglehold of entrenched corporate interests on Washington policy making. That’s something many conservatives and Tea Party members would like to see, and the way to get there is by returning to free markets based on product competition, innovation, and price.

The American economy will flourish in an environment that encourages free enterprise, entrepreneurship, and market-based competition. All businesses, including those with outsized influence in Washington, should rally behind conservative policy ideas to restore robust, free- market competition. This will not only enrich America but, over the long-term, maximize shareholder value for those who do the best job meeting the needs of real customers in real markets.

Conservatives are ready to double down in their war against out-of-control-government spending and corporate welfare. All Americans -- including those in business -- should join the battle. A GOP "more governable" by special interests is not a vision of a great future; it’s the beginning of the end.

[emphasis added throughout]

http://dyn.realclearpolitics.com/printpage/?url=http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/11/07/business_lobby_seeks_a_more_governable_gop_120595.html&showimages=1

Hence no help from the Chamber for Cuccinelli in VA. Hence RINO Christie promoted as Republican standard bearer in 2016. Hence principled Conservatives like Cruz pilloried by our "own" people. Hence the divisions among Republicans.

[Rapunzel]

Interesting article. Reminds me of something a bit disconcerting I heard on the news this afternoon.  The stock market went down.

Want to know why?

Because the jobs report comes out tomorrow and it is "expected" to be improved.

Why is this bad for the stock market?

This means Bernanke may back of Quanitative Easing and the stock market has become addicted to the low interest rates and easy money of QE - so an improving economy is bad, bad, bad in the eyes of the stock market.

Chew on that a bit.

[Cincinnatus]

The NYT is not exactly a reliable source for things Conservative but this report suits the GOPe tactics.

G.O.P. Weighs Limiting Clout of Right Wing

Leaders of the Republican establishment, alarmed by the emergence of far-right and often unpredictable Tea Party candidates, are pushing their party to rethink how it chooses nominees and advocating changes they say would result in the selection of less extreme contenders...

The party leaders pushing for changes want to replace state caucuses and conventions, like the one that nominated Mr. Cuccinelli, with a more open primary system that they believe will draw a broader cross-section of Republicans and produce more moderate candidates.

Similar pushes are already underway in other states, including Montana and Utah, and last week Mitt Romney said Republicans should consider how to overhaul their presidential nominating process to attract a wider range of voters. He suggested that states holding open primaries be rewarded with more delegates to the party’s national convention.

While the discussion may appear arcane, it reflects a fierce struggle for power between the activist, often Tea Party-dominated wing of the Republican Party — whose members tend to be devoted to showing up and organizing at events like party conventions — and the more mainstream wing, which is frustrated by its inability to rein in the extremist elements and by the fact that its message is not resonating with more voters.

“Conventions by nature force candidates and campaigns to focus on a very small group of party activists,” said Phil Cox, executive director of the Republican Governors Association and a longtime Virginia-based strategist. He grimaced at the successful movement by conservative activists in his state earlier this year to switch from a primary system to a convention system. “If the goal is actually to win elections, holding more primaries would be a good start.”...

Supporters of the current system argue that representation is ample on the front end, when thousands of people are involved in selecting convention delegates whom they get to know through the intimacy of local caucuses. Candidates for office, in turn, have to campaign directly to those delegates.

Efforts to dismantle the convention system, they say, are elitist and undemocratic.

“You have these politicians who really think they’re above everybody else,” said Paul T. Mero, president of the Sutherland Institute, a research organization in the state. “What they want certainly isn’t the kind of direct democracy that really requires responsible citizenship. They want to get rid of that, and move straight to a primary where it’s all about money and name recognition.”  

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/07/us/politics/gop-weighs-limiting-clout-of-right-wing.html?hp&_r=0 [emphasis added]

The GOPe controls a huge amount of money and the sympathy of the Liberal media (as compared to the grassroots like the TP). They intend to use both to control the Republican Party.

[Rapunzel]

Yet, we're expected to roll over and vote for their GOPe candidates.