https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2017/07/13/ed-gillespies-campaign-in-virginia-demonstrates-the-gop-establishments-challenge/Ed Gillespie’s Campaign in Virginia Demonstrates the GOP Establishment’s Challenge
Jul 13, 2017
RUSH: I could not find this. I searched it. It was from yesterday afternoon, fascinating story. This is unrelated here, but I got an alert last night that this story was coming, and I looked for it today and I couldn’t find it.
It’s quite telling that I searched the Washington Post headline, I had every search term and it didn’t show up. I got a story about Gillespie and his fundraisers that was unrelated to this. You know, I got an alert last night that the Washington Post had a front pager coming today. Ed Gillespie, Republican establishment extraordinaire. He was chief of staff for George W. Bush in the waning days of his second term.
But Gillespie has been around Republican Party politics for decades, and he’s running for, what is it, the governor? Running for governor Virginia. So he’s up against The Punk. He’s running for governor of Virginia, and he’s hired every Never Trumper he could find. And apparently his campaign is flailing because he doesn’t understand the makeup of Republican Party voters in the Trump era.
Snerdley found the story for me, and I haven’t had a chance to read it. It was just this moment delivered to me. “Gillespie’s Primary Scare Has White House, Others Urging ‘Trump World’ Hires.” That’s it. They’re telling Gillespie, “You better go out and hire people that know how to get votes in the Republican era.” Meaning you better find some Trump people to hire. I love this. I don’t know why, but I just absolutely love this.
These Never Trumpers, these traditional Republican insider establishment types are hell-bent, just like the Democrats and the media, they are hell-bent on showing that Trump is an oddity, a once-in-a-lifetime rarity that has no coattails and is not really a Republican. The Democrats are gonna demonstrate by winning every special election, but they lose ’em. And now the Republicans are gonna demonstrate it any number of which ways, inaction on health care, inaction on tax cuts, inaction on the Trump agenda.
What does this say? “Alarmed that Ed Gillespie barely won the Virginia GOP primary for governor in June, top Republicans from the White House on down are pushing him to hire some of the president’s strategists and more aggressively court Trump voters, according to Republicans with direct knowledge of those efforts.”
Now, it’s the Washington Post, and it could be fake news. We have to acknowledge this. It is the only sensible thing to do in this era. But this makes sense, that a guy like Gillespie would try to hire anybody but Trump supporters, that he will want to hire as many Never Trumpers as possible. ‘Cause you can’t sign on to Trump. Trump isn’t the Republican Party in these guys view.
And so now Republicans from the White House on down are suggesting to Gillespie that he hire some of Trump strategists and learn how to get Trump voters because you can’t win in the Republican Party without Trump voters. And that stands to reason. But the Republican Party wants to be in denial of that. You know it, just like the Democrats want to be in denial that Trump actually beat them.
“In addition, the Republican National Committee has taken charge of field operations for the Gillespie campaign, according to two Republicans who called it a sign that the national party is worried about Gillespie’s team.” You just know the Washington Post loves writing this.
They just love reporting that Gillespie and traditional Republicans can’t get past “Go” and collect 200 bucks. That they are stymied and their only hope is to go out and hire Trump people that know how to get Republican votes in the Trump era. You just know they love reporting that.
And, in fact, how prescient am I? I didn’t even read the next paragraph until just now. “Aligning with Trump strategists could be a stomach-churner for Gillespie, whose résumé reads establishment Republican: counselor to President George W. Bush, former Republican National Committee chairman, lobbyist. Gillespie got behind Trump only after he had sewn up the 2016 nomination. Now, Gillespie studiously avoids discussing the president.”
And he barely won the primary. Come on, folks, you gotta like this. I mean, no matter what else is going on, this has gotta…
