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Why Joe Miller Could Pull Off An Upset Against The GOP Establishment, Again

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Photo Credit: People's Pundit Daily

Photo Credit: People’s Pundit Daily

I rarely, if ever, revisit my Senate predictions on PeoplesPunditDaily.com for purposes of clarification rather than rating changes. However, after several discussions with campaign operatives in various camps, conservative Super PAC spokesmen, as well as further analysis of the Republican establishment’s strength in terms of support among Alaska Republican voters, this article is clearly warranted.

In my last look at the race, entitled “Alaska Senate Race Rating And Analysis Bodes Bad For Begich,” which is currently rated “Leans Republican” on the 2014 Senate Map, I gave a general assessment of the race and the political landscape. And to make a long story short, despite the bias fantasies held by other so-called objective pundits, I confidently concluded that it is more likely than not that election night is going to be a miserable night for Senator Mark Begich.

At this point, the only variable keeping the Alaska Senate race from moving farther to the right on the rating spectrum is the Republican primary, which we will now examine in more detail. With Gov. Sean Parnell deciding to stay out of the race, Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell made his bid known almost immediately. Treadwell has already attacked the 2010 Republican Senate nominee Joe Miller, saying “I believe I don’t scare people. Joe does sometimes.”

Treadwell, no doubt, is the establishment candidate and was their first pick, but he will have to share the GOP country club with another establishment candidate. Former Natural Resources Commissioner and Attorney General Dan Sullivan is the second-tier establishment candidate, but ironically seems to have the money advantage. Alaska’s Energy, America’s Values, which is headed up by political consultant Art Hackney and backs Dan Sullivan, already spent about $12,000 to air ads in Anchorage and Matanuska Valley.

There is a real potential for a reverse vote splitting phenomena to play out that inevitably will benefit Joe Miller. That is, typically establishment Republican candidates win primaries because the conservative vote is split between 2 or more anti-establishment candidates. In the Alaska Senate race the opposite is true, and it is conceivable to see how under the right conditions Joe Miller could upset the GOP establishment on primary night, again.

Read more from this story HERE.

Conservative Insurgents Strike Blow Against GOP Establishment

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Photo Credit: AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Photo Credit: AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Cold cash, together with control of institutions, is what makes the Establishment the Establishment. But in the current Republican civil war, the insurgents have secured their own money pipelines, and they control their own institutions – which means the GOP leadership and its allies in the business lobby have a hard fight in front of them.

The firing and hiring of conservative staffer Paul Teller makes it clear that the anti-establishment has built its own establishment.

Teller was a House staffer for more than a decade, and was longtime executive director of the conservative Republican Study Committee. The RSC always exerted a rightward pull on party leadership, but it is nonetheless a subsidiary of the party.

After the 2012 election, the Republican Establishment captured the RSC, in effect, by getting Congressman Steve Scalise elected chairman. Scalise is a conservative, but he is also a close ally of the party leadership – much more so than his predecessors Jim Jordan and Tom Price. Scalise immediately swept out most of the RSC staff.

Last month, Teller was accused of working with outside groups such as Heritage Action to whip RSC members – and Scalise showed Teller the door.

Read more from this story HERE.

Silence of the Lambs: GOP Establishment Remained Neutral on ‘Duck Dynasty’ Controversy

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Photo Credit: Breitbart

Photo Credit: Breitbart

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Republican Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, and Sen.Ted Cruz (R-TX) emphatically defended Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson from the moment he was suspended by A&E for supposedly anti-gay remarks. The suspension provoked a relentless outpouring of support online, which pressured A&E to reinstate Robertson on Friday.

Palin, Jindal, and Cruz’s support was in contrast to the silence of the Republican establishment, its leadership, and the Republican National Committee. The latter focused instead on Kwanzaa and promoting amnesty, which the Congressional Budget Office determined would lower the wages of working class Americans, many of whom make up the bulk of the Duck Dynasty audience.

Palin took to Twitter on December 18–the night Robertson was suspended–saying A&E had caved to the “‘intolerants’ hatin’ and taking on the Duck Dynasty patriarch for voicing his personal opinion.” Palin said “free speech is an endangered species,” and those “intolerants” are “taking on all of us.”

The next morning, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) said, “I remember when TV networks believed in the First Amendment.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Mitch McConnell: Time for GOP Establishment to ‘Stand Up To’ Tea Party

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Photo Credit: APSenate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican up for re-election in 2014, told the Washington Examiner in an interview published Friday that he believes it is time for the GOP establishment to stop conservatives and Tea Partiers.

McConnell argued it is “utter nonsense” for groups like the Senate Conservatives Fund (SCF), which has endorsed his primary challenger businessman Matt Bevin, to argue that Republicans like him in Congress are not fighting hard enough to defeat Democrats. In the interview, McConnell focused on deriding Tea Partiers for leading the effort to defund Obamacare—something that, coupled with the Democrats’ refusal to compromise on the soon-to-fail Obamacare, resulted in a government shutdown.

“The Senate Conservatives Fund is giving conservatism a bad name,” McConnell told the Examiner for the piece titled “The Establishment Fights Back: Mitch McConnell leads GOP battle against Tea Party insurgents.”

“They’re [SCF] participating in ruining the [Republican] brand,” McConnell said. “What they do is mislead their donors into believing the reason that we can’t get as good an outcome as we’d like to get is not because of a Democratic Senate and a Democratic president, but because Republicans are insufficiently committed to the cause—which is utter nonsense.”

McConnell had not only personally opposed, during the shutdown, the effort from Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT) to defund Obamacare, he actually whipped votes against them, according to a Congressional source. Cruz and Lee had staked their battle on a key cloture vote that would have, if McConnell had united the Republican Party to deliver 41 votes against the use of taxpayer money to fund Obamacare, stopped Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid from using a procedural ploy to fund Obamacare with just 51 votes.

Read more from this story HERE.

Business, GOP Establishment: Tea Party is Over

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Photo Credit: AP/Paul SancyaBy Donna Cassata.

A slice of corporate America thinks tea partyers have overstayed their welcome in Washington and should be shown the door in next year’s congressional elections.

In what could be a sign of challenges to come across the country, two U.S. House races in Michigan mark a turnabout from several years of widely heralded contests in which right-flank candidates have tried — sometimes successfully — to unseat Republican incumbents they perceive as not being conservative enough.

In the Michigan races, longtime Republican businessmen are taking on two House incumbents — hardline conservative Reps. Justin Amash and Kerry Bentivolio — in GOP primaries. The 16-day partial government shutdown and the threatened national default are bringing to a head a lot of pent-up frustration over GOP insurgents roughing up the business community’s agenda.

Democrats hope to use this rift within the GOP to their advantage. Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., chairman of the House committee to elect Democrats, insists there’s been “buyer’s remorse with House Republicans who have been willing to put the economy at risk,” and that it is opening the political map for Democrats in 2014.

That’s what the Democrats would be expected to say. But there’s also Defending Main Street, a new GOP-leaning group that’s halfway to its goal of raising $8 million. It plans to spend that money on center-right Republicans who face a triumvirate of deep-pocketed conservative groups — Heritage Action, Club for Growth and Freedom Works — and their preferred, typically tea party candidates.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: AP/Alex BrandonBig Business Declares War on Tea Party: Pledge to Support GOP Establishment

By Patrice Hill.

The recent fiscal crisis has opened a major rift between the tea party wing of the Republican Party and business groups that traditionally have backed Republicans, with many business leaders now vowing to get involved more in GOP primaries to try to counter insurgent candidates.

Tea party leaders are defiant, saying they will not change course despite criticism from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Business Roundtable and other top business groups.

But business leaders argue that the scorched-earth tactics used by tea party Republicans during the 16-day shutdown and debate over raising the federal government’s borrowing limit marked the fourth time since the GOP took control of the House in 2011 that tea party adherents precipitated a governmental crisis that zapped consumer and business confidence, raised uncertainty and exerted a major drag on economic growth.

Besides encouraging more business-friendly candidates in primary contests, business groups are rallying behind establishment Republicans such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican who is being targeted by tea party activists for brokering a deal to temporarily raise the debt ceiling and reopen the government, while launching a negotiation with Democrats over budget cuts and proposed tax and entitlement reforms.

Business executives agree with many tea party goals such as cutting the deficit and reforming entitlement spending, but they argue that conservative lawmakers have erred in their tactics and wounded the economy by driving the government with increasing frequency into states of crisis and dysfunction — this time for the ultimately unsuccessful cause of trying to force President Obama to cancel his health care law.

Read more from this story HERE.
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Photo Credit: APWar on Tea Party: GOP Establishment, Big Business Gearing Up for Battle

By Tony Lee.

On November 5, Defending Main Street, one of the most prominent Republican establishment groups formed with the intent of destroying the Tea Party, will meet with wealthy Wall Street donors to begin building up its war chest before the 2014 midterm elections.

As the Associated Press notes, these Republicans believe the Tea Party has “overstayed their welcome in Washington and should be shown the door in next year’s congressional elections.” Now they are taking action to start raising the money they think will be needed to make that a reality.

“Hopefully we’ll go into eight to 10 races and beat the snot out of them,” former Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-OH), who is running the group aiming “to raise $8 million to fend off tea party challenges,” recently told National Journal. “We’re going to be very aggressive and we’re going to get in their faces.”

Defending Main Street “plans to spend that money on center-right Republicans who face a triumvirate of deep-pocketed conservative groups–Heritage Action, Club for Growth and Freedom Works.”

LaTourette expressed his frustrations to the Associated Press, saying that “40, 42 House members have effectively denied the Republican Party the power of the majority” that it won in the 2010 election. He did not acknowledge that Republicans only won that majority on the strength of Tea Party voters who have now accused some of those elected officials of abandoning the intrests of those who elected them.

Read more from this story HERE.

Will the GOP Establishment that Failed to Block Michigan Congressman in ‘12 Try Again in ‘14?

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Photo Credit: Tea Party 911

The local Republican establishment in the 11th Michigan Congressional District didn’t want Kerry Bentivolio to be their candidate for Congress, so they did all they could to confound his campaign. In the end, their efforts failed. On November 6, 2012, he was elected to Congress.

Congressman Thaddeus McCotter resigned his 11th District seat

Bentivolio’s circuitous path to Congress began on June 2, 2012, the day Republican incumbent Congressman McCotter decided not to run for re-election. His political demise began when, on May 25, 2012, he conceded that many of the signatures on his petition to be listed on the August primary ballot were invalid.

On July 6, 2012, McCotter resigned from the seat he’d held since January 2003, leaving the 11th District without representation in Congress. Consequently, the race was on to pick a Republican candidate for the general election just four months away.

One Republican, Kerry Bentivolio, was already officially in the race. He had planned to run against McCotter in the GOP primary election, and had submitted a valid petition to be on the ballot.

Bentivolio was a relative political unknown in 2012

In 2012, Bentivolio’s political background consisted of an unsuccessful run for the Michigan Senate in 2010.

The 11th Congressional District encompasses communities in western Wayne and Oakland Counties northwest of Detroit, where Bentivolio was born in 1951. With the exception of two years, the district’s House seat had been held by Republicans since 1939.

An on-line bio of Bentivolio reads:

“He received an associate degree in liberal arts at Oakland Community College, attended Michigan State University and received a bachelor’s degree from St. Mary’s College. He received a master’s degree in education from Marygrove College.

He enlisted in the U.S. Army after high school, and served as a rifleman in Vietnam until his honorable discharge. He remained active in the military, serving more than 20 years in the Michigan Army National Guard. He was assigned to the military police and in an administrative role with an artillery unit.

Bentivolio raises reindeer on a small farm in Milford. The reindeer are trained to pull Santa’s sleigh during local parades and special holiday events. He also has a small flock of chickens, a 25-hive honeybee apiary and a 115-vine vineyard.

He has taught English, history, social studies and computer-aided design in public and private schools.

Bentivolio and his wife, Karen, have two adult children.”

Additional information about Bentivolio’s military service is noted here:
“Congressman-elect Kerry Bentivolio enlisted in the United States Army in November 1968, served as an infantry rifleman in Vietnam in 1970 and 1971, during which time he was awarded the Combat Infantryman Badge. Mr. Bentivolio briefly left the service before joining the Michigan Army National Guard, where he trained on the Multiple Launch Rocket System, and deployed to Kuwait with a military police unit during Operation Desert Storm. He deployed to Iraq in 2007 as well, serving as a senior human resources sergeant with an artillery unit and performing combat convoy missions… After suffering a neck injury, Mr. Bentivolio retired as a Sergeant First Class in 2008.”

GOP leaders hand-picked a candidate to run against Bentivolio

An array of opponents aligned against Bentivolio as the August 7, 2012 primary election neared. It included several prominent elected Republicans, national liberal-leaning news outlets, local newspapers – most prominently the Detroit Free Press – and local GOP Party leaders. Their shared objective was to portray Bentivolio as unqualified to serve in Congress. Ridicule ranked high among their methods.

Republican Party leaders recruited a former Michigan State Senator, Nancy Cassis, to run as a right-in candidate in the GOP primary. Cassis retained some Republican name-recognition, and could largely self-fund her campaign. According to a confidential source, in a setting reminiscent of the old “political establishment power brokers meeting in a smoke-filled room,” Party leaders considered at least three other potential candidates (a former GOP Congressional candidate in another district who lost to a Democrat opponent; a prominent foreclosure attorney; and a Michigan State representative) before choosing Cassis because, in part, of her immediate access to substantial financial resources.

There was nothing surreptitious about the GOP establishment’s effort to confound Bentivolio’s campaign. Roll Call reported on June 7, 2012 that:

“Top Michigan Republicans decided to support former state Sen. Nancy Cassis (R) as their consensus write-in candidate for the 11th district GOP ballot.

A cadre of top local GOP leaders met again this morning to discuss potential candidates and settled on Cassis out of a handful of write-in hopefuls who expressed interest…

There’s one Republican on the primary ballot, reindeer rancher Kerry Bentivolio, but GOP leaders opted to try to support a write-in candidate instead.

This afternoon, Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson, one of the most influential Republicans in the district, declared Cassis the consensus candidate to reporters.

The group voted 11-0 to support Cassis, according to one of the other potential write-in candidates, former House aide Paul Welday.”

On August 1, 2012, the Detroit Free Press framed the race this way:

“Winning a write-in campaign for a nomination to Congress is daunting, but former state Sen. Nancy Cassis appears to be heading in the right direction.

Cassis, of Novi, is leading her rival Kerry Bentivolio of Milford 52% to 36% in Tuesday’s Republican primary for the 11th Congressional district, even though Bentivolio’s name is the only one on the ballot, a poll conducted for the Free Press, WXYX-TV (Channel 7) and three outstate stations shows.

Cassis was tapped by Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson and other local Republican leaders in June as the best candidate.”

Will the GOP establishment that failed to block Cong. Kerry Bentivolio in ’12 try again in ’14? Part 2

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Since 2007, Lee Cary has written hundreds of articles and blogs for several conservative websites, including the American Thinker and Breitbart’s Big Journalism & Big Government (as Archy Cary), been quoted on national television (Sean Hannity) and on nationally syndicated radio (Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin). His articles are cited in Jerome Corsi’s The Obama Nation and in Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny. Cary now writes for the Texas-based site teaparty911.com.

How the GOP Establishment Blocked a Candidate it Didn’t Want

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Photo Credit: Tea Party 911Pennsylvania State Republican Party (PSRP) officials did not want William “Bill” Russell running for the 12th Congressional District after Democrat Congressman John Murtha died on February 8, 2010, after serving 34 years in the House.

Beyond general anecdotal comments to the effect that Russell was “too conservative,” party officials never said why they didn’t want him. Here are highlights from the story of how they obstructed Russell’s candidacy from 2008 to 2010.

Russell decides to run against Democrat Congressman Murtha

Late in 2005, in an episode that made national news, Murtha accused U.S. Marines of having murdered innocent civilians in Haditha, Iraq. At the time, Russell was a career, fulltime Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve with a fine record that included service in the Middle East. Both he and his wife – she was pregnant at the time – were in the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. After finding that she had escaped safely, he re-entered the burning building to help evacuate survivors.

According to Peg Luksik, who eventually became Russell’s campaign manager, Russell was “incensed” that Murtha’s attack on the Marines came while an investigation was still underway. So incensed, in fact, that he retired two years before his full, active duty retirement date and moved to Pennsylvania to run for Congress against Murtha.

It was a path that would put him under friendly fire from those who should have been his political allies.

Round 1: The 2008 election for the 12th Pennsylvania Congressional District

Initially, Pennsylvania’s G.O.P. officialdom was, according to Luksik, “unenthusiastic” about Russell’s candidacy, and, from the beginning, were “almost actively undermining of his efforts.” Until Russell entered the race, the G.O.P. had not planned to contest Murtha’s re-election.

Russell submitted slightly more than the required 1,000 signatures to be listed on the primary election ballot. The petition signatures were challenged, as is common. It was odd, though, that two of the challengers were local Republican Party officials.

A judge ruled that Russell’s petition had only 993 valid signatures. Russell’s only remaining path to getting on the November election ballot was through a primary election write-in effort. He needed 1,000 write-in votes in the Republican primary – where there were no names listed for the Republican Party – to face Murtha in the fall election. He received 4,000 votes. The November battle against Murtha was on.

But PSRP officials, unenthusiastic about his candidacy from the beginning, turned obstructive once Russell was the Party’s challenger to Murtha.

On October 11, 2008, Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin came to Johnstown, PA for a rally. The video below chronicles the event, and (at the 2.53 min. mark) features Russell being interviewed.

Luksik was surprised when a senior PSRP official denied Russell, the district’s Republican candidate for Congress, a place on the podium. The decision was made more surprising because Russell was running a strong, well-financed campaign, and had even given money (about $20K total) to several G.O.P. county committees. According to Luksik, when she mentioned Russell campaign donations to other Republican candidates to the party official he was “furious” and said, “You should give us more money.”
Russell had shown he was “by any definition a team player” for the G.O.P., but to no avail.

According to Luksik, the PSRP official said, “The Presidential [McCain] campaign doesn’t want him” on the Palin podium. When Luksik queried the McCain campaign, they denied knowing about the matter. The McCain campaign told the PSRP to “put him on the podium.”

On Election Day, the PSRP routinely hands out “slates” to indicate the candidates the Party supports. On the G.O.P. slate distributed at the polls for the November 2008 general election, all the Republican candidates were listed – all except Bill Russell, that is.

Luksik explains it this way: “They [PSRP] didn’t want him elected. He was not a party regular. Not a part of the Republican establishment.”

PSRP opposition to Russell remains a mystery. Congressman Murtha was a legendary procurer of Congressional pork projects for his district. Any thorough investigation, like the one conducted on the Haditha Marines, into what was behind the friendly-fire opposition to Russell would need to audit the allocation of expenditures that accompanied Murtha’s pork projects and ask the question: Who benefited? Besides Pennsylvania tax-payers, of course.

Read Part 2 of “How the G.O.P. establishment blocked a conservative candidate it didn’t want“

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Since 2007, Lee Cary has written hundreds of articles and blogs for several conservative websites, including the American Thinker and Breitbart’s Big Journalism & Big Government (as Archy Cary), been quoted on national television (Sean Hannity) and on nationally syndicated radio (Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin). His articles are cited in Jerome Corsi’s The Obama Nation and in Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny. Cary now writes for the Texas-based site teaparty911.com.

Murkowski Says She May Not Support GOP Senate Nominee in 2014

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photo credit: usarmyalaskaRepublicans who don’t want to witness GOP-on-GOP primary warfare in 2014 may want to keep their eyes trained on the Lower 48. Alaska could be messy.

Joe Miller, the tea party favorite who was backed by Sarah Palin when he roiled GOP politics in the 2010 midterm elections, is seriously considering another bid at an Alaska Senate seat, a campaign that could prompt a bare-knuckled effort against a candidate pushed by the party establishment.

The 45-year-old Miller has been testing the waters in meetings with influential social conservative activists and gun-rights groups in Washington. He’s quietly met with tea party senators, such as Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, as well as former South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, the leader of The Heritage Foundation. Miller also told Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran — the new head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee — that he was weighing a run in 2014.

The Miller situation provides an early test for Republicans in Washington, who are trying to avoid the internecine battles of the past two elections that damaged GOP chances of taking back the Senate. Karl Rove and his new spinoff group, the Conservative Victory Project, are now trying to defeat GOP candidates in Senate primaries whom they worry will lose in general election battles.

Read more from this story HERE.

Tea Party Favorite Confirms Interest in McConnell’s Seat

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photo credit: Donkey HoteyMatt Bevin, a potential Tea Party challenger to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), confirmed on Tuesday that he has met with groups in Kentucky about launching a Senate bid, but has not made a final decision.

“As a point of clarification, Matt has made no final decision with respect to this race. He has, however, met in recent weeks with various individuals and groups who have expressed their frustration with their current representation in Washington DC and have encouraged him to consider entering the race,” reads an email sent “on behalf of Matt Bevin” by Amy Lowe.

Lowe is listed as operations manager at Waycross Partners, the investment firm at which Bevin is an adviser.

“These meetings, together with the recent reaction to the possibility of a primary race, have served to reaffirm the general sense of political disenchantment among many voters in Kentucky that has been widely reflected in recent articles and polls,” she wrote.

The Hill reported Monday that Bevin had been in touch with local Tea Party leaders about potentially launching a bid.

Read more from this story HERE.

Karl Rove Declares War On Tea Party

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The battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party has begun. On one side is the Tea Party. On the other side stand Karl Rove and his establishment team, posing as tacticians while quietly undermining conservatism.

Yesterday, the New York Times reported that the “biggest donors in the Republican Party” have joined forces with Karl Rove and Steven J. Law, president of American Crossroads, to create the Conservative Victory Project. The Times reports that this new group will dedicate itself to “recruit seasoned candidates and protect Senate incumbents from challenges by far-right conservatives and Tea Party enthusiasts who Republican leaders worry could complicate the party’s effort to win control of the Senate.” The group points to candidates like Christine O’Donnell in Delaware and Richard Mourdock in Indiana as examples of Tea Party primary picks going sideways in major Senatorial battles.

But it is American Crossroads and its ilk that have run the GOP into the ground. Spending millions of dollars on useless 30,000-ft. advertising campaigns during the last election cycle, training candidates to soften conservatism in order to appeal to “moderates,” blowing up the federal budget under George W. Bush as a bipartisan tactic – all of those strategies led the party to a disastrous defeat in 2012. The Tea Party, which may nominate losers from time to time, also brought the Republicans their historic 2010 Congressional victory. If Tea Party candidates lose, it’s because they weren’t good candidates; if GOP establishment candidates lose, it’s because they weren’t good conservatives. The choice for actual conservatives should be easy.

But it isn’t. The Bush insider team that helped lead to the rise of Barack Obama insists that they, and only they, know the path to victory.

Read more from this story HERE.