Thank God for American Crossroads and the

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Thank God for American Crossroads and the Conservative Victory Project



American Crossroads is creating a new Super PAC to crush conservatives, destroy the tea party, and put a bunch of squishes in Republican leadership positions. Thank God they are behind this. In 2012, they spent hundreds of millions of rich donors’ money and had jack to show for it.

It is interesting though. The people who brought us No Child Left Behind, Medicare Part D, TARP, the GM bailout, Harriet Miers, etc., etc., etc. are really hacked off that people have been rejecting them. In 2012, about the only successful Republican candidates were the ones who directly rejected the legacy of these people.

So now they will up their game. They don’t like being shut out. They blame the tea party and conservatives for their failure to win primaries. They’ll now try to match conservatives and, in the process, call themselves conservatives.

I dare say any candidate who gets this group’s support should be targeted for destruction by the conservative movement. They’ve made it really easy not to figure out who the terrible candidates will be in 2014.

 

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Faulty Premises and Outlooks Formed


As I noted earlier the very cast of characters who tried to bring us “big government conservatism” and wound up seeding the tea party movement are at it again. This time they want to defeat conservatives by pooling millionaire dollars to label a bunch of squishes “conservative.”

They are, in essence, painting targets on the backs of a lot of candidates, making anyone they support suspect and ripe for defeat. But, truth be told, I am not sure how effective they can be. Their presuppositions they used are faulty and I think that will cascade into their foundation.

In fact, conservatives sent to Washington, despite the best efforts of groups like this, the people now talked about as the heroes of the party: Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, Pat Toomey, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, etc. These guys backed Charlie Crist. They did not see the merit of ousting Bob Bennett and, once done, lined up for Bridgewater against Lee. They backed Trey Greyson and David Dewhurst.

The very people who now excite the Republican base, lead the way on trimming government, and advance conservative ideas are the very people most likely to be opposed by this group and those like it.

But consider the Senate candidates conservatives are blamed for. It is this list that American Crossroads would have us focus on while ignoring the list of successful conservatives now in Washington pulling the GOP back to its roots.

Consider how many run of the mill Republicans, reporters, etc. blame conservatives for Christine O’Donnell, Sharon Angle, Ken Buck, Todd Akin, and Richard Mourdock. Conservatives, because they supported them, are to blame. Never mind that these same people backed and funded Mitt Romney to the hilt and he showed time and time again that if any of the less than stellar candidates opposite him came within a 1 to 4 spending deficit against him, Romney would lose.

 

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Kept Conservatives: Prominent Right-Wingers Who Sound Very Liberal


We’ve had a wide variety of conservative: the neo-cons, the paleo-cons and most recently the crunchy cons. Have you ever noticed how many of the most prominent conservative voices in America sound more like liberals? I have, and I believe they are in class all their own: they have a special mission and fit a particular profile.

They are what I like to call ‘kept cons.’ They are ‘kept’ by liberals in that kept cons generally work for liberal institutions and seem to fill the role of token conservative; they write conservative columns for national liberal newspapers or appear as conservative hosts or commentators on CNN or MSNBC or CNBC; but they don’t sound all that conservative. You can spot them slamming Sarah Palin or tamping down on the Tea Party. Their usual message is always something like, “I’m a conservative but these other people, these gun owners/southerners/TEA Partiers/Tax Cutters/Randians/Supply-siders/Pro-lifers/Climate Change Deniers/Libertarians/Gun Nuts/ Gold Bugs, etc., are beyond the pale.

 

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so the people that brought us 'Electable' McSame and Romney think the have a better idea ?


Rove needs to STFD and STFU - they are not leading this party in any great direction



It’s the Messaging, Stupid. It’s the Stupid Messaging.
Some Advice for the Conservative Victory Project

He then quoted American Crossroads’ President, Steven J. Law, as saying that we are losing candidates because the “wrong candidates were selected.” An astoundingly astute observation supported by the fact that we lost. One can only assume that Law is referring to Mitt Romney as well.

The name that is tossed around most as an example of the “wrong candidates” is Missouri Senatorial candidate, Todd Akin. I won’t rehash his entire unfortunate rape comment incident, I’ll only say that having a candidate who seems incapable of giving a coherent answer to a question designed to trap them is a great sign that they aren’t up for the job.

Rove’s organization claims that they intend to prevent candidates with such careless lips in the future. Refocus the party and weed out the “problem” candidates.

However, for an organization that wants to chaperone the commoners through the primary process to make sure they don’t screw it up, the people behind it, American Crossroads, may wish to look at their own track record.

Tommy Thompson, Jesse Kelly, Heather Wilson, Jane Corwin, and of course Mitt Romney received support from the group and suffered defeats across the board.

And they weren’t much better at defeating their opposition. Out of their ten most funded efforts to defeat Democrats, American Crossroads managed to defeat only one: Rep. Shelley Berkley of Nevada.

So if for every Akin there is a Thompson and for every Rubio there is an O’Donnell, what should that tell Rove and his buddies? Well, here comes the advice part.

Ever since the rise of the small but influential “I am the 53%” meme started online, my perspective on how to win elections has changed.

Perhaps people could have claimed that such a seemingly “inside the political bubble” meme would have no effect on the general election. At least they could have had our candidate not used the exact numbers when infamously caught on camera indicating that he wasn’t shooting for the vote of the “47%.” It did play a role. It was bad.