THE MAGNOLIA STATE
STINKS
This is not the
first time the corrupt national GOP power structure and the Mississippi
Republican Party have betrayed conservatism.
By now, the deeply questionable practices
of the Thad Cochran campaign and his apparatchiks in Mississippi are
known to all. Mysterious robo-calls, unaccounted for mailings, street
money, all designed to not just defeat but ruin Chris
McDaniel, because he had the temerity to take on the Establishment.
The anti-conservative
forces inside the GOP even engaged and paid
Democratic consultants to help destroy the campaign of a fellow Republican.
Let that sentence settle
in for a second.
The conservative
Reaganites are consoling themselves that now the only way the Establishment can
beat them is by deceit. It should be noted these conservatives have
been willing to go out in public to discuss the race even though they
lost.
Meanwhile, as like cockroaches, the Cochran forces and the national
Republicans have made themselves scarce in the bright light of day.
Not that these
operatives really mind having their ethics impugned. For many in the Republican
consulting classes, they wear such titles as a badge of honor. Winning at all
costs and who picks up the tab at lunch is are all that matters. Principles?
Are you for real?
Still, there will
probably be no investigation and this won’t be the first time
Mississippi has swept crime under the rug.
Remember when the
national GOP proudly trumpeted a blueprint for reform? Screwtape, say hello to
the National Republican Senatorial Committee. The NRSC bears special mention,
as it has taken on a Lord of the Flies culture of mean little boy
savagery and decadence. They stuck their noses in the Nebraska primary and got
their heads handed to them.
They stuck their noses
into Oregon and came up with the worst possible candidate, an alleged man stalker,
pro-abortion,
pro-Obamacare nominee. Oh what a tangled Wehby they weave.
And now Mississippi,
where the money they legitimately raised for Cochran may have gone for all
sorts of nefarious activities to destroy the Reaganite Tea Party candidate
McDaniel challenging Cochran, K Street’s favorite senator.
Still, this isn’t
the first time the Mississippi Republicans and the national GOP
have betrayed conservatism. In 1976, Ronald Reagan was making a
revolutionary challenge to Gerald Ford, America’s only unelected president.
Ford had come to the presidency courtesy of the
25th Amendment because of the resignations of Spiro Agnew and Richard
Nixon. He truly was an “accidental president.”
As he’d never been
nominated, Ford had no more claim on the leadership of the GOP than did Bozo
the Clown. (Which is what the national press often called Ford because of his
star-crossed presidency and frequent personal pratfalls and jumbled syntax.)
The state party Chairman
was Clarke Reed, the “Mr. Republican” of the South. Reed proclaimed himself to
be a conservative but supported Nixon over Reagan in 1968, though in 1976
had promised Reagan that he would deliver all 30 of Mississippi’s delegate
votes to Reagan at the convention in Kansas City.
Reed stipulated even
further that Reagan could count on him if the race was competitive. How
competitive?
The 1976 convention in
Kansas City was the first time (and the last time) since 1952 that delegates
had gathered without first knowing who their nominee would be.
But Reed was also
attracted to the baubles of power and access and Ford, even an unintended
president, still had 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and Air Force One and
invitations to state dinners to tempt weak-willed and easily
susceptible party delegates and so called leaders. The trouble for
Reagan was that Reed was a sunshine conservative, never there for the really
tough fights, and Reagan only had his ideas and principles to offer.
In August in Kansas
City, at a time when Reagan needed those 30 Mississippi delegates for a
procedural vote that all knew was a test balloting for the nomination, Reed
bailed on Reagan at the 11th hour, betraying him, giving his 30 votes to
Ford. And as a direct result, it was Ford and not Reagan who won the
nomination.
Reed was not a bad man,
just a very weak one. To his misfortune, Clarke’s legacy in American politics
will not be his hard work in building the GOP in the South, but his betrayal of
Reagan for what was the modern equivalent of 30 pieces of silver.
As a point of historical
fact, it is necessary given the current controversy to point out that Reed’s
young aide in 1976 was Haley Barbour; though he was by accounts a nominal
Reagan supporter, he chose John Connolly over Reagan in 1980.
The past has again
become prologue and for the ethical Tea Party Reaganites, they have but two
choices: adopt the unethical tactics of the Establishment or expand the
conservative base by expanding the message.
Honor dictates the
answer.
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