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Author
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Topic: Gingrich accuses Rove of supporting a ‘Tammany Hall’ Republican machine
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AcousticGod
Knowflake Posts: 7137
From: Pleasanton, CA
Registered: Apr 2009
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posted February 20, 2013 12:07 PM
  
In the latest development in the ongoing battle over the future of the Republican Party, Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich accused top GOP strategist Karl Rove of building a Tammany Hall-style party machine in which candidates are chosen and financed by "a bunch of billionaires" across the country.
Rove has come under fire from tea party groups after he helped launch the Conservative Victory Project earlier this year, which will support candidates considered to be more "electable" than far-right tea party contenders.
Writing in Human Events, a conservative newspaper, Gingrich criticized Rove's efforts to rebuild the party, calling it an "an invitation to cronyism, favoritism and corruption":
I am unalterably opposed to a bunch of billionaires financing a boss to pick candidates in 50 states. This is the opposite of the Republican tradition of freedom and grassroots small town conservatism.
No one person is smart enough nor do they have the moral right to buy nominations across the country.
That is the system of Tammany Hall and the Chicago machine. It should be repugnant to every conservative and every Republican.
...
While Rove would like to argue his “national nomination machine” will protect Republicans from candidates like those who failed in Missouri and Indiana, that isn’t the bigger story.
Republicans lost winnable senate races in Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Florida. So in seven of the nine losing races, the Rove model has no candidate-based explanation for failure. Our problems are deeper and more complex than candidates.
Handing millions to Washington-based consultants to destroy the candidates they dislike and nominate the candidates they do like is an invitation to cronyism, favoritism and corruption.
In the piece, Gingrich also went after Stuart Stevens, a top adviser to Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, for the Republican failure to reach more minority voters in 2012, and criticized Romney for his comments about immigration during the Republican primaries. (Gingrich appeared with Stevens on ABC's "This Week" last Sunday, where they tussled over the shortcomings of the Romney campaign.) He also said in Human Events:
The Romney campaign decision to savage first Governor Perry and then me on immigration destroyed any chance to build a Latino-Asian appeal.
The Romney formula of self-deportation (which must have seemed clever when invented) led to a collapse of acceptability.
The most powerful Obama ad in Spanish-language media was Romney talking about self deportation.
The fact that Stevens can’t acknowledge any of this tells you how hard it will be for some in the consultant class to learn anything about winning in the 21st century.
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/gingrich-accuses-rove-supporting-tammany-hall-republican-machine-154751891--election.html Looks like things are still tense in the Republican ranks. IP: Logged |
Randall
Webmaster Posts: 25510
From: Saturn next to Charmainec
Registered: Apr 2009
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posted February 20, 2013 12:22 PM
Yep, and all of the in-fighting is a bit unsettling. IP: Logged |
juniperb
Moderator Posts: 6049
From: Blue Star Kachina
Registered: Apr 2009
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posted February 20, 2013 01:03 PM
quote:
Looks like things are still tense in the Republican ranks.
Yes indeed and I`m quite happy about it. The fiasco of Romney`s run destroyed any chance of the good old boys regrouping and business as usual. Rove should be one of the first to be dismissed outright. ------------------
We need to listen to our own song, and share it with others, but not force it on them. Our songs are different. They should be in harmony with each other. ~ Mattie Stepanek IP: Logged |
Faith
Knowflake Posts: 3770
From:
Registered: Jul 2011
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posted February 20, 2013 02:02 PM
Don't the billionaires support the Democrats, too?  IP: Logged |
PixieJane
Knowflake Posts: 1727
From: CA
Registered: Oct 2010
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posted February 20, 2013 10:48 PM
quote:
Originally posted by juniperb:
Yes indeed and I`m quite happy about it. The fiasco of Romney`s run destroyed any chance of the good old boys regrouping and business as usual
But things are business as usual under Obama. What scared me about Romney wasn't that he was going to "return" us to the Bush years (speaking strictly of Obama & Romney there's about as much difference between them as paper & plastic outside of a few issues, and health care reforms not being one of them, btw), but that he'd enable the more radical elements (including his VP pick Ryan) to put us on a path similar to the popular Iranian Revolution and subsequent election (if regretted once fundies asserted full control), and if you're not aware of how that worked out socially then I'd strongly recommend watching the movie Persepolis about a little girl who had the misfortune to grow up in that, and how radically Iran changed from when she was a little girl to a grown woman. It does seem to me that the split between Republicans are between those who put their first allegiance to big business (as most Democrats like Obama do, and Republicans like Bush & Romney) and those who put their first allegiance to the Christian Right (including Ryan, and I believe Romney chose him as he knew many fundies were less than pleased with him and so this was his way to get back their votes). There are a few Republicans I'm fond of but they seem insignificant in numbers, especially as more and more of them abandon their party to go independent or Libertarian (or a maverick like Ron Paul who gets treated by the rest of the party as a patronized crazy uncle).
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Lindaland
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