By Rick Manning
The inside the Beltway war against Senator Ted Cruz has been fully joined.
Fox News’ Chris Wallace revealed, “This has been one of the strangest weeks I’ve ever had in Washington. As soon as we listed Ted Cruz as our featured guest this week, I got unsolicited research and questions, not from Democrats but from top Republicans, to hammer Cruz,” Wallace concluded.
Ever Johnny on the spot, Karl Rove who was on the Fox panel responded for the Beltway boys, “This was a strategy laid out by Mike Lee and Ted Cruz without any consultation with their colleagues.”
Rove continued saying, “With all due respect to my junior Senator from Texas, I suspect this is the first time that the end game was described to any Republican Senator. They had to tune in to listen to you to find out what Ted’s next step was in the strategy.”
In just a few sentences, Rove exposed everything that is wrong with Washington.
He effectively justified campaign style leaks against a fellow Republican, because they weren’t playing ball with their colleagues.
The lack of any respect for Senator Cruz is then followed by a whiny complaint that he didn’t think any other Senators were told what the end game was in advance, and as a result, senior leadership Republicans, their staff and their lobbyist and political consultant allies have their feelings hurt.
Boo hoo.
At a time when congressional Republicans have an opportunity to win a victory, and stop the imposition of Obamacare, those in leadership positions choose to attack one of the people who put them in this very position.
Former Governor Sarah Palin, herself the victim of these same Republican media whisperers, immediately demanded that Wallace reveal who tried to leak opposition research to him.
While this will likely remain a mystery, it doesn’t take NCIS’ Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs to identify the likely suspects.
But rather than getting sidetracked going through the list of the current National Republican Senatorial Committee staff and that from the last election cycle to determine suspects, the real problem Senate Republican leadership now finds itself in, is the attempted leak is backfiring.
Already, Leader McConnell’s campaign manager has had to come out denying they were the source. This puts McConnell in the precarious position of having to prove it, by going above and beyond the call of duty to fight for the Cruz defund Obamacare position.
Texas’ own, Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn (the immediate past head of the aforementioned NRSC) will also find himself in the uncomfortable position of being forced to round up votes for a strategy that he neither endorsed nor promoted.
The Wallace leak will have the ironic impact of giving Cornyn’s “junior colleague” a huge boost from the very insiders who despise him, because they are afraid of the political consequences from the great unwashed tea party constituencies that Cruz has tapped into.
When Chris Wallace asked Karl Rove and others why Senate Leadership disliked Cruz so much, he inadvertently asked a much bigger question, why does the Republican establishment hate the tea party so much?
And the answer is simple.
The establishment controls the apparatus of the Republican Party, but they don’t control those who fight for the limited government principles who do the work on the ground outside of D.C.
They control the Republican leader offices on both sides of the Capitol, but they still have to pander to the $25 donor who gives money to stop Obamacare when they have no plan or intention to do so.
They hate that the tea party and other constituencies like gun owners and pro-lifers are needed to win elections, because they cannot control these crazy single issue voters who simply don’t understand the need to compromise.
They hate Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin for the most basic reason of all. They are jealous that they are loved for standing up and fighting, while the insiders are loathed by the very people they ultimately depend upon for power.
It will be a fun few weeks in D.C. as the insiders crawl forward to get quotes in the media supporting the Ted Cruz led defund Obamacare fight.
One thing that no one will be able to deny is that whether Obamacare is defunded or not, Ted Cruz and the tea party have already won. They have forced Republicans to fight for limited government whether they want to or not.
Rick Manning (@rmanning957) is the Vice President of Public Policy and Communications for Americans for Limited Government.
