Mainstream Republicans are getting tired of losing fights they could have won? Most Republicans feel that the “Obamacare” issue could have been better resolved if the Tea Party had not distracted from the issue by shutting down our government. There are a growing number of Republicans who want something done about the Tea Party’s unwillingness to compromise.
A Republican super-PAC, the Senate Conservatives Fund, “has run ads asking tea party supporters to recruit primary election opponents for Republicans who voted for a measure that would have kept the government running with modifications in the health care law” reported Yahoo Finance.
CBC News posted an article that suggested that this government shutdown is pushing the GOP to the brink of civil war. They reported that “A couple of years ago, suited up in full revolutionary regalia and ablaze with the fury of the righteous, a Tea Party leader named William Temple appeared before TV cameras in Washington with a warning for Republicans.”
So, already in 2011,around the time of the first shutdown threat, Speaker Boehner did something to make the Tea-baggers very angry. They said Speaker was guilty of “compromising with Democrats, and his famous inability to hold back tears at emotional public moments.” Normally this would hardly be a reason to threaten an insurrection. To the Baggers, however, it was much more.
Compromise is a Tea-Bagger curse word and moreover, men just don’t cry. The right-wing fringe felt Boehner had to go. CBC continued, “Thus began the Republican civil war that’s now tearing apart the party, shuttering entire sections of the U.S. government, and maybe propelling the entire economy toward catastrophe.”
So far the 40 member House Tea Party group has brought us to this present shutdown by using their most powerful tool obstruction. Speaker Boehner has found himself at the mercy of these 40 members. Now, when we need compromise to stop the shutdown, Boehner is afraid to even speak the word.
It may be that the tide is turning in the direction of mainstream Republicans. USNews reported that former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said, “this about the tea party-fueled refusal to support spending measures that include money for Obama’s health care law, . . . It never had a chance.”
It doesn’t stop with Haley Barbour. “It’s time for someone to act like a grown-up in this process,” former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu argues, faulting Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and tea party Republicans in the House as much as President Barack Obama for taking an uncompromising stance.”
So far reality shows us that this small group of nut-jobs have gotten their way. They have managed to shut down the most powerful government in the world. They want to overturn a law, the Affordable Care Act, that has been working for almost four years already.
“They keep compromising,” said Katrina Pierson, a former Dallas-area tea party organizer now challenging Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas in the 2014 GOP primary. “They all campaigned on fiscal responsibility. They just need to do what they campaigned on.” She seems to think we just don’t understand. But then, did she mention the word compromise?
Richard Andrew is a guest blogger for Ring of Fire.
