Laying the smack down
Written by Jack Burden on December 3rd, 2008Saving the GOP one RINO at a time, Erick Erickson lays it on Saxby Chambliss:
The fact is Saxby, you have no natural base in Georgia. You don’t. Johnny has the metro Atlanta Republicans — a sizable group. You have Moultrie. Johnny has the country club moderates. You don’t have them and you don’t have the conservatives. The best you can claim are farmers — not a sizable group.
Saxby, do you realize your campaign did no significant outreach to third party groups in the general election? Seriously. Now I know some of your staff will say otherwise, but I’ve talked to the gun groups, the small business groups, the Christian groups, the free enterprise groups, and others — they are all pretty damn unanimous that your outreach efforts were terrible.
Likewise, you put yourself into this position. You talk about returning to your conservative roots — well you start first. The immigration compromise hurt you with the base. The farm bill hurt you with the business community. The energy compromise hurt you with the part of the base not hurt by the immigration compromise. Then the bailout vote set you on fire and nobody could bother even peeing on you after that. You’ve gotten squishy on financial issues. You’ve gotten squishy on business issues. You’ve gotten comfortable in the establishment and the base does not see you as dependable anymore.
In short Saxby, you pissed off everybody. And people did not come out to vote for you. They came out to stop a filibuster proof Democrat Senate.
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This is a FANTASTIC review of all my problems with Saxby.
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Then why did you vote for him Yellowjacket?
The 60 vote super majority will be irrelevant anyway with RINOs like Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, Arlen Specter, George Voinovich, Mel Martinez, Johnny Isakson, Chuck Grassley, Lindsey Graham, and now John McCain who is back to wreck more havoc. Each of these senators and possibly other RINOs not named will cross the line and vote with the Democrats and Obama on a variety of issues. Saxby or no Saxby this GOP caucus is hopelessly compromised.
Was it really worth voting for Saxby to simply add one more RINO to the GOP Senate Caucus?
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Trust me, I was one of the people that forced this runoff to even happen, by voting for the Libertarian.
The choice was between Saxby and Martin. I’ll admit, part of my vote was a smug way of denying Martin yet another statewide political win. By the way, that picture of him with TI, Luda, and Young Jeezy was hilarious.
I understand what you’re saying about the Dems not needing 60 votes to be successful, and that Saxby’s seat isn’t really much of a “firewall.” I completely see that. However, given the choice of Martin in the seat, who would vote with the Obama administration 100% of the time, and Saxby in the seat, who will likely piss me off occasionally but vote with el Presidente much much less, the choice is clear.
Even though the magic number isn’t really 60, as you and I agree, in a body such as the Senate that one vote can be important. And for some legislation, even the RINOs might vote party-line. Who the hell knows at this point.
Look, the Club for Growth, yes that Club for Growth, endorsed Senator Chambliss in the runoff - tepidly. They were reluctant to endorse him, and weren’t afraid to tell their supporters that. However, support him they did, and he won his seat. Guess what? Now you could say they “own him,” though I don’t like how that language sounds. But you know what I mean. Expect Saxby to be much more familiar with Pat Toomey than he was before, or than he ever really wanted to be.
Sure, Saxby won the runoff. Maybe he learned a lesson from not winning the general election. Probably not. But there are people such as myself, and more noticeably Erick Erickson, who are publicly calling Chambliss to the mat despite supporting his runoff election.
If he continues his RINO ways, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him primaried in 2014. We can cross that bridge when we come to it.
For now, given the choices I had and the political climate we’re in, I voted for Saxby. So sue me.
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“Expect Saxby to be much more familiar with Pat Toomey than he was before, or than he ever really wanted to be.”
Listening to Saxby speak since he was re-elected tells me he hasn’t learned a damn thing. The guy is as thick-headed as ever and won’t change his voting habits one iota, just watch.
“But there are people such as myself, and more noticeably Erick Erickson, who are publicly calling Chambliss to the mat despite supporting his runoff election.”
And that is my point. You guys are “calling Chambliss to the mat”, do you really think he is going to listen to you now that he doesn’t need your support until six years from now? He told you what you wanted to hear in his hour of crisis and now can spend the next six years being a RINO again.
You and Erick don’t get it, the way to put pressure on politicians isn’t through posts on a blog with tough language, but by not voting for the SOB (no matter the consequences) when he is up for re-election. There will always be some liberal Democrat poised to take a RINO’s seat, but if you keep sending the RINO back to DC then nothing changes. Until the GOP sees that we on the right are willing to pull the trigger no matter the cost then why would they ever modify their behavior, they know that conservatives are bluffing and will show up to the polls to vote GOP out of fear.
“If he continues his RINO ways, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him primaried in 2014. We can cross that bridge when we come to it.”
How about burning that bridge now, in 2008 and not waiting to jettison this asshole when we could have done it right now. 2014, seriously? Republican politicians will NEVER change their behavior until they learn that the price of liberal behavior once in office is an end to their career. Saxby won’t change, why should he? He was just rewarded for the past six years of RINO shit he pulled in DC by being re-elected.
The same reason not to vote for McCain, which we both didn’t, is the still a good reason not to vote for Saxby.
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Find a primary opponent for Saxby next time around, if he runs again. Until then, we need his vote to stop card check. End of story.
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Saxby won’t be able to stop card check anyway, Arlen Specter is going to support it.
I agree with your sentiments regarding the primary process, but the GOP establishment goes out of its way to discourage that sort of behavior, just look at what happened to Herman Cain and those who supported him against Johnny Isakson. After that debacle who would have dared to primary Saxby Chambliss, even as weak as he was and become a pariah in GA GOP politics.
As a voter I don’t have the luxury of choosing someone to run against Saxby in the primary, I only have my vote on election day. I would argue that it is far more imperative to demonstrate to the GOP that liberal voting records won’t be tolerated than it is to stop card check (as bad as that legislation is).
Just my opinion. When it comes to RINOs I have a “kill’em all and let God sort’em out” policy and I understand why some folks may be of a different mind on the topic.