It doesn\u2019t seem to matter much that the political track record of this GOP consultancy-industrial complex is execrable. Targeted Victory, LLC\u2014which was co-founded by Michael Beach, the \u201cnational victory director\u201d for the Republican Party during the 2008 campaign\u2014played a key role in the development of \u201cProject ORCA,\u201d the now infamous Romney technology effort to win in 2012. It failed spectacularly. The manager of that effort for Targeted Victory was Tony Feather, who is now the \u201cF\u201d in FLS Connect, a powerhouse Republican consulting firm that handles much of the GOP\u2019s voter contact. The \u201cL\u201d in FLS is Jeff Larson, who had been chief of staff for the Republican National Committee. FLS Connect also, at one time, employed Rich Beeson, who also worked at the RNC and went on to become Mitt Romney\u2019s political director.<\/p>\n
Understanding the incestuous ties between Republican consultants\u2014the unending referrals of business between these friendly and insular consultant cliques\u2014and the group think they promote is vital to comprehending the Republican predicament in 2014. Many of the groups that profited from Mitt Romney\u2019s loss in 2012 are now helping Republicans in 2014. Ron Bonjean, who worked for former establishment Republican leaders like Dennis Hastert and Trent Lott and is also a partner at a bipartisan firm, Singer Bonjean Strategies, in September took up an independent position with the NRSC. (The \u201cSinger\u201d in that firm, by the way, would be one Phil Singer, who worked for Chuck Schumer and served as the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee\u2019s communications director in 2006.)<\/p>\n
The coveting of power for the sake of power and consultant-led group think have misdirected the GOP to strategic blunder after blunder.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
…that are dated in terms of specific facts but still accurate. \u00a0Indeed, that may be the big downside of Tuesday; the consulting class is going to claim the victory, notwithstanding the fact that it was more a vote against Obama, his policies and his malaise than\u00a0for\u00a0<\/em>the GOP.<\/p>\nRepublicans in Washington who declared war on their very base are now shocked that conservative voters have little interest or motivation in helping Pat Roberts, Thom Tillis, David Perdue, or a host of other candidates. A Republican establishment that has spent several years badmouthing Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and outside groups like the Senate Conservatives Fund now find themselves openly begging the Senate Conservatives Fund to engage in races while they fly Ted Cruz around the country to motivate the base.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
And so the base was motivated.<\/p>\n
But are the GOP’s problems fixed?<\/p>\n
Not by a long shot.<\/p>\n
It’s still the party that went with the flow with George W Bush on his deficit spending. \u00a0It’s still the party that caved in to a bunch of neanderthals in purple Viking outfits and yellow wigs to give public money (appropriately laundered) to Zygi Wilf, to try to avoid losing political points.<\/p>\n
Ask Jeff Johnson how many political points that saved us.<\/p>\n
And I get it – compromises are going to have to happen, and no politician who actually gets into a position to to change things escapes without some compromise to their ideological purity (unless they turn themselves into self-satirizing caricatures like Paul Wellstone and Ron Paul, always voting pure unadulterated principle and rarely actually affecting policy). \u00a0But it would be just great if the GOP would provide a consistent, sharp contrast to the Democrat Party and the DFL.<\/p>\n
Republicans who are congratulating themselves this week had best keep it short and tasteful. \u00a0The GOP has a lot of problems, and even some of us in the party are questioning the party’s commitment to being\u00a0different\u00a0<\/em>from the Democrats in Washington and the DFL in Saint Paul.<\/p>\nWhich GOP is going to show up at the capitols in DC and Saint Paul next January? \u00a0The real one that is an actual meaningful alternative – the Tea Party – or the chuckleheads in the suits and the binders and binders full of excuses?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So the GOP has won, and won big. That’s great. And it’s still worth taking a moment to savor the win. But the time is coming soon \u00a0– tomorrow? \u00a0Monday? – when it’ll be time to ask the GOP “OK. \u00a0Now – what have you done for us lately?” And the answer is, outside the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mngop","category-republicans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48878"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48900,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48878\/revisions\/48900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}