It’s clear civil war has been declared. You can now see the war between the traditionally conservative Republican establishment and the 21st century Tea Party Republicans raging. Just look at Congress.
In a nutshell: some Congressional Republicans including Rep. Paul Ryan want a modest deal with Democrats on the budget that would — at the very least — nudge Congress out of 24/7 confrontation mode and back into a semblance of bipartisanship. Some conservative groups immediately sprung into action opposing it. And Speaker of the House John Boehner — perhaps America’s most prominent victim of bullying — finally had it:
House Speaker John Boehner went off on outside conservative groups Wednesday morning for pushing against the new budget deal.
“They’re using our members and they’re using the American people for their own goals,” he said. “This is ridiculous.”
Boehner’s anger is more evident when you see the video on this MSNBC clip:
The Huffington Post’s Howard Fineman, on Hardball, says this isn’t Civil War: “It’s all out war.”
MORE:
Several key conservative groups are against the sequester relief within the new budget deal.
“Though conservatives support more spending restraint, the discretionary spending limits defined in the Budget Control Act represent a promise to the American people to marginally slow the growth of government,” reads a letter signed by the heads of Heritage Action, the Family Research Council, and the American Conservative Union. Heritage Action’s Michael Needham penned an op-ed in USA Today on Tuesday calling the deal “a step backward.” The Cato Institute called the deal a “huge Republican cave-in.”
Ryan’s smooth reaction suggested he could well be destined for the national stage (again) in a Presidential run as he tries to straddle several wings of the party:
Rep. Paul Ryan also addressed his conservative critics Wednesday, calling the attacks from the right “a strange new normal.” Ryan, for his part, is doing everything he can to remind his critics that he’s a conservative.
Because he who reaches across the aisle to work with Democrats is “caving” -the 21st century word for compromising rather than the kind of honorable deal making seen throughout Congress’ history that helped create national consensus over Congressional actions. Ryan is already being dissed by conservative bloggers (for “caving” of course). And Mitch McConnell, who more often than not can be seen with his finger in the political wind, has unofficially let it be known he’ll vote against the proposed budget deal (he faces a strong Tea Party challenger).
It’s all out in the open now — as The Politico notes:
The simmering feud between House Republicans and movement conservatives is finally an all-out war.
The tension exploded on Wednesday morning when Speaker John Boehner and outside conservative groups traded sharp barbs over the budget deal Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) crafted with Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.). It only escalated later in the day when the leader of the right-wing Republican Study Committee forced out its long-time executive director for leaking private conversations about strategy to those organizations.
The frenzied activity — just days before the House is scheduled to recess until 2014 — represents the ultimate culmination of a power struggle between institutional Republicans in Congress and outside groups, who are funded by well-heeled conservative donors and can pay for primary challenges…..
….Republican leaders have long accused those outside groups — Heritage Action, Club for Growth and Americans for Prosperity, to name a few — of existing solely to oppose them. Many of these organizations accuse Boehner, his leadership team and some Republican members of Congress of being a bunch of squishes willing to abandon their conservative principles in favor of compromises.
More than 50 members of conservative groups signed on to a statement Wednesday evening responding to both Boehner’s remarks and Teller’s dismissal.
“It is clear that the conservative movement has come under attack on Capitol Hill today,” the statement reads.
But wait: aren’t Tea Party style conservatives the ones targeting those GOPers considered not far right enough or those willing to reach across the aisle? The bulk of the attacks since 2010 have been conservatives against Republicans deemed too moderate.
All of that was private, relegated to fundraisers and K Street lunchroom chatter, until now.
The two sides are fighting over strategy, politics and policy — and, in a way, this skirmish neatly encapsulates the existential battle for the soul of the Republican Party. They are showing the tug between purity versus pragmatism, and loyalty versus the pedal-to-the-metal tactics to drag the a party to the right.
Boehner’s line of attack against outside groups follows a similar tack by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell who has focused his outrage on the Senate Conservatives Fund.
And the political jury on whether McConnell’s attack will succeed or boomerang isn’t in yet.
Which way is the wind blowing in the GOP? It’s no coincidence that several GOPers who want to get the 2016 Presidential nomination are all scrambling to oppose a budget deal — which could conceivably avert another government shut down:
Three Republican Senators who are considered possible contenders for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination are all thumbs down on a bipartisan budget compromise that would prevent another government shutdown if approved by Congress.
Marco Rubio of Florida, Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Ted Cruz of Texas are critical of the deal struck Tuesday between House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, last year’s GOP vice presidential nominee, and his Senate counterpart, Democrat Patty Murray, that would set spending levels, reduce the deficit, and relieve some of the forced spending cuts known as sequestration.
“I can’t support the proposed budget deal,” Rubio told supporters in an e-mail Wednesday, adding “this budget continues Washington’s irresponsible budgeting decisions by spending more money than the government takes in and placing additional financial burdens on everyday Americans.”
Paul said in a statement that “the small sequester spending cuts were not nearly enough to address our deficit problem. Undoing tens of billions of this modest spending restraint is shameful and must be opposed. I cannot support a budget that raises taxes and never balances, nor can I support a deal that does nothing to reduce our nation’s $17.3 trillion debt.”
Cruz, who was traveling back from the Nelson Mandela memorial service in South Africa while the deal was struck, did not directly react to the agreement.
But Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier said in a statement that “while we haven’t yet reviewed in full detail, the current budget proposal is deeply concerning. We shouldn’t sacrifice the modest 2.4% spending cuts already in law in exchange for a mere possibility of future reductions.”
Profiles in Courage these ain’t..
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.