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Mitch McConnell Yet Again Tells Fiscal Conservatives to Go to Hell

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  May 11th, 2011 at 07:36 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

So let’s get this straight.

There’s vacancy on the Senate Finance Committee. Tom Coburn is the only significant fiscal conservative on the committee.

Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) had the seniority to get the job, but:

“Oh gosh, I’ve got all the stuff I can stand,” Burr told The Hill when asked last week whether he was interested in the spot.

Burr’s spokeswoman said last month: “Senator Burr has no interest in changing his committee assignments.”

In fact, Burr has been pretty consistent that he had no interest in moving to Finance.

So FreedomWorks made this a major push — as big as Rep. Flake for Appropriations in the House — directing thousands of calls to Senator McConnell’s office.

Mark Levin pushed it and had a call blitz to Senator McConnell.

The message was clear, the Tea Party and GOP grassroots wanted a senator on Finance to deal with taxes, healthcare, and entitlement reform. Senator DeMint has taken the lead on Obamacare repeal, the GOP health care alternative, pushing for Paul Ryan-style medicare voucher reform, and working on flat tax reform.

Instead of tipping his hat to tea party, Senator McConnell pressured and convinced Senator Richard Burr to change his mind.

Today, McConnell named Burr to Finance giving a highly valuable position to a guy whose Senate career is marked by being pro-amnesty, pro-TARP, and an author of S-CHIP.

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COMMENTS

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  • Carol Tarasewicz

    Jim DeMint was on Mark Levin’s show earlier and was gracious about it. He said he did not have the seniority. Levin told it like it is afterwards.
    I’m going to call McConnell’s office, again.

  • reaganauh2o

    and Mr. McConnell is showing absolute contempt towards the conservatives on this decision. If the Republicans get the senate back in 2012, there needs to be a coup for a new majority leader.

  • AceInTX
  • Doc Holliday

    it may be time to try a leadership coup, but the cowards will need to know we and are friends are behind them before they act.

  • http://www.rightreality.wordpress.com andysmith

    as much as the Democrats do? This just doesn’t make any sense to me anymore.
    You would think after 2006 and 2008 that SOMEONE would have had their heads removed from their rears and said, “conservatism works. We need to stop running to the left.” Especially after 2010, you would think that SOMEONE would have said, “we need to kiss the rears of those Tea Party people that gave us the House and slimmed the majority down a bit in the Senate.”
    Yet, the Washington GOP keeps spitting in our faces. I say this….get the White House out of Obama’s hands for 2012, then start primarying the hell out of some of these RINO’s in 2014. It’s the only way they’re going to learn.

  • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

    It’s certainly not “service”.

    When you’re about power, what matters is having money to dole out, benefits and perks to dole out and that requires expansion of the role of government. Said expansion is not only an anathama to conservatives, it runs counter to what most of us are demanding and that would be a sharp contraction of the role of government.

  • http://jhpruitt.blogtownhall.com/ kipling

    Here was my response: “When Mitch McConnell appoints a conservative to the Finance Committee, then we will talk.”

    Funds enclosed: $0.00

  • chbroussard

    but thanks to Mr. McConnell, that patience has now ceased to exist.

    Oh, Republican leaders say they learned their lesson in 2008. Obviously, Mr. McConnell, you did not. It’s only taken you 6 months to forget who brung ya to the dance. You are a spineless wimp and it is my hope that you are out of a leadership position in 2012. I’ve seen leaders, and you sir, are no leader.

  • chbroussard

    but thanks to Mr. McConnell, that patience has now ceased to exist.

    Oh, Republican leaders say they learned their lesson in 2008. Obviously, Mr. McConnell, you did not. It’s only taken you 6 months to forget who brung ya to the dance. You are a spineless wimp and it is my hope that you are out of a leadership position in 2012. I’ve seen leaders, and you sir, are no leader.

  • swi2522

    i have been debating moving to a different country and you are making it alot easier to make the decision

    not having to think about the morally bankrupt politicians in government will greatly improve my quality of life

    mitch when the economy collapses there wont be a hole deep enough for you to crawl into you looser

  • swi2522

    im thinking id like him to meet the big leader

    what goes around comes around

  • bk

    It’ll probably lead to more money for DeMint’s PAC and less money for the NRSC.

  • ceili_dancer

    would make a better option. Hopefully we have a pipeline to bring someone forward that can run a great campaign and is a conservative.

  • http://www.theprecinctproject.wordpress.com ColdWarrior

    tea partiers simply are not McConnell’s constituency.

    Yelling at Mitch McConnell from the bleachers is not going to change him.

    McConnell has two constituencies — the Republicans who got out the vote for him in the primary he won back in KY and his Republican cohorts in the Senate, who have the same constituency back in their respective states, who elected him Senate leader. And the key members of those constituencies are the Republican precinct committeemen. And with half of the available precinct committeeman slots vacant, on average, in all of those states, and with no significant increase in the percentage of those vacant slots being filled with warm conservative bodies, McConnell and the rest of the incumbent Republican senators have no reason to fear that they won’t win their next primary.

    The “public interest group” and “blogger” strategies are not going to get the job done. What will get the job done is an infusion of conservatives into the Republican Party’s precinct committeemen ranks. A “we the people” strategy where we conservatives are actually engaged in party politics. But that’s so much harder than sending a check to a public interest group who will “persuade” the “policymakers” on the right “policies” and is oh so much harder than blogging.

    I wrote about the three strategies here if you are interested:

    http://www.unifiedpatriots.com/2011/04/19/the-public-interest-group-and-blogger-strategies-vs-the-we-the-people-strategy/

    Things won’t change until we conservatives demonstrate that we have the numbers and organization to make changes at the primary election.

    Remember what happened to Bob Bennett?

    http://www.redstate.com/coldwarrior/2010/05/08/2101-of-3500-of-75000-denied-bob-bennett/

    We have the numbers here at Redstate. Will we act? Time will tell.

    Thank you.

    ColdWarrior

  • phenry

    And the GOP wonders why the liberty movement didn’t just back off and let people like Mike Castle, Sue Lowden, or Jane Norton win the nomination so they could take the senate. Is it clear now?

  • phenry

    All you do is go to your caucus and say “hey I’d like to be precinct committeeman” and a good chunk of the time they let you. PCP’s don’t choose candidates. The real work consists of knocking on people’s doors to boost your primary candidate over the RINO.

  • gpclaw

    Would be a great majority leader. The only down side I can think of, if the responsibilities of majority leader hurt his ability to influence elections around the country.

  • kestrel

    Gracious, yes. Class act, yes. From start to finish. There is no doubt in my mind that this decision will come back to haunt Senator McConnell in some way. I am taking it to The Almighty as I turn in tonight, and I will leave it there. Senator McConnell, if you knew what has been done behind the scenes for you, and is being done even now to assist you, you would be ashamed of this action and this decision. God knows.

  • rightwingmom52

    Interestingly enough, we are finishing up a series called “The Silencing of God” and the end of tonight’s session was about whether or not Christians should get involved in politics (the speaker and I both say yes). I’ll be praying, too.

  • drfredc

    What else did anyone expect from the Senate GOP losership. The Losership is more about surrounding themselves with like minded horse traders to keep their Losership power intact…

  • marine61sgt

    AMEN

  • http://www.patriotactionnetwork.com/profile/semperfi sirjason

    The Kentucky Dinosaur, McConnell, is nothing more than another power and money, GOP establishment elite who, do NOT give a rat’s biblical donkey about American patriots, especially the T.E.A. Movement fiscally conservatives!

    YES! McConnell will be toast IF we win the Senate Majority in the 2012 election and Senator Jim DeMint will become our Senate Majority Leader! Are you listening Speaker Boehner?

    As Erik reminded ALL of us how McConnell feels about “We the People who, handed the GOP the House Majority. He can ‘go to hell’ and we will move his professional, political, parasitical carcass to the dust bin of greedy RINO’S as we did in 2010!

  • hilltop

    We seem not to get it, the republican house leadership is a collection of crino’s that are interested in being re-elected to maintain their power and position, thats it. Wasting time and effort trying to influence them, suites them just fine. All our efforts should be to remove them all before it’s too late, “which it may be”. Constitutional conservatives and the ruling class are to apart, and it quite apparent that Americans will no longer fight to protect their liberty, making the 2nd. Amendment superfluous , no amount of negotiation or compromise will stave off the inevitable. Every man for himself will be the last futility.
    I don’t blame the liberals, they are only doing what they are allowed to do, conservatives don’t have the power to do anything on their own. It’s the independents, the constitutional agnostics, The fools.
    My spleen is now lying on the floor, vented and of no further use

  • weswalks

    Not only should Christians be involved, they will be judged by what they do and also what they fail to do.

  • fedsocdan
  • 4suramcan

    hilltop. There has already been enough tyranny committed by both parties that gives reason for ridin’ ‘em out on a rail”. But the people dont have it in them anymore, and the corrupt government knows it.

  • 4suramcan

    to that brother

  • fightinmad

    You ask the question, “Why do the DC Republicans hate conservatives like the liberal left?” and the answer to me is very clear. Many have referred to God in this section. I attribute the irrational behavior by the Republican Leadership to being moved by the hand of God. Look at what is going on world wide! We in Alabama just suffered one of the worst tornadoes in history, Mississippi is being washed away, we have wars on every hand and rumors of more, and our nation is being led by fools! Now if that isn’t very remarkably close to what our King of kings said during his answer concerning the end time then I don’t know what would be! Maybe it is TIME to look up and get ready. His coming has to be drawing nigh.

  • chbroussard
  • chbroussard
  • swi2522

    as a conservative i feel i not only get hit with body blows from the left but it appears the republicans in power are going out of their way to also try to defeat me with body blows

    its tough fighting two fronts and not knowing who all the enemy is

    washington is so broken and corrupt i think its past fixing

  • givemefreedom

    ARE the problem.
    It’s politically prudent to keep legislators like McConnell around to keep the conservative vs liberal numbers in balance
    but, as we can see, doing that does NOT produce the long term trends we are looking for ie: smaller government, lower taxes, less spending.
    The TEA PARTY will continue to grow in numbers and strength.
    Conservatives will retain the TEA PARTY as the THIRD PARTY.
    Conservatives will push for TERM LIMITS.

  • Common_Cents

    It’s too bad we have to fight a freakin war on two fronts, against the left and against Republican DC elite establishment types. We need to keep replacing these elites in DC in order to take on the left in a big way.

    We get the government we deserve.

  • Diogenes314

    Also, is Taxby Chambliss one of the good guys again?

    [quote]There?s vacancy on the Senate Finance Committee. [b]Tom Coburn [/b]is the only significant fiscal conservative on the committee.[/quote]

    You can’t call one a squish and the other “the only significant fiscal conservative” for holding the same position. Okay, I guess some of you can. As for Demint:

    1) According to both Politco and the Hill, Burr changed his mind about wanting the position.Any evidence to the contrary?

    2) I’m sure endorsing Rand Paul after McConnell had already endorsed the other candidate (in his own state) didn’t help his case. Neither did DeMint publicly trashing the leadership during the 2011 budget process. You can’t posture and hold yourself up as the only ‘real conservative’ among a bunch of squish traitors in the middle of negotiations and then be surprised when you’re not given preferential treatment. To DeMint’s credit, he took it well.

    3) The whole thing about having the same people who trash McDonnell call in to demand he promote their favorite candidate probably was ineffectual at best, counter-productive at worst.

    4) Any evidence that Burr is not going to be a fiscal conservative? It wasn’t a matter of telling ‘fiscal conservatives to go to hell’. Just Mark Levin and some RS diarists.

  • earlgrey

    They were trying to pass a medicare doc fix bill that was designed to take away some of the pain and divert costs of Obamacare. Burr was one of the supporters of the bill until he got a ton of calls from conservatives against it. I remember Erick putting his number up on this site and people calling. It was down to the wire. Ultimately Burrr made the right call, but he should have opposed this bill from the very beginning.

  • Diogenes314

    I’m not sure that puts him the ‘economic squish’ category though.

  • earlgrey

    nt.

  • gekster

    and we have even more irony from you.

  • cja99

    that ignores the TAX PAYING AMERICAN CITIZENS. They tax us to death, spend and waste our money and we are the biggest suckers and let them get away with it! What was it a Democrat was caught on tape saying “they need to be controlled” meaning the American people?

  • Flagstaff

    Just asking.

    Aren’t Kentuckians tired of a chinless, spineless, Pillsbury doughboy standing in for their senator?

    Not to be construed as a slam against Burr; I don’t know anything about him.

  • Flagstaff

    It has everything to do with human nature.

  • msjallen

    God is not just someone way up there looking down on our messed up world. Jesus Christ is still in control of history…
    John 16:33 These things I have spoken unto you that IN ME you might have peace. In the world you will have tribulation: but be of good cheer: I have overcome the world.
    I Cor 10:26 FOR THE EARTH IS THE LORD’S, AND ALL IT CONTAINS.
    Col 2:10 and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority;
    Jer 17:5 Thus says the LORD,” Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind
    And makes flesh his strength, And whose heart turns away from the LORD

    We either do things God’s way or we suffer the consequences. He wants the best for us and the best is His way. Try it, you will like it. BTW not what people say you should be or do but what God says. Of course you are going to have learn His Word from someone who KNOWS it.

  • msjallen

    God is not just someone way up there looking down on our messed up world. Jesus Christ is still in control of history…
    John 16:33 These things I have spoken unto you that IN ME you might have peace. In the world you will have tribulation: but be of good cheer: I have overcome the world.
    I Cor 10:26 FOR THE EARTH IS THE LORD’S, AND ALL IT CONTAINS.
    Col 2:10 and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority;
    Jer 17:5 Thus says the LORD,” Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind
    And makes flesh his strength, And whose heart turns away from the LORD

    We either do things God’s way or we suffer the consequences. He wants the best for us and the best is His way. Try it, you will like it. BTW not what people say you should be or do but what God says. Of course you are going to have learn His Word from someone who KNOWS it.

  • runner12

    Tying in the power-hungry behavior of a single Senator to God’s will is frankly well, just wrong. It appears insulting to God, and I say this as a Christ-follower.

    While we are at it (and I may be way out of line here), I am tired of every time a tragedy occurs some Christians tie it to the end of the world. For some, it is the first response when compassion should really be foremost on our minds. BTW, two of the tragedies that were listed above are simply a normal part of nature in the world we live in. Often when society collides with these powerful forces, tragedy is the result.

    Okay, I am done with my thread jack now and will step off of my little soapbox. My apologies to the diarist.

  • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

    have to do with practical politics? Guess what? None of us know exactly what God wants us to do in every situation, If you think you do you are delusional.

    Furthermore, I would never folllow or support anyone who said they knew God’s will.

  • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

    have to do with practical politics? Guess what? None of us know exactly what God wants us to do in every situation, If you think you do you are delusional.

    Furthermore, I would never folllow or support anyone who said they knew God’s will.

  • msjallen

    We need to learn what God wants us to do from His Word taught by someone who knows God’s Word like a a qualified minister who has been taught and knows the original languages and doesn’t tell his congregation what to do but teaches what the Bible says and each person has free will to live their life as unto the Lord from what is taught.
    I am sorry you don’t understand. I may be because you are not a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.
    I do not always know what God’s will is for my life at all times but I have studied under my pastor-teacher for many many years enough to know what is right and wrong in politics, life in general, making decisions, waiting on the Lord, putting my problems in God’s hands, etc. It works for me and I am thankful for His guidance in my life. And no, I don’t cry out “Oh Lord help me” when I have problems but faith rest in His promises and He never goes back on His Word.
    I would never criticize the way you believe because you also have free will to believe you do. We believe in live and let live.

  • mikeevergreen

    He, Rubio and Toomey are not sounding very fiscally conservative and like they really want to reform entitlements when Toomey’s budget doesn’t adress Medicare or Social Security at all? In fact, Toomey’s bill INCREASES Medicare spending.

  • mikeevergreen

    He, Rubio and Toomey are not sounding very fiscally conservative and like they really want to reform entitlements when Toomey’s budget doesn’t adress Medicare or Social Security at all? In fact, Toomey’s bill INCREASES Medicare spending.

  • rightwingmom52
  • pompey

    See if your republican friends can answer this question:

    With polls showing, year after year, that nearly 50% of the American people describe themselves as conservative why then in 2010 did liberal extrernist have control of the house, senate, and White House?. ……its real simple defining the problems in Washington: Almost no liberal program that has been passed in recent years could have been passed without a RINO congressman, senator, or president….any questions?