Yesterday, in an interview with the St. Petersburg Times, I said in 2010 one of my big targets is the GOP establishment. Yep. It’s being characterized as a civil war. I prefer to think of it as a coup. It is time for the grassroots to take back the party. If a fight is necessary, I’m game for that.

While I was away from my computer most of the day, that statement kind of exploded yesterday.

But what do I mean? It’s pretty simple.

The media narrative every time Republicans lose is not that Republicans lose, but that conservatives lose. Without fail, every election cycle, made worse by John McCain being the 2008 nominee, is that conservatives cannot win. In 2008, the narrative was that conservatives cannot even make it out of the GOP primary.

As often happens, the media narrative when repeated enough starts being treated as fact, particularly among Republican establishment types who crave acceptance in the media. Their thinking is pretty grade school: “Reporter says conservatives can’t win. Therefore I will not be conservative. They will look at me and say ‘winner.’”

Sadly, this attitude has infected the great bulk of the Republican establishment. The only way to change this is for conservatives to win. But this year, unlike most other years, there is a very real problem. The Republican Establishment is out to beat conservatives to make sure once and for all that the media narrative is established fact.

Look at the pattern, led by Rob Jesmer, the Executive Director of the NRSC, who has rallied Senate Republicans to oppose conservatives nationwide:

In Pennsylvania, the GOP went with Arlen Specter over Pat Toomey.

In Florida, it is Crist over Rubio.

In Connecticut, the GOP has stayed neutral as to the moderates in the race, but made clear the conservative is a loser.

In California, it is Fiorina over DeVore.

Across the board, the GOP Establishment is staying neutral between moderates and endorsing moderates over conservatives. In some cases, it is endorsing liberals over conservatives.

The goal is an intentionally orchestrated campaign to defeat conservatives in the GOP primaries and thereby have the establishment take full credit for what we all know is going to be a good year for the GOP in 2010.

However, conservatives have a real opportunity to fight back. From Florida to California to Pennsylvania and more, if conservatives win the primaries the Republican Establishment will be marginalized and totally unable to take credit for the victories. In what will be a good year for Republicans next year, those conservatives will most likely win the general election too. The media and establishment narrative will be crushed.

So yes, there is a very necessary brewing Republican civil war. This should be a banner election year for conservatives. Sadly, it is the GOP Establishment trying to prevent that from happening.

We must fight back. We know conservatives are the base of the party. We know independents are moving our way. We know conservatives can win. We know from Maine to Florida to California to Alaska a pro-entrepreneurial “leave me the hell alone” message can sell. And yet?

The Republican Establishment in charge now is the same Establishment that was there in 2006. It never got replaced. For example, Mitch McConnell has led us from 55 Senate seats to 40 and his record as NRSC Chairman was equally craptacular. Now this man is both trying to beat conservatives in Republican primaries and oppose Obamacare with cute little messaging amendments. These people are only winners because we let them. Not any more.

Conservatives can win if we fight back. Who is with me?

What are we told about conservatives by the Republican establishment? Let’s see: they need to be seen and not heard, they are hurting us with independents, their philosophy is outmoded, they stand for nothing but “no,” and if we move right the voters will reject us.

What do we know from reality?

As Republicans stood up to Obama, their polling among independents went up.

Independents more closely identify with conservatives than liberals.

When Obama targeted Rush as too conservative, Rush’s ratings went up.

More voters already view themselves as conservative than liberal.

After Joe Wilson called the President a liar, Wilson racked up the cash from across the nation.

And now there is this.

Among likely voters in South Carolina, Jim DeMint’s unapologetic conservatism polls better than Lindsey Graham’s accommodationist love letters to Obama.

DeMint polls well with both men and women.

Among Republican likely voters, most think the GOP should go DeMint’s way, not Graham’s way.

What’s more, in a PPP poll, which is a Democrat oriented polling firm, of registered voters, DeMint still does well. Registered voter polling always skews to the left. Compound that with PPP being a Democrat polling firm and the skew goes further. And still, DeMint hovers around 50% popularity and opposition to Obamacare tops 50%.

The message to the GOP is clear as we have seen the same trends in other polls beyond the borders of South Carolina: More Jim DeMints, less apologists for creeping socialism.

Worst case scenario: voters at least want a politician who does what he says he will do.

Most likely case: voters want real conservatives running the country.

The Rasmussen poll shows DeMint with a 61% favorability rating among independents, while Washington establishment’s favorite Republican, Lindsey Graham, only has a 55% favorable view with SC independents. Who’s message is resonating with the middle and attracting new voters to the party (growing the tent)? Conservatives.

It is becoming increasingly likely – indeed, possibly inevitable without either massive public outcry, a little luck, or both – that Americans will get a massive lump of coal in their stocking for Christmas this year – in the form of Washington-run healthcare.

Sure, it is possible that Democrats will fail to pull together 60 votes – getting trapped between watering down the public option enough to earn yes votes from the Independent Joe Lieberman (CT) or (supposedly) Republican Olympia Snowe (ME), and keeping the public option strong enough to maintain yes votes from admitted socialist Bernie Sanders (VT) and like-minded liberals who refuse to admit they are actually socialist, such as Sherrod Brown (OH).

But, given the pressure coming from the President, the lack of response from Senate Republicans and a building compromise among liberal and moderate Democrats to hide (but not really eliminate) the public option under a “trigger” or an “OPM-managed” plan – the Senate may well pass a bill which Speaker Pelosi could take up and pass “as is” and send to the President to sign on Christmas Eve.

All of this is even more likely for one simple reason… it is Christmas. The American people have a funny way of actually focusing on family, friends, gift-giving and – oh, I don’t know – the birth of Jesus this time of year. In other words… all the good things – which means anything but what the fools in Washington are doing.

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Right now in America, the people of this great nation are staring down the loaded barrel of government-run healthcare. If this bill passes, it is no less than the end of America as we know it. You know it. Most Americans knows it.

Yet the people most in a position to do anything about it right now – Senate Republicans – are doing absolutely nothing. If anything, they actually are HELPING Democrats by offering amendments to “highlight problems in the bill,” giving the Democrats the opportunity to produce “cover votes.”

Consider the comments of the number two Senate Republican, Jon Kyl, yesterday on Bill Bennett’s radio show, being hosted by Rick Santorum (hat tip to mayhem in comments of one of Erick’s post, here). In response to the question, “what is your strategy, to the extent you can share it,” Kyl said, “actually, I think we can be fairly upfront about it. Our strategy is not actually to delay and not take votes.” He added, “our strategy is to have a lot of good amendments and highlight the problems in the bill,” and “it is not our strategy to somehow slow things down.”

This is what happens when Senators sit around their offices with overpaid, but largely incompetent staff in fancy rooms scattered about the Capitol – and they listen to pollsters and political strategists talking about how unpopular this bill is, but stressing that Republicans “need to be for something.”

Senator Kyl continued, spending several minutes detailing the GOP strategy to improve the bill with amendments. But, then, the Jon Kyl that we usually applaud conceded that it was simply not possible to improve a bill that at its core allows a government takeover of health care.

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This is frustrating.

The Senate Republican Conference is giddy that its first amendment to the health care legislation is to preserve the bloated Medicare bureaucracy. The Senate Democrats want to do what they always accuse the GOP of doing and cut Medicare. The GOP is apparently giddy at the opportunity to rub the Democrats’ noses in their Medicare cuts.

So now the GOP is using its first amendment to reaffirm the Democrat theory that Medicare cannot be cut and cuts even to the rate of growth of Medicare are also wrong.

The GOP could have, by chance, offered up the Stupak language, which has not yet been inserted. The GOP could have offered up an amendment to split the Democrats up front. The GOP could have done nothing and moved on to let cloture fail, thus killing the bill. Instead, Democrats and Republicans will no doubt join hands and vote to put the money back in Medicare, making it a grand bipartisan exercise.

What next? A GOP amendment to guarantee breast cancer screenings in the legislation?

Having started from the presupposition that the health care legislation is going to pass, the GOP seems to be signaling it will work to “improve” the legislation just enough to overcome a filibuster.

The legislation has 57 votes already. The GOP does not need to offer amendments to improve the bill — they need to bring it to a vote and kill it. Preening for cameras and favorable press coverage is going to get the bill to 60 votes and a signing ceremony.

*Yes, I realize these are all motions to recommit the bill to committee, which will never pass. So they aren’t trying to improve the bill, this a pure messaging/posturing exercise, but it doesn’t help to stop the bill. Since I assume we’re trading amendments (one GOP amend vote, then one Dem, and back and forth) every lame GOP recommit amendment we rush to do gives Dems another chance to fix their bill and cobble together 60 votes.

A group of conservative Republicans is set to offer a resolution be considered at next month’s Republican National Committee meeting in Hawai’i, calling on party candidates to embrace a majority of a group of ten positions based on core conservative principles to gain and retain RNC endorsements and funding.  I think it’s a brilliant idea that is right for the times.  I acknowledge that there are those who disagree and are concerned that such a resolution may end up bringing about more problems than it will solve.  But I hold that the resolution will help demonstrate to Republican base voters that the party is serious about a return to conservative principles.

Erick spoke for many conservatives in his reasoned and sincere criticism of the pledge resolution.  They are primarily concerned that requiring candidates to take a pledge of this kind will give liberal Republicans cover to proclaim themselves conservative.  They worry the pledge will result in more, not less, fiascoes like the DeDe Scozzafava candidacy in New York’s 23rd congressional district.

But the ten positions are written in a way that is broad enough that any Republican should be able to easily clear the bar of 8 out of 10 that the resolution requires.  Yet, the positions are specific enough to demonstrate both to base voters and disillusioned independents just what Republicanism entails.  And, the positions talk about what we as Republicans stand for, rather than simply what we stand against.

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It’s not even what’s IN this 2,000 page monstrosity of a healthcare bill that is at issue anymore, it’s what enacting it represents. Remember, it was only a couple hundred years ago that a King’s tyranny and despotism gave birth to a Nation of men and women more willing to die for liberty than live for the whims and fancies of an elite class hell bent on expanding their wealth and power on the backs of those having to live hand to mouth just to survive.

Rasmussen reports today that a meager 38% of us “favor the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats.” In fact, the article goes on to suggest that 56% actually oppose it. The aristocrats on the Hill, meanwhile, continue to push forward with the most un-American, un-Patriotic legislation presented to the American people…their BOSSES…since the New deal. ANY socialized Government-run system runs counter to everything our Founding Fathers fought and died for, and voting for it runs counter to everything being an “American” is supposed to represent.

We’ve given the ruling class Tea Parties, and they call us Nazis. We’ve had protests and rallies and we’ve crashed their phone systems trying to tell them no, and they’ve thrown the race card in our face. They’ve tried to define “we, the People” along party lines by suggesting the GOP is just the party of “no”, while the Democrats are the party “fulfilling an agenda of progress and change”. [For the record, I'll take "party of no" over "party of death" any day.]

The health care debate is not about health care, it’s not about what race you are, and it’s certainly not about which party you’re affiliated with. The health care debate is about who really runs this country. Is it the American taxpayer, or is it the power-monger on Capitol Hill?

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Please see the update at the bottom of this post. — Erick

Via Instapundit comes word that the federal government’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM) intends to purge the federal government of Republican civil servants all in the name of purify the federal bureaucracy.

You can read the OPM memo here.

It is a typical Washington process that many political appointees are able to take jobs within the civil service once their political appointment expires — usually at the conclusion of one administration. What often happens as well is Congressional staffers, before an election or shortly thereafter, will move over to the Executive Branch placed into the civil service, in effect, by appointment.

So, for example, when George Bush became President in 2001, a number of Clinton political appointees became civil service employees. As a result, they became subject to civil service hiring and firing rules, which meant they could no longer be replaced simply for having been a Democratic appointee.

Barack Obama is changing that. He intends to purge all Republicans from the federal bureaucracy retroactive to five years ago.

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In the wake of the House vote for President Obama’s government takeover of health care, some conservative commentators are asking what may have been had House Republicans decided to follow Rep. John Shadegg’s (R-AZ) advice to vote present on the Stupak-Pitts amendment.  The amendment prohibits the federal government from spending any funds to provide abortion under the plan’s public option and prohibits anyone receiving a federal subsidy from purchasing a health insurance plan that covers abortion.

Sixty-four Democrats voted with Republicans in passing Stupak.  The argument says that had Republicans voted “present” or “no” on the amendment, it would have failed.  The theory is that those sixty-four Democrats would have abandoned the final bill without the prohibition included, effectively killing the overall effort to socialize the nation’s health care system.

But that thinking represents the triumph of hope over experience.  It supposes that Nancy Pelosi, who has shown herself to be nothing if not a cold-blooded and ruthless political operative, would not take any other necessary steps to find the votes necessary to pass the bill.  The only reason Stupak was allowed to come to a vote in the first place was because Pelosi was willing to shiv two-thirds of her caucus to get the bill passed.  Pelosi, and Obama, would have moved any obstacle, made any promise, and broken any number of arms to get the White House a “victory” on health care, however hollow that victory may ultimately turn out to be.

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With news that RINO DeDe Scozzafava has dropped out of the race in NY-23, and with Republican Bob McDonnell seemingly cruising to victory in the Virginia governor’s race, all eyes are turning to New Jersey.  Republican Christopher Christie is slightly ahead in the polls, with the trend going his way.  A victory for Republicans in deep blue New Jersey would send shock waves through the country that would be felt right up to the doors of the White House.

And New Jersey is winnable.  Independent candidate Chris Daggett appears to be fading, as voters who were considering him begin to get cold feet.  The majority of Daggett’s voters say Christie is their second choice, and he stands to gain three to five percent in the polls just from Daggett’s support.

Enthusiasm for incumbent Governor Jon Corzine remains non-existent, no matter how many times President Barack Obama visits the Garden State on his behalf.  New Jerseyans are not happy with Corzine’s performance as governor, and they know that Obama is not on the ballot.  None but the most die-hard Democrat is coming out to vote for Corzine.  Christie is winning among independents by double-digits.

With victory so close, it’s time for conservatives nationwide to step in and help push Christie over the top. 

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I have written about John Feehery before. He is the former Bob Michel and Denny Hastert employee who had to be bumped aside by the insurgents of 1994 before the GOP could take control of Congress and then weaseled his way back into power in Hastert’s office. Then we lost power. Hmmmm . . .

Feehery is the guy who gave Bob Michel and Bob Dole credit for the conservative revolution of 1994 and told Rush Limbaugh to shut up or the GOP would stay out of power.

Feehery’s wife is the Deputy Chief of Staff to Charlie Crist’s errand boy, Senator George LeMieux. In other words, he is most definitely not a conservative.

So let’s compare and contrast Feehery. It’s like he wants to be Andrew Sullivan in his inconsistencies.

Here is Feehery from October 21, 2009:

But in both races, conservative independent third-party candidates are running insurgent campaigns that just may give the election to the Democrats.

In fact, the Club for Growth, a nominally Republican-leaning but actually Republican-slaying organization, is pouring money into the third-party candidate in the New York race, attacking the Republican candidate. The third-party challenger has no chance of winning, so this seems like a conspiracy to give the Democrats another seat in a Republican district. Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) weighed in, endorsing Scozzafava, making that very point. . . .

The hard-rock conservatives don’t seem to be in much of a mood to make accommodations to a broader base. And that could spell doom for Republicans as they try to take back the House and make inroads in the Senate.

The very same John Feehery today in James Oliphant’s Los Angeles Times article:

But John Feehery, a Republican strategist in Washington, said Hoffman may well have won the election even if Scozzafava had stayed in.

“That means that even in the Northeast, the country has become much more conservative than it was only 10 months ago,” Feehery said, suggesting that the Obama’s administration’s spending policies were responsible.

It is men like John Feehery who claim to be top GOP consultants, but will say or do anything as the wind blows, who have gotten us into the mess we are in. HIs opinion should count for what it is: crap.

By the time you read this, a lot of ink and air time will have been spent on this Politico article suggesting that the Republicans tremble when conservatives like Rush, Hannity, Beck, or even me says something.

Eric Cantor went on the record saying, “We need more voices.” I and everyone else I’ve talked to read that as being critical of the present voices, but his office tells me that “The question was does Rush, Beck, and others hurt, and Eric’s point was we need their voice and others. And he furthered that in the same quote by saying the party in power is trying to demonize voices, yours, ours, Rush’s, And no matter whom, we shouldn’t let them.” Good to hear, but it really didn’t read as a defense the way it was presented by the Politico.

In fact, what the GOP needs right now is leadership. Talk radio and places like RedState are filling a void because the GOP is behaving spectacularly crapulently. Lindsey Graham is collaborating with cap and traders. Pete Sessions and the NRCC are throwing their money down the rat hole that is the Scozzafava campaign. John Cornyn tries to shut out conservative hispanics in favor of squishy, but well tanned governors. The strategy is to be more like the Democrats. It is disappointing.

A question for those who want more voices — what should they be saying?

It is true the Republican brand still sucks. But “conservative” is becoming quite popular. The message of freedom and liberty still resonates. What the Republicans really fear is loss of control. They do not like that conservatives from outside the Beltway are more and more in the drivers’ seat.

But there is more to this story. This is something ignored by most people today. This story is, whether intended or not, a coordinated hit out of the White House. We know the Politico does this. It runs as full stories the hit jobs of the various parties.

And not only do we see the Politico running this as a hit job for the Democrats, but we see a few Republicans willing to go on record as useful idiots.

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This is rather inside the baseball, but it is also very important.

The Senate is about to vote for cloture on S. 1776. This legislation is the first vote in the Obamacare battle on the floor of the Senate.

Basically, the bill would bribe the doctors’ lobby into supporting Obamacare to the tune of three-quarters of a trillion dollars. Importantly, the Democrats are claiming Obamacare will reduce the deficit because they are putting most of the deficit ballooning in this piece of legislation. This will add trillions of dollars to the deficit.

Unfortunately, some Republican Senators who say they will vote against S. 1776 do support calling for cloture, i.e. cutting off debate.

But the media is reporting the Democrats do not have the votes on their side for cloture. Any Republican who supports cloture is, in effect, assisting the Democrats in passing Obamacare.

CALL YOUR SENATOR RIGHT NOW. TELL HIM TO OPPOSE CLOTURE ON S. 1776.

IF WE LOSE THIS BATTLE, OBAMACARE WILL MORE LIKELY THAN NOT BECOME A REALITY

Bob Corker explains why opposition of S. 1776 is in the country’s best interests.

The Politico has an article out today on tea party activists getting involved in their local political parties. I’ve been preaching on this for a while.

The reporter, Alex Isenstadt, interviewed me for his article and gave me the last word. I’m partial to my quote:

For some, supporting insurgent campaigns or waging primary bids just isn’t a strong enough signal to send to a Republican Party that has abandoned core conservative policies.

Erick Erickson, founder and editor of the influential conservative blog RedState, has urged Tea Party activists to “put down the protest signs” and stage takeovers of local Republican parties.

“Grassroots activists need to start infiltrating the party,” said Erickson. “The only way to start getting [the establishment] back is to start pounding them with every fist we have.”

I am told quite reliably that in a meeting today on Capitol Hill, Republican Senators began to rapidly move toward concessions on health care because they are afraid they cannot hold their members. Some Republicans are now thinking of supporting a government program.

Go to the action center and start calling.

Already, Senate Democrats are looking to pass healthcare by attaching it to unrelated legislation — the back door Brian Darling has repeatedly warned us about.

Republicans are starting to waver on this.

Call now. Tell the GOP to stand firm in opposition to the Democrats’ health care plans.

[UPDATED:] I’m hearing this evening from both some Senators in the room and staff that the fears of GOP caving are overblown and we should not be concerned.

In a disappointing sign that the House Republican Leadership has not earned and does not deserve to retake the majority in the House of Representatives, a bunch of people are confirming for me today that the House GOP has decided to sign on with ACORN and endorse Dede Scozzafava in NY-23.

As I reported the other day, Scozzafava has repeatedly been backed by ACORN in state legislative elections in New York. Scozzafava maintains a voting record the Working Families Party, ACORN’s political arm, supports.

Likewise, Scozzafava has serious issues on the personal front. To top it all off, Scozzafava would have voted for TARP, the bailouts, the stimulus, etc.

Doug Hoffman, the conservative candidate, would caucus with the Republicans. He is endorsed by Fred Thompson, the Club For Growth, and conservatives across the nation. Scozzafava was encouraged by the Democrats to run as a Democrat.

That the GOP would support a candidate who is more aligned with the Democrats on core issues than the GOP signals the GOP is in this to win at any cost, damn the principles. It is exactly that attitude that caused voters to send the GOP packing.

Republican Presidential contenders like Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and Sarah Palin should charge up to New York and support Doug Hoffman — he may not have an “R” next to his name, but he is a better representative of the party of Lincoln and Reagan than Dede Scozzafava could ever hope to be.

And Hoffman can win.

Does Carly Fiorina care what Republicans think at all? The very day after rejecting the option of taking day trips or making video addresses to Republicans gathered for the state party convention in Indian Wells, Carly Fiorina has begun making day trips to raise money. While this is a natural step for somebody who refuses to reach into her own deep pockets to fund her campaign, this does represent yet another stumble for a campaign that can’t seem to go a day without making a mistake.

It’s no wonder that polls show her running against Barbara Boxer no better than Chuck DeVore, despite Fiorina’s wide reputation of being a pro-abortion “social moderate.” One would think that a candidate who, in the public eye, neutralizes Boxer’s key issue of abortion would do better in the polling, but Fiorina’s failure to achieve anything in the polls is a testament to her failure to campaign effectively and to reach out to the Republican base. Republicans would be critical to her fight against the united front of the Democrat party, the unions, and the press. If she can’t get us on her side, she can’t win.

So why, then, does she snub us and instead turn to the deep pockets? Does she intend to run as a Schwarzenegger-ite “post-partisan?” Does she even have a plan for victory? Even Meg Whitman showed up to Indian Wells, made good speeches, and earned respect even from supporters of other candidates. She put pressure on her opponents, and Steve Poizner did not impress when he replied.

Senator Boxer will have to make a mistake if a Republican is going to beat her in 2010. I doubt Carly Fiorina is capable of applying the pressure to Boxer it will take to make that happen.

I’ve never heard of the guy, but apparently Ed Schultz is an MSNBC host. It should come as no surprise that he is engaging in a level of hyperbole that MSNBC, CNN, and the rest of the MSM gang would be blowing up as the lead story had a Republican done it.

Look, if you will, at what they do every time Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, or Glenn Beck says something “controversial.”

Schultz, talking about healthcare, went after Eric Cantor, who he no doubt hates because Cantor is Jewish. Parlaying his Cantor hate into his hate of the GOP, Schultz said, “Hold it right there! The Republicans lie! The want to see you dead. They’d rather make money off your dead corpse. They kind of like it when that woman has cancer and they don’t have anything for her.”

Hey Ed, why don’t you hold it right there. We all know that if any conservative host had said this it would be assailed on the front page of the New York Times.

Of course, the problem here is we don’t know whether this is media bias against Republicans or if it is because the media, like me, does not know who the hell this Schultz guy is.

There are two candidates who have a chance to win the Republican nomination for Senate in June 2010. One is Chuck DeVore. One of our Fighting Four candidates this primary season, he announced last November his candidacy to defeat Senator Barbara Boxer. Term-limited from his state Assembly seat, he’s committed to victory.

The other is Carly Fiorina. A political novice, never having run for office before, she doesn’t even know if she’s running for this office yet. In big, black letters her own, brand-new website asks “Coming Soon?” It’s no wonder she won’t even fund her own campaign. Why spend that money when she might not even run?

Chuck DeVore is on Facebook. Chuck DeVore is on Twitter, and he’s active on both. Carly Fiorina’s webpage has placeholder, non-functional links to both services. She may, or may not, show up to engage Republicans, and will do so only when it’s convenient for her.

We have two choices in June, but only one candidate is there for us and committed to fighting Barbara Boxer, the dumbest member of the US Senate. The clear choice is Chuck DeVore. I hope we can give to him and good conservatives like him to help him fight for us and win.