GOP, conservatives can’t rock DC with a broken Speaker

One year after committing himself and his speakership to reducing the federal budget deficit, Rep. John A. Boehner (R.-Ohio) delivered to President Barack Obama and the Democrats a one-year hall pass that will suspend the debt ceiling until 2015.

The vote was 221 to 201 with 28 Republicans, like Boehner and his merry band of hacks, voting alongside their BFF’s across the aisle. Members of the House GOP leadership had set the table for a small fight with the Democrats by tying the increase in the debt ceiling to the restoration of cuts in military pensions -- hardly the stuff of heroic last stands. But, if anything, it was a rejection of the cuts called for and defended by the Republican leadership, specifically, House Budget Chairman Paul D. Ryan (R.-Wis.). Ryan, you’ll recall, a man vilified for his budget cruelty when he ran for vice-president on the 2012 ticket with W. Mitt Romney, negotiated the two-year budget deal with the Democrats, a GOP budget surrender treaty. If you bought a $10 bucket of popcorn and a $5 cup of soda expecting to enjoy a renewed fight over the debt ceiling, sorry.

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When Boehner barely won reelection as speaker, he was still smarting over Obama boxing his ears to end that circus called “the fiscal cliff.” Back then, Boehner promised conservatives that when the Treasury hit the debt ceiling limit that next March, he would be ready to fight. But, instead, the speaker signed off on the suspension of the debt ceiling for several months. Of course, Boehner and the GOP leadership held their “show” votes repealing the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and made angry speeches about the evils of ObamaCare. Then, in continuing resolutions, the Republican leaders ensured that ObamaCare was fully funded and protected from any actual reforms. What is really going on is a combination of three factors. First, Boehner is an emotional invalid. He fears confrontation and because he has no understanding of conservative values or ideas beyond the slogans written out for him, he shags off the battlefield unwilling and unable to do the work he promised the voters he would do. The second factor is that some knucklehead told the GOP leadership that Napoleon once said that one should never interfere with an enemy in the process of defeating himself. This wisdom has been repeated so many times as gospel that you would never know that Napoleon lost—everything, twice. In fact, when the English saw that the emperor was in trouble in Spain, they sent Wellington and thousands of troops to make sure Napoleon stayed in trouble. Finally, the real object of the Republican Party, which is still home for conservatives for now, is not to fix America. The object of the GOP is to win elections without a conservative mandate and to then govern without a conservative agenda—so as to ensure reelection. It is the pursuit of power with no intention of using the power. Why? Well, because there is a caste of GOP consultants who make bank not on monthly retainers, but on the commissions on television, radio and direct mail advertising. As the Democrats exploit social media and new online advertising methods, Republican campaign geniuses continue to rely on legacy channels—because they pay the highest commissions for placement. Nothing rocks the boat like ideology, so the Republican consultants stay as far away as possible. Instead, they rely on opposition research detectives to produce juicy tidbits that are then packaged and delivered to “investigative” reporters. They also rely on ridicule, such as the constant jokes about Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D.-Mass.) claiming to be a Cherokee or even the perennial clown-car-driving-through-Washington ads, where only the voice over script is changed for the local race. It is an unholy deal. Republican politicians win office or stay in office as long as they do nothing to upset the consultants. Meanwhile, conservative voters are waking up to the fact they are getting jobbed. One way to break the cycle, is to break the cycle. We are told that the reason Boehner must stay speaker is that there is no one else. Really? Not so sure. It might be time to return to our A-B-C’s: the Anybody But-Boehner Campaign.