When GOP Senators killed Rand Paul’s gun control filibuster, conservatives within the party were livid. It was widely viewed as “yet another betrayal” at the hands of the usual suspects – namely John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and their cadre of turncoat RINO’s. Putting it bluntly, constitutionalists are sick and tired of watching their supposed allies capitulate on the very ideals they’re being sent to Washington to defend.
So, just imagine how hard it must have been for Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and Mike Lee. After sending their filibuster threat to Harry Reid, they were forced to spend weeks getting up close and personal with outraged RINOs.
Ted Cruz spoke recently at the Freedomworks Texas Summit, where he outlined the pressure they faced.
“We’ve had five or six lunches with a bunch of Republican Senators standing up and looking at Rand and Mike and me and yelling at us at the top of their lungs. I mean really upset,” Cruz said. “And they say ‘look, why did you do this? As a result of what you did, when I go home my constituents are yelling at me that I’ve got to stand up on principle!”
…Which, of course, is exactly what they’re supposed to be doing in the first place.
Cruz acknowledges that the fight isn’t over. Already, John McCain is out there screaming about how they’ll have another gun control vote before the end of the year. Still, what does it say when just the threat of a principled stand is enough to stop anti-constitutional legislation?
Picture a world where we had more than three Senators who were willing to stand up and do the right thing.
The real tragedy here is not that the GOP has been losing, it’s that winning could be so easy, and yet the majority of Republicans are simply unwilling to make the effort to fight. In the case of gun control a basic, single-paragraph, letter signed by three senators turned the tide. All they had to do was announce their intentions, and they won.
Why are the rest of the GOP‘s Senators refusing to learn from this?
Here’s Senator Cruz:
