Cowlesy
03-15-2010, 09:48 AM
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/03/15/do-ordinary-americans-still-ma
Stacy McCain raises some really good issues here. No time for me to comment on it today at work, but I'd like to know what others think, particularly in light of the roadblocks that we are constantly trying to circumvent with our constitutional conservative candidates.
by R.S. McCain
A perception that the GOP establishment routinely rigs primaries in favor of the well-financed and well-connected is widespread among grassroots conservatives. Disillusioned by the political equivalent of insider trading, some idealistic Republicans are tempted to walk away from active participation in GOP politics, which would leave the party infrastructure even more controlled by selfish cynics and professional operatives.
One man who doesn’t want to see that happen is Doug Hoffman, the “Ordinary American” candidate whose third-party campaign last year in New York’s 23rd District became a national crusade for conservatives fed up with Washington, including the Beltway GOP. “The legacy of my [2009] campaign is that many Americans who had never been involved before saw that they could get involved and make a difference,” Hoffman told me in a telephone interview last week, after announcing his candidacy for the Republican nomination in this year’s mid-term election.
Strange as it may seem, some Republicans still haven’t gotten the message. There are rumors in New York that the national GOP establishment is trying to recruit Will Barclay to run against Hoffman. Scion of a wealthy family, Barclay is a state assemblyman whose father was appointed ambassador to El Salvador by President Bush. The chief argument for the younger Barclay’s candidacy, as one Hoffman-supporting conservative told me last week, can be summarized in three words: “Money, money, money.”
Can such an argument prevail in a year when Republicans hope to capture the populist energy of the Tea Party movement? Although Democratic attack ads last year branded Hoffman a millionaire indifferent to working-class interests, he grew up desperately poor and his rags-to-riches success story was one of the major selling points of his underdog campaign. If the Republican establishment shoves Hoffman aside in favor of Barclay, it would do more than reinforce the Democrats’ traditional class-warfare message that the GOP is the “party of the rich.” It would also send a message to the party’s conservative rank-and-file that their loyalty to Republicans is strictly a one-way street, never to be respected in any instance where grassroots preferences conflict with the political ambitions of party insiders. . . .
Read the rest at the link (http://spectator.org/archives/2010/03/15/do-ordinary-americans-still-ma)
Stacy McCain raises some really good issues here. No time for me to comment on it today at work, but I'd like to know what others think, particularly in light of the roadblocks that we are constantly trying to circumvent with our constitutional conservative candidates.
by R.S. McCain
A perception that the GOP establishment routinely rigs primaries in favor of the well-financed and well-connected is widespread among grassroots conservatives. Disillusioned by the political equivalent of insider trading, some idealistic Republicans are tempted to walk away from active participation in GOP politics, which would leave the party infrastructure even more controlled by selfish cynics and professional operatives.
One man who doesn’t want to see that happen is Doug Hoffman, the “Ordinary American” candidate whose third-party campaign last year in New York’s 23rd District became a national crusade for conservatives fed up with Washington, including the Beltway GOP. “The legacy of my [2009] campaign is that many Americans who had never been involved before saw that they could get involved and make a difference,” Hoffman told me in a telephone interview last week, after announcing his candidacy for the Republican nomination in this year’s mid-term election.
Strange as it may seem, some Republicans still haven’t gotten the message. There are rumors in New York that the national GOP establishment is trying to recruit Will Barclay to run against Hoffman. Scion of a wealthy family, Barclay is a state assemblyman whose father was appointed ambassador to El Salvador by President Bush. The chief argument for the younger Barclay’s candidacy, as one Hoffman-supporting conservative told me last week, can be summarized in three words: “Money, money, money.”
Can such an argument prevail in a year when Republicans hope to capture the populist energy of the Tea Party movement? Although Democratic attack ads last year branded Hoffman a millionaire indifferent to working-class interests, he grew up desperately poor and his rags-to-riches success story was one of the major selling points of his underdog campaign. If the Republican establishment shoves Hoffman aside in favor of Barclay, it would do more than reinforce the Democrats’ traditional class-warfare message that the GOP is the “party of the rich.” It would also send a message to the party’s conservative rank-and-file that their loyalty to Republicans is strictly a one-way street, never to be respected in any instance where grassroots preferences conflict with the political ambitions of party insiders. . . .
Read the rest at the link (http://spectator.org/archives/2010/03/15/do-ordinary-americans-still-ma)