Timothy Carney wrote last week about the coming battle in the Republican Party in Washington: “GOP’s K Street wing ready for insurgent challenge.” Instead of trying to summarize Mr. Carney’s article, let me quote from it:
“The insurgent conservative Republicans and Tea Party candidates elected [November 2] are obviously a pugnacious and determined bunch, but they're not the only ones fixing for a battle over the direction of the party. The Republican Beltway establishment and the K Street wing of the GOP are ready to fight any effort to end pork-barrel spending and kill corporate welfare. …
Sen. Jim DeMint will propose to ban earmarks by GOP senators. The appropriators will fight him, probably backed by the party leadership. … Among the old guard of the GOP caucus, there's no notion that Republicans need to abandon their standard operating procedure.
After the 2008 election, the GOP Senate caucus killed all of DeMint's proposed reforms. … It was open warfare, with DeMint, the Club for Growth, and Tea Party groups on one side, against the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and the GOP's K Street kingpins, such as former Majority Leaders Bob Dole and Trent Lott. …
The appropriators and the K Street wing will battle the staunch conservative reformers -- DeMint, [Rand] Paul, and Utah's Mike Lee. As Lott promised, they'll also try to "co-opt" the others, like Marco Rubio, Ron Johnson, and Pat Toomey. …
There are plenty of signs the establishment is ready to fight: Lott's plan to ‘co-opt’ the Tea Partiers, House appropriator Jerry Lewis' dismissal of earmark reform, and the absence of serious reforms in the party's ‘Pledge to America.’
McConnell and DeMint will clash again this month. Popular anti-spending fervor will help DeMint. GOP old-dog clout will help McConnell. Perhaps tipping the scales are the losses of insurgent Republicans Ken Buck, Sharron Angle and Joe Miller -- and the survival of McConnell consigliere and appropriator Lisa Murkowski.
There may be plenty of new faces, but it's the same old party.”
I don’t know if the “Republican Beltway establishment,” the “appropriators” and the “GOP K Street kingpins” realize it or not, but if Republicans don’t change the way they operate on Capitol Hill, if they don’t stop the corporate welfare and the earmarks, then there could easily be another wave election in two years. A wave that will sweep out many of those who were swept in last week.
Marco Rubio got it right on election night. The Republicans did not win a victory; they won a second chance. More earmarks, more special interest legislation, more K Street lobbyists acting like they run things, will lose us our second chance, just like they lost us the chance before this one. And deservedly so.
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