Takeover (43 page)

Kentucky’s establishment Republican senator Mitch McConnell rose from Senate staffer to being one of the most powerful Republican politicians in America without any real experience in the private sector. McConnell follows in the tradition of other Senate Republican leaders, such as Howard Baker and Bob Dole, who rose to power by cutting deals with the Democrats rather than standing for conservative principles. McConnell’s total lack of conservative principles was confirmed in November of 2013 when he convinced Republicans to compromise their principles and raise the debt ceiling and increase spending while he walked away with a $2.9 billion locks and dam project in the deal he brokered with Obama and the Democrats.

While Wisconsin establishment Republican representative Paul Ryan talks a good game on some conservative principles, such as the right to life, he has risen to power by playing along with John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and the rest of Capitol Hill’s Republican establishment. As the 2012 Republican vice presidential nominee Ryan failed to be an active advocate for conservative principles and his much-vaunted “Ryan Plan” to balance the budget would take almost thirty years to accomplish. Ryan burned his last bridges with limited-government constitutional conservatives when he announced his support for amnesty for illegal aliens and joined with Democratic Senator Patty Murray to break the spending limits in the sequester and ram through the Ryan–Murray budget to increase spending by $63 billion more than the budget caps set by the Budget Control Act of 2011.

California establishment Republican representative Kevin McCarthy is one of the primary reasons the Capitol Hill Republicans and Democrats are virtually indistinguishable. One of the once-vaunted “young guns” of the House Republican Conference, McCarthy has used his formidable powers of persuasion to strong-arm reluctant Republican House members into betraying conservative principles and backing the lobbyists of K Street over the interests of the grassroots conservatives on Main Street. Perhaps McCarthy’s greatest betrayal of conservative principles is his plan to help Boehner ram through an “amnesty for illegal aliens” bill which will make House Republicans the moving force behind the number one legislative priority of Obama’s second term.

Once thought of as a somewhat more conservative alternative to establishment Republican Speaker John Boehner, Virginia establishment Republican and House majority leader Eric Cantor has become fully invested in Boehner’s lobbyist-driven legislative agenda. From breaking the spending caps in the sequester to voting for the Wall Street bailout through the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), when faced with a choice between business as usual and fighting for limited-government constitutional conservative principles, Cantor always sides
with big business and the Capitol Hill establishment. Amnesty for illegal aliens is just the latest in a long list of betrayals conservatives have suffered at the hands of Eric Cantor.

Tennessee’s establishment Republican senator Lamar Alexander as Republican Conference Chairman was once the number three Republican leader in the Senate, but he resigned his post before his term was up in order to, as he put it, “foster consensus.” It says a lot—and not in a good way—about the current state of the Senate Republican Conference that Alexander prefers Washington deal-making to foster consensus over staying in a leadership role where he could have advanced conservative principles. But that’s par for the course for Senator Alexander. Be it the Gang of Eight amnesty bill or busting the budget with spending, Alexander votes Obama’s position on the issues more often than practically any other Republican in the Senate.

“Why are you mad at Thad Cochran, he hasn’t done anything?” you might be asking. Well, that’s just the point. Mississippi establishment Republican senator Cochran, one of the least distinguished members of the Senate, has spent a thirty-six year career grasping for pork-barrel projects and feeding at the taxpayer-funded trough instead of fighting for conservative principles. In 2010 Citizens Against Government Waste named Cochran the leading pork-seeker in the Senate because he had his name on 240 earmarked projects worth $490.2 million of your hard-earned dollars.

Over the decades Kansas establishment Republican senator Pat Roberts has unfortunately become the quintessential career politician. He talks a good game, but when push comes to shove and conservative policy needs a strong and active advocate, he’s not there. Roberts’s 86 percent lifetime American Conservative Union
rating doesn’t put him that far ahead of progressive Republicans like John McCain and Lindsey Graham. Roberts’s recent surge to the right reminds us all too much of Utah’s senator Orrin Hatch, who adopted more conservative positions in the lead up to the 2012 campaign only to abandon conservatives and rejoin the Capitol Hill Republican establishment the day after the election.

Texas establishment Republican senator John Cornyn is the number two leader of the Senate Republican Conference. In this position he could be a strong voice for conservative policy and a counterweight to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell’s deal-making ways. Instead Cornyn has succumbed to the fatal Washington “go along to get along” disease. When his fellow Texan senator, Ted Cruz, circulated a letter calling on Senate Republicans to defund Obamacare, Cornyn first put his name on the letter and then, when he realized Cruz, Mike Lee, and others were serious, he quickly took his name off the letter. Cornyn’s tendency to cut and run in the face of opposition is the very opposite of the political ethos that raised the “come and take it” flag and won Texans their liberty.

Arizona establishment Republican senator John McCain seems to relish antagonizing conservatives. From criticizing conservative leaders to attacking the principles millions of conservative voters live by to calling members of his own party who subscribe to limited-government constitutional conservative principles “whacko birds,” McCain readily trains his guns on his fellow Republicans while giving the Democrats a pass. McCain’s frequent sallies against his fellow Republicans earned him in January 2014 an unprecedented rebuke from the Arizona Republican State Committee for his “long and terrible” record of voting with liberal Democrats.