[Buzzfeed:]
According to Republicans, moderate members of the House GOP conference feel that Boehner, who has struggled with an often raucous and openly defiant right wing, has forced them to go along with conservative demands but has provided them little in return.
One Republican familiar with the dynamics within the GOP argued part of the difficulty for Boehner has been the fact that conservatives -- and not moderates -- have been the "squeaky wheel" within the conference, which has forced him to focus on them for much of the 112th Congress.
Rather than work with his entire conference Boehner has had to "prove to conservatives constantly that he's advocating for them and not screwing them behind their backs," the Republican said.
Boehner remains deeply popular within his conference, and despite the frustration of moderates he faces virtually no chance of an effort oust him as Speaker.
Boehner's Funhouse has gotten so useless that Ohio Rep. Steven LaTourette has decided to call it quits -- out of the blue -- leaving the state party scrambling to find someone to run to replace him (the state's primary has already come and gone). According to The Hill, "LaTourette had also grown increasingly disenchanted with the GOP’s position on revenue increases that Democrats have demanded as part of any grand bargain on the deficit. The Ohio Republican disavowed the pledge against tax increases that he and most other House Republicans signed, and he has sharply criticized its author, Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist. LaTourette also led an ill-fated effort to pass a budget alternative modeled on the Simpson-Bowles deficit plan. It garnered just 38 votes in the House after LaTourette had said he hoped for more than 100."
New York's Rep. Richard Hanna, a fellow moderate, told his local newspaper yesterday, "I have to say that I’m frustrated by how much we — I mean the Republican Party — are willing to give deferential treatment to our extremes in this moment in history."
"We render ourselves incapable of governing when all we do is take severe sides..." he said. "If all people do is go down there and join a team, and the team is invested in winning and you have something that looks very similar to the shirts and the skins, there’s not a lot of value there."
And whose fault is all this? The GOP's, he said. "I would say that the friends I have in the Democratic Party I find... much more congenial — a little less anger," Hanna said.
As a result of this lack of moderation, we have -- by default -- a "Tea Party" federal government. How are you liking it so far?
Oh, it's not the Tea Party government that the 'baggers would like to see. They're interested in fundamentally changing America into an insane asylum. Vote after vote to repeal "Obamacare," to unconstitutionally outlaw abortion, to reaffirm that the nation's motto is "In God We Trust," yet nothing that would improve the economy or boost employment. They're too busy freaking out over a non-existent Islamic terrorist sleeper cell in the state department.
No, we have a Tea Party government in the sense that the Tea Party is responsible for the state of this nation. In the Senate the filibuster is grossly abused and the House wastes its time with BS bills that have no hope of ever going anywhere and solve no real-world problems anyway. This is the real Tea Party rule; a government in stasis, trapped in the amber of their own frivolity and obstructionism. A government that will not respond to the needs of its people, because it's too busy catering to the whims of corporations, religious nutjobs, bigots, and the least sane voices in conservative media.
Government isn't working. And remember, when a conservative sees that something's not working, they think it means they need to do more of it.
[Associated Press:]
Frustrated by their inability to achieve some policy goals, conservatives in Republican states are turning against moderate members of their own party, trying to drive them out of state legislatures to clear the way for reshaping government across a wide swath of mid-America controlled by the GOP.
Political groups are helping finance the efforts by supporting primary election challenges targeting several dozen moderate Republicans in the Midwest and South, especially prominent lawmakers who run key state committees.
Two years after Republicans swept into power in many state capitols, the challengers say it’s time to adopt more conservative policies.
If government is broken, the GOP remedy seems to be to break it worse.
-Wisco
[image source]
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