I have been saying for a long time that the so-called GOP establishment created a Frankenstein monster when it willingly - or at least by default - allowed the Christofascists and then the Tea Party to infiltrate and ultimately take over much of the Republican Party grass roots, driving out sane and rational Republicans from the Party in the process. I saw it happen first hand in Virginia Beach, Virginia where I finally resigned from the GOP City Committee when I could no longer close my eyes and hold my nose to the Christofascists batshitery that sought to fuse the GOP with the extremist dogma of the far right Christian extremists. At the time, the establishment types foolishly thought they could control the unwashed cretins and demagogues of the Christian Right. Now, the monied powers that be - or more aptly, used to be - are discovering just how uncontrollable the Christofascists and spittle flecked Tea Party minions are in fact. A piece in
Politico looks at the angst and frustration of the GOP mega donors. Here are excerpts:
Republican donors were horrified in November after pouring hundreds of
millions of dollars into campaigns for president and Congress with
nothing to show for it. A year later they’re appalled by how little has
changed, angered by the behavior of Republican lawmakers during a string
of legislative battles this year capped by the shutdown, and searching
for answers.
Some donors are looking to take matters into their own hands.
New York City GOP mega-bundler Paul Singer has held a series of
informal, and a few very formal, discussions in recent months with other
extremely wealthy donors about how best to spend their cash in 2014,
including debating the idea of forming a new entity to play a serious
role in the midterm races. Its focus would be on improving the quality
of Republican candidates in the hopes of avoiding more Todd Akin-like
candidates who blow eminently winnable races.
“He wants to win,” one donor who attended a session said of Singer.
The donor stressed that the hedge fund billionaire’s meetings, like
other informal gatherings among the monied class this year, were taking
place well prior to the government shutdown.
Still, some donors think the reluctance about giving among their
ranks may have reached an inflection point over the way a number of
Republicans in Washington acquitted themselves the past few weeks.
Donors and business leaders, whose words used to carry great weight
with candidates ever worried that the money spigot might be turned off,
now face a new reality. It’s a Frankenstein syndrome of sorts, in which
the candidates they’ve helped fund, directly or indirectly, don’t fear
them, and don’t think they need them.
Many business leaders are exasperated by their diminished influence
among congressional Republicans since the 2012 election, and by the
rising clout of groups like the Senate Conservative Fund, which have run
ads against incumbent Republican senators for not taking enough of a
hard line on the shutdown.
At issue is not just the shutdown, but legislative battles earlier
this year, such as the stymied attempt at immigration reform. Several
Republican donors said watching that effort run into headwinds among
conservative House members, combined with the tortured standoff over the
government shutdown and potential debt default, had left a sour taste
in their mouths.
Some expressed frustration that the national party has not taken a
strong stand. That sentiment extends to the RNC, whose chairman, Reince
Priebus, wrote shortly before the shutdown that he would “stand with Ted
Cruz any day” against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). Fred Zeidman, a Texas-based bundler who supported Mitt Romney and
George W. Bush, is among those who don’t want to give to party
committees right now.
“Why do I want to fuel a fire that’s going to consume us?“ he asked. Singer, meanwhile, is considering a do-it-yourself approach.
Despite his business background, Singer’s issue is not with the tea
party per se — he has been a major donor to the Club for Growth, which
has backed Cruz, a progenitor of the movement to defund Obamacare — but
with the GOP at large losing race after race.
[A] senior Republican familiar with an event planned in New York on Nov.
4, also with Wall Street donors, said the response has been tepid.
In November, Priebus faced an angry group of donors who demanded
changes to the party’s primary calendar and, according to sources
present at the meeting in New York, asked him to try to shrink the
influence of Iowa on the presidential nominating process.
Instead, the grass roots — with its ability to raise money in
low-dollar amounts online and spread a message through self-selected
conservative-leaning media — have only demonstrated to major donors the
limits of the national party’s influence.
Al Hoffman, a mega-donor and former U.S. ambassador to Portugal, said
conservative activists have delivered an unmistakable message to donors
and business leaders who warned about a potential default on the debt:
“We don’t care.”
“So many in the House are hard-right reactionary tea party,” he told
POLITICO during the shutdown. “And those Republicans, it appears, are
ready to self-immolate, and are willing to risk the destruction of the
party by risking the destruction of the economy, by risking a default.”
There's more worth a read. I for one, have zero sympathy for the GOP large donor class. They allowed the swamp fever to over take the party and are reaping what they sowed. Frankly, they need to cease ALL donations to the GOP, allow it to crash and burn and come in after the fact and rescue the party, kicking the Tea Party loons and Christofascist extremist to the curb in the process. The GOP will never resurrect it self unless and until ignorance embracing lunatics, out right racists and bigots no longer can control the party either nationally of locally.
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