GOP Esablishment Scores A Win In Florida

As my colleague, Leon Wolf, posted a few days ago, the House Freedom Caucus is locked in something of a death struggle with the forces of evil House GOP leadership. The leadership is desirous of packing the caucus with more bought or rented and very malleable and pliable members because leading is a lot easier if you know you won’t be challenged. And, without a watchdog of some sort, thew House leadership would prefer to “govern,” i.e. cut deals to spend your money without effective challenge.

Yesterday was primary day in Florida and while everyone was focused on Marco Rubio thrashing this opponent, the GOP establishment won yet another contest: the Florida-02 race between Mary Thomas and Neal Dunn.

Mary Thomas, a highly qualified attorney and general counsel in one of Rick Scott’s agencies, was running against the older, rich, white guys that the establishment favors. He was assisted by the House leadership in the person of House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and the same PAC that has defeated two other conservative candidates this year, i.e. Tim Huelskamp in Kansas and Mike Crane in Georgia.

It was a close race. Mary Thomas led most of the evening but in the end Dunn’s home county and Chamber of Commerce money delivered for him.

Oddly enough, a bad year for the GOP means a great year for the Freedom Caucus. Most of its members are in safe districts. Most of the squishes are in districts that have suddenly become competitive with Donald Trump at the top of the ticket. A smaller GOP caucus in the House means a larger percentage of that caucus will be members of the Freedom Caucus. That is why the House leadership and its allied PACs are fighting so hard to pick off conservatives and win safe House seats, like Florida-02. They are trying to reduce the clout of the Freedom Caucus.

This is just another sign that we conservatives are no more a part of the GOP than we are of the Trump train. In fact, when given the choice between enacting conservative policies and reducing spending and sucking up the the alt-right, the GOP leadership clearly prefers the latter. Because it doesn’t hurt their crony capitalist racket.

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