[From the diaries -- Hunter]
And so it begins. Tom DeLay and his Leadership team have dug in their heels and decided to hold their own party hostage:
Morton Blackwell, Republican National Committee member from Virginia and a member of ACU's board, said Republicans are being told support for Mr. DeLay is mandatory if they want future support from conservatives.
"Conservative leaders across the country are working now to make sure that any politician who hopes to have conservative support in the future had better be in the forefront as we attack those who attack Tom DeLay," he said.
In a diary yesterday we discussed the
intricate dynamics of a potential DeLay fall. Bottom line: dropping DeLay has become a viable option, and he knows it. But the question of who would, or more specifically, who
could drop DeLay is a much more difficult one. Many believe that DeLay serves as Rove's whim, but this is far, far from the truth. As I noted, DeLay has been around a lot longer than Rove, and while DeLay has been happy to ride the George Bush regular-guy-who-kicks-butt-and-has-lots-of-morals express, he views himself as second fiddle to nobody.
Likewise, the GOP Conference has been with DeLay much longer than they have been with Rove, and they have a certain packish loyalty that rejects outside interference. The stark reality is that for DeLay to go, the entire Conference would have to vote him out, and the only person who even might have enough influence to pull that off is Hastert. As things stand, even he would have an extremely difficult time.
The reason a GOP turn against DeLay would have to be en masse is because any individuals who tried to stick their necks out would immediately be served up on a platter as an example to the rest. This is DeLay's greatest leverage, and he knows it. Thus you see him and his allies looking for every tool in their arsenal to bring the force of a million wingnuts down upon anybody who gets uppity.
And as we started to suggest yesterday, that list of potential targets most certainly includes the White House.
But the bigger picture is this: for decades now, Tom DeLay has earned the reputation as one who will put party before country every time. Now he is putting himself before the party. And of course, it was probably always so.
Yesterday we took the example of Chris Shays to show that the new conservative effort to rile up wingnuts went beyond the stated rationale of shoring up moderates, and was in fact an aggressive move to hijack the loyalties of the base as a whole. Indeed, Tom DeLay's tactic, revealed in his speech to FRC, of not only aligning himself with Terri Schiavo, but in attempting to make himself synonymous with all of conservatism is an aggression not so much towards Democrats or watchdog groups as it is towards his fellow Republicans. "I am the federal government" has become "I am the conservative movement." Just as DeLay declared anybody opposed to the Iraq War a traitor to America, he has now declared that anybody opposed to him is a traitor to conservatism. DeLay's favorite counterattack when Dems talk about ethics is this:
All they can do is try to tear down the House and burn it down in order to gain power.
DeLay is now stating his willingness to burn down his party in order to protect his own power.
Again, not only is this not an aggression to us, it is Christmas present. You demand that every Republican come out in public defending you? We demand it too, by all means! To finally get back to Chris Shays, he spent the entire second half of 2004 defending himself against the charge that he was a DeLay lackey. It almost worked, and the only reason it didn't is because not enough people knew who he was.
So much for that.
So please, please Gary Bauer, Morton Blackwell, whoever else, torture Chris Shays, Heather Wilson, Rob Simmons, and Dave Reichert to your hearts' content. Go and get your litmus test, and don't forget to send the results over!