John Boehner Blames the NY-23 Republican In-Fighting on Those Not 'Actively Involved in the Political Process'
By Heather Monday Nov 02, 2009 10:00am
When asked by CNN's John King about the Republican Party in-fighting in the NY-23 race and if the party can survive in the Northeast region of the country if there is no room for moderates in their ranks, John Boehner tries to blame the “rebellion” going on now on “people who really have not been actively involved in the political process”. Oh really?
While that may be true of those out protesting, it’s certainly not true of the ones organizing them. Dick Armey and Tim Phillips are hardly people that could be called “not active in the political process”. Quite the opposite. And Sarah Palin who has interjected herself into that race was the Republican Vice-Presidential nominee the last election.
John Boehner has a bigger mess on his hands than he’s willing to admit which is evident by his response at the end of the segment when he says this:
KING: Let me ask you, lastly, though, but sometimes does the party need to draw a line?
What's the point of having a party if people in your party will attack your own nominees? I mean, where do you draw that line?
BOEHNER: Listen, I'm a big believer in Ronald Reagan's 11 commandment -- 11th commandment. Never talk ill about another Republican.
KING: That was not followed in this race.
BOEHNER: I know.
Yes and so do the rest of us who have been watching this John.
Transcript below the fold.
KING: I want to talk to you about politics. You would like to be the next speaker of the House of Representatives. And while much of the attention on this year's elections are on the governor's races in New Jersey and Virginia, there's a special election in New York state. I'm going to hold up the newspaper. This is the Syracuse newspaper. You see "One out, two left in battle for 23rd."
It's the 23rd district and the Republican Party's endorsed candidate, Dede Scozzafava yesterday withdrew from the race. You endorsed her. She was the party's nominee. But she withdrew from the race after Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty, the former governor of Alaska, the current governor of Minnesota, two people who might want to run for president some day, and other conservatives jumped in and said she's not good enough, she's not pure enough to be a Republican.
Can you be the speaker of the House, can your party survive in this part of the country if things like this happen?
BOEHNER: Well this is a pretty unusual situation. You had seven county chairmen who chose Dede to be our nominee. And clearly, she would be on the left side of our party, a conservative decided to leave the Republican Party and sign up on the conservative party ticket, which is allowed in New York.
And what's happened over the last several weeks is her numbers have continued to slide. Hoffman, Doug Hoffman, the conservative party candidate, his numbers continue to grow. And so Dede yesterday decided to withdraw from the race. This is a pretty unusual circumstance.
BOEHNER: That we see in New York.
KING: But does it not send a signal? Your friend and former House speaker, Republican Newt Gingrich, said, if this happened, it would be a purge of the Republican Party.
This is what Chris Van Hollen -- obviously, he's a Democrat and your colleague in the House. He's chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. He says, "The far-right tea-bag party is leading the Republican Party around by the nose."
BOEHNER: Now, listen, we accept moderates in our party and we want moderates in our party. We cover a wide range of Americans. I've -- I was at the tea party in Bakersfield, California on April 15th. I answered questions in front of 18,000 tea-party people, Labor Day weekend in West Chester, Ohio. I've worked with these people. And what they're concerned about is the growing size of government. They want someone who's really going to actively reduce spending and reduce control here in Washington. They're scared to death.
And in this particular case, they think that Mr. Hoffman was a better candidate than the Republican.
KING: If you were a pro-choice Republican, say in the Northeast part of the country -- maybe you support same-sex marriage as well, but you're a fiscal conservative and you think you're a New England moderate Republican, Northeast moderate Republican -- would you enter a race, now, for Congress next year, seek the Republican nomination, knowing that something like this might happen?
BOEHNER: I -- I would hope so. I would hope so. Because what we need is we need a broad group of people in our party.
KING: Doesn't this send a pretty stern signal to those people...
BOEHNER: No, this is a very unusual circumstance.
KING: You don't think the people who went after Dede are going to think, "We can go after other Republicans now," now that they've succeed here?
BOEHNER: Well, I think that going after Republicans is one thing. Having a party standing on fiscal responsibility, like we have all year; standing on principle against the crazy policies that we see out of Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid -- the American people want to see us take these principled stands. And they want to see us continue to offer what we think are better solutions. If we can continue to do that, we'll have a broad cross-section of people in our party.
KING: As the House Republican leader and the man who would like to be speaker, how do you -- looking at what happened here, you think it's isolated; you hope it's isolated. What do you do when you're in a room with a Sarah Palin, a Governor Pawlenty, the Club for Growth, the people who attacked your party's nominee there?
What message do you send to them about -- I assume you'd want them to pick and choose future battles pretty carefully. You don't have much room for error in next year's elections if you want to get your ultimate goal.
BOEHNER: Well, we're in the middle of, I think, of a political rebellion going on in America. And this rebellion are by people who really have not been actively involved in the political process. And they don't really care whether you're a Democrat or a Republican. They want to see people who are going to stand up and protect the future for our kids and grandkids.
And so it's going to be a difficult road to walk, to work with relative -- relatively new entrants into the political system and to work with them to show them that, by and large, we are the party who represents their interests.
KING: Let me ask you, lastly, though, but sometimes does the party need to draw a line?
What's the point of having a party if people in your party will attack your own nominees? I mean, where do you draw that line?
BOEHNER: Listen, I'm a big believer in Ronald Reagan's 11 commandment -- 11th commandment. Never talk ill about another Republican.
KING: That was not followed in this race.
BOEHNER: I know.
KING: John Boehner, the House Republican leader, the man who hopes to be speaker, we appreciate your coming in here today.
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"How long will the GOP keep insisting that its members fall on their knives?"
Until none are left.
until each knife is covered.
You know they are fiscal conservatives. Waste not, want not.
"They want to see people who are going to stand up and protect the future for our kids and grandkids"
It that why you asswipes ran the country into the ground and effed up a surplus into an insanely high deficit....for the precious children?? Not to mention killing them off in illegitimate wars.
Just STFU.
Maybe he feels by blocking healthcare reform, sending them to die in war and obliterating the economy he's helping "protect" kids from living in a future with a ravaged environment full of unbreathable air, food and water shortages and mass migration and revolt he did nothing to prevent?
These guys plan ahead.
If you never say anything ill about another Republican - It's party before country.
As liberals, it's our duty to be politically involved and be hard on Democrats who are weak on important issues. It's good to see the conservatives finally doing the same thing, even if it is the crazy Glenn Beck nutjobs doing it. The entrenched politicians need a wake-up call.
appearance. Hoffman got all huffy when he was questioned in a manner that he did not like. Apparently, like Cheney, he cannot stand to be contradicted. Anyway, Armey tried to change the subject by stating in essence that local issues were not important, only the party counted. Talk about shooting yourself and your candidate in the feet. Keep going fellows. Telling people what to do goes over big up here--not.
with their party over representation thesis.
I also hope that local citizens catch on to how they are being used for party power vs. democracy. Call teabaggers what you will, a lot of them are angry for the same reasons we are. Hopefully Dick & crew will hold back the curtain long enough for them to get a good look at the machinery. I hope they figure out it's Dick Armey & crew who are building the big military machine that needs to be fed big tax dollars along with their kids' lives. Maybe that will wake them up. I hope so.
bad choice. Just because it snows much up here does not mean we identify with that political whore. Her endorsing anyone in this state is ridiculous. We know a joke when we see one.
s43, are you near or in this district? more dirt please.
if you want to see a good example of gerrymandering. Go to the Albany Times Union website for all the dirt. If I get a chance, I'll go mining for more.
so Club for Growth, who is at least partially responsible for this spectacle, has eliminated the best candidate, from my perspective. This leaves a "no choice" situation almost. Google "Club for Growth." They are interesting if you have a perverse nature like I do. There is an interesting blog in Albany, too, although cannot recall its exact name. I'll try to find it for you.
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If you love political scandals, Google the Joe Bruno trial which starts today in Federal District Court in Albany. I love it when pols get caught with their hands in the cookie jar. His defense is this: So what if I did it. The laws will be found to be unconstitutional. Not at your trial, pal. When you violated them, they were (and still are) the LAW. I guess when you are the majority leader, you can decide which laws you will honor, and which you needn't honor. Hubris. I hate it. There is an excellent article in yesterday's Times Union laying out the whole plot.
Much as I detest the Teabagger-Palin-InSanity-Beck-Limbaugh Coalition, what they are doing is REAL politics.
When we say "politics" we generally mean "partisan politics" - taking a stand for one party against the other.
Originally "politics" means everything concerned with how we govern ourselves. It does NOT mean "party politics."
Of course the TWO parties want ALL concern about REAL "politics" to be funnelled into the square arena of Republican v Democrat, so they can manage it for their own benefit.
But that's simply not what real politics is about!
Isn't it odd how actually listening to the people who elected you is such a scary taboo for these guys? It's like we live in a representative democracy or something.
I too detest the Beck involvment and the falsity of the whole 'Teabagger Express' movement, but I do feel sorry for some of the attendees who seems to have been totally snowed by Faux Noise.
At bradblog-Brad attended a teabagger rally, and although some of the people he spoke are proudly displaying their ignorance, others seem like concerned citizens who have been led astray.
I haven't yet watched part 2 because I am busy brainstorming for an idea to counter the fear of the source as it relates to the truth. (I suspect that even if Beck spent his whole show confessing his dishonesty, some people would still think he was honest.)
the republican party has a real identity problem. they have made major political investments in the neoCON/extremist philosophy/playbook. they are so afraid of "moderates" siding/sounding similiar to democrats. the BUSH legacy woke up independents. i hope they stay awake.
They've exploited the worst fringe elements of religious and racist backgrounds and there is no tip towing away from that now.
Maybe they could all go live at Karl Rove's house.
Fortunately for the "moderate" Republicans they have a happy home in the crappy new Democratic Party. They'll take anyone so they can claim to have a "majority" even if that means getting nothing accomplished.
What is scary is that this watered down Democratic Party may actually lose it's "majority" to the ever more extreme Republican Party if things continue to go as they are going.
that's what is scary about this. Instead of a progressive, left party and a conservative party, we now have a conservative party (dems) and a batsheiss ###########.
I see this "watering down" process across all party lines with a generic "corporatist" mindset seeping through the entire democratic landscape..with fringe players on the Left and Right trying to be heard.
.
I want my MTV.
From Grayson to Boner in one fell swoop.
What's this clot on about now?
Boehner, referring to the teabaggers: They're scared to death.
Thanks to the constant fear-mongering on the AM radio and FOX.
Oompa Loompa doompadee doo....
doompadee "dumb"
... I tend to not pay that much attention at mental midgets with a weird technicolor skin tone. :-)
What year was that released?
... but I can say with all certainty that Boehner's last tanning booth appointment was within the past 48 hours. Pretty current affair if you ask me...
He said progressives need to learn about the 11th commandment. If he means not speak ill of another progressive, I agree.
BOEHNER: Listen, I'm a big believer in Ronald Reagan's 11 commandment --
...Thou shalt not impersonate Principal Skinner?
Commandments? They really do grow big egos in Hollywood, don't they? Self important twa...never mind.
Ha! that's good.
actually Bart did put something in Skinners coffee once that may explain the Boener connection ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULFPXiS-Go0
this is part of the reason they shut down ron paul-R during the elections. they don't want to be revealed by their own. just like the (r) dominated media they rather talk to themselves then have a fair two sided debate. i want more "moderates" involved in the process. i've noticed in my own life those are people i can actually talk with. the (r) want to get many people attached to their agenda/party strictly on cultural issues. they want them to be passionate about one issue ie. gun/abortion in doing so they will vote for the entire (r) platform. like BUSH said 'your either with me or against me' no middle ground no grey area
no nuance.
For with the truth, they are revealed for what they are--greedy selfish dishonest bastards.
am I the only straight guy who thinks John-boy looks kinda cute in that get-up? /snark
Orange and pink have a hard time getting along together. Especially when the orange lords over the pink.
I too am getting a..wait for it...boner.
sorry.
Republicans created this Frankenstein (crazy right wing religious Palin, Beck, freaky group) about ten years ago and now their monster has turned on them. In my opinion, that's tough shit.
They now reap what they have sown.
... this is nothing but the love child of Nixon's Southern Strategy and Rayguns trickled on economics brought forth via the insane religious right as a conduit. This sh*t has been going on for far longer than 3 decades me thinks.
I agree with tyler (as usual) this crap started with Reagan. He had a lot of Moral Majority help and many of us fought the Immoral Minority hard and had some thought that we'd won that battle with Clinton, but they'd just gone underground (C-street)and then the insanity came back for 8 yrs and then the uber-stress of losing power to a black president in the most emotional vote ever (I think) has sent them over the edge. Like deaf lemmings they scream NO! to anything that might help the people because that would mean less power at the top for them.
Lets hope the uncaring, racist Reslug party is dying out quickly.
As a race has been made into this major referendum or whatever.
No matter who wins - I don't see it as that big of a dealio.
... as it would make the self implosion of the GOP all too apparent. And that would not be "nice"
right?
their Blue Dog facsimilies.
For the republicans, they have not blue dogs but red snakes.
And if Dede joins the Dems, they have picked up someone with integrity.
Hasn't she already thrown her support to the democratic candidate? I believe she has.
Look for the calls of "traitor" later today on KKKlannity, rush, etc. despite the fact it was her own party who f*cked her.
at the least, and perhaps a candidate for the future.
john at the most eloquent:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPYJsdw6owo&fe...
"BOEHNER: Listen, I'm a big believer in Ronald Reagan's 11 commandment -- 11th commandment. Never talk ill about another Republican."
Is there a commandment that Republicans have *not* broken lately?
Excellant point!
"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife" been replaced with "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's pool boy"?
If so, then no.
Boehner says the American people want Republicans to take a stand ...
What stand is that? Aren't they the party of "no" and "no ideas"?
The only thing I'm absolutely sure of is they want to go to war with everybody. Give me a break!
God, I can't stand that man.
People, go to wikipedia and read the summary about the book "The Power Elite" by C. Wright Mills. A real eye opener.
the stand is this everything is obama's fault. oppose anything/everything dems/liberals stand for even if it would be voting against their best interests. it's party/CULTURE CLUB before country. the corporations love it.......the love public distraction.
Boehner on Truth Serum
KING: It's the 23rd district and the Republican Party's endorsed candidate, Dede Scozzafava yesterday withdrew from the race. You endorsed her. She was the party's nominee. But she withdrew from the race after Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty, the former governor of Alaska, the current governor of Minnesota, two people who might want to run for president some day, and other conservatives jumped in and said she's not good enough, she's not pure enough to be a Republican. Can you be the speaker of the House, can your party survive in this part of the country if things like this happen?
BOEHNER: Ehh, this kind of thing doesn't happen all that often. We don't nominate liberals in our party very often. So, a conservative had to run on a third party ticket, and he's wining. Whatever.
KING: But does it not send a signal? Your friend and former House speaker, Republican Newt Gingrich, said, if this happened, it would be a purge of the Republican Party. This is what Chris Van Hollen -- obviously, he's a Democrat and your colleague in the House. He's chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. He says, "The far-right tea-bag party is leading the Republican Party around by the nose."
BOEHNER: Look, if you wanna be a moderate or something and still be a Republican, that's fine, but you know what real America is concerned about? Government spending that will help people with their lives. Seriously, the government is growing in these terrible ways designed to help people, and the ones who benefit from the status quo, and the ones who have been tricked into thinking they benefit from the status quo are scared to death that the government really will start helping people. That's not what government is for. Government spending is for war, and government laws are to prevent people from having upward mobility and pleasurable sex!
KING: If you were a pro-choice Republican, say in the Northeast part of the country -- maybe you support same-sex marriage as well, but you're a fiscal conservative and you think you're a New England moderate Republican, Northeast moderate Republican -- would you enter a race, now, for Congress next year, seek the Republican nomination, knowing that something like this might happen?
BOEHNER: I -- I would hope so. I would hope so. Because what I need is a broad enough group of people to represent our party in PR gigs. The way "What Up?" Michael Steele can trick young colored folk to believe that our party has something to offer them.
KING: But doesn't this send a pretty stern signal to those people...
BOEHNER: No, this is a very unusual circumstance, where some silly party officials nominated a dirty fucking hippie, so we had no choice but to go with the third party conservative. Not gonna happen a lot.
KING: You don't think the people who went after Dede are going to think, "We can go after other Republicans now," now that they've succeed here?
BOEHNER: Well, I think that purging Republican ranks of liberals is one thing, and that's fine. As long as we, as a unified party, thwart all efforts to make government help people, we'll be in good shape. We need to prove to our true constituency that we won't let government help people who need help.
KING: As the House Republican leader and the man who would like to be speaker, how do you -- looking at what happened here, you think it's isolated; you hope it's isolated. What do you do when you're in a room with a Sarah Palin, a Governor Pawlenty, the Club for Growth, the people who attacked your party's nominee there? What message do you send to them about -- I assume you'd want them to pick and choose future battles pretty carefully. You don't have much room for error in next year's elections if you want to get your ultimate goal.
BOEHNER: Dude, you're not listening to me. Our message is to the people who benefit from the status quo. They're the ones with the money to influence the process, so they're our constituency. And our message is, no dirty fucking hippies will be in our party helping the other side help regular people. See, there's a revolution going on. Moneyed interests are sick of little people standing up and doing things like electing a black president who wants universal health care, and they're just tired of this whole democracy thing. Seriously, if that's what democracy brings, democracy ain't a very good system. And in the end, if we cowtow to those moneyed interests who benefit from the status quo, we'll do just fine winning [air quotes] "elections" by showing them we really represent their interests. That's the new America: Less Democracy, More Corruption.
KING: Let me ask you, lastly, though, but sometimes does the party need to draw a line? What's the point of having a party if people in your party will attack your own nominees? I mean, where do you draw that line?
BOEHNER: John, we can't even read, much less draw. But if you think we don't know what we're doing, you're crazy. Viva la revolucion!
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needs to change his name to Bonehead! What a tool...
Yes, John, we are in the middle of a political rebellion. That is , if, when you say ‘we’, you mean the imploding republican party.
i mean i LIKE Dick Armey. i have him for a mentor. you see, i'm really bad at lying. i have no poker face. now, dick armey is a liar's liar. how can you get away with telling people how bad government health insurance is, when you've been on it your whole adult life? what a liar!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rO_7T2Vcnuk
Remember when lying used to be bad ? These Evil freaks have no conscience what so ever . The Christian and family values party ? They are in reality quite the opposite ,if there is a devil this is his party and these are his people . This guy gives me the creeps . Grover Norquist must be quite happy these days , they've succeeded in all but destroying this country , mission is just about accomplished .
the more the party shrinks,(like only 20 % admit being republican)the more they are revealed.like a blanket being yanked off, we see the main players and their associates scrambling to huddle.they only thing is ,they are playing "each man for himself"
11th commandment?
Reagan = false idol
And in secular terms "Reagan = false idol"
Did Boehner attend the church of St. Ronnie yesterday?
he did not sound that chocked, and there were no tear trails in his otherwise perfectly orange mug.
I was surprised though that he was able to utter the name of Saint Raygun without going into some apoplectic faux tear-in-the-eye routine. I take Glenn Beck is not running any clinics on his acting methods? Man, a totally wasted opportunity to score some cheap political points. Repugs are getting sloppy in their twilight.
And I believe in the real 11th commandment: thou shall not say anything good about a lying, evil, greedy, hypocritical, sociopathic republican POS!
Shouldn't Saint Ronnie's 11th commandment have been "America first"? Reagan, like all GOPers, is all about the party not the country. Saint Ronnie spoke a mouthful when he said the 11th commandment and these dumb fuck conservatives are repeating it ad nauseam.
Bronzer Boehner "We (our party) covers a wide range of people"
Yeah. A wide range or white people, bigots, racists, homophobes, Christian mullahs, and simpleminded teabaggers who think loons like Beck, dim bulbs like Palin, and hypocritical blowhards like Limbaugh are messiahs. I agree, a wide range of people. I can't wait for the GOP to hit rock bottom, I don't think they're there yet. Couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch.
Every morning Bronzer Boehner's wife wakes up to 2 faces in her bed. Her husband's, and the one he left on the pillow case overnight.
I'm surprised he got through the interview without crying.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGoYOSomKLw
Considering Coppertone Boehner comes from a farm state like Ohio, he needs to know you can't keep spreading bullshit from an empty manure spreader. The Republican Party has nothing to offer, and he simply cannot expect to grow candidates with the kind of seed like Palin and the rest of the losers.
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