On Tuesday, RNC Chief of Staff, Mike Shields, lashed out at the “professional right” and grassroots groups, blaming conservatives for all that ails the GOP.
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Yesterday, RNC communications director, Sean Spicer, told Breitbart that Shields didn’t mean what we all heard him say. (You gotta see Mike Leahy’s excellent overage of this story, btw.)
Here are my thoughts:
I’ve made some boneheaded comments myself, but I have a hard time buying the notion that Mike Shields didn’t mean what he said. If Shields screwed up, why didn’t HE correct the record?
The Establishment’s Professional Loser Parade #
I believe Shields is part of the RNC’s professional losers–a cadre of well compensated political hacks who specialize in dominating primaries for the benefit of milquetoast presidential candidates who can’t distinguish themselves from their Democrat opponents. Gerald Ford, Bob Dole, John McCain, Mitt Romney.
Sure, grassroots folks sometimes fall head-over-heels for candidates who believe all the right things but lack the skill to win in the fall. But we never make the mistake of muscling out the best candidate to promote a “safe” compromiser.
In 1964, the “professional right” nominated Barry Goldwater. His philosophy was sound, but he was dead wrong on a few critical issues like civil rights. It took us 16 years to mature into a movement that could reliably nominate and elect great conservative leaders. In 1980, we took the White House and the Senate.
A Better Course for the RNC #
Instead of belittling grassroots activists, the RNC should align its money and infrastructure to our energy and principles. That combination would be lethal to the left.
Alas, time is running short for such a grand alliance, and bone-headed, splintering comments by men like Shields only increase the chances of a permanent Democrat majority in Washington.
I call on Mr. Priebus to dismiss Mr. Shields and apologize for Shields’s strategic failure.