…the true feelings of the Establishment towards conservative / TEA Party grassroots? I met Erick Erickson of Redstate just after GraniteGrok opened its doors – the Sam Adams folks (as they were constituted back then) decided that it would be a great idea to bring together top State Level bloggers who had shown a propensity for free market, constitutional, and individual Liberty & Freedom tendencies for a long weekend to meet each other, yak a lot, and make what turned out to be long-term friendships (at least for a handful of us). We drove stories out of the blogosphere, owned some search results, move the stories to where the MSM had to pay attention to them, and even got Rush Limbaugh to pick a couple of them up on his show. Several folks have “gone National”; Erick & RedState are one. So when he reports this interaction with the NRSC at the RedState Gathering, it seems to be a perfect example and metaphor for us vs the Establishment (reformatted, emphasis mine):
There was, however, one interesting moment with a guy from the National Republican Senatorial Committee worth sharing. Friday afternoon as I was trying to make my way to Governor Jindal’s reception, the guy from the NRSC stopped me and very derisively asked if I was going to support anyone other than challengers to incumbents. He went so far as to claim I must be making money to support challengers against incumbents and let me know RedState would be blamed if the GOP did not take back the majority.
Right – this clod from DC decided that he, from his lofty position of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (alias out here in the grassroots: Senatorial Incumbent Protection Society – SIPS) had the juice to insult one of the most influential Conservative bloggers. Nationally. Period. And thought that he was doing the right thing by lecturing Erick? Let’s get real here – RedState endorses Conservatives for a reason. That reason is that they stand for something other than just winning an election (see earlier, the SIPS) and it seems to be insulting to Republicans who are Republicans because, well, they are Republicans. Let me repeat again – winning is merely a precursor and not the end game. The Establishment seems only to be interested in the precursor – we are not.
What was most fascinating, however, was that he demanded I name candidates RedState supports in states without incumbents as proof RedState does not somehow get paid to push challengers. I mentioned Larry Rhoden in South Dakota, at which point he started bad mouthing State Senator Rhoden and revealing NRSC opposition research on Senator Rhoden. I also mentioned Dr. Greg Brannon in North Carolina, but he was dismissive of him too.
Hmm, sounds like the SIPS has decided to pick up and use a Democrat tactic: “if you are not with us, if you don’t agree with us, SOMEBODY SOMEWHERE has to be paying you off. So, you’re scum” (or so goes the intimation – or is that intimidation).
Sidenote: even though we have two bloggers at GraniteGrok that have earned blogging kudoes from Americans for Prosperity, we have yet to receive checks from the Koch Brothers. So don’t even bother when the campaigns come around and try this with us.
This all comes as multiple friends of this site, in conversations with me, told me the National Republican Senatorial Committee contacted them to do negative stories about the Madison Project — a conservative group I am a big supporter of. Why? Because the Madison Project endorsed Matt Bevin in Kentucky against Senator Mitch McConnell. Full disclosure: the Madison Project’s Daniel Horowitz is a RedState contributor, which is why these friends reached out to give me a heads up.
How long has the blogosphere been around? How long has the blogosphere had political bloggers? Tell me – how the heck have these do-you-know-where-I’m-from-bien-pissants NOT figured out that this is not how to “handle” bloggers? Really – threatening just because we won’t fall in line – or left the plantation (or in truth, most of us were never IN line or ON the plantation in the first place). In fact, you can’t – we are bloggers because we are independent and have our OWN ideas of how things should be – and we take a very dim view of anyone trying to force “illuminating us of the error of our ways” simply because kowtowing doesn’t exist in our vocabulary. We care not if you are from DC, from Congress, from the State Capitals, to local School Board races.
So when someone who thinks they are “of Power” decides to threaten a blogger, either by intent or out of sheer stupidity, word gets around. Quickly. I only wish the name had been named. As this gets around, the NRSC is going to have some chasms to cross. And yes, this “shades” local Senators in every state (Listening, Kelly or Kelly’s staff?) as our “flocks” will hear about this (if you believe in the analogy that we bloggers are “preachers of a different kind of church”).
So let’s recap — the NRSC is pushing hit jobs against conservative organizations who don’t support their incumbents in primaries. They are claiming conservatives who don’t support their candidates are getting paid to do so. They demand to know who conservatives support in open races then bashing those candidates.
And they call this outreach.
And are willing to bash Conservative bloggers to boot. Why am I not surprised – it is politics and Establishment Republicans don’t like folks like us that refuse to toe their line simply because they’ve laid one down. But why will they be surprised if they get attacked back? Or attack their “annointed”?
Final thought: using a club doesn’t work with bloggers – but some cooperation might. We may not support their candidates and, in fact, support the NRSC opponents. But doing what the NRSC did has poisoned the water on those that perhaps there could have been some cooperation. The Establishment hasn’t figured this out yet – while they don’t necessarily need us, we can be helpful. On the other hand, we don’t need them at all. The rest, as the text books used to say, is left as an example for the reader to complete.
