"You have made them not care." Pat Caddell: "up to one-third of Republicans are ready to call it quits as members of the GOP." - Granite Grok

“You have made them not care.” Pat Caddell: “up to one-third of Republicans are ready to call it quits as members of the GOP.”

…that the estimate that one-quarter to one-third are hanging on by a thread is a conservative one

Once again, I bring up my little vignette:

Me: there are Republicans out there they are no longer voting nor donating to the Party.  They’ve quit.

She: Well, why ARE they doing that??  Don’t they realize that this will allow Democrats to be elected?

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She: They HAVE to care – Democrats will win if they just stay home.  Don’t they realize that?

Me: You’re not listening to me, and haven’t been for a while.  You have made them not care.  Why SHOULD they care when Republicans do things at cross-purposes to what they say they stand for?  Why should they support candidates that, in the end, don’t support their beliefs?  When they don’t see their beliefs being advanced?…

I have watched Democrat pollster Pat Caddell more then a few times over the last few years.  Yes, a Democrat but an HONEST one, so if he’s seeing this in his polling, it is confirmation of what I’ve been hearing from too many Republican promises made and then reneged on (reformatted, emphasis mine):

Fox News contributor and Democratic pollster Pat Caddell told Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon that up to one-third of Republicans are ready to call it quits as members of the GOP.

“The alienation among Republican voters is so high,” says Caddell, that conservatively “a quarter to one-third of the Republican party are hanging by a thread from bolting.” Caddell argues that GOP voters’ attitudes are “so anti-establishment,” and they give Republican leadership poor ratings.  The revelation comes on the heels of polling data supervised by Caddell Associates and reported on Friday by Breitbart News that a stupefying 60% of Republicans who voted in the November elections either definitely or probably want someone other than Ohio Congressman John Boehner to be the Speaker of the House.

Well, that worked out so well today, didn’t it?  But decisions have consequences – and the GOP may have not been making optimal ones.  They are ignoring what most voters innately know:

Winning is only a precursor; what you do afterwards is most important.

Only problem, the Establishment seems to only care about the first clause.  And now there may well be a consequence to not being bold, to “play it safe and not make waves” until the GOP wins the Prez in 2016.

But they never talk about losing.  Pat Caddell’s words had better catch their ear in conjunction with that phrase “you go to war with the Army you have – not the one you want”.  The GOP may find itself having pissed away an opportunity that the voters may not give them again for lack of resolve in trying to gain results.  You can only march in formation just so long – but parading around doesn’t win wars.  Ask General McClellan.

Caddell, who sharpened his teeth as a political consultant and pollster for President Jimmy Carter in 1976, has developed a reputation for being a straight shooting analyst, often criticized by his own party for predicting negative outcomes for Democrats. His latest poll shows that Republican voters are reaching a tipping point and may have had enough of GOP lawmakers’ feckless leadership and constant submission to President Obama’s policies.

And each and every time we hear from out elected Republican representatives “Don’t worry, we’ll FIGHT after the next election”, we keep wondering “er, when”?  After all, all we heard was “Repeal Obamacare when we get the House! Power of the Purse!”.  We gave you the House.  And the equivocating started (“well, we are only 1/2 of 1/3 of the Government”).  All we heard then was “Give us the Senate, we’ll repeal Obamacare and defund Obama’s Executive Amnesty!”.  So we gave you the Senate. And once again, the equivocating has started (“no, we will not shut down the Government….wait until we have the Oval Office!”).

A lot of people no longer want to listen to this nonsense.  And we’ve heard this here in NH, too – and then the NH Senate Republicans PASSED Obamacare’s Expanded Medicaid.  So we want to listen to this nonsense…..why??

A frequent guest on the Breitbart News Sunday Sirius XM Patriot radio program on channel 125, Caddell said that he will be releasing a new survey on Monday of 600 Republican identifiers or independents who voted Republican in November. In what Caddell refers to as a “stunner,” only 16% want “both” Boehner and imminent Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to be their leaders.  Moreover, according to the survey, two-thirds agreed with the statement that “John Boehner has been ineffective in opposing Obama.” Another stunner for Caddell was when voters were asked, “Is John Boehner for average Americans in his heart, rather than for special interests?” Only 44% said yes, and 43% said no. “We’re talking about the base. These are not independents that are leaning Democrat, and there are no Democrats in the survey,” the pollster noted in astonishment.

And THIS is the real stunner that ought to have the Republican Elites rethinking their strategy – lose your army, you WILL lose the war:

Breitbart’s Chairman asked Caddell “does the math show you that there could be an uprising and could the GOP go the way of the Whig Party?” (The Whigs elected two presidents in the mid 19th century, and at one time, claimed Abraham Lincoln as a member, but quickly disappeared from the political landscape over slavery issues).  Caddell answered by reminding Bannon that the estimate that one-quarter to one-third are hanging on by a thread is a conservative one. He explained:

The GOP leadership, the lawyers, the lobbyists, the consultant class of the Republican party, and all the big donors don’t understand that these people are angry. … They are saying that John Boehner doesn’t care about them, and all he cares about is the special interests. I’ve never seen anything like this in the base of a party. And that is why the analogy to the Whigs is not so far-fetched.

I can tell you there is a movement here in NH of formerly committed activists thinking of doing just this.  “You (Establishment Republicans) have made them not care” because you refuse to listen.  You are blinded by the idea that Trust is no longer a necessary attribute – and yes, I am trying to restore that.  Which in itself, may be a game changer.  Maybe; we’ll see.  But if these folks proceed, well, we saw what happened this last election to the top of the Republican ticket – it was Republicans that no longer Trusted the candidates.  Now think of what happens when more people join in on that?  The Whigs thought they were “all that” at the time – and looked what happened to a movement that started here in NH.

History can repeat itself and NOTHING is forever.  Sure, the NH GOP may scoff “you won’t win”.  Yeah, you know how that other part goes…

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