Thursday, June 12, 2014

Tom DeLay: "Cantor Should Serve Out His Term"

by JASmius

"Don't go, Eric, don't go":

Eric Cantor's decision to resign as House Majority Leader is a bad idea that will wreak havoc in the Republican Party, says former Representative Tom DeLay of Texas-22, who held the same position.

"A leadership race is a very divisive thing … and [will] create ill will amongst the personalities,'' DeLay told "The Steve Malzberg Show'' on Newsmax TV.

"Eric Cantor should stay in his office and serve it out so that there's not this big fight right in the middle of an election.''



Well, I don't want to necessarily pooh-pooh The Hammer's counsel on this, because he was in almost the exact same position and thus ought to know whereof he speaks about it.  But as he goes on to admit, the leadership scramble to fill the Majority Leader slot he was vacating wasn't a contributing factor to the GOP losing the House in 2006.  An indirect side-distraction, perhaps, but not a direct cause.

However, given the reason that Cantor lost his primary on Tuesday - distrust from the base over his amnesty dalliance with the Obama White House - his remaining in the Majority Leader post would almost certainly create an even bigger distraction as it would fuel suspicions that he and Speaker John Boehner and the rest of the House GOP leadership were plotting to unleash the "grand immigration compromise," the worst-case scenario the base feared that got Cantor cashiered in the first place.  Would that be more than a little paranoid, given that even a blind man could see the November electoral results such a stunt would produce?  Probably.  But grassroots emotions are running so high on this issue, the base is so fed up about it, that "trust us" assurances from the leadership aren't going to go very far.

Cantor clearing out now eliminates that distraction.  That of replacing him is a necessary evil.  And if everybody is truly on the same team, any acrimony among the contestants can be set aside, right?

Then there's Dick Morris's version, "C'mon, Tea Partiers, we need amnesty for your own electoral good":

By failing to enforce current immigration laws, President Barack Obama is employing a deliberate strategy to make the GOP "unacceptable to Latinos," political strategist Dick Morris said on Newsmax TV’s "America’s Forum."

Obama’s end game, thus far successful, according to Morris, is to create such a partisan divide that a legislative consensus is impossible. While Obama won’t have the legal authority to grant amnesty by executive order, he can use that route to end deportations, resulting in "de facto legal status," Morris said.

This "executive order strategy" would help win Hispanic votes in an off-year election, Morris said.



Part of that "deliberate strategy" is O's refusal to "faithfully execute" immigration laws he doesn't like.  The core of this "partisan divide" is that the GOP cannot trust him to keep his end of any "grand immigration compromise".  Which means, contra Morris, that The One did not fear said compromise because he would never follow through on the border control/enforcement end of it, but would execute the legalization/"guest worker" provisions.  Republicans would be double-crossed - again - and the end result would be the same as Morris sets forth here.

And since "Hispanics" already vote heavily Democrat anyway, O's de facto "backdoor" amnesty via his deportation embargo will produce the same result without leaving Republican fingerprints on it.

In short, the GOP is powerless to stop Barack Obama's "executive order strategy," just like the rest of his "fundamental transformation" agenda, because it being imposed extra-legally and extra-constitutionally.  All following an Eric Cantor's lead would accomplish is to make the Republican Party complicit in it, with no compensatory benefit at the ballot box.

If we're gonna get screwed, um, Dick, let's leave our own, uh, hands out of it.

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