Page 17 - Activist Base News Today

Produced one of the most ideological rigid parties in history. as the bipartisan political scientists write in their 2012 book "its even worse than it looks," the republican party has become an insurgent outliar er person politics, dismissive the legitimacy of its political opposition. so peter, isnt this the problem here? its not the policy, its the party. its the republican party and their base. >> yeah, and the problem the republican party has is that tea partiers who are now the activist bas...

Wanting. i would expect that leadership would be able to quell some of the impulse. is there a sign there is not enough leadership strength to stop those impulses on the far right? >> reporter: thats definitely true. theyve proved that again and again. it would be possible. and some state, its possible for a republican speaker to make a deal with democrats. but its very clear that john boehner would have the votes from the democrat side if he funded the government at a lower level. democrats wer...

Spending caps which they were opposed to. they were starting to argue this would be a victory for republicans. republicans should take it. really, from the activist base, shepherded by a couple of members of congress and back to the base, herrage action, ted graves in the senate, the conservatives in the party, a third of the party a bit more maybe, made the argument this is a last-ditch chance to repeal obama care. if they didnt do this they were betraying the base. the leadership didnt do anyt...

>> yeah, what was interesting. by the way -- rand paul went on fox tonight i think. and -- and, kind of renounced the -- the strategy. he did it gently. carefully. but did it pretty artfully. you know, what he definitely was separating himself from cruz. but here is -- here is the disturbing reality. if you are worried. look at all the primary candidates running in 2014. all most to a person candidates endorsed what cruz was doing. and i think they did that for the same reason that i think that ...

Senate is 8% of the united states senate. >> yeah, what was interesting. by the way -- rand paul went on fox tonight i think. and -- and, kind of renounced the -- the strategy. he did it gently. carefully. but did it pretty artfully. you know, what he definitely was separating himself from cruz. but here is -- here is the disturbing reality. if you are worried. look at all the primary candidates running in 2014. all most to a person candidates endorsed what cruz was doing. and i think they did t...

Going to face the republican primary voters who dont like him that much, the tea party types in kentucky hasnt said he is for it. i think youre exactly right. i just dont know if the democrats who are also facing resistance from their activist base will go along and save the presidents bacon. >> thats my question, howard, saving his bacon is a rough way to put it, but its fair. if the house republicans, rank and file below the top people like cantor and mr. boehner, the speaker, if they say no, ...

Broken. and thats because republican governors have to get things done in their state, they have to work with the president, whereas congress gets to sit around and do a lot of partisan sniping and play to an activist base that finds this entire presidency illegitimate and the fastest way to get shunned is to say anything remotely decent or to show any kind of willingness to work with this president. >> when you see the background check vote, governor, and when you see other things that have the...

And what we see is in many of these districts, theyre not worried about a challenge from the left. theyre not worried about their general election. theyre worried about primary battles and increasingly, too. theyre concerned with having a national tea party activist base where they can fund raise from. we see people like the representative fund raising off the fact that boehner and the establishment republicans are against him and hes a thorn in their side. >> dana, when you look at the tea part...

Ass primaried and im not coming back here. and i like getting elected. thats what they said. jim, grover has no power outside of the issue that he carries. is that 100% correct? 1,000% correct? >> its true because hes not the nra. he does not have an activist base thats therefore going to put the kind of pressure that the nra can put on people when it comes to gun issues. his power comes from we all write about him, we all talk about him, and hes the anti-tax guy. i will say -- i totally agree w...

Fully immersed in the gop alternative reality. lets listen to mr. morris. >> so you are standing by your prediction of a romney landslide? >> absolutely. romney will win this election by five to ten points in the popular vote and will carry more than 300 electoral votes. >> you know, i think we ought to bring back the public stocks from new england where if youre a pollster -- not even a pollster. they do the numbers. these people with their outlandish partisan so-called predictions ought to hav...