Conservatives Battling Over Control Already Pointing Fingers, Making Threats, Issuing Demands

The midterm elections were completed on Tuesday and battle lines are already being drawn between conservative and moderate Republicans.

Party leaders tried to “set a statesmanlike tone for the GOP-controlled Congress,” during Wednesday’s first press conference held in a standing-room only room at the Republican National Committee headquarters, as reported by International Business Times.

Wednesday, a rag-tag army of ultra-conservative leaders met in a half-empty room at the National Press Club to hold their own press conference – far less statesmanlike than mainstream Republicans.

Led by Richard A. Viguerie, Chair of ConservativeHQ.com, the cast of characters included: Kenneth Blackwell, Senior Fellow for the Family Research Council, David “Dave” N. Bossie, President of Citizens United, L. Brent Bozell III, Founder and Chair of ForAmerica, Marjorie Dannenfelser, President of the Susan B. Anthony List, Jenny Beth Martin President and Co-Founderof the Tea Party Patriots, Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council.

The brunt of their message was four-fold:

Take credit for the Republican victory in the midterm elections;
Warn the Republican leadership that they had to “earn” their continued support;
Warn leaders that “cooperation, consolation and compromise” with President Obama is out of the question;
Warn Republicans that their first priorities, “from day one” are to “repeal Obamacare,” “secure the border and block the president’s planned executive amnesty.”

We’ve taken the time to edit 3 short highlights from the 42 minute hate-fest to give you a clue of what happened, beginning with Richard A. Viguerie who emceed the festivities, and started by reminding conservatives that:

“No Republican ran on a platform of cooperation, consolation and compromise with [President] Obama. Today, the Republican Party is still very much divided.”

Next we have Tea Party darling Jenny Beth Martin, who basically took credit for the Republican victory for the Tea Party and sternly warned Speaker Boehner of his duties to her fringe of lunatics, even giving him a time-limit (“today”) to announce his intentions (an order he appears to have completely ignored):

I can tell you having traveled from New Hampshire to Oregon, from Nebraska to Texas, from Florida to Iowa in the last six months and working with Tea Party activists around the country at the local level and battleground states and districts there were two issues that motivated the grassroots activists that propelled you to victory Mr. Speaker: Obamacare and securing our border and blocking the planned executive amnesty.

One of two things is true. Either Obamacare and illegal immigration were left out of this press release deliberately or by mistake. If it was a mistake, the Speaker needs to make that clear immediately, by issuing a revised release today on the agenda for the next Congress that includes the these important issues. [emphasis added]

And to complete the fiesta, Brent Bozell claimed that every winning Republican candidate opposed Obamacare:

“That’s a unanimous promise to the American people to be against this. The Republican Party ran 35,000 TV ads about Obamacare alone in the month of October alone. They need to move to repeal Obamacare as fast as the doors of the new Congress swing open.”

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