Aiming at the Leaders, Hitting the Followers
Posted on May 21, 2014
According to the Center for Public Integrity, outside conservative groups have spent three dollars attacking fellow Republicans for every one dollar spent attacking President Obama and his Democratic allies.
Much of that money has been aimed at the Republican leadership, including House Speaker John Boehner, Senate Minority LeaderMitch McConnell, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Greg Walden and Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn.
The thing is, when you aim at the leaders, you hit the followers.
When leaders have to spend money on their own races, they can’t spend those funds getting other Republicans elected. Republican leaders have spent tens of millions of dollars fending off primary challenges. That money could have gone to challengers in Michigan, Iowa, Colorado, Arkansas, Louisiana and a bunch of other places where vulnerable Democrats are fighting for survival.
Instead, that money has been wasted because so-called conservative groups think it is a good use of “conservative” money to beat up Republicans rather than beat Democrats.
If Republicans fail to gain control of the Senate, we can think back to these primary battles, in which conservatives squandered valuable resources on silly efforts to beat Mr. Obama’s biggest critics.