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Conservatives take aim at leaders, Crist, other races
Alex Isenstadt, Jim VandeHei Alex Isenstadt, Jim Vandehei – Mon Nov 2, 5:15 am ET

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The conservative coup in upstate New York did much more than lay bare the power of conservative activists: It exposed how little control GOP officials hold over this surging and formidable political movement.

In the wake of conservatives’ role in forcing liberal Republican Dede Scozzafava out of Tuesday’s special election in New York’s 23rd District, GOP officials are trying to make it seem as if they are helping to stoke the passion — and can harness it to upend President Barack Obama and Democrats. They didn’t — and they can’t.

Many of the activists who helped knock out Scozzafava told POLITICO that the passion is building despite — and sometimes to spite — Republican leaders in Washington.

“I don’t give a crap about party,” said Jennifer Bernstone, a tea party organizer for Central New York 912, which helped to lead the anti-Scozzafava charge. “Grass-roots activists don’t care about party.”

Says Everett Wilkinson, a tea party organizer in Florida: “We are not going to allow our [movement] to be stolen by the GOP or by any political party.”

This energy on the right seems to exist outside the control of the conventional political structure, and GOP politicians and operatives are as likely to be victims of this anger as beneficiaries.

GOP leaders are about to learn the lesson again, several conservatives warned. Grass-roots activists are ready to turn their fire on Republicans in a host of races across the country, said Adam Brandon, a spokesman for FreedomWorks, an organization that helped gin up the tea party protests and town hall flare-ups.

“If you look at other bellwether races, we’re still going to be on opposing sides,” said Brandon, who pointed to the Florida Senate race, where a conservative former state House speaker is taking on GOP-establishment-backed Gov. Charlie Crist as the next major conservative electoral stand.

“There are going to be other conflicts,” said Brandon. “We have a lot of work to do. The [Doug] Hoffman campaign was the beginning. It was not the climax.”

Tom Davis, former head of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said this rage against the GOP machine might feel good for disgruntled conservatives, but it could also land Republicans deep in the minority for years to come.

“It becomes a challenge for Republicans to harness this energy in an appropriate fashion,” he said. “Part of the responsibility of the minority is to harness the energy against the majority.”

Still, he warned, load on too many conservatives, and they will “sink the boat.”

To be blunt, many conservative activists couldn’t care less what Davis and top party officials think about them and their brand of politics.

They feel they were had by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), who urged them to stomach earmarks for the good of the party; by George W. Bush adviser Karl Rove, who urged them to stomach a massive expansion of education and Medicare for the good of the party; and by the rest of the Washington gang that collaborated in the largest expansion of government in their lifetime for the good of the party.

Erick Erickson, founder and editor of the conservative RedState blog, said grass-roots activists are done listening.

“Republicans are going to have to come our way,” he said, before going on to trash NRCC Chairman Pete Sessions and Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele for backing Scozzafava.

Their “level of disingenuousness ... is disgusting,” Erickson said.

His influential blog is now calling for Sessions to get the boot from the NRCC as a penalty for mishandling the race.

Erickson’s bombast may seem overboard, but it captures the depths of anger over the handling of this special election. It’s not just that Scozzafava wasn’t conservative — she was very liberal on abortion, unions and gay marriage and even left the impression she might join the Democrats once elected.

Indeed, on Sunday, the day after pulling out of the race, she endorsed Democrat Bill Owens.

“There is already a party for people who think like that,” conservative columnist George Will said on ABC’s “This Week.”

“It’s called the Democratic Party.”

Right now, the power, the energy, the momentum — and the results — are on the side of the conservative activists.

The newest incarnation of confrontational conservatism — driven more by animosity toward government and Obama than by the social passions of the 1990s — has plenty of energy and bodies to turn out big crowds at tea party events, hijack congressional town hall meetings as it did in August and defeat a GOP-establishment-backed House candidate.

It also has leaders with louder microphones than those of House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio or Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky: former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her Facebook page, Rush Limbaugh and his radio show and Glenn Beck with his popular 5 p.m. slot on Fox News.

Those commentator-entrepreneurs are far better known and are considerably more influential with the conservative grass roots than the GOP’s Washington leaders — congressional Republicans such as Georgia Rep. Phil Gingrey and even Steele have both been forced to call Limbaugh to apologize after making critical statements about him to the media — yet they carry unmistakable downside risk. Not only are they unpopular with many moderate voters, but they also have histories of saying wildly impolitic things.

Make no mistake: There is a huge divide between the public rants of this activist wing and the private angst of party leaders in D.C.

Numerous GOP officials have told POLITICO they worry that the party has been hijacked by a noisy and powerful minority that will keep the GOP in a noisy and not-so-powerful minority for a long time.

It will be impossible for GOP leaders to make this case anytime soon. The trick, instead, will be to find common ground on running conservative candidates who appeal to activists but can also run campaigns not entirely predicated on the hardest edges of their conservatism.

The Virginia governor’s race, which will also be decided Tuesday, could be the prototype for this kind of compromise. Until then, Charlie Crist should get ready for a rumble.


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