Sometimes the GOP establishment is fairly crafty at hiding its disdain for voters. Other times, not so much.
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., took a break from making folksy quips to let the mask slip during a Sunday interview about Texas’ Senate race between Republican Ken Paxton and Democrat James Talarico. While often unpredictable in its accuracy, public polling has shown the race to be one of the most contested in the country.
Yet, despite the race’s apparent closeness and major fundraising disparities between the two candidates, the milquetoast Kennedy wouldn’t commit to the Senate GOP deploying money to aid Paxton’s election. He said that the Senate GOP’s campaign arm simply doesn’t have the money to spend in Texas (after pouring millions into the state primary alongside other establishment forces to try and save incumbent Sen. John Cornyn).
“There’s no sense bubble wrapping it — we’ve got a race in Texas. … [Paxton] is going to have to point out the deficiencies of Mr. Talarico. … [But] you can’t win an election by saying the other guy’s worse than me. Money is an issue,” Kennedy said. “We in the Senate don’t have the money budgeted for Texas. We need help from the president. The president says he has $850 million in his campaign accounts. That’s a lot of jack.”
Put another way, “Sorry, Ken, you’re on your own!”
On the surface, it seems particularly rich that the Senate GOP is now running to Trump for help after refusing to pass the SAVE America Act and other conservative priorities. But there’s actually a bigger dynamic at play here that voters should pay attention to.
Whenever an establishment-backed crony wins the GOP nomination in any given primary, conservative voters are told to fall in line and back the party’s candidate, no questions asked. But when Republican voters nominate a grassroots candidate who will actually fight for their interests, those same establishment voices are more than happy to leave that candidate out to dry.
Cornyn’s childish behavior since losing reelection is all but confirmation of this. No longer having to pretend to be someone he’s not, the senior senator has openly trashed Paxton, refused to campaign or fundraise on his behalf, and become a regular thorn in the side of the Trump administration.
Similar antics by outgoing establishment allies Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and Bill Cassidy, R-La., also fit into this category.
While pretending otherwise, Senate Republicans’ biggest gripe with Paxton isn’t his personal issues or campaign style. It’s that he dared to challenge one of their do-nothing foot soldiers and won.
Senate GOPers have spent years building a political apparatus that works not to their voters’ benefit, but to their own. It’s a good ol’ boys club where the status quo of doing the bare minimum is considered sacrosanct.
A challenger like Paxton, who has a track record of acting on his voters’ wishes, seeks to disrupt that dynamic — which is why the establishment has virtually no interest in seeing him win.
In their eyes, Senate Republicans have worked too long and too hard cementing their entrenched system to just hand it over to outsiders like Paxton. They will do whatever it takes to keep it in power. And if that means surrendering Texas and the Senate to Democrats in the short term, then so be it.
