Peter King's Primary Cruz Contingency Plan

On the day of the New York Primary, Representative Peter King (R-NY 2nd) had an interesting interview with MSNBC's Joe Scarborough.  As the host jocularly joked that Rep. King was Republican Presidential hopeful Senator Ted Cruz's (R-TX) Long Island campaign chair, the crotchety Congressmen set to disabuse Scarborough of this impression.

King vented his verjuice against the Tea Party inspired Constitutionalist candidate by vowing to take cyanide if Senator Cruz gets the nomination.

Wags like conservative commentator Ben Shapiro opined tongue in cheek that this was the best rationale for voting for Cruz.

This is not the first time that Peter King has let loose on Cruz.  King went vitriolic on Cruz in January when Cruz noted liberal New York Values. 

Considering Cruz' New York Values Charge

As the first contents in the 2016 Republican Presidential Primaries are less than a month away, the campaign has become hard hitting.  Brash billionaire New York real estate mogul and reality television celebrity Donald J. Trump has been questioning Iowa front-runner Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) as to whether he is a "natural born citizen".

Trump passive aggressively alleged that Democrats and other legal scholars will dispute if Cruz is legally qualified to become President, as Cruz was born in Calgary Alberta Canada to an American mother.  Trump trolls that the definition of "a natural born citizen" is still not settled law, as the Supreme Court has not ruled on it.  Hence, Trump claims that Cruz' status will be in legal limbo which may dissuade voters and draw attention away from the issues.

Senator Cruz had strived to follow Reagan's 11th Commandment of not criticizing other Republicans. In fact, Cruz refused to jump on the bandwagon of disparaging Trump during earlier outrages over illegal immigration and other controversies.  This may be attributed to the hope of eventually gaining the support of Trump supporters.  However,  Trump's attacks have diminished the lead Cruz held for the Iowa Caucus but putting doubt into undecided Hawkeye Republicans' minds.

With this in mind, Senator Cruz tried a new tact by charging that Donald Trump embodied New York values.



When asked to elaborate, Cruz played coy, yet he played up the cozy relationship that Trump had with the Clintons in the liberal high tax land of Wall Street.


This seemed like a prudent,calculated risk as there would be little hope of carrying the Empire State in the general election and it would likely swing to Donald Trump in the Republican primaries, The downside would be offending New York nebbishes like Peter King.

King's verjuice venom towards Cruz is unsurprising, as King denounced the  flying flip budgetary shut down strategy in 2013 as well as King's tendency to lash out against non-establishment Republican.

The kink in this strategy is the fact that Cruz partially financed his 2012 Senate campaign by liquidating the assets from an account accrued through his wife Heidi's employment through Goldman Sachs.  Cruz had burned his conservative credentials by running against Wall Street ad their New York values. While there may be no merit to the association, the name Goldman Sachs will muddy the waters (much like Trump's natural born citizen slime).

The Fox Business debate in North Charleston, South Carolina will be pair Trump and Cruz at center stage.  While the bromance will be over, it will be interesting if the top two candidates will have tete-a-tete attacks over New York values and natural born citizens or if the fireworks from the debate will come from other candidates trying to change the momentum in the race.

Vacant Musings About Capitol Hill

Second term Congressman Mark Meadows (R-NC 11th) submitted a Motion to Declare the Speaker’s Chair vacant in July. This is not something which has been used in Congress in the last century. So initially, this seemed like a futile gesture of frustration filed by a disgruntled back bencher just before the Summer Break.  The Republican establishment thought that the motion would lose momentum by going through the standard committee process. But there are now reports that Speaker Boehner is worried that he is short of votes in the Republican caucus to be re-elected as Speaker.

At the start of the 114th Congress, Speaker Boehner faced a revolt from two dozen Tea Party types who voted for other GOP candidates.  Boehner barely won by two votes and was aided by the fact that many New York Democrats were absent for the vote to attend the funeral for Governor Mario Cuomo (D-NY).  This exigency lowered the threshold for achieving a majority.

Some have speculated that insurgent Republican Congressmen could put up a liberal Republican candidate, like Rep. Peter King (R-NY 2nd), to win enough Democrat votes to take down the current king of the Hill.  This notion is mistaken because it presumes that Democrats would want to replace Speaker Boehner and does not fully understand the process.

In fact, there is some speculation that John Boehner might have to rely upon Democrat votes to retain the Speaker’s chair. Arguably, House Democrats may prefer to have  Boehner as Speaker if they are not going to be in the majority.  However, having Democrats prop up a wounded Republican Speaker would reflect poorly upon the cosiness of the Washington political establishment and the effectiveness of the leadership.

But there might be a passive way which the Democrat caucus could prop up their favored establishment opposition.  In the event that the Motion to Declare the Chair Vacant succeeds, Democrats could conveniently have a few dozen Democrats miss the vote, thereby lowering the total vote count, thereby countering the thirty GOP insurgents and re-electing Speaker Boehner.
 The trick would be to accurately estimate the number of dissenting GOP votes.  A similar outcome could also be achieved the helpful opposition voted “Present”, however, that would leave Democrat fingerprints on the vote.

If no candidate garners the necessary 218 votes (or a majority of those voting), then there would be subsequent votes.  But like the scenario of a brokered political convention, all bets are off after the initial round. If Mr. Boehner could not achieve a majority in the first vote, power would ebb away.  Without having the power of the Speaker’s chair and the ability to appoint chairmen and exile dissenters from committees, he would lose the fealty of the current leadership.  In fact, current Majority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA 23rd) and current House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA 1st) might not be in contention for not mooting the revolt beforehand.

With the Iran Deal, legislation to defund Planned Parenthood and passing the Budget on the docket this fall, a leadership battle could make this a very interesting time on Capitol Hill.  But observing the machinations of the Senate's Corker/Cardin Iran Deal vote, don't discount the establishment's ability to choreograph "victories which seem inimical to the vox populi but keeps their Cocktail Party plans. 

Republicans Behaving Badly-- Ignoring Reagan's 11th Commandment

The Eleventh Commandment was a phrase popularized by Ronald Reagan during his 1966 Gubernatorial run.  The Eleventh Commandment idea had itsgenesis from California Republican State Party Chairman Gaylord Parkinson after the 1964 Presidential campaign, when conservative GOP nominee Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ) was savaged by East Coast country club Republicans who did not like Goldwater's style or politics.

It is interesting to see how this political precept is held by present day politicians, particularly Congress critters  afflicted with Potomac Fever.

To win the Republican nomination for President in 2008, Senator John McCain (R-AZ), the senior Senator from Arizona, ran proclaiming that he was a "foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution."  Yet consider how "the Maverick" Senator treats his "friends" in this session of Congress.   When Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) held a 13 hour filibuster of CIA John Brennen's nomination, Senator McCain chose to call several of his caucus confreres as "wacko birds."

To his credit, Senator McCain uttered televised regrets shortly afterwards for this infelicitous invective.  But McCain did not seem to mean it as aides indicate McCain's  disdain for Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) in what can only be described in raw terms.  Yet Senator McCain had the temerity to task Democrat  Majority Leader Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) to ask for 15 minutes at the end of Cruz's filibuster.  It is a good thing that Cruz had the good sense to ignore this entreaty, as McCain used his time to denounce Cruz's efforts. 

This is not an isolated example of Senator McCain bad mouthing other members of his caucus with whom he disagrees.  As Republicans were positioned to score major victories in the 2010 Congressional elections, Senator McCain denounced the enthusiasm of Tea Party types as being hobbits.  

McCain's scorn for the Tea Party makes sense, as he governs as a progressive member of the Cocktail Party, even though he  runs as one conservative hombre.  Moreover, McCain used his floor time  after Cruz's filibuster to waive the whiteflag to Democrats and declare the elections matter and the Republicans lost the Obamacare fight.  While President Obama did win re-election in 2012, he did not premise his campaign on Obamacare.  In addition, federal elections do not have the ability to do referenda on legislation.  Furthermore, legislators are not bound to decisions made by their predecessors. 

Another "independent" Republican voice who unabashedly ignores the Eleventh Commandment is Congressman Peter King (R-NY 02).  As a northeastern Republican Representative, King's weltanschauung will be considerably more "squishy" than conservative colleagues to the south.  But this should not give him license to bash his GOP brethren, in most uncharitable and insulting ways. 

Congressman King denounced Senator Cruz as a “kamikaze pilot" and “medicine man selling goods he knows are phony goods.”  If that wasn't enough, King proclaimed “those I’ve spoken to think he’s [Cruz] crazy.” OK,  you've denounced your colleague as a fraud, crazy and suicidal--one wonders why.

Maybe it has something to do with Peter King's crazy idea that he should run forPresident.  Bad mouthing fellow Republicans works well to get John McCain more TV time on talking heads shows (and has also helped Senator McCain's scion Meghan McCain plenty of exposure in the media too).  One can not forget that Rep. King's district is in the New York City, which appealing to moneyed "independents" or those who wish to stifle conservatives can channel funds.  This seems  akin to former Utah Governor and Obama's Ambassador to China John Huntsman's (R-UT) quixotic strategy in running for the GOP nomination in 2012. 

Representative King ought to remember the fate of the last couple  Members of the House who ran for President.  In the 2012 cycle, former Representative Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI 11th) launched an ill planned Presidential campaign for a couple of months in 2011, presumably to improve name recognition for later political contests. McCotter was so taken with Potomac Fever that he failed to get enoughvalid signatures to run for the primary for his Congressional seat in 2012, so he resigned.   Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN 6th) ran a more credible race for the Republican nomination.  But she barely won re-election in the 113th Congress in a tough district.  Bachmann has announced that she will not seek re-election in 2014.

But of course, McCotter and Bachmann are different cases because they do not make it a habit to bad mouth their fellow Republicans.  Surely, Representative Peter King's telegenic looks, his pleasant demeanor as well as his principled reputation will put him in good stead once he loses his position of power as House Homeland Security Chair and is no longer useful to the Lamestream Media.