Tea Party House Majority Leader Hopeful Can't Even Lead Idaho GOP
June 16, 2014

So Raúl Labrador wants to be House Majority Leader? Ladies and Gents, I give you the Idaho GOP as evidence of what kind of leadership he would bring to the United States House of Representatives.

Via Huffington Post:

The Idaho Republican running for House majority leader had to adjourn the state GOP convention on Saturday without accomplishing much of anything, after infighting brought the meeting to a total standstill.

Idaho Republicans met for a three-day convention starting on Thursday, with the goal of passing several amendments to the party's platform and electing a new party chair. But the event became a battle between the tea party and its foes, as the far right aimed to make up for the beating they took in the state's May 20 primary election by removing contentiously elected delegates. Those delegates accused tea partiers of attempting to work the system to ensure a tea partier became the new state GOP chair.

By Saturday, all 15 delegates from Bannock County were successfully unseated, while attempts to unseat delegates from Ada and Twin Falls counties were in the works. Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho), the convention chairman, ended up bringing the meeting to an end before delegates could elect a new state party chair or vote on any party platform amendments, as they had set out to do.

“This is as low as the party can go,” said Labrador, according to the AP. “We have hit bottom. I think the party has no choice but to go up from here.”

The turmoil doesn't bode well for Labrador, who announced his intent to run for House majority leader last week.

File this under the Koch libertarians versus the more 'mainstream' Republican party:

Madsen said complaints were filed by a group of Bannock County Republicans claiming the county party leadership had ignored their input and did not hold proper elections to select delegates for the state convention.

When the dust settled, Bannock County's entire delegation had been unseated.

“It was quite surprising,” Madsen said. “It was a nuclear option in my opinion.”

Similar disagreements between the libertarian/tea party Republicans and establishment Republicans cropped up in other Idaho counties and eventually about a fifth of the delegates attending the convention were unseated.

“We need to stop hauling our dirty laundry out in public,” Madsen said.

Bingham County GOP Chairman Dan Cravens said the disagreements with the Republican Party are not helping with the main goal of the party — to get Republicans elected. Republicans currently hold every statewide office in Idaho and 80 percent of the seats in the Idaho Legislature.

“It was a unique experience,” Cravens said about the shortened convention. “It was frustrating.”

Cravens said the Bingham County delegation could see no legitimate reason for the Bannock County delegation to be unseated, but the Bonneville County delegation voted unanimously to unseat their GOP counterparts from Bannock.

“We failed to move toward party unity,” Cravens said.

Yeah, that tends to happen when a billionaire-funded 'Taliban like insurgency' comes to town.

This isn't much different in Idaho than it is on the national level. The Tea Party Taliban is moving to take over what remnants of the Republican party exist on a statewide level, so they can move to the federal level. Labrador adjourned without anything being done in order to leave chaos and disarray behind him. That just benefits the so-called 'populist wing' of the TeaBirchers.

And he wants to be House Majority Leader? Toss the bastards out on their ear.

Can you help us out?

For nearly 20 years we have been exposing Washington lies and untangling media deceit, but now Facebook is drowning us in an ocean of right wing lies. Please give a one-time or recurring donation, or buy a year's subscription for an ad-free experience. Thank you.

Discussion

We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service for information on our posting policy.
Mastodon