POLITICS: Blunt Instruments
Fund, John H.
POLmTICS JOHN H. FUND Blunt Instruments ~ oY BLUNT KNOWS EXACTLY WHO COST HIM the chance to permanently replace Tom DeLay as House Majority Leader. The House Whip from Missouri was an...
...Dale Franks, who blogs for the free-market QandO.net site, wrote afterwards, "I would rather lick fire ants off a stick than see Roy Blunt as Majority Leader...
...The negative postings of Franks and other bloggers prompted Team Blunt to overreact and lash out against the New Media...
...He ran an old-style machine Campaign based on subtle and not-so-subtle signals to other members that they dare not cross him...
...The race for Majority Leader may have been an inside game, but the bloggers and talk show hosts took it and forced it out into the open where alot of people commented on it," he told me...
...He met with reporters after he lost the Majority Leader's race in February to John Boehner on a 122 to 109 second-ballot vote of his fellow House Republicans...
...That's not quite how Blunt puts it...
...And not a moment too soon...
...The result also pleased Dick Armey, the Texas free-market economist who held the post of Majority Leader from 1995 to 2003, when he turned over the "They weren't against Blunt, they simply concluded he didn't represent sufficient change and reform...
...They weren't against Blunt, they simply concluded he didn't represent sufficient change and reform...
...The five or six people that will talk to the media about what bad shape we're in are not reflective of 225 of their colleagues," he claimed...
...Grover Norquist, the head of Americans for Tax Reform, stayed neutral in the race...
...That approach almost always can be used to ensure that the politician involved only faces "softball" questions...
...reins to DeLay...
...Franks interpreted that as a threat and ended his posting on the site with: "I'll go ahead and write whatever the hell I want to write...
...His leverage was augmented by his decision to keep his whip job if he failed in his bid to become Majority Leader," recalls Rich Lowry, the editor of NationalReview...
...Blunt may have prided himself on being a workhorse in bringing legislation to the floor, but he barely tried to connect with the conservative movement that is integral to building the necessary support for bills whether they concern tax cuts or pro-family policies...
...The House Whip from Missouri was an overwhelming favorite to win the post he had filled on an acting basis since DeLay was forced to step down after a dubious indictment on campaigu- finance charges in Texas last September...
...In the end, the bloggers and editorial writers weren't entirely happy with the outcome...
...In return, if Rep...
...The members read lots of stories, lots of editorials.., all of which took one view of this race, and that view was never to the advantage of someone like me who knows how to get the work done...
...He placed a respectable third to Boehner and Blunt on the first ballot ~md dropped out before the second ballot began...
...To that end, Blunrs office arranged for the same kind of conference call with conservative bloggers that Shadegg had used to great advantage to sell himself as a member of the historic class of 1994 House freshmen who now wanted to return House Republicans to first principles...
...There was not just the typical hint of'you better be with me if I win--or else,' but also the more innovative, 'you better be with me if I l o s e - o r else.'" Late in the four-week campaign for Majority Leader, which the three candidates-Blunt, Boehner, and Arizona Rep...
...Blunt told the pa~icipants that as a semi-incumbent he had enough votes locked up to ensure a first-ballot victory...
...The conference call went down hill from there...
...But the Blunt outreach did not go well...
...He told the Associated Press that his campaign was hurt by a con46 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MARCH 2006 stant barrage of media stories demanding a change in the GOP House leadership that were planted by a few discontented members...
...Armey also gives full credit to conservative media outlets for fostering a political climate that forced GOP House members to realize they couldn't continue business-as-usual in the months before the 2006 elections...
...ESPITE THE INTENSITY of that "pissing-ant" conW ~ test, most of the internal debate within the con_~_~ servative movement was conducted on a civilized level...
...In both cases, conservatives decided that the identities and quality of their leaders in Washington were too important to allow the decision to be left solely to insiders...
...In essence, the New Media triumphed over the House's Old Guard...
...But, he claims, the bloggers, talk radio hosts, and editorial writers then ganged up on him as they demanded someone with a more reform-minded agenda...
...They tend to attack and sting in great numbers--just like bloggers...
...After over 10 years in the majority, House Republicans had lost their way, too focused on parochial pork over public policy...
...Their favorite candidate was John Shadegg, who openlytouted having grown up the son of Barry Goldwater's campaign manager...
...Instead, he says, they concluded that the House Republicans had lost their way--especially in areas relating to budget issues and pork-barrel spending-and that real change was necessary...
...T]he sun will set in a blazing red sky to the east of Casablanca before I'd want Roy Blunt...
...Blunt spokesman 3essica Boulanger unleashed her fury on the bloggers, particularly Franks...
...Fire ants attach themselves to a person by biting with their jaws, then pivoting their heads and stinging from their abdomens in a circular pattern of multiple sites...
...The movement media types were very constructive," he says...
...In the end, the New Media played a crucial role in convincing several House members that selecting Roy Blunt as their new leader would have been met with about as much enthusiasm in the conservative community as President Bush's choice of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court...
...Therefore, according to notes taken by Franks, the bloggers shouldn't"write or do something that would jeopardize our ability to work together later...
...Reformers consoled themselves that Boehner, while not a complete reformer, had been one of a handful of members to vote against the bloated highway and agricultural bills and had never requested a pork-barrel project for his Ohio district during his 16 years in the House...
...Both Shadegg and Boehner had enough self-confidence to open up their calls to anything the bloggers wanted to ask...
...MARCH 2006 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 47...
...Boehner's election means that real Republicans have, in effect, taken over the House of Representatives for a second time," he told me...
...That's a sign of a maturing philosophical movement that is prepared to govern..~ John H. Fund, The American Spectator's Politics columnist, is author of Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy (Encounter Books...
...Blunt doesn't like it, then he can cry me a river...
...Dale Franks should get the soothing balm ready and beware," she wrote...
...John Shadegg-conducted largely through telephone calls and contacts by surrogates, Blunt realized that he at least had to try to reassure conservatives in the media that he wasn't merely a repackaged prot~g6 of Tom DeLay, the man who elevated Blunt to the job of Majority Whip after the Missourian had only been in the House for three terms...
...In fact, it resulted in a meltJOHN H. FUND down...
...But he was impressed that talk radio hosts and bloggers didn't treat the race for Majority Leader "as a personality slugfest...
...Franks and other bloggers complained that Blunt conducted the call by the oldest rules of controlled media: he would only accept questions submitted in writing in advance...
Vol. 39 • March 2006 • No. 2
