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08-05-2015, 02:42 PM
The 11th commandment, "Thou shalt not speak ill of any Republican," is an old GOP adage, popularized by Ronald Reagan, discouraging public intra-party attacks.
For Republicans, the 11th Commandment has been a kind of touchstone of public unity and discipline. The line between spirited policy debate and personal confrontation has always been somewhat blurry of course, and Republicans have often accused (http://uspolitics.about.com/od/CampaignsElections/a/11th-Commandment-Definition.htm) their intraparty rivals of violating the 11th commandment by running negative television ads or leveling misleading charges; but generally the rule has been adhered to, and the jabs have even occasionally been a bit clever, such as when Jim Gilmore, a former governor of Virginia, took on his party's 2008 frontrunners (http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/05/violating-the-11th-commandment/305939/) collectively, alleging "Rudy McRomney is not a conservative."
The 2012 Republican primaries and debates were certainly far from amiable, but even then, there were broadly accepted parameters. Things have changed. In the last year or two, contenders for the Republican nomination have been regularly and brazenly attacking each other with an extraordinary, perhaps unprecedented degree of vitriol, and this with the contest still in its early stages. Not only that, Republican Senators and Governors have been openly, and scathingly critical of Republican leadership in Washington. Today, there seems to be a significant degree of ideological variance, and a large number of brash personalities. As a consequence, the 11th Commandment doesn't have many adherents left.
Donald Trump, who sparked widespread condemnation (http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/19/donald-trump-john-mccain-vietnam-prisoner-of-war) over his comments about John McCain, also had some words for Jeb Bush (http://edition.cnn.com/2015/06/16/politics/donald-trump-attacks-obama-opponents/): "All of these politicians that I'm running against now, they're trying to disassociate. I mean, you looked at Bush, it took him five days to answer the question on Iraq. He couldn't answer the question, he didn't know. I said, 'Is he intelligent?'"
Last week, in an extraordinary, public attack on his own party leader (http://news.yahoo.com/cruz-mcconnell-lied-ex-im-bank-cannot-trusted-143111540--politics.html), Senator Ted Cruz accused Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of flat-out lying. He said he was no better than his Democratic predecessor, and couldn't be trusted. Cruz's actions were a considerable departure from the norms of Senate etiquette, let alone party solidarity. At issue were assurances Cruz claimed McConnell had given him that there was no deal to allow a vote to renew the federal Export-Import Bank.
"Not only what he told every Republican senator, but what he told the press over and over and over again, was a simple lie," Cruz said. "My staff told me that afternoon, "he's lying to you."
Rand Paul has been a particular target of these intra-party attacks. In May, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal issued a statement attacking Rand Paul after Paul blamed Republican foreign policy hawks for decisions that he said created the Islamic State group.
"It's one thing for Senator Paul to take an outlandish position as a Senator at Washington cocktail parties," Jindal said in his statement (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/may/29/ig-jindals-broadside-against-rand-paul-raises-ques/), "but being Commander-in-Chief is an entirely different job."
Earlier this year, the Senate was working to renew key provisions of the Patriot Act. Rand Paul effectively ground procedures to a halt. When Paul was speaking as the Senate debated whether to end the government's bulk collection of phone records, Lindsey Graham was seen rolling his eyes in a fatigued, incredulous way. The footage went viral.
John McCain also had some barbed words. "I know what this is about - I think it's very clear - this is, to some degree, a fundraising exercise," the Arizona Senator said (http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/gop-senators-tear-into-paul-118475.html). "He obviously has a higher priority for his fundraising and political ambitions than for the security of the nation."
This month, Chris Christie reprised a familiar line of attack against Rand Paul in national TV interviews and on the trail, slamming the libertarian Senator for his opposition to the NSA's domestic surveillance programs.
"We're going to look back on this and he should be in hearings in front of Congress if the country is attacked," Christie said of Paul in an interview (http://edition.cnn.com/2015/07/06/politics/chris-christie-rand-paul-national-security/) on MSNBC's Morning Joe.
Christie labeled Paul as one of the "misguided ideologues who have no real world experience in fighting terrorism." He also alleged that Paul used his marathon 10-hour speech on the Senate floor to raise money, with his campaign sending out an email to supporters to fundraise off the effort. "It's disgraceful," Christie said.
Enraged over Congress' failure to approve disaster relief for victims of Superstorm Sandy, Chris Christie unloaded on Republican lawmakers for putting "palace intrigue" ahead of their official responsibilities. Christie reserved his most blistering words for the Republican House speaker. He described John Boehner as duplicitous for, as he saw it, reversing course at the last minute and refusing to allow a vote on a $60-billion aid package before Congress adjourned.
"My party was responsible for this," Christie said at a news conference in Trenton (http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jan/02/news/la-pn-chris-christie-sandy-aid-congress-20130102), alleging, "one set of Republicans was trying to prove something to another set," and that John Boehner "was trying to "prove something. I hope he accomplished it."
Rand Paul and Marco Rubio have something of a history. At a foreign relations committee hearing, around the beginning of the year, Rand Paul stood up as Rubio began his remarks and walked out of the hearing, returning a few minutes after Rubio finished up. In an earlier speech, Rubio had taken a jab at Paul (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-09-17/rubio-jabs-at-paul-as-he-positions-himself-as-war-hawk): "Some who aspire to be president have shown they would rather wait for poll numbers to change than demonstrate the leadership necessary to shape them." At the hearing, Rubio didn't wait around to hear Paul's take, either. He left before Paul had his turn to speak.
Another dispute between them, over U.S.-Cuba policy, rapidly escalated after Rubio criticized what he described as a capitulation by President Obama. Paul responded in an op-ed, and via a series of tweets, such as this one:
"Senator Marco Rubio is acting like an isolationist who wants to retreat to our borders and perhaps build a moat. I reject this isolationism".
Rubio responded by telling ABC's George Stephanopoulos on "This Week:"
"Rand, if he wants to become the chief cheerleader of Obama's foreign policy, he certainly has a right to do that."
Then came this particularly aggressive tweet (http://thehill.com/policy/international/227824-paul-fires-back-after-rubio-labels-him-an-obama-cheerleader) from Paul:
"Marco Rubio forgot to mention his support for Obama's funding of the Muslim Brotherhood, arming Islamic rebels, and Hillary's war in Libya."
Ouch.
Scott Walker has already thrown a few jabs at Jeb Bush. Walker, who in the dying days of his 2014 campaign commented somewhat caustically on the visit of Chris Christie: "He is coming because he asked if he could come and we weren't going to say no," more recently trolled Jeb Bush in a campaign ad: "I didn't inherit fame or fortune," and has been keen to portray Bush as a plodding establishment figure in their tussle over the Iran deal.
Predictably, some Republicans aren't attributing this battering of the 11th Commandment solely to strident fellow Republicans. In defending Donald Trump, at least initially, Ted Cruz had this to say on NBC's Meet The Press with Chuck Todd: "I like Donald Trump. He's bold, he's brash. And I get it that it seems the favorite sport of the Washington media is to encourage some Republicans to attack other Republicans. I'm not going to do it. I'm not interested in Republican-on-Republican violence." This, in turn, set off some further Republican-on-Republican violence. Shortly after, in a Fox News interview, Chris Christie spelt out how dubious (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/ted-cruzs-unique-spin-the-11th-commandment) he found Cruz's rhetoric. "I find it ironic that Ted Cruz is giving lectures on Republican-on-Republican violence. The guy who put together a group that was sponsoring primary ads against Sen. Lamar Alexander is giving us - the rest of us - lectures on Republican on Republican violence. With all due respect, I don't need to be lectured by Ted Cruz."
This surely unprecedented, often vicious intra-party scrapping may be taking its toll on the party. A Pew poll conducted this month (http://www.people-press.org/2015/07/23/gops-favorability-rating-takes-a-negative-turn/) found that fewer than a third of Americans, 32 percent, have a favorable impression of the GOP, a 9-point drop in the poll since January. The survey found that 60 percent have an unfavorable view. Positive views of the Republican Party have fallen 18 points since January among those who identify as Republican, from 86 to 68 percent.
The Republican 11th Commandment could very well have become an anachronism. It has already been ignored by many of the Republican contenders. Finance may be exacerbating the problem. As Dave Carney, a former adviser to Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich recently put it (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/17/scott-walker-vs-the-world.html): 'With the amount of money in this primary, we aren't going to just see elbows being thrown but knees, fists, and probably ballistic missiles at some point.'
With all the stress, high-stakes, public scrutiny, simmering ideological resentments and cabin-fever from constant interaction in the Senate and at debates, what sort of things will the Republican presidential hopefuls be saying and alleging of one another, months down the track? Perhaps, by then, the sixth commandment, with it's exhortation against homicide, will be more relevant. -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. (http://start.westnet.ca/newstempch.php?article=terms.html/) It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
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For Republicans, the 11th Commandment has been a kind of touchstone of public unity and discipline. The line between spirited policy debate and personal confrontation has always been somewhat blurry of course, and Republicans have often accused (http://uspolitics.about.com/od/CampaignsElections/a/11th-Commandment-Definition.htm) their intraparty rivals of violating the 11th commandment by running negative television ads or leveling misleading charges; but generally the rule has been adhered to, and the jabs have even occasionally been a bit clever, such as when Jim Gilmore, a former governor of Virginia, took on his party's 2008 frontrunners (http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/05/violating-the-11th-commandment/305939/) collectively, alleging "Rudy McRomney is not a conservative."
The 2012 Republican primaries and debates were certainly far from amiable, but even then, there were broadly accepted parameters. Things have changed. In the last year or two, contenders for the Republican nomination have been regularly and brazenly attacking each other with an extraordinary, perhaps unprecedented degree of vitriol, and this with the contest still in its early stages. Not only that, Republican Senators and Governors have been openly, and scathingly critical of Republican leadership in Washington. Today, there seems to be a significant degree of ideological variance, and a large number of brash personalities. As a consequence, the 11th Commandment doesn't have many adherents left.
Donald Trump, who sparked widespread condemnation (http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/19/donald-trump-john-mccain-vietnam-prisoner-of-war) over his comments about John McCain, also had some words for Jeb Bush (http://edition.cnn.com/2015/06/16/politics/donald-trump-attacks-obama-opponents/): "All of these politicians that I'm running against now, they're trying to disassociate. I mean, you looked at Bush, it took him five days to answer the question on Iraq. He couldn't answer the question, he didn't know. I said, 'Is he intelligent?'"
Last week, in an extraordinary, public attack on his own party leader (http://news.yahoo.com/cruz-mcconnell-lied-ex-im-bank-cannot-trusted-143111540--politics.html), Senator Ted Cruz accused Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of flat-out lying. He said he was no better than his Democratic predecessor, and couldn't be trusted. Cruz's actions were a considerable departure from the norms of Senate etiquette, let alone party solidarity. At issue were assurances Cruz claimed McConnell had given him that there was no deal to allow a vote to renew the federal Export-Import Bank.
"Not only what he told every Republican senator, but what he told the press over and over and over again, was a simple lie," Cruz said. "My staff told me that afternoon, "he's lying to you."
Rand Paul has been a particular target of these intra-party attacks. In May, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal issued a statement attacking Rand Paul after Paul blamed Republican foreign policy hawks for decisions that he said created the Islamic State group.
"It's one thing for Senator Paul to take an outlandish position as a Senator at Washington cocktail parties," Jindal said in his statement (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/may/29/ig-jindals-broadside-against-rand-paul-raises-ques/), "but being Commander-in-Chief is an entirely different job."
Earlier this year, the Senate was working to renew key provisions of the Patriot Act. Rand Paul effectively ground procedures to a halt. When Paul was speaking as the Senate debated whether to end the government's bulk collection of phone records, Lindsey Graham was seen rolling his eyes in a fatigued, incredulous way. The footage went viral.
John McCain also had some barbed words. "I know what this is about - I think it's very clear - this is, to some degree, a fundraising exercise," the Arizona Senator said (http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/gop-senators-tear-into-paul-118475.html). "He obviously has a higher priority for his fundraising and political ambitions than for the security of the nation."
This month, Chris Christie reprised a familiar line of attack against Rand Paul in national TV interviews and on the trail, slamming the libertarian Senator for his opposition to the NSA's domestic surveillance programs.
"We're going to look back on this and he should be in hearings in front of Congress if the country is attacked," Christie said of Paul in an interview (http://edition.cnn.com/2015/07/06/politics/chris-christie-rand-paul-national-security/) on MSNBC's Morning Joe.
Christie labeled Paul as one of the "misguided ideologues who have no real world experience in fighting terrorism." He also alleged that Paul used his marathon 10-hour speech on the Senate floor to raise money, with his campaign sending out an email to supporters to fundraise off the effort. "It's disgraceful," Christie said.
Enraged over Congress' failure to approve disaster relief for victims of Superstorm Sandy, Chris Christie unloaded on Republican lawmakers for putting "palace intrigue" ahead of their official responsibilities. Christie reserved his most blistering words for the Republican House speaker. He described John Boehner as duplicitous for, as he saw it, reversing course at the last minute and refusing to allow a vote on a $60-billion aid package before Congress adjourned.
"My party was responsible for this," Christie said at a news conference in Trenton (http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jan/02/news/la-pn-chris-christie-sandy-aid-congress-20130102), alleging, "one set of Republicans was trying to prove something to another set," and that John Boehner "was trying to "prove something. I hope he accomplished it."
Rand Paul and Marco Rubio have something of a history. At a foreign relations committee hearing, around the beginning of the year, Rand Paul stood up as Rubio began his remarks and walked out of the hearing, returning a few minutes after Rubio finished up. In an earlier speech, Rubio had taken a jab at Paul (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-09-17/rubio-jabs-at-paul-as-he-positions-himself-as-war-hawk): "Some who aspire to be president have shown they would rather wait for poll numbers to change than demonstrate the leadership necessary to shape them." At the hearing, Rubio didn't wait around to hear Paul's take, either. He left before Paul had his turn to speak.
Another dispute between them, over U.S.-Cuba policy, rapidly escalated after Rubio criticized what he described as a capitulation by President Obama. Paul responded in an op-ed, and via a series of tweets, such as this one:
"Senator Marco Rubio is acting like an isolationist who wants to retreat to our borders and perhaps build a moat. I reject this isolationism".
Rubio responded by telling ABC's George Stephanopoulos on "This Week:"
"Rand, if he wants to become the chief cheerleader of Obama's foreign policy, he certainly has a right to do that."
Then came this particularly aggressive tweet (http://thehill.com/policy/international/227824-paul-fires-back-after-rubio-labels-him-an-obama-cheerleader) from Paul:
"Marco Rubio forgot to mention his support for Obama's funding of the Muslim Brotherhood, arming Islamic rebels, and Hillary's war in Libya."
Ouch.
Scott Walker has already thrown a few jabs at Jeb Bush. Walker, who in the dying days of his 2014 campaign commented somewhat caustically on the visit of Chris Christie: "He is coming because he asked if he could come and we weren't going to say no," more recently trolled Jeb Bush in a campaign ad: "I didn't inherit fame or fortune," and has been keen to portray Bush as a plodding establishment figure in their tussle over the Iran deal.
Predictably, some Republicans aren't attributing this battering of the 11th Commandment solely to strident fellow Republicans. In defending Donald Trump, at least initially, Ted Cruz had this to say on NBC's Meet The Press with Chuck Todd: "I like Donald Trump. He's bold, he's brash. And I get it that it seems the favorite sport of the Washington media is to encourage some Republicans to attack other Republicans. I'm not going to do it. I'm not interested in Republican-on-Republican violence." This, in turn, set off some further Republican-on-Republican violence. Shortly after, in a Fox News interview, Chris Christie spelt out how dubious (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/ted-cruzs-unique-spin-the-11th-commandment) he found Cruz's rhetoric. "I find it ironic that Ted Cruz is giving lectures on Republican-on-Republican violence. The guy who put together a group that was sponsoring primary ads against Sen. Lamar Alexander is giving us - the rest of us - lectures on Republican on Republican violence. With all due respect, I don't need to be lectured by Ted Cruz."
This surely unprecedented, often vicious intra-party scrapping may be taking its toll on the party. A Pew poll conducted this month (http://www.people-press.org/2015/07/23/gops-favorability-rating-takes-a-negative-turn/) found that fewer than a third of Americans, 32 percent, have a favorable impression of the GOP, a 9-point drop in the poll since January. The survey found that 60 percent have an unfavorable view. Positive views of the Republican Party have fallen 18 points since January among those who identify as Republican, from 86 to 68 percent.
The Republican 11th Commandment could very well have become an anachronism. It has already been ignored by many of the Republican contenders. Finance may be exacerbating the problem. As Dave Carney, a former adviser to Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich recently put it (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/17/scott-walker-vs-the-world.html): 'With the amount of money in this primary, we aren't going to just see elbows being thrown but knees, fists, and probably ballistic missiles at some point.'
With all the stress, high-stakes, public scrutiny, simmering ideological resentments and cabin-fever from constant interaction in the Senate and at debates, what sort of things will the Republican presidential hopefuls be saying and alleging of one another, months down the track? Perhaps, by then, the sixth commandment, with it's exhortation against homicide, will be more relevant. -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. (http://start.westnet.ca/newstempch.php?article=terms.html/) It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
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