By DEXTER DUGGAN
The national Republican establishment apparently already has managed to start frittering away the GOP’s standing with Americans after its “wave” election victory last November against Barack Obama’s policies.
At key points in this new congressional session, Republican leadership has acted as if it’s playing on Obama’s own team, including jerking an important pro-life bill off the U.S. House calendar, craftily cooperating with Obama to fund his “executive amnesty,” and successfully passing his nomination of “open borders” Loretta Lynch as attorney general through a vital Senate committee.
On March 16 the Washington Examiner reported that in a new random Gallup survey, Republicans dropped five points in favorability since last November.
“Forty percent viewed Republicans favorably last September,” the Examiner reported, “and that figure rose to 42 percent in November. Since winning a Senate majority in the midterms, the GOP has seen its favorability slip five percentage points, to its current 37-percent level.”
Although polls can be inaccurate or misleading, there seemed little doubt that many who cast November ballots with high hopes to frustrate Obama’s agenda are feeling frustrated themselves now.
The Wanderer interviewed two Virginia voters by telephone on March 13 who are pleased with the shocker they helped accomplish in their own congressional district last year, but unhappy with national GOP leadership.
Voters in Virginia’s Seventh Congressional District rattled the GOP establishment in June by removing powerful House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the Republican primary election.
Upstart GOP candidate Dave Brat, an economist, whipped Cantor by 11 percentage points even though Cantor, who was second in command to House Speaker John Boehner, massively outspent him.
The result was interpreted as a resounding rejection of self-satisfied GOP leaders’ policies, including their acceptance of massive illegal immigration.
Brat went on to win the November general election with nearly 61 percent of the vote in a three-way race.
A businesswoman who lives in Goochland County, about 25 miles west of the Virginia state capital of Richmond, recalled for The Wanderer that Obamacare planner Jonathan Gruber said the American people are stupid.
The GOP leadership must agree with Gruber’s assessment, said the woman, Val Turner, who said she favors Cong. Brat’s positions, including his stand against illegal immigration. Turner charged that GOP leaders are just staging “theater” to fool voters.
“We are not stupid, we are aware of this theater that they are acting out, that they lead us to believe that they are on our side and willing to go to bat for us — when in fact they don’t, and I don’t know that they ever intend to,” Turner said.
Cantor had lost touch, she said. Although Turner said she voted for Cantor in the past, he “got to the point that he would not even meet with us when requested. . . . It was time for him to go. . . . We had enough.”
She has been pleased with Cantor’s replacement, Brat, who offers “the things we needed….He has proven to be true to his word.”
Turner said she had to close her interior-design business because of the poor economy, despite media claims the financial situation has improved. Illegal immigration worsens the situation, she said; it’s not a matter of her disliking newcomers.
“I have nothing against . . . people of any race. I am a Christian, a true Christian. I love all people,” she said. “But our Constitution is being shredded by this president. The economy is in terrible shape, despite what the media say.”
Now, Turner said, she’s being told by champions of unrestricted immigration that “I have to have millions of people in competition for the few jobs that are left. . . . We’re broken. We cannot do it. . . .
“Dave Brat is standing for us and giving us a glimmer of hope when….I wondered if we had any,” said Turner.
She criticized Republican and Democratic establishments as being “bound and determined to transform our country. . . . [Obama] told us he was going to transform our country. And that’s exactly what he’s doing. Our national sovereignty is becoming meaningless.”
The other Virginian The Wanderer interviewed who voted for Brat, Mike Wood, said he didn’t approve of political leadership helping Obama’s executive amnesty.
“I am not a fan of what they’re doing at all because it is clearly unlawful,” Wood said, adding, “We’re having a lot of people coming over [the border] who are not able to contribute” to this country that suffers from a poor economy. They’ll be taking from the system, he said, not giving to it.
“They take jobs from American citizens. . . . It’s a drain on the economy. It’s not going to have a positive impact,” he said.
Like Turner, Wood was pleased with Brat’s performance as his new congressman. “I feel he’s been doing great. . . . He’s willing to buck the leadership” and represent his own constituents instead of the leadership’s agenda.
Wood, who said he lives between Richmond and Washington, D.C., said he became involved in political activism in 2012 because he didn’t like what he saw about economic policy that’s “not in our interests” due to such factors as high spending and deficits.
Illegal immigrants being rewarded with Obama’s executive amnesty are “not going through the right process,” even though other immigrants are following correct procedures, Wood said.
“It’s not that we don’t want people to come here….We can’t just negate that by all of a sudden changing the system and allowing anything to go on,” he said.
Boehner’s engineering the House approval of amnesty funding on March 3 didn’t surprise him, Wood said, adding that “the major issues will not be dealt with” unless voters replace such politicians.
Voter sentiment to remove Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell “has been growing over the last couple of years,” Wood said, because they act contrary to “the interests of the American people.” However, he doesn’t expect that change to be immediate.
“I’m hoping we get there by the next election, but I’m not sure we’re there as of today” to have a voter uprising, he said.
Wood said he hopes “Dave Brat keeps being the voice of reason and pressures leadership” to deal with the issues.
As for the porous border, “That’s gotta change. You can’t be a nation without a secure border,” Wood said.
Powered by WPtouch Mobile Suite for WordPress