Louie Gohmert's New PAC Will Defend the Tea Party from the Establishment
Rep. Louie Gohmert's GOH Conservative PAC will do for the House what Jim DeMint's Senate Conservatives Fund has done for the Senate — create better funded infighting within the Republican party.
.Rep. Louie Gohmert's GOH Conservative PAC will do for the House what Jim DeMint's Senate Conservatives Fund has done for the Senate — create better funded infighting within the Republican party. Gohmert started the PAC to “[defend] conservative Republicans from the attacks that come from the mainstream,” as he told The Daily Caller on Tuesday. Gohmert said he's modeling his PAC after the Senate Conservative Fund, which is currently trying to get House Speaker John Boehner fired for supporting the debt ceiling hike.
The PAC will be focused on issues like protecting America's borders and the Second Amendment, as well as balancing the budget and fiscal issues. More importantly, it'll give true conservatives the money and incentive to get away from RINOs like Boehner, who Gohmert thinks must be "reading the mainstream media and failing to read the record." (Gohmert added that there was a "depression" when Boehner blamed Harry Reid's shutdown on the Republicans.) Basically, there's a war against the Tea Party, and you fight that war with money.
In that sense, he's right. Though the Tea Party actually raised more money than the establishment last year, the GOP leadership has been threatening to withhold access to the leadership from donors who give to FreedomWorks, the Senate Conservative Fund, and other groups that target more moderate Republicans, as The New York Times outlined last week. The Senate Conservative Fund has compared Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to an IRS-level bully and supported his opponents. And Gohmert's claim that the establishment is throwing its weight around to knock Tea Partiers out of races is true — North Virginia state Sen. Richard H. Black dropped out of his race for the House after Mitt Romney and the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity backed his more moderate opponent.
The establishment wants to block candidates like Todd Akin, who was very conservative, but made inflammatory comments that cost him the 2012 race against the very vulnerable Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill. Black, for example, once said spousal rape shouldn't be a crime. And that's the potential problem with Gohmert's strategy — he might help elect Democrats to Congress.