Marco Rubio and the Grassroots Revolution

posted at 3:00 pm on April 7, 2010 by The Other McCain
[ Republican Party ]   

Those treacherous bastards!
NRSC to endorse Charlie Crist?
– The Other McCain, May 12, 2009

The national GOP establishment began seriously meddling in state primaries during the Bush presidency. Maybe this kind of national party interference with the Republican primary process had been going on behind the scenes for years, but during the 2002, 2004 and 2006 elections cycles the evidence of blatant favoritism from GOP HQ became apparent to many conservatives.

Especially during the years when Karl Rove was ensconced at the White House and Ken Mehlman ran the RNC, the Republican establishment lined up money and endorsements behind “safe” or “centrist” candidates to the disadvantage of more conservative primary opponents. For me, the straw that broke the camel’s back was in 2004, when the establishment backed Johnny Isakson over Herman Cain in the Georgia Senate primary. Although Isakson is fairly conservative by D.C. standards, he had long been considered a “squish” by more hard-core Georgia Republicans, and Cain was the far more appealing candidate to many conservatives. The Rove/Mehlman favoritism toward Isakson, however, proved decisive.

As bad as that kind of interference was, however, it was at least not official. The Rove/Mehlman establishment axis operated in a quiet way to anoint favorites in key primaries, but it was never a matter of the national committees — RNC, National Republican Senatorial Committee or National Republican Congressional Committee — putting their official imprimatur on one candidate. So when it was first reported in May 2010 that Sen. John Cornyn and the NRSC would officially endorse Gov. Charlie Crist for the Senate seat being vacated by Mel Martinez, my head exploded, as did the heads of Dan McLaughlin and Erick Erickson at Red State.

National party committees have, in the past, expended money to protect Republican incumbents against primary challengers — a practice I oppose, but which is (unfortunately) permitted under the NRSC and NRCC rules. However, for the NRSC to endorse a candidate for an open seat in a contested primary 15 months before the primary is something utterly unprecedented. So I uncorked the bottle:

[T]he recto-cranial inversion cases at GOP-HQ are planning another atavistic blunder . . .
Why would any conservative ever send another dime to the NRSC after this? . . .
To hell with Charlie Crist and to hell with the NRSC. Go give some money to Marco Rubio.

John Hawkins of Right Wing News called for Cornyn’s resignation as NRSC chairman. So many other conservatives clearly felt the same way — No Sheeples Here, American Power, Down With Tyranny, Dad29 and CrankyCon quickly jumped in — that, three days later, I launched Not One Red Cent, a group blog devoted exclusively to the grassroots rebellion against the Republican establishment. The next day, I explained the inspiration in a Greenroom post:

We were standing outside the Continental Lounge in Rosslyn, Va., while the young Republican operative explained it to me.
“All they care about is getting their chairmanships back, and they don’t care how they get there,” said the operative. “They don’t want to spend any money, so they were looking for a self-funder.”
“They” are Republican senators, and what my friend was explaining was the otherwise inexplicable decision of the National Republican Senatorial Committee to endorse Charlie Crist in the Florida Senate race — 15 months before the primary! . . .
Red State founder Erick Erickson weighed in with a post titled, “Not One Dime to the NRSC.”
Well, after talking to some of my conservative friends Thursday night, it occurred to me that “not one dime” might be about nine cents too much.
NOT ONE RED CENT!

A little less than 10 months later, Ben Smith of the Politico finds conservatives talking about Marco Rubio as a 2012 presidential candidate, after Rubio reported raising $3.6 million in the first three months of 2010, a point deserving further explanation:

What’s impressive about Rubio’s fundraising report is that his average donation was less than $100 and fewer than 1% of his donors are “maxed out.” He’s had more than 50,000 contributors to date. That means all he has to do is contact his list of donors and say, “How about another $20?” and — bam! — he’s got another million dollars, right there. Small donors make a big difference, and it’s highly unlikely that Crist can match that kind of grassroots enthusiasm.

The point is that you should never believe that you are too small to make a difference, or that the Big Guys have so many advantages that the Little Guys can’t win. A relative handful of bloggers and 50,000 people who gave small donations to Marco Rubio are on the verge of victory in a conservative grassroots revolution. Help finish the job.

NOT ONE RED CENT!

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