Pat Caddell: Beware of “racketeering” GOP consultants
Pat Caddell, the Fox News Contributor and Democrat pollster who engineered Jimmy Carter’s 1976 Presidential victory, blew the lid off CPAC on Wednesday with a blistering attack on “racketeering” Republican consultants who play wealthy donors like “marks.”
“I blame the donors who allow themselves to be played for marks. I blame the people in the grassroots for allowing themselves to be played for suckers….It’s time to stop being marks. It’s time to stop being suckers. It’s time for you people to get real,” he told the audience that included two top Republican consultants.
Caddell stole the show as a panelist in the breakout session titled “Should We Shoot All the Consultants Now?” He spoke with a fire and passion that electrified the room. When the session began the large room was half filled, but as word spread of the fireworks going on inside, the audience streamed in. By the end, it was standing room only.
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Karl Rove hardest hit. Then John McCain & Lindsey Graham.
rbj on March 15, 2013 at 9:23 AM
Add Boehner, Cantor and McCarthy to that list. They are getting their advice from the establishment consultants. The Republican “extremists” must be marginalized.
Wigglesworth on March 15, 2013 at 9:30 AM
God, he couldn’t be more right.
Dongemaharu on March 15, 2013 at 9:43 AM
I do enjoy listening to Pat Caddell. He seems to have integrity and sincerity that’s hard to find in anyone these days, let alone a Democratic.
Flange on March 15, 2013 at 9:49 AM
Come wake me up when campaigns are run as non-profits, and we’re all about to enter the promised land.
claudius on March 15, 2013 at 9:52 AM
He nailed it.
topdawg on March 15, 2013 at 9:52 AM
Caddell said he’s giving Republicans advice because he has no love for Obama. That’s not integrity. That’s common sense. How sad is it that we are now lauding common sense as integrity?
gryphon202 on March 15, 2013 at 10:05 AM
Who’s this “we” you’re talking about, you got a mouse in your pocket? This is not the first time Pat Caddell has spoken in public. He has a long track record. He is against obozo because of his integrity. I don’t agree with Pat on plenty of issues, but he has not changed his positions just to satisfy the leaders of his party.
Flange on March 15, 2013 at 10:11 AM
I’ve been a fan of Cadell since his Hardball CNBC days.
Never one to BS, which is why his TV is so limited.
budfox on March 15, 2013 at 10:15 AM
Which means he’s not a moron. To call him a good person because he sees and states what should be obvious? That’s nothing more than a product of defining deviancy down for decades. When Obama’s out of office, Caddell will go right back to shilling for the Democrat party he never left.
gryphon202 on March 15, 2013 at 10:55 AM
This conservative has always admired Democrat Pat Caddell a lot more than I admire many Republicans.
Right Mover on March 15, 2013 at 11:02 AM
B.R.A.V.O.
Encore, encore!!!!!!!!
Jayrae on March 15, 2013 at 11:03 AM
Not if the Dems keep moving further left he won’t. It’s not like Pat Caddell only started speaking out against his own side after Soetero was elected. Caddell was on the right side of the whole hanging chad recount issue in 2000, also.
Right Mover on March 15, 2013 at 11:09 AM
Talk to me again about being on “the right side of…” anything after Caddell dumps the Dems and actually sacrifices something. I’m not big on hero worship.
gryphon202 on March 15, 2013 at 11:10 AM
“Admire” is not the same as hero worship.
Right Mover on March 15, 2013 at 11:13 AM
I’m not big on semantic quibbling, either. Pat Caddell is absolutely correct, but the whole goddam conservative movement should be shouting what he said from the rooftops — and they’re not. Pardon my frustration.
gryphon202 on March 15, 2013 at 11:15 AM
My understanding is he described exactly why Sharron Angle lost.
CW20 on March 15, 2013 at 11:18 AM
Too bad Cadell is a democrat.
Blake on March 15, 2013 at 11:20 AM
He didn’t say anything about Sharron Angle, did he? He talked about what a disaster the Romney campaign was. He talked about what a bunch of mercenary shills the Republicans are. I guess if you want to read something about Sharron Angle into that, more power to ya, but I didn’t hear it. Sounded like plain English to me.
gryphon202 on March 15, 2013 at 11:21 AM
I don’t know what you’re arguing about. I never said anything about his goodness (although I do think he probably is a good person). The claim that you originally dismissed was that he has integrity and is sincere. He DOES have integrity. He sticks to his principles that he sincerely believes too be good and right. Just because you or I disagree with his views and think he’s wrong doesn’t negate his integrity nor his sincerity. He is the kind of man that “rational minds may differ”. As for him going back to the democrats after obozo, I would think that is because he wants his old democrat party back, and he thinks it necessary to work from within it. The same approach many conservatives have tried, unsuccessfully, with the GOP. If the democrat party were more like Caddell we could have rational discussions with them. Saying someone has integrity and is sincere is not the same as elevating him to Popedom or anything.
Flange on March 15, 2013 at 11:22 AM
How can you have integrity and stay with the modern Democratic party? Caddell is a Democrat. He belongs to the party that aided and abetted Barack Obama’s rise to power. I’d feel very different about hearing Caddell’s speech from a rock-ribbed movement conservative, but it had to come from a Democrat! Does that not bother anyone else here at all?!
gryphon202 on March 15, 2013 at 11:26 AM
Integrity means sticking to your principles. The fact that he IS a democrat means he wants to REMAIN a democrat and fix their problems (as he sees them) is, by definition integrity. Once again, his integrity is not drawn into question simply because his conclusions are wrong. Of course it bothers people that it’s a democrat that is standing up and saying it, but I know I’m happy SOMEONE is saying it because there are not many in the GOP who would. And in the end it doesn’t matter who said it if the idea takes hold and we get rid of some of these bums.
Flange on March 15, 2013 at 12:00 PM
It matters to me. I guess we’ll just settle on that as a difference of opinion.
gryphon202 on March 15, 2013 at 12:23 PM
According to your posts about Caddell, I can claim you have no integrity because I disagree with you (or you might be saying I have no integrity). That is the point I’m trying to make. Agreement and being right ARE NOT components of having integrity. My saying Caddell has integrity is not the same as saying he is right or that I agree with him.
Flange on March 15, 2013 at 12:37 PM
This deserves more than a headline link. I don’t know if the consultants have some racket going or if a few of them are actually paid democrat operatives. But, either way, it is obvious there are people in the republican establishment who want to lose elections.
pitythefool on March 15, 2013 at 1:38 PM
Straw man, much? I said that Caddell lacks integrity because he still belongs to the party that brought Obama to power, and will still belong to that party after Obama leaves the Presidency. Republicans SHOULD be saying what Caddell is saying, but none are. That is why the Republican Party is in its death throes.
gryphon202 on March 15, 2013 at 1:43 PM
You don’t know what integrity means. It is that simple. You don’t agree with him. That is not the same thing as a lack of integrity. You are free to hate every single democrat with a passion hotter than 1,000 suns, but that doesn’t mean he lacks integrity. That word has a specific meaning. It is not interchangeable with good, or virtuous, or anything else. It was not a straw man, you clearly equate the word integrity with meaning “in agreement with”.
Flange on March 15, 2013 at 2:09 PM
gryphon202 on March 15, 2013 at 1:43 PM
I apologize for the curtness of that last post, I think we are generally on the same side, and this is merely an argument over semantics.
Flange on March 15, 2013 at 2:42 PM