Republican lawmakers want to please their conservative constituents, especially in these days of Tea Party primaries. To mollify the base, GOP members come home touting a conservative vote or a victory over the Democrats. Far too often, Needham says, these supposed conservative accomplishments are just “shiny objects” intended to distract conservative voters from the lack of accomplishments by Washington Republicans.
Needham first used this term with me while discussing the gun control battle of last spring. Republican senators went back to their districts trumpeting that they had defeated Harry Reid’s assault-weapons ban.
“There was no chance that an assault weapons ban was going to pass,” Needham tells me. Defeating the assault-weapons ban was a shiny object that Republicans could hold out to distract conservatives, providing cover for mandating background checks.
Conservative congressional aides, current and past, complain that this shiny-object method has been the standard operating procedure.
New power dynamics disrupt this.
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