Sure. Let's not worry about the fact that you haven't had a strong on year election since 1988-all the GOP pickups come during off-years with a smaller, whiter electorate-clearly the results were not just a mandate for the GOP, but for the Norquist pledge in particularly.
Norquist tries to spin it and he's pretty good. He certainly is an excellent spinmeister. He claims that there are still 219 Congress reps who have singed his pledge. Yet, that's down considerably from the past, and it's a much smaller majority even if his numbers are accurate.
The other day Saxby Chambliss said the rather astonishing thing-at least as a Republican-that he cared more about the country-or even a lot more about the country-than Grover Norquist.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2012/11/man-bites-dog-republican-cares-more.html
Norquist has now struck back:
"Norquist hit back in a statement, saying Sen. Chambliss should let Georgia voters know that “he plans to break his promise to them.”
"The Georgia Republican told WMAZ that he expects his defiance of GOP anti-tax orthodoxy to earn him a primary challenger in 2014."
“But I don’t worry about that because I care too much about my country. I care a lot more about it than I do Grover Norquist,” said Chambliss, a member of the Gang of Six, a bipartisan group of senators focused on crafting a long-term deficit reduction deal."
"Norquist said: “Senator Chambliss promised the people of Georgia he would go to Washington and reform government rather than raise taxes to pay for bigger government. He made that commitment in writing to the people of Georgia,” Norquist said. “If he plans to vote for higher taxes to pay for Obama-sized government he should address the people of Georgia and let them know that he plans to break his promise to them. The Senator’s reference to me is odd. His promise is to the people of Georgia.”
"Norquist also highlighted a letter Chambliss signed with fellow Gang of Six members Mike Crapo of Idaho and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma where the three said they hoped for a plan with “lower individual and corporate tax rates for all Americans.”
You just don't see this happen with the Republican party. Norquist says this is not his first rodeo. Maybe not. But the bulls may be a little wilder this time. When was the last time Norquist has found himself so challenged? Interesting too that while he always draws the distinction between making a pledge to himself and to the American people to not raise taxes, he's taking Chambliss' lack of loyalty here are breaking a pledge to the American people.
There's no question about it-there's trouble in GOP land. Now if we can just keep the Dems on the same page-a prospect that you can be surprisingly optimistic about right now-we can make a prophet out of Bill Kristol who said a few weeks back on Fox Sunday that the Republicans will have to give into Obama a lot more than they might think. After all, elections have consequences.
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