Art Pope: Trump like George Wallace, will kill GOP down-ballot
The guy who called government borrowing millions and billions of dollars “fiscally conservative” flew out to Colorado to sip chablis with THOSE Koch brothers and shove one last knife into Donald Trump’s back:
The lakeside restaurant at dusk seemed the perfect place to end what had been a busy day here at the luxurious Broadmoor Hotel.
Across the lake, the donors to Charles and David Koch’s political network were having dinner and then after-dinner drinks, with security guards keeping out interlopers and listening on their earpieces. Other guests at the grand, 3,000-acre retreat were largely indifferent to conservative and libertarian one-percenters on the western side of Cheyenne Lake as top Koch aides settled into a wooden table and ordered drinks. […]
Of the roughly quarter-billion dollars these well-heeled donors were pumping into the 2016 ecosystem, not one dime is set to go to Republican nominee Trump. “We’re focused on the Senate,” Koch executive vice president James Davis said when a reporter brought up 2016, parroting what would be his default line no matter the question about the White House race between Trump, a Koch enemy, and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. “We’re focused on the Senate,” Davis said again with a smile. Then, turning to his pint glass, he shook his head. “I’ll be saying that in my sleep tonight,” he said with a disbelieving chuckle.
That refrain about the Senate pervaded the three-day retreat here in the Rocky Mountains. From Charles Koch himself to rank-and-file donors, everyone was unified in their message that the Senate this fall matters more as a safeguard against either outcome than the White House, and that Trump was not going to benefit from this well-oiled network’s efforts. […]
Oh, the Republican-controlled Senate which has ignored ObamaCare, increased spending and regulations, and basically given Barry Obama everything he wants? THAT ONE? MORE:
“I don’t think we’ve seen anything like this since George Wallace,” said Art Pope, a mega-donor from North Carolina. “My concern is Donald Trump will depress the Republican vote and hurt down-ballot candidates.” With an estimated $250 million ready to pump into those lower races — including $42 million in ads for Senate hopefuls — they will have some padding. Now they just need to block out the presidential race that they find unimaginable.
Let’s see. In 1980, when Ronald Reagan was crushing Jimmy Carter, Jim Hunt (D) was getting reelected as governor of North Carolina. In 2000, when George Bush was sneaking past algore, Mike Easley was coasting into the governor’s mansion. In 2004, Bush won bigger and so did Easley. In 2008, as Obama and the Democrats were crushing everyone and everything in their path, Pat McCrory almost got Bev Perdue in the governor’s race. In 2012, as Obama was winning nationally, Pat McCrory got elected governor. In most cases, top-tier candidates rise or fall on their own merits.
As someone who has a history of defending Art Pope from leftist attacks, I want to announce that I am officially DONE with him. This was a pretty cheap shot. I’m blessing him and sending him on his way.
The guy has become so infatuated with being so close to power in state government. As state budget director — a position where he could have pushed incredible economic reform — Pope was the mouthpiece and spearhead for the least conservative wing of the so-called “conservative revolution” in Raleigh.
He ran around the state praising the ConnectNC spending orgy — aiding and abetting the offensive propaganda offensive promoting it. *Big-spending, deceitfully-marketed bond packages are BAD when they are pushed by Democrat governors. But when Republicans do it? (As they say in Jamaica: No problem.) *
I get it. He wanted Marco Rubio, but that didn’t work out. Instead, he’s decided to abandon his party, take his millions and go home to pout.
If the NCGOP has a rough November, it won’t have much to do with Trump. You can more easily blame the clique that controls the NCGOP state organization, which spent the last few years stomping all over grassroots activists and even perpetrated a slander-filled coup against a duly-elected outsider state chairman.
You can blame Senator Richard Burr, who has endorsed and fought for all of these leftist judges who have thrown our state into chaos. Who has pushed for increased spying on our cellphones and other personal devices. Who has derided attempts to fight ObamaCare and has aided and abetted increases in spending AND our federal debt. Yeah. BLAME HIM.
You can blame the object of Uncle Art’s affection, Pat McCrory. 
He had to be dragged kicking and screaming toward fighting ObamaCare implementation. He’s whined about budget tightening and spending cuts on Jones Street. He’s run around the state ignoring GOP activists who fought to elect him — instead scooping up money from and giving appointments to DEMOCRATS. Blame Him.
Uncle Art needs to give a good hard look to a state and national GOP that has thrown out true conservative reform in favor of the spoils of bureaucratic power and influence. *Government’s just fine if you and your friends are pulling its strings, eh?*
Pope is another globalist elite millionaire who is probably jealous of DT. He wants power and knows Trump is a threat to his power base.
Why is Pope criticizing George Wallace who rallied conservative voters in both the north and the south against the radical liberals of the 1960s? The Wallace voters enabled the Republican Party to become competitive again at the national level. Pope’s comments make no sense to anyone, except himself I suppose.
George Wallace was more conservative than RIchard Nixon, and would have made a better president. My concern is that Trump will be more like Nixon – talk conservative but govern liberal.
And we certainly do not need a Marco Rubio, a liar who is out to advance the interests of Mexico over those of the US.
For being racist.
For being racist.
Between “Trump” and the establishment Dem-lite GOP (including the corrupt crowd running the state party)… the limited government, constitutionally minded just have no political home atm.
Sorry Mr. Pope. Trump being awful is all on his own….but I’m going to refuse to vote for Richard Burr all on Burr’s own merits. I’ve seen this GOP-led Senate… and I’m not going to lose much sleep over its membership numbers, one way or the other… *shrug* not with the fools Republicans seem so intent on backing.
(and, it occurs to me that Pat McCrory might have had much more political success if he had come out as a Democrat straight-away in the first place, instead of trying to spend so much of his time seeming to apologize for it).
Exactly. How is pathetic coward Obama enabler Mitch McConnell any type of protection against a left wing president? He certainly has not been against Obama and he would not be against Hillary. McConnell would rather fight conservatives in his own party – he vowed he would ”crush them everywhere” – than Democrats. He is nothing but a wimpy surrender monkey to Democrats, just like Burr and Tillis.
McConnell is refusing to help conservative Senate nominee Darrrl Glenn in the competitive Senate race right there in Colorado. McConnell hates conservatives and is totally worthless. Let’s see Pope dump some big bucks into Darryl Glenn’s race.
The post-Election 2016 autopsy will show GOPe death by its own hand. We will never attempt to revive its corpse again, as we did in 2012 & 2014. It hates the grassroots for shoving into political wins, into leadership roles that it never intended to execute, and where it was forced to not perform out in front of The Lord and everyone,
Their globalist cover was blown by the grassroots electing them, and not being able to put it over on us in the Primaries, where an aggregate of moral and intellectual midgets lost resoundingly to a first time business man from NY.
In Raleigh they had to stage a coup against the first black leader elected by the hated grassroots electorate. These moral midgets now want us to join their corpse, hand in hand, to elect people we don’t know or want. This time leave no incumbent standing. .
Forget the phony autopsies. They are stacked by the establishment like the last one. That stinker Priebus put a former lobbyist for the government of Mexico on the autopsy panel and they came back recommending surrendering to amnesty for illegal aliens.
“The post-Election 2016 autopsy will show GOPe death by its own hand.”
That would be fine by me.
But, it could also turn out… Trump loses big and taints everything that isnt “the establishment” with his brand of incoherence and we end up with a backlash or more of the same. Could go either way….
I’m concerned that those holding to all those principles that the GOPe has been trampling on, instead of arguing ideas and building something and making any kind of progress, will instead end up having to spend all their time fighting the mistaken belief that there are only two sides, Trumpism and the GOPe.
Judging from most of the comments, it appears that the veil is pretty much off on the insider GOP candidates and the king makers. It’s obvious that they are so obsessed with their own power and positions that they are willing to completely destroy anything and everything in order to get their way. Why else would the pretend conservatives come out in support of Hillary. They gave us wet dishrag Romney, the connected Bush dynasty, and a host of other lack luster candidates in order to insure the victories of the left. I for one am sick of the pitiful excuses they have in the so-called leadership positions like McCain, McConnell, Graham, etc. They are all disgusting individuals who, were the electorate not a bunch of easily controlled idiots, would have been tarred and feathered a long time ago.
Forgot the whole point of the post…. Pope is an insider neo-con who doesn’t give a fat rat about anything but himself and his cronies. These are the people being rejected by an awakening electorate after years of being drowned in manure and keep in the dark….
They are Conservative donors and Trump is NOT a Conservative. IF Conservatives wanted a Conservative to run for President they had some Conservatives to vote for in the Primaries, but they did not vote that way. Blame them. While I don’t agree with their politics, it IS Kosh/Pope money. It is not abandoning your party to work down the ticket when throwing money to the top race is seen as throwing it out the window – it would seem.
If we repeal Citizen’s United and take other steps to remove BIG money from politics then we the voters will have more say in our elected Federal Officials (President & Congress).
While Trump is not a Conservative, neither is Clinton a Liberal.
Koch of course, not Kosh.
I love how the Koch-topus always comes up when libtards post…..and they forget about how Soros and other Billionaires totally outpace the Koch brothers. What is going to be the next hysteria item? ALEC…Heritage Foundation? Funny thing is for every organization a libatard brings up there are at least 10 nefarious shady groups funding the socialism/fascism veiws of their side.
The article is ABOUT the Koch/Pope money. THAT is what these comments are supposed to be about!
The problem is removing BIg Media’s influence from politics. They are skewed hard left and that stacks the decks for the Democrats.
In the last three presidential cycles, they have put their thumb on the scales by pushing one candidate in the GOP primaries by giving them a lot more coverage – the very candidate they then planned to pile on against in the general election. It is the old game of set up a straw man to knock him down. The really evil influence in American politics is not big money, it is biased Big Media. One thing that absolutely needs to be done, given their abuses in the past, is to totally cut out Big Media from providing the moderators in presidential debates.
I see. So, despite what this article says, we should not care who the Kock brothers give gobs of money to or who A. Pope decides to bless with millions.
I heard an NPR story this morning that acknowledged that both Trump and Clinton had bad news stories come out about them this week. They then spent the next 3-4 minutes (approx.) going deep on just Sec. Clinton’s troubles (i.e. the Clinton Foundation). Nothing more on Trump.
I doubt their $$ will matter since the media is bought and paid for. The low information crowd relies on those outlets, an with the roughly equal split for the major parties, the low information/low intelligence crowd is what will probably make the difference for HItlary..
Documentation?
No… I dont have a problem with any American citizen choosing to use their own money for political expression, and “Citizens United” is not a problem.
Koch and Pope can and should be able to argue their political positions however they wish, and with however much money they choose to spend.
What those positions actually “are”? That’s a different question. 🙂
The left seems to have a problem with the First Amendment freedom of speech. Look at leftist Senator Whitehouse (D-RI) and his cohorts railing against groups that dare question the global warming mantra and demanding that the media not cover them. Even worse, 17 Democrat state Attorneys General have formed a cabal to abuse their power to try to prosecute those who disagree with the ”politically correct” position on global warming in the courts.
Polling shows that a large majority of Americans opposes the persecution of global warming skeptics, although a majority of Democrats support that suppression of free speech. This is an issue where polling also shows that 61% of Americans do not beleive that global warming is settled science. These arrogant and undemocratic Democrats are trying to abuse government power to ram a position down out throats that is a minority position in this country. They are little different than Nazi bookburners.
This is the real issue, not that straw man “Citizens United”. The media is fortunately on the way out due to their bias. There will soon be no newspapers of note. The CNN,PMSNBC,ABC,CBS,NBC news outlets are disgraced and known by the masses to not be credible…as is shown in their ratings. Fortunately there are plenty of alternate places to get the news so you can discount the bias if you happen on one of the drive by networks.
The biggest money of all in politics is the labor unions, and the libs do not want to touch them. The Kochs are small potatoes compared to some of the big unions.
And Soros. Don’t forget Soros, his tentacles make the Kochs seem like they do not even participate in the political process.
That’s right Soros was the big money behind all the lawsuits against Voter ID laws. Soros is also the big money behind all the transgender nonsense. Soros has his fingers into all sorts of leftwing groups and candidates. Soros got in on the ground floor with Obama, contributing the max to his state senate campaign. Soros headed a project aimed at Democrats taking over state secretaries of state which in most states control the elections process. Soros is the money behind several of the phony ”fact check” organizations. Soros is a convicted insider trader, who according to people who knew him at the time was a Nazi collaborator as a child in Hungary.
Let’s hope the grass roots conservatives, we simple Christian worker bees who are unable to remove our kids from corrupt public education and who pay Obama Care rates that we cannot afford, will elect Donald Trump despite the elite establishment’s betrayal. Trump may not be a conservative but he is not the socialist Obama that establishment Republicans have supported.
Failure to stop Obama by impoundment of funds or impeachment has been a betrayal of Congress’ responsibility. Trump looks like our best hope and the elites’ opposition is a strong endorsement for his election.
Amen
Amen to that comment by True Patriot, even though I endorsed Cruz. We simply must stop Hillary, and now that means electing Trump. By the way, in 1968, we held a mock election at New Bern High School. Hubert Humphrey got 190-some votes. Richard Nixon got something over 600. George Wallace got well over 900. We kids knew a real conservative when we saw one back then. I hope my old school mates are ready to make the better choice now–not that Trump is such a great conservative, but Hillary is far worse than we thought old Hubert was way back then.
It’s too bad Wallace wasn’t elected President. In retrospect, he would have been much better for the conservative cause than Nixon—who basically betrayed us. A Reagan-Wallace ticket in 1968 would have swept the country. Wallace was extremely popular in North Carolina. Pope has no idea what he is talking about.
The problem is open primaries and low voter turnout. Yes, big money has a lot of influence but we ended up in this mess because both parties support big government, they just want the power.
If you look at the numbers, an extremely low percent of the population voted in the primaries.
Open primaries are indeed a big problem. NC needs to move back to closed primaries instead of partially open. Tillis would have lost a closed primary. Burr might have, too. Semi-open primaries gives us weanies as nominees far too often.
Uh huh. I was one of a number of people pushing to close the primary at the 2014 and 2015 NCGOP conventions. The then-State Chairman would have none of it. As a result, we got Trump. I couldn’t help but notice that Cruz won the Republican-heavy parts of my county while the Unaffiliated-dominated areas went for Trump.
Do you people think George Wallace was a Republican?
George Wallace was a great, principled conservative first and foremost. He famously pointed out that the two major parties were very much alike—and he was right! The GOP establishment at the time greatly feared both Wallace and Reagan. Too many of us went with Nixon in 1968, instead of Wallace and Reagan, which helps explain the current demise of our country.
Conservative Congressman John Ashbrook (R-Ohio) was spot on when he said in 1972 that RIchard Nixon ran on George Wallace’s platform but carried out Hubert Humphrey’s.
I also appreciated the comment of conservative Congressman John Schmitz (R-CA) who represented Nixon’s home district when Nixon went to China. When asked his reaction, Schmitz said he did not mind Nixon going to China, he just minded him coming back.
Wallace was not a Repubican, but he was a far better conservative than Richard Nixon who gave us the EPA monstrosity, among other things.
Trump did not destroy the GOP!
Pres Obama did. President Obama has beaten the GOP at every turn and has completely devastated the entire Republican Party.
Do not give the credit to Trump but give it to Pres Obama!
Thank you.
If the GOP had stayed on Wallace’s platform, they would still be in power today.