Last updated on July 18th, 2023 at 11:20 am
The Republican coastal elite are secretly hoping for Hillary over some of the “wacko bird” offerings from their own party.
Some big money Republican backers aren’t suicidal, and this means that they fear Rand Paul and Ted Cruz. They’d rather back Hillary Clinton than some of the fringe 2016 GOP hopefuls, according to interviews and reporting by Ben White and Maggie Haberman of Politico. Wall Street’s Worst Nightmare? “It’s Rand Paul or Ted Cruz versus someone like Elizabeth Warren that would be everybody’s worst nightmare.”
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“The darkest secret in the big money world of the Republican coastal elite is that the most palatable alternative to a nominee such as Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas or Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky would be Clinton,” Politico reveals.
More:
“If it turns out to be Jeb versus Hillary we would love that and either outcome would be fine,” one top Republican-leaning Wall Street lawyer said over lunch in midtown Manhattan last week. “We could live with either one. Jeb versus Joe Biden would also be fine. It’s Rand Paul or Ted Cruz versus someone like Elizabeth Warren that would be everybody’s worst nightmare.”
It’s disconcerting that these allegedly brilliant CEOs can’t tell the difference between the three named Senators: Only one of these Senators would actually do anything about Wall Street abuses, the other two would stomp around a lot, preaching and blustering, maybe destroying the economy as collateral damage for their Big Show, but actually get some policy change implemented? Please. They are friendless in D.C. among their own party, let alone across the aisle.
Reportedly, these Republicans won’t say that they prefer Hillary to the wacko birds publicly, because of “blowback” from party officials. (Maybe those party officials ought to blowback on the inmates they let out in Congress instead of on the people who insist on a semblance of sanity as a prerequisite. Rampant denial and enabling are crippling the GOP.)
If Jeb Bush or Mitt Romney don’t run (yes, you might want to sit down for this, he’s making noise about rescuing the party/taking “his turn” again), 2016 will be the year that “fringe” officially becomes the new “mainstream” for the Republican Party. If they don’t go fringe, they are stuck with two damaged brands – a Bush and a Romney, both of whom the establishment loves, but actual voters not so much.
The phenomenon of the money boys running from the wacko birds is a direct fallout of the very public and very loud temper tantrums of the Tea Party right. Sure, that kind of rhetoric is all fine and dandy from someone who will never have power, like Sarah Palin, but when someone like Ted Cruz pulls a Palin and shuts down the government to stomp his feet for the Tea Party base, who like nothing more than a juvenile show of rebellion against Mom and Dad (the grown ups in government), the financial sector gets nervous.
Ted Cruz should not be surprised to find that he’s driven big party donors to Hillary Clinton.
The Politico writers cite Wall Street not digging Rand Paul’s populist comments about them directly, but let’s hope it didn’t take that for them to recognize someone who is not fit to run the country. Perhaps Paul’s hanging out with the “Southern Avenger” and his campaign aide stomping on a woman’s neck at a rally should provide some hesitancy to thinking people. No, not because I expect Wall Streeters to care about humanity over their own profit, but rather because crazy fringe to this degree will not get you steady and calm. Crazy fringe is not good for the market.
Rand Paul said those cool things blaming Wall Street for being greedy pigs because he knows his brand skews young. But he clearly didn’t mean them, because he’s been chasing after the money boys like a scolded puppy ever since.
“The bulk of the big money guys are either Big Boy (Chris Christie) or Jeb,” a top GOP donor told Politico. “Rand Paul still is a grass-roots phenom and a boardroom horror show.”
Guess they haven’t heard that they can also have Mr. 47% of the Cayman Island Money Stash. Big Boy, Bush the latter, or Mr. Contempt are the choices for the elite. If they can’t have these guys, they’re stuck with wacko birds like Rand Paul who won a straw poll in Maine, after also winning the CPAC straw poll.
No wonder Hillary is looking good to some Republicans.
So far, Hillary is threatening Republicans in red states, with white voters, and now with Wall Street. With Hillary Clinton as the Democratic candidate, who’s left in the Republican Party other than the Tea Party?
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