Ohio Republican Steve LaTourette Admits The GOP Is Losing The War Against Women

Fox News Sunday hosted former Republican Congressman Steve LaTourette yesterday. He's a mainstream conservative who never appreciated the extremism of the Tea Party or the Southern racists who have managed to take over the GOP in recent decades. He warned his brethren, many of whom had just seen Republicans arguing at CPAC whether or not slavery had been a good thing (for the slaves) that "If we ever want to be a national party, then we have to look like America. Today we look like a bunch of white guys below the Mason-Dixon line." The Republican he singled out for infamy, though, only looks and sounds like a yahoo from below the Mason-Dixon line. Technically speaking Indiana Treasurer and failed Senate candidate Richard Mourdock is from above the Mason-Dixon line (even though Vanderburgh County, his political base and where he served on the Board of Commissioners is the southernmost tip of Indiana. Interestingly, although Romney took the county 39,504 (54%) to 31,659 (44%), Mourdock lost his home county to ConservaDem Joe Donnelly 35,369 (50%) to 32,870 (46%). Mourdock, who was actually born in Ohio, seems to have disgusted LaTourette.

"Mr. Mourdock, for instance, I mean... we're supposed to wonder why we don't have the women's vote in this country when we have a candidate suggesting that a child born as a result of rape is a gift from God? I'm not wondering why we don't have more women voting for Republicans."

Fox faux-Democrat Pat Caddell-- who has been a Republican in all but name since the 1980s-- spoke at CPAC and blamed the Republican Party's troubles on "racketeering" Republican consultants. "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 sheeple at a panel discussion menacingly entitled "Should We Shoot All the Consultants Now?" Caddell, who could have easily made an identical critique of the Beltway Democrats, told the CPAC mob that "When you have the Chief of Staff of the Republican National Committee and the political director of the Romney campaign, and their two companies get $150 million at the end of the campaign for the 'fantastic' get-out-the-vote program... some of this borders on RICO violations. It's all self dealing going on. I think it works on the RICO thing. They’re in the business of lining their pockets... The Republican Party, is in the grips of what I call the CLEC-- the consultant, lobbyist, and establishment complex."

Exactly the same as in the Democratic Party-- as Caddell well knows: "Just follow the money. It’s all there in the newspaper. The way it works is this-- ever since we centralized politics in Washington, the House campaign committee and the Senate campaign committee, they decide who they think should run. You hire these people on the accredited list otherwise we won't give you money. You hire my friend or else... These people are doing business for themselves. They are a part of the Washington establishment. These people don’t want to have change." He predicted that unless the GOP becomes even more of an anti-establishment, anti-Washington, teabagger/secessionist party it will become extinct, like the Whigs did. These conservatives aren't wrong to chastise the consultant class-- but both parties are equally scammed and burdened by them. What the conservatives are desperate to avoid is looking at the hated policies they're wed to that defines them and that really is turning them into the Whigs. How do you think a message like this by wildly popular freshman Senator Elizabeth Warren resonates with women trying to hold their households together the same week that every single Republican in the House voted against raising the minimum wage?