U.S. Chamber ‘Doubling Down,’ Wants to Buy Republican Party

In what can only be called bad news for grassroots conservatives intent on trying to win back the Republican Party, a Yahoo News item via The Center for Public Integrity claims U.S. Chamber of Congress’s new political strategy “will include a greater emphasis on recruiting the right sort of business-friendly GOP candidates and intervening in primaries as it attempts to sculpt a compliant Congress that mirrors its priorities. In other words, the Chamber will double down on its political juggernaut, and will no longer take breaks between elections.”

In essence, the Chamber seems determined to buy its version of an open borders, big business supporting GOP, at the expense of what would traditionally be thought of as the Reagan wing. And there’s no sign of the Chanber’s willing to relent. If anything, it seems to be upping the ante to acquire the best big business-friendly political party money can buy.

“We’re just going to run it 24 months in a row, cycle after cycle after cycle,” said Thomas Donohue, 76, the Chamber’s longtime president and chief executive officer, during the Feb. 19 conference call.

The group is already raising money for upcoming special elections in New York and Mississippi. And after Labor Day, it plans to launch image-boosting campaigns in states like Illinois, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, which all have Chamber-friendly Republican Senate incumbents up in 2016.

The long-haul strategy could well pay off — but it also might prove a tough sell to a fractious membership that wants quicker returns on the mountains of cash they pump into the Chamber. The Chamber is seemingly on a political roll, in some ways at the height of its power — but is finding it tougher and tougher to get what it really wants.

On the bright side for conservatives, the Chamber has not been able to get what it bought through the current Congress; however, to the extent there remains a battle for the so called soul of the Republican Party, conservatives will likely have to find a way to up their own game over the next few critical years, or risk complete defeat for their own agenda.