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Every election has different candidates, different moods, different circumstances. But all elections in America, going back to 1789, are generally about one thing: the future.

Voters in every election are asked whether they want to keep the status quo or usher in change. For open elections, it is about two different candidates visions of the future. But it is always about whats next for America.

Political parties understand this. In the past, Republicans absolutely understood this. Ronald Reagan sold a new, optimistic vision of America in 1980. In 1994, Newt Gingrich-led Republicans wrote down what they wanted to do in a Contract With America for the midterm elections, and were rewarded by retaking the House for the first time in decades. In 2000, George W. Bush laid out a future theory for compassionate conservatism . Even Donald Trumps 2016 slogan Make America Great Again was rooted in an idea of what he wanted America to be if he were elected.

But today, all the Republican Party can talk about is the past. On Friday, once again, the Republican headlines were all about internal disagreements about what happened on Jan. 6, 2021. In the most important ways, the past is all that matters for them now.

The Republican National Committee meeting in Salt Lake City should really be a jubilant, exciting time. President Biden, a Democrat, is experiencing the lowest approval ratings of his presidency. Democrats have their domestic agenda blocked by fellow Democrats. Election experts agree: the slim Democratic majorities in Congress will very likely flip to Republican majorities following the midterm elections later this year.

However, the conversation this week wasnt about what Republicans could do in 2023 with this new power. Instead, it was about debating Bidens victory in the 2020 election and trying to mitigate what happened a few months later, when supporters of former president Trump violently descended on the Capitol. Nine people on Capitol Hill that day eventually died, and approximately 150 people were injured, including many law enforcement members.

Indeed, the most consequential thing the Republican National Committee did Friday was pass a resolution that labeled the first attack on the Capitol in 200 years as legitimate political discourse and censured Republican Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for serving on a committee investigating what happened.

Hours later came the counterpoint from former vice president Mike Pence. Speaking in Florida to the conservative legal group the Federalist Society, Pence said he had no right to overturn the election in 2020, again disputing a common Trump line.

Frankly there is no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president, said Pence, who was a target of both Trump and the mobs ire on January 6.

Look around the nation. Virtually every open Republican primary, from governor to House to Senate, is rooted in the same question that opened a recent Ohio Republican Senate primary debate: Who won the 2020 election? Despite no thread of evidence that anyone other than Biden won, Republican candidates feel compelled to play into Trumps lie in order to comply with the partys matra.

Locally, in the Congressional race in New Hampshires First District, Republicans are engaged in a discussion about 2020. It is a defining question of the contest, the winner of which is likely to be a member of Congress due to Republican redistricting in the state.

Possibly topping all of this is what happened in Oklahoma. Trump won every county in the deeply Republican state in both 2016 and 2020. The Oklahoma State Election Board has rejected any notion of voter fraud, determining claims of voting machine manipulation were entirely without merit. But still, Oklahoma Republican Party Chair John Bennett said in a Facebook video that election integrity was a top issue of voters in his state. And now there are 22 bills in the legislature there to change voting laws.

Republicans are following their leader Donald Trump, whose latest rallies are mainly about the election he lost, not the partys future. Looking back is now what the party and its members want to do.

But all the discussion about the past might complicate their future in elections.

James Pindell can be reached at james.pindell@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @jamespindell.

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American elections are about the future. But Republicans are fully stuck on the past. - The Boston Globe

Paths to power and winning elections inside the GOP are changing rapidly and radically, spawning a new generation of kingmakers while diminishing the clout of many who lorded over the party for years.

Why it matters: Fourteen of the Republican Party's top consultants and operatives across the country spoke in detail with Axios about how profoundly primary races have changed since 2014 the last pre-Donald Trump midterm election and the last midterms in which a Democrat occupied the White House.

What we found: Those sources whose clients range from as Trumpy as they come to establishment Republicans described a clear shift in the party's power brokers. They spoke of changes to the ecosystem across four categories: institutional upheaval, endorsements, conservative media and donors.

Who had the power:

Who has power now:

Between the lines: Most of these changes weren't gradual. They were triggered by the shockwave of 2016.

INSTITUTIONAL UPHEAVAL: Several GOP institutional titans in the 2014 cycle have since receded.

The Koch network: The vast operation established by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch was almost a parallel Republican Party. Candidates and their consultants regularly pitched themselves at Koch donor retreats and worried how the Kochs viewed them.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce: In 2014, the Chamber was heavily involved in Republican primaries. "Chamber Republicans" competed against "Tea Party Republicans," claiming greater appeal to the business community than insurgent conservatives and better prospects in the general election.

Conservative movement groups: Some of the most sought-after brands on the right pre-Trump are no longer considered as important.

SCF's executive director, Mary Vought, rejected this analysis, saying, "Our endorsement is sought after now more than ever because candidates know we do the hard work of raising money for their campaigns. Some groups only give them a press release, but SCF actually raises and transfers hundreds of thousands of dollars directly to their campaigns."

The NRA: In his campaign to become governor of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin declined to even fill out the NRA's candidate questionnaire. As a result, the NRA didnt endorse him. Nobody seemed to care, and he won the race.

Institutions that still matter: The relationships between many candidates and groups are now explicitly transactional. A prominent consultant who's working for candidates in several GOP primaries this cycle advises clients when they meet with conservative groups to ask specifically what their endorsement comes with.

The bottom line: Many movement conservative brands are shadows of what they used to be. Many of the major conservative think tanks supported policy positions such as reforming Social Security or free trade that Trump obliterated and proved elderly GOP voters didnt actually support.

2. ENDORSEMENTS: Every operative said the only endorsement that really matters is Trump's. But there are nuances. His endorsement alone is not enough; what he actually does for a candidate matters, too.

Some recent polls pointed to those limits. A recent poll by Cygnal, an analytics firm for GOP candidates, found just one in four North Carolina likely primary voters said they'd definitely vote for a Trump-endorsed candidate. A January poll by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution found less than half of Georgia Republicans say a Trump endorsement would make them more likely to vote for that candidate.

Operatives also said endorsements can matter in conferring ideological credibility. If you need to convince voters your establishment-seeming candidate is genuinely hardline on immigration, having an endorsement from Ted Cruz or Tom Cotton or praise from Tucker Carlson or Stephen Miller can help.

The bottom line: The GOP operatives we interviewed unanimously said that after Trump, they don't put a ton of stock in the power of endorsements to shape a primary race in 2022.

3. CONSERVATIVE MEDIA: As the news media fragmented overall, traditional conservative media was usurped in GOP primaries by New Wave populist-nationalist media and some once-influential institutions have died or faded. The Weekly Standard shuttered.

Fox still dominates. GOP operatives work as hard as ever to book their candidates on Fox. Getting on the evening prime time shows like Tucker Carlson Tonight, Hannity, and The Ingraham Angle nets low-dollar donations and visibility with primary voters and Trump himself.

Tucker Carlson is the king of the GOP's media wing the person whose support GOP primary candidates most want and whose opposition is to be desperately avoided because it can "move numbers," in the words of one operative who has seen the Tucker effect up close.

An important shift is accelerating online. Many GOP primary voters now get their information directly from influencers including Candace Owens, Dan Bongino, Joe Rogan, Dave Portnoy, Charlie Kirk, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and websites like Ben Shapiros Daily Wire and Breitbart, which dominate Facebook.

Between the lines: Several operatives said they could easily go a whole primary without needing to engage at all with the mainstream media. When they do, they're often trying to provoke outlets the GOP base despises such as CNN to gain street cred with primary voters.

The bottom line: The media landscape is so diffuse now "fragmented, severely sliced and diced," as one operative put it that GOP operatives aren't leaning on one source overall, or the mainstream media at all, in primaries.

4. THE DONOR LANDSCAPE: The recent passing of Republican mega-donors Sheldon Adelson and Foster Freiss were significant in their own right. At the same time, newer donors are cutting the big checks, with people like tech investor Peter Thiel and industrial supply magnate Richard Uihlein single-handedly underwriting high-dollar super PACs.

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The making of a modern Republican - Axios

Those who have followed the scandal-ridden career of Vegas cop-turned-Nevada Republican Party Chairman Michael McDonald arent shocked to find him mired in Donald Trumps fake electors mess. We would have been shocked if he wasnt up to his neck in it.

The chairman and former Vegas councilman, a frothing Trump fanboy from the start, used the reflected celebrity of his relationship with the former president to promote himself and consolidate his hold on the state party even as it has foundered at the polls. Joe Biden won Nevada by more than 33,000 votes.

The ballots were counted, but the lies kept coming. In the weeks following the 2020 election, McDonald led the GOPs Stop the Steal voter fraud deception and helped promote specious lawsuits before and even after they were swiftly laughed out of court.

Naturally, McDonald was one of the phony GOP electors in seven swing states, including Nevada, that Trump hoped to use to overturn the results of the election he lost, with the party chair front and center as a Dec. 14 ceremony in front of the State Capitol in Carson City that looked more like a bad political skit than part of a strategy to help derail the democratic process.

Like so many Trump-era hustles, the fraud was hiding in plain sight.

Some Nevada Republicans, including Rep. Mark Amodei, defended the phony electors theater as protected political speech, but they were there to set the stage for the big reveal planned for Jan. 6. Multiple calls between Trump officials were made during the planning, with at least one that included attorney Rudolph Giuliani.

Then Vice President Mike Pence went and screwed it all up by following the Constitution.

The multi-state deception has drawn the interest of the Justice Department and the members of the congressional committee investigating the phony electors connection to the deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol. Today, McDonald finds himself and Nevada Republican Party National Committee member Jim DeGraffenreid among those under subpoena by the committee.

The subpoenas request that they appear before the committee on Feb. 24 for a deposition after producing documents by Feb. 11 relevant to their role and participation in the purported slate of electors casting votes for Donald Trump. Other subpoenas were issued to GOP party chairs and officials in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Being dragged before Congress and placed under oath would probably qualify as an ignominious low point for most people, but not McDonald. In fact, it might represent the culmination of his long and notorious career in public self-service as hes spent decades skating from one scandal and score to the next. Along the way, hes drawn investigative scrutiny from the FBI, IRS, and even detectives from his own former police department although, as he repeatedly reminds his skeptics, no criminal charges have ever been filed against him.

As a council member while City Hall was run by mob mouthpiece-turned-Mayor Oscar Goodman, McDonalds willingness to accept $5,000 fees to play consultant for organized crime associate and topless bar boss Rick Rizzolo raised eyebrows even in jaded Las Vegas.

He lost his seat on the council in 2003 after becoming embroiled in an FBI public corruption investigation that sent four former Clark County commissioners to prison along with topless bar mogul Michael Galardi, another McDonald benefactor. But, again, McDonald wasnt charged.

Out of office, he turned the state Republican Party apparatus into his personal political fiefdom. His Chicago ward-boss style combined with fealty toward Trump served him well, even as theyve brought chaos to the party.

When Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske showed the strength of character to proclaim that no widespread voter fraud had occurred in the 2020 election in Nevada, McDonald was not amused. Cegavske, the only Republican currently holding a statewide office in Nevada, was censured by her own party.

In his long tenure as state party chairman, McDonald has failed to consistently denounce the presence of members of the far-right Proud Boys in the GOP ranks as he worked to replace the Clark County Republican Party board with Trump acolytes.

It can be argued that McDonalds messy life has prepared him for this moment in the spotlight.

Back in 2012, the year he was first elected state GOP chairman, McDonald sat for a deposition in a lawsuit involving his pal Rizzolo. A Rizzolo goon had viciously assaulted a Kansas tourist over a paltry bar tab, and the topless bar boss had agreed to pay $10 million to resolve the case. But then he didnt pay up.

But Michael McDonald, like his musical namesake, keeps forgettin. Under oath, McDonald was asked if he knew where Rizzolo had hidden his fortune. He invoked the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination 10 times.

What are the odds that hell do the same before the Jan. 6 committee?

Continue reading here:
Nevada Republican Boss and Fake Trump Elector May Be the Model MAGA Man - The Daily Beast

MONTVILLE Tom Mazzaccaro has been around township Republican politics for more than 40 years, so it wasnt surprising he got right to the point.

After listening to the six Republicans who want a crack at Mikie Sherrill at a Thursday candidates night talk about rising inflation, a crisis at the border and Russian adventurism, it was time for questions.

All six are loyal Republicans, Mazzaccaro said, stating the obvious.

But can any of them actually win?

That is the bottom line.

We have a real, formidable candidate who has a big warchest, Mazzaccaro said. Sherrills campaign fund totals about $5 million, according to the latest FEC filings.

Money is not everything, but its definitely something. Whether the eventual nominee gets financial help from national Republicans probably depends on whether the race in CD-11 is considered winnable or not. Thats uncertain.

Republicans are still enthused after a good 2021 election and are convinced momentum is on their side. President Joe Bidens less than stellar poll numbers buttress that point.

Yet, things can change in the next nine months and the new map makes CD-11 more Democratic than it has been.

Each candidate endeavored to answer the question.

First up was Toby Anderson, who spoke virtually after recently testing positive for COVID.

He said he would establish that Sherrill is part of the Biden-Nancy Pelosi administration, which doesnt sit well with voters. He also took heart from recent polling that shows Biden losing ground with Hispanics, normally a dependable Democratic voting bloc. That is good news politically speaking for Republicans, but CD-11, as districts go in New Jersey, is not overly Hispanic.

Larry Casha said a bit boldly that it doesnt take five million bucks to get your message across. And reaching back to the era of 1960 sitcoms, Casha brought up June Cleaver, who was known on the tube for doing housework in high heels and pearls. The presumed point here is that Sherrill is more glitz than substance.

Paul DeGroot said yes, the GOP base is energized. But guess what?

Thats not good enough.

That in itself, is not going to get us across the finish line. As he has done previously, DeGroot said Republicans have to do a better job appealing to women and women with children.

Earlier in the evening, DeGroot also mentioned a tale of personal derring-do his apprehension of a mugger attacking a cab driver in Manhattan in 2011. Later, he provided an audio of the driver thanking him in a phone message. That could make a good campaign ad.

Candidate Larry Friscia, who seems to pride himself on studying policy details and fully understanding issues, said the 90-seconds allotted to answer the question wasnt long enough. But he did ask those interested to contact him afterwards and confidently proclaimed, I am the one who can take (Sherrill) down.

Robert Kovic said Republicans need to run a genuine conservative, adding that more and more people are turning to the Republican party. He mocked Sherrill as a paper tiger, and criticized her recent trip along with other House members to Ukraine as a photo op.

In fairness, Sherrill is a member of the Armed Services Committee and a one-time Russian foreign policy officer when serving in the Navy.

The last candidate to speak was Tayfun Selen, who said an out of the box candidate is needed. Thats him.

I have a story that resonates, said Selen, who immigrated from Turkey, got a job pumping gas and now sits on the Morris County Board of Commissioners.

The primary is in June, but the time is shorter than you think.

DeGroot won the line in Passaic County and the key Morris County endorsement will come in early March.

And there may be more candidates. Assemblywoman Aura Dunn and Morris County Surrogate Heather Darling are considering jumping in. Each could have an impact. As of now, there are no women in the Republican field.

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The Ongoing Republican Intraparty Slog in Sherrill's CD-11 - InsiderNJ

One of the inescapable realities of our current political landscape is that the Democrat Party is united and the Republican Party is not. One attempts to satisfy its constituencies, and the other is constantly alienating its voters. Why is that? The answer is key to understanding why so many conservative voters, including many Christians, are unhappy with their political leaders and what can be done about it.

It may seem odd to characterize the Democrats as unified in the midst of their recent struggle to gain the votes of Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona on key party priorities, such as enacting the Build Back Better legislation or altering the Senate filibuster. But the recent vitriol directed at those two individuals for not going along is itself evidence of the degree to which the vast machinery of the party remains unified in purpose. Think of the many different presidential candidates in the 2020 Democratic primaries, and yet the winning, so-called moderate President Joe Biden governs from the hard left on priority after priority. This is not accidental. Party elitesleadership, donors, activists, and most votersall share the same radical, secular liberal worldview of the age. They are all committed to relentlessly pushing forward in pursuit of progress, disagreeing only in how fast or at what political cost.

In comparison, the Republican Party is split, seemingly inexorably, between two factions. The differences between the two are fundamental. They are about purpose, not pace. One faction is horrified that the United States is decades into an incremental revolution whereby self-government was tossed in favor of a secular, expert-led bureaucratic regime, whose interests are increasingly protected by large, multinational corporations that coerce the populace. They want resolute, prophetic statesmanship befitting the late hour that requires status quoshattering paradigm shifts. Most of the Republican voters are in this camp.

The other faction is harder to describe, as it is itself a mix of those with differing priorities, viewpoints, and temperaments. Perhaps the easiest description is to say that they are made up of those who are not horrified by the danger the United States faces. These individuals are either unaware or unalarmed by the currents carrying modern America or their destination. Sometimes the pace is a little quick, but it is largely the inefficiency or the material discomfort of the journey that concerns them. They want reform within the current paradigm. Most of the party elite are in this camp. This split is the main division that renders the Republican Party incapable of delivering on a coherent agenda to the American people.

The best example of this faction are the (historically Republican) chambers of commerce. Perhaps in opposition to FDRs New Deal or LBJs Great Society, many corporate executives flocked to the GOP in favor of low taxes, little regulation, and a strong economy. They wanted less government spending. And for many election cycles, they made for worthy coalition partners, particularly as many were also committed to maintaining traditional values and keeping the nation strong.

But over the years, the business community has become far less reliable. Corporationsled by chambers of commerceare now the main obstacles to Republicans engaging in the necessary culture fights that are most pressing at the state and federal levels. They are the Praetorian Guard for the interests of the LGBT community, going as far as to supportthe radical Equality Act. They are strong proponents of critical race theory disguised as diversity and inclusion training in their HR departments. They instituted their own vaccine and mask mandates on their employees and customers while fightingstate governments attempting to protect their citizens from being coerced. And they have been some of the most vocal opponents of voter integrity measures. Never mind the host of issuesranging from free trade absolutism to the power of multinational companiesin which their outsized presence in the party prevents a needed reconsideration. That reconsideration might attract new voters among working Americans. In short, the alliance with big business is now an anchor, dragging the conservative movement down.

Even with our own tenuous attachment to political parties, Christians should care because we currently do not have good options for effecting change in our two-party system. The Democratic Party is the political party of secular humanism. The Republican Party, fallen as all political vehicles are, is the natural home for those who value a Christian-influenced nation, who desire to protect life at all ages, who stand committed to strengthening families and communities from disorder and decay, and who reject the rule of totalitarian bureaucracies. But to remain that home, it must discard the corporatism that is strangling its heart and repelling its votersand that starts with ending the overwhelming influence of the chambers of commerce.

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Chambers of commerce are crippling the Republican Party - WORLD News Group