The Republican establishment is kicking back at the cast of candidates former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon is recruiting to take on many GOP incumbents in 2018.
Writing a sharp-tongued editorial for the Wall Street Journal, President George W. Bush’s top strategist Karl Rove went after a number of Bannon-approved candidates, including Blackwater founder Erik Prince, who’s mulling a Senate bid in Wyoming, and Kelli Ward, who’s challenging GOP Sen. Jeff Flake in Arizona.
Calling it a ‘jihad,’ Rove pointed out the weaknesses of Bannon’s candidates, including that Prince is from Michigan and lives in the Middle East.
‘He is scouting Wyoming real estate and trying to score a local driver’s license, but no one from Abu Dhabi has ever been elected in Wyoming,’ Rove pointed out.
As for Ward, Rove pointed to the fact that as a state senator in 2014, Ward hosted a town hall ‘to explore the claim that jet contrails are really chemicals sprayed by the government for weather, mind or population control.’
President Trump’s former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon is earning the ire of establishment Republicans, including former Bush adviser Karl Rove
The so-called ‘Bush’s brain’ added that Ward ‘expressed no regrets’ for holding the meeting, quoting her saying that she was supposed to ‘listen to the people’ and ‘get them the information that they need to feel confident that they live in a safe environment.’
Earlier this month, Bannon – now back at Breitbart News – announced he planned to take on nearly every Republican incumbent up for re-election in the Senate next year, except Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
In Nevada, Bannon has picked Danny Tarkanian over incumbent Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev. Rove pointed out that Tarkanian’s already lost five races for four different federal and state offices.
‘Mr. Tarkanian’s sixth time is unlikely to be the charm,’ Rove said.
Bannon has said he plans to field approved candidates to take on Republican Senate incumbents in Mississippi, Nebraska and Utah as well.
The ex-White House aide also decided to back the candidacy of Michael Grimm, an ex-congressman who was jailed for felony tax fraud and was remembered in Washington for threatening to throw a reporter over a balcony.
Grimm was the first House candidate ‘blessed’ by Bannon, as Rove put it, snarking that the ex-convict likely ‘won’t campaign in his orange prison jumpsuit,’ as he tries to win back his old seat now occupied by Rep. Dan Donovan.
For Colorado governor, Bannon is looking at former Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., who was among the Republicans running for president in 2008.
Rove said that was a bad call because Tancredo was a ‘nativist who once said President Obama was “a more serious threat to America than al Qaeda,” who routinely attacks immigrants for turning America into a “Third World country,” and who earlier this year accepted a speaking invitation from a white-nationalist group’ – which could be problematic in the purple state of Colorado.
Despite calling Bannon a ‘failed presidential adviser and alt-right sympathizer’ he did point to a number of candidates that the Washington establishment approved of that the former Trump staffer is also backing.
Taking on Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., is Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley, who was recruited by Rove and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
Rove said both he and Bannon supported Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn, running for the Senate seat being vacated by the retiring Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, running against incumbent Democrat Sen. Sherrod Brown, as well.
Rove pointed out that there didn’t seem to be any ideological purity when it came to Bannon’s roster as the six incumbents the Breitbart head is fielding challengers against voted with the president more than 90 percent.
And speaking of that, McConnell – who Bannon as branded as head of the GOP establishment – has voted for Trump’s policies too, 96 percent of the time.
And Barrasso, who Bannon wants Prince to run against, he’s been with Trump 96 percent too.
But Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas., the only safe Republican from the Bannon onslaught, he’s only voted with Trump 94 percent of the time.