Hopefully, you are familiar with Mike Murphy. If nothing else, you probably remember him riding shotgun in John McCain’s 2000 Straight Talk Express bus while fawning reporters lapped up every word the war hero ladled out. He didn’t sign up this cycle as anyone’s campaign manager or senior consultant. Instead, he was in charge of Jeb Bush’s Super PAC, Right to Rise. Never in the history of man has an endeavor spent more money to accomplish less. Matt Labash of the Weekly Standard caught up with Murphy as he was closing down Right to Rise’s Los Angeles headquarters and he had a lot of interesting things to say, especially about Donald Trump.
The saltiness began in his email response to Labash’s pitch for an interview. Murphy called this “the year of the Howling Moron” and criticized the media: “90 percent of the people in your corrupt business [have been] selling tickets to Trump’s Mussolini act.” He also had an unusual demand.
Murphy laid down only one precondition: “That you put in this piece that The Weekly Standard has become a Rubio-Love Spank Mag — and [Bill] Kristol can’t cut it!”
In this exchange and the subsequent interview, Trump and fascism were recurring themes.
Murphy has a special contempt for [Chris] Christie these days, since Christie broke early for Donald Trump, becoming his Franz von Papen, the former Weimar chancellor who thought Hitler could be civilized once in office: “They made him ambassador to Turkey, next thing you know, he’s in Nuremberg.”
…Trump, if you haven’t gathered, irritates Murphy. And no matter how much Trump surges, Murphy’s in no danger of “learning German” and pulling a Chris “von Papen” Christie: “I’d rather cut my arm off than vote for that jerk.”
He’s not a fan of Cruz, either.
As for Cruz, Murphy does not TrusTed and has no plans to fall in line with the man shaping up to be the Establishment’s hold-your-nose-and-kiss-your-sister Trump alternative: “I think he’s cynical, totally cynical. . . . I don’t think he could win a general election, so he’ll be wiped out. It’s a choice between Trump, who is terrible for the country, and Cruz, who is terrible for the party. He’s too smart for his act . . . and he’s probably pissed that a bigger con man showed up.”
Murphy likes Kasich but not so much his chances, “”He’s trying to start an opera club at a tractor pull.”
Obviously, Murphy has taken a lot of criticism for Jeb’s spectacular failure, as well as the huge fees he collected as his Super PAC director. He doesn’t seem to be kicking himself too hard, however: “Murphy admits, ‘there is no campaign trick or spending level or candidate whisperer that can prevent a party from committing political suicide if it wants to.’”
Ultimately, Murphy seems too resigned to put any energy or faith into the anti-Trump effort. Given the desperadoes’ lack of a plan, that’s probably wise. On the other hand, he’s not going to be guilty of surrendering to Trump and getting in line behind his candidacy. He probably agrees with Fareed Zakaria that this is shaping up to be a change election:
Over the past decade, Republican support for immigration and free trade has been collapsing. But Trump’s nomination would transform the party into a blue-collar, populist, nationalist movement with a racial element — much like many others in the Western world. This would be a very different party from Reagan’s or Ryan’s…
In this respect, [2016] looks like 1964, also an election that realigned politics, shifting Southern whites to the Republican Party ever since. Then, too, there was enormous energy, new voters and a candidate who thrilled his supporters. Then, too, the establishment could not muster the courage and unity to oppose the front-runner, scared to push back against the energy and devotion of the new populist forces.
So instead the party went to the polls in November divided — and lost 44 states.
Yet, if the worst comes, Murphy isn’t too concerned.
But ever the happy warrior, Murphy tries to take a sanguine view. “If we have real, creative destruction here with Trump, and we have Armageddon or worse, out of the ruins will come new successes. New movements. And eventually, new rackets.”
“And I’ll be in on them,” Murphy says with a half-smile. “I admit it, I’m a racketeer.”
No matter what, there will always be money in pimping for the right.
“I admit it, I’m a racketeer.”
At least he’s honest. Not going to see that level of honesty out of the mouths of but a few of the big time operatives in both parties. Like a scorpion not hiding his true nature, but plenty of frogs will still be duped.
He’s a pretty candid and funny guy.
But for the Dark Side.
Unusual for a political operative because they have to keep all their options open. But candor from the “Dark Side” isn’t that unusual. Scalia, Cheney and Norquist for example.
All those guys are/were untouchable.
Talks like a guy at the end of the line, preparing to live out the rest of his days in comfort, boredom and relative obscurity — but keeping his options open. In that sense like Mitt Romney but way smarter.
Agreed. And at least Murphy’s got the stones to call Trump what he is, unlike a lot of them.
He’ll catch — and has caught — a lot of shit for the Super PAC, but that campaign was doomed from the start.
It wasn’t a bad strategy per se. Go all in with the early advantage and try to push the competitors out. Jeb Bush was not going to win the nomination in a war of attrition.
Give him credit…Palin did engage his gag reflex.
Along with over 55% of the general electorate. So, he’s not without the capacity to be a normal human being.
Far too late for that. Guy sold his soul many cycles ago.
Now here’s a guy well suited to speak truth to power. Essentially he’s telling himself off.
I read somewhere way back when that the American version of the Nuremberg defense would be, “Hey, I was just paying the mortgage.”
Another moment in being candid – NYTimes – Obama Privately Tells Donors …
Just another day in carefully phrased messaged to DFHs to STFU (or votes don’t matter) and get in line.
…
I am curious. With the trend for progressives to raise money for specific candidates and spurn DNC orgs, is nearly all their money coming from big donors with aspirations?
Talk about your negative incentivisation!
They’re like Willie Sutton — they know where the money is. The financial means of the progressive left is limited. The Sanders campaign is stretching it to the limits of what can be available but once every four years. The DEM elites do seem to be shocked that the limit is so large this time around. HRC’s original budget from the primary was $100 million and most of it wasn’t going to be needed to fend off a challenger. They were supposed to be in general election campaign fundraising mode by the start of this year and are now scrambling to find and shake more money trees for the primary.
In ’08 Obama’s primary campaign money was about 50/50 big donors and “little people.” He really did need that money from “little people” because it gave him an large leg up on being able to say that he had grassroots support that was committed to his candidacy. And the cost to raise those funds small enough to make it practical. This is unlike Dr. Carson’s “little people” fundraising operation, huge in dollars received but tiny in dollars left over for a campaign. While no where near as cost inefficient and effective as Dr. Ben’s campaign, HRC continues to struggle in cracking the “little people” donation’s safe. All those pleas for $1 donations add nothing to her campaign coffers. But her team and the DNC continue to eye Sander’s campaign fundraising with envy and are looking for ideas on how to appropriate it for themselves once they can him out of the race.
Words from a tough, intelligent whore.
(I’ve known a few…)
AG
What they’ve done is outsource the running of their party to what are essentially mercenaries – the operatives, talk radios goons, etc. Their only orders they’re given it to win, no matter how. The mercenaries don’t care about anything but the current election cycle, ie their current contract. If a strategy helps them this cycle but hurts in the long term, that’s someone else’s problem. Of course, they’ll be first in line for the contract to ‘fix’ what their previous efforts created.
Except for the talk radio part, this is different from the Democrats how?
The party’s over:
Time to bin the bottles and shampoo the carpet.
He’s certainly pungent. That crack about Kasich had me laughing out loud.
Bull’s eye