If you’ve never been to Cabela’s in Buda, Texas you are missing out. The place is somewhere between a temple, a museum and a supermarket. In the rows of paraphenalia for hunting and fishing you’ll find plastic packets of bullets and ammo hanging like kids’ jewelry or ball point pens do in a grocery store. Rifles line the walls; an entire section of the ground floor displays an impressive variety of the latest camoflage attire. A real hunter’s heaven.
And all around – on the walls, hanging from the ceiling and displayed in simulated natural habitat – the taxidermists have rendered the animals stunningly lifelike, dignified, with personalities that engage the viewer with awe.
We climbed the stair case to an upper conference room to join the Kyle-Buda Republicans as they awaited Apostle Claver, their special guest speaker for their August 18th soiree. While waiting for the main event we were treated to some entertaining patter by Jesse Lewis, Executive Director, TX Republican State Committee, who opened the event.
Here is a little back and forth that ensued among those Hayes County constituents. One of the gentlemen voiced concerns about the loyalties of Texas Speaker of the House Joe Straus, brought about by his fairly disturbing act of being part of Patrick Rose’s (D) fundraiser back in May this year. Jason Isaac, Rose’s opponent in the race for TX House District 45, was seated in the audience during the exchange.
We’ve written about Patrick Rose here and here.
Next up was Apostle Claver, who calls himself a ‘hyper-conservative’ and spends his time traveling the nation speaking to as many of the Tea Parties that will have him. “I’m not interested in energizing the base,” he asserts. “If you want to win elections you have to expand your base and wear away the opposition base.” This was not your usual GOP pep talk. This was like listening to Stephen A. Smith talk inside baseball. Not quite Pattonesque, but getting there. Claver cranked up his Powerpoint presentation and, after giving us the numbers over three most recent election cycles, we got the news: You can no longer win elections in America without black and hispanic voters.
“These people think like conservatives. They just don’t vote that way. But that’s got to change now.” Roger that. The statistics he put together are stubborn and convincing and, without trying to recap everything here, I highly encourage everyone to make the effort to check out Claver’s blog RagingElephants.org. Or go and hear him give this talk.
As promised, here’s the snippet.
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Read ‘em & weep:
RNC – $5M, RPOT – in the hole;
DNC – $11.5M (July), $53.8M to date.
Isn’t thAt because people are giving directly to their candidates now? After Scuzzyfuvvy they don’t trust the RNC.
Partly. GOP $ is down across the board because of lack of trust. Reforming the GOP is vital. Some might call it a takeover. I call it Common Sense.
That’s right fellow conservatives, remember, it’s not only the Dems who constitute the elite ruling class.
The GOP’s poor (okay, extremely poor) fundraising efforts and lack of fiscal responsibility with the party’s money speaks volumes. The disconnect could not be more clear.
Sure, removing the corrupt and destructive Democratic machine from power so we can stop America’s hemorraging is job one. Then we shift the focus to cleaning up the GOP. We’re already making significant strides there but they ain’t seen nuthin’ yet!
I must admit, I cannot wait until the GOP’s day of reckoning comes. You just know there are Republican establishment types who are licking their chops right now. Party leaders are sitting on their lofty perches assuming that after we empower them again, it’ll be business as usual.
Just as the Dems took time to understand the wave of change taking place, so it will be with the good old boy establishment in the GOP. Sure, they see that we have power and are capable of exercising it but don’t yet understand that what we have in mind doesn’t stop with throwing the Dems out on their hind-quarters.
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