Republican leaders lack spine, tea party groups say

No truer words were ever spoken.  Eastablishment GOPers like Boeher, Cantor, and McConnell are pathetic!  They need to be swept away. 

Washington Times reports Tea party leaders said Thursday they aren’t to blame for the debt limit increase that Republican leaders helped approve this week, saying the GOP’s problem isn’t divisions in the ranks but lack of spine at the top.


The split between tea party groups and Republican leaders — House Speaker John A. Boehnerand Senate
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell— has never appeared deeper than it does this week, after the two men provided the key support that passed a 13-month debt increase with no strings attached, delivering a major victory to Democrats.

“Quite frankly, we just tune them out,” said Amy Kremer, head of Tea PartyExpress. “They have no spine and they will not fight for anything.”

The debt has always been a tough vote for Republicans, but in previous fights they’d been able to unify on at least some concessions they attached to increases in the debt limit. This time around, they weren’t able to unite — some tea party Republicans said they couldn’t accept any debt increase, while others disagreed over what conditions to offer.
That left GOPleaders with no negotiating position, and they acquiesced to Democrats’ demand for a “clean” increase.

“It’s the fact that we don’t have 218 votes,” Mr. Boehnersaid ahead of the vote, explaining his surrender. “And when you don’t have 218 votes, you have nothing. We’ve seen that before, and we’ll see it again.”

But Judson Phillips, a leader of Tea Party Nation, said Mr. Boehner has frittered away numerous opportunities to go to war for conservative principles.
“Boehnerdoes not want to fight,” Mr. Phillips said. “He has never wanted to fight. He started from the weakest possible position and then when someone pointed that out he acted like a petulant child and said, ‘Fine, I’ll just give up.’ And he did.”

More here