Ditch Mitch: Tea Party Patriots’ Jenny Beth Martin likes Sen. David Perdue as new leader of GOP senators
Neil W. McCabe
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The co-founder and president of Tea Party Patriots told reporters today she would welcome Sen. David A. Perdue Jr. (R.-Ga.) as a replacement to Senate Majority Leader A. Mitchell “Mitch” McConnell (R.-Ky.) at a Washington press conference, where conservative leaders called on the GOP Senate leadership to resign.
“I have not talked to him about it this,” said Jenny Beth Martin, the leader of the most effective national Tea Party organization.
Martin said as a native of Georgia, she was already predisposed to support Perdue.
“One thing that appeals to me about that is the fact that he is a CEO of a Fortune 500 company,” she said. “He knows how to lead. He knows how to make tough decisions and he knows how to execute and to get things done.”
During the 2016 campaign, among senators, Perdue’s support for candidate Donald J. Trump was second only to Attorney General Jefferson B. “Jeff” Sessions, who was a senator from Alabama.
David Bozell, the president of the ForAmerica PAC, also at the press conference, said he would be happy with Perdue leading Senate Republicans.
“Senator Perdue named one of the big elephants in the room, by identifying committee chairmen and chairwomen, who are just bucking the solutions at every opportunity,” he said.
“I’m not sure if that was him sending a bat-signal on his interest, but is on the mark on that—one of the failures of this leadership operation that they are openly being challenged by their own committee chairs,” Bozell said.
The remarks Bozell cited were from a Sept. 26 the senator issued after McConnell announced that he had given up on repealing the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, before the end of the fiscal year 2017.
““What happened today in Washington was a failure,” said Perdue, who led companies, such as Reebok and Dollar General. “Obamacare was perpetrated on the American people by a Democratic supermajority and is collapsing under its own weight.”
Then, he called out three of his senior colleagues.
“From the get-go, three Republican Senate chairmen failed to support our efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare as we have all promised to do,” he said.
“Today, political interests have again outweighed our national interest,” he said.
The three GOP Senate chairs were: Maine’s Sen. Susan M. Collins, Aging Committee; Alaska’s Sen. Lisa A. Murkowski, Energy Committee and Sen. John S. McCain III, Armed Services Committee.
Perdue was elected in 2014 and since coming to Capitol Hill has developed a reputation as one of the rare senators, who has become more conservative the longer he is in Washington.
Whether or not Perdue steps up to challenge McConnell, Martin said she is fully committed to ousting McConnell.
Martin said it was a scandal that the Democrats spent $15 million to save Obamacare, while McConnell and his allies spent an estimated $30 million—not to win a seat—but, to keep a conservative from winning a safe seat in deep red Alabama.
“Mitch McConnell had his chance,” she said. “The entire Senate leadership has had their chance. They have failed to deliver. It is time for Mitch and the leadership to go.”
Joining Martin at the press conference was Brent Bozell, columnist and founder of the Media Research Center; Adam Brandon, FreedomWorks; Ken Cuccinelli II, Senate Conservative Fund and David Bozell, ForAmerica PAC. Conservative stalwart Richard A. Viguerie signed the group letter, but was unable to attend.
The chief complaint against the Republican Senate leadership was its failure to repeal Obamacare, which they called a betrayal.
“President Trump and the House of Representatives have done their part. You sank it,” they wrote.
A representative from Perdue’s office declined to comment to Big League Politics about this story.
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