Our View: Party soul at stake

Even though they are far less “right”-thinking than the folks they wish to purge, these pooh-bahs are calling themselves the Conservative Victory Project.

There’s a method to this moniker madness that some would consider Orwellian. Dare to challenge these folks — the Republican “Empire,” the Karl Roves of this world — on the name, dare to suggest they might not be as conservative as, say, you, and you’ll find yourself waging war on a rhetorical battlefield of their choosing.

Even the mission statement of this group — informally declared by Steven Law, president of the Rovian super-PAC, American Crossroads — has a distinct dash of Orwell to it:

“We don’t view ourselves as being in the incumbent protection business, but we want to pick the most conservative candidate who can win.”

OK, old-timers may sense an invocation to the late Bill Buckley here. After all, he said something remarkably similar back in the ’50s with regard to fielding conservative candidates who had a chance of winning. But never, to the best of our recollection, did he suggest that only he and the gang at National Review make that determination.

That seems to be the case with the CVP, though, as they declare war, albeit from a different side of the aisle, on the same folks as Barack Obama consistently has — America’s “bitter-clingers,” or, as they are known in political circles, the “Tea Party types.” By their names are they known — O’Donnell, Angle, Miller, Akin, Mourdock, even Buck — and, to the cool, cool, considerate men of the CVP, they must be vanquished. And, forget primaries, they’ll be only too happy to handle the vanquishing.

OK, granted, the Tea Party, in 2010 as well as in 2012, may not have always backed the more seasoned and savvy candidates. And, yes, some races that may have been winnable were lost — Nevada (and Harry Reid), most notably, in ’10, and Missouri (and Claire McCaskill) in ’12.

But hey, let’s be careful about intent here, and what the GOP is all about. The heart and soul of genuine conservatism in the Senate resides in what could be called the Tea Party Caucus, not within the ranks of the Old Establishment bulls. The future of conservatism lies not with John McCain or Mitch McConnell or Lindsey Graham, but with Mike Lee and Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and Pat Toomey, Ted Cruz and Tim Scott, and Deb Fischer.

Are these the folks the Conservative Victory Project would target? We certainly hope not. But then, we seem to recall the Roves of the political whirl favoring (at least initially) Charlie Crist over Mr. Rubio in ’10, and David Dewhurst over Ted Cruz in ’12.

Can real constitutionalist conservatives trust these folks?