Like starving chihuahuas nipping at the heel of a striding giant, a group of out-of-power anti-Trump Republicans formed a super PAC on Tuesday to defeat President Donald Trump and his congressional allies.
The Lincoln Project — one doubts the 16th president was asked for his counsel — is a collection of failed operatives and one Trump administration spouse (named George Conway) who have been deluded into believing they have the power to topple the most popular GOP president since Ronald Reagan.
Related: George Conway Rips First Lady Melania Trump
The motley crew issued this statement in an op-ed in The New York Times (of course): “Over these next 11 months, our efforts will be dedicated to defeating President Trump and Trumpism at the ballot box and to elect those patriots who will hold the line. We do not undertake this task lightly, nor from ideological preference,” insisted these leftish squishes and former GOP consultants who are stage-managing the doomed campaign.
The Trump re-election team responded in a statement. Communications director Tim Murtaugh called the Lincoln Project a “pathetic little club of irrelevant and faux ‘Republicans,’ who are upset that they’ve lost all of their power and influence inside the Republican Party.”
He continued, saying these “Establishment charlatans, who for years enriched themselves off the backs of the conservative movement, were the very swamp he was referring to. Calling any of these people ‘conservative’ or even referring to them as ‘Republicans’ at this point is an insult to conservatives and Republicans everywhere.”
Murtaugh hit the nail right on the head.
Lincoln Projects leaders Steve Schmidt, Rich Wilson, and John Weaver are all consultants who have seen their contracts and clients dry up with the advent of the Trump era in GOP politics.
Their beef with the president is not about malfeasance, misbehavior, or misdemeanors.
It’s about mathematics, specifically the low numbers on their current paychecks.
Another group maven, George Conway — spouse of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway — has his own reasons for opposing the president, which are somewhat opaque.
Related: Trump Calls Kellyanne Conway’s Husband a ‘Total Whack Job’
The president’s approval rating with GOP voters is close to 90 percent. Yes, there are some disaffected voters who could prove fertile ground for the above-mentioned group in some races.
But when GOP voters are faced with the November 2020 proposition of voting for the president and his allies — or supporting whatever left-leaning candidates the Dems offer — they are likely, to them, to pick the lesser evil.
Which will make the efforts of the Lincoln Project pals, now and in the future, all for naught.
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