I understand that the business community is fed up with the Tea Party’s brinkmanship on the debt ceiling, and I welcome their efforts to primary some of the extremists. However, I think it’s unfortunate that they are focusing, at least at the outset, on representatives like Justin Amash of Michigan and Walter Jones of North Carolina. While both of these candidates are iconoclasts who have revolted against the Republican leadership in the House, they also are willing to question the GOP’s love affair with the National Security state. I’d like to see the business community focus on representatives who are the worst of all worlds, rather than ones that have something to recommend them.
You might think that the business community is so heavily invested in the national security state that it makes sense for them to purge any outliers in the Republican Party, but if your issue is solving the Tea Party absolutism that is causing gridlock in Washington, Amash and Jones are not the most logical targets. Both of them are more willing to work across the aisle on at least some issues than most of their compatriots.
Having said that, it is interesting to see this split on the right open up in plain view. For now, the business leaders are investigating their ability to put the Tea Party genie back in the bottle, but if they fail in their efforts, where will they turn?
