Apparently, Republicans were the big winner of the 2012 election! Or so says Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), who on Friday told Family Research Council president Tony Perkins that conservatives in the House won a “mandate” in 2012.
“I think if you look at the country, even in the results of this election, we’re still a center-right nation,” Scalise said in the interview, “the House and the House conservatives did win and we’re there with a mandate to fight for the values that we believe in.”
That’s right, losing the White House by a 332-206 electoral vote margin, losing seats in the U.S. Senate and losing the popular vote in House elections, all equals a GOP mandate. In fact, the House GOP may have lost its majority if it wasn’t for partisan gerrymandering.
While it may seem that only a fringe Republican completely detached from reality would interpret the 2012 election as a GOP victory, Rep. Scalise is the incoming chairman of the ultraconservative and influential Republican Study Committee.
Perkins, who hosted a morbid webcast the day following the election, agreed with Scalise’s fanciful election analysis, which comes as no surprise as FRC vice president Tom McClusky signed an equally delusional letter arguing that House Republicans received an electoral mandate.
Perkins: I would argue that the House of Representatives today is probably one of the most conservative Houses in modern times.
Scalise: I think if you look at the membership of the House and especially the RSC, as you mentioned we’re the largest caucus in all of Congress, we represent over 165 members of Congress that are in the RSC, it’s two-thirds of the House Republican majority. So you could say we’re a majority of the majority. But I think more importantly if you look at the reach across the country, RSC members, just looking at members of the Republican Study Committee, we represent over 100 million people. So when you talk about the view of the nation and what was a mandate coming out of this election, the fact that over 100 million people are represented by elected an conservative — conservatives to represent them — says that there’s a mandate to push for conservative values and to fight for the things that we believe in and that will actually solve the great problems facing this country.
Perkins: That’s a significant bloc of votes.
…
Scalise: You know, with probably one of the most radical liberal presidents that we’ve had in our history, I think people are counting on us to be that only line of defense and to fight to make sure that number one that we still push conservative solutions. I think if you look at the country, even in the results of this election, we’re still a center-right nation. When you have conservatives that run as conservatives, typically we win, most of our members got re-elected and if you look at the new members, thirty-five new members are coming in on the Republican side and all but four of them have joined the RSC and they ran as a very difficult climate as conservatives and they won. We shouldn’t be ashamed of or shy away from our principles, we’re disappointed in many things that came out of the election, but we ought to be proud of the fact that people sent us in the House back to be a check and a balance and not act like we got defeated because the House and the House conservatives did win and we’re there with a mandate to fight for the values that we believe in.
