Here’s a real political diss. Speaking to The Washington Times, Republican Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, who has said he’s happy to accept the stimulus funds for his state, had some choice words for his fellow GOPers on Capitol Hill:
The Republican governor of Utah on Monday said his party is blighted by leaders in Congress whose lack of new ideas renders them so “inconsequential” that he doesn’t even bother to talk to them.
“I don’t even know the congressional leadership,” Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. told editors and reporters at The Washington Times, shrugging off questions about top congressional Republicans, including House Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. “I have not met them. I don’t listen or read whatever it is they say because it is inconsequential – completely.”
Just a week or so ago, Congressional Republicans were crowing that their lockstep opposition to President Obama’s stimulus bill had brought them back from irrelevance and marginalization. Perhaps. But it has also sparked a civil war within the party between practical, give-me-the-money governors (such as Charlie Crist and Arnold Schwarzenegger) and ideological conservatives who are talking about eschewing some of the stimulus funds (notably, Bobby Jindal, Mark Sanford and Haley Barbour) and a clash between those pragmatic governors and the GOP’s leaders on Capitol Hill. Good work, everyone. Obama’s stimulus has become a wedge issue within the Republican Party.
On Monday night, I discussed this on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show:
