Thom Tillis and the Case of the Poorly-Chosen Friends

“Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad company.” ~ George Washington

In politics, as in much of life, you can tell a great deal about a person by their choice of companions. This is especially true because in politics your friends often choose you as much as the other way around.

North Carolina State Speaker Thom Tillis is running a U.S. Senate campaign promising “to take his conservative reform agenda to Washington.” That being the case, one would expect that he would receive support of the chief conservative reformers already in the Senate, such as Senators Lee, Cruz, and Paul.

Instead, Tillis has amassed quite an interesting (and revealing) groups of admirers – a coterie of establishment political elites for whom a conservative reform agenda means saying nice things about freedom before voting to spend all of your money. These less-than-conservative comrades-of-Tillis include John Boehner and Orrin Hatch, both of whose PACs have donated $10,000 to Tillis’ campaign. $5,000 donors include the top three Republicans from Senate leadership – Mitch McConnell, John Cornyn, and John Thune – along with other luminaries of “go-along-get-along caucus”, such as Senators Portman, Coats, Shelby, Wicker, Moran, and Isakson.

Embattled RINO Senator Lindsey Graham also lent a sympathetic hand, donating $2,500.

Behind all of Tillis’ conservative rhetoric, these moderate Republican leaders all recognize Tillis as a future buddy, someone who will know his place and who won’t rock the boat too hard. Someone who wouldn’t dream of doing a silly thing like fighting tooth and nail to defund ObamaCare, because after all ObamaCare is just “a great idea that can’t be paid for.”

Notably, actual conservative reformers such as Senators Lee and Paul have instead chosen another candidate from North Carolina to join them in fighting for liberty in the Senate, Dr. Greg Brannon.