January 24, 2010 05:42 PM UTC

Malkin Rips Jane Norton: "Milquetoast Establishment Republican"

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

Leading conservative columnist–and Colorado Springs transplant–Michelle Malkin unleashed a furious tirade Friday against what she calls “McCain Regression Syndrome” in the aftermath of last week’s GOP victory in the Massachusetts Senate race, speaking out against Sen. John McCain’s “clinging to the coattails” of the resurgent right flank of the Republican Party.

Malkin’s Exhibit A? Senate candidate Jane Norton, “the mini-McCain of Colorado.”

Pay attention: In the afterglow of the Massachusetts Miracle, there are flickers of peril for The Right. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but like Paul Revere’s midnight-message, consider this warning “a cry of defiance, and not of fear.” Conservatives have worked hard over the past year to rebuild after Big Government Republican John McCain’s defeat. But McCain isn’t going gently into that good night…

Savor the irony: After a career spent bashing the right flank of the party, Sen. McCain is now clinging to its coattails to save his incumbent hide.

And pay attention to the hidden, more troubling irony: While he runs to the right to protect his seat, McCain’s political machine is working across the country to install liberal and establishment Republicans to secure his legacy…

In Colorado, McCain and his meddlers infuriated the state party by anointing former lieutenant governor Jane Norton to challenge endangered Democrat Sen. Michael Bennet. She’s a milquetoast public official who has served on a lot of task forces and GOP clubs – and who happens to be the sister-in-law of big Beltway insider Charlie Black. An estimated 40 percent of her coffers are filled with out-of-state money (and much of that is flowing from the Beltway).

The mini-McCain of Colorado claims to oppose “special interests,” but has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from D.C. lobbyists at McCain’s behest – stifling the candidacy of strong conservative rivals led by grass-roots-supported Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck, an amnesty opponent whose aggressive illegal immigration prosecutions have earned him the rage of the far Left and big business Right. A recent Rasmussen poll showed Buck and another GOP candidate Tom Wiens beating Bennet – despite the huge cash and crony advantage of front-runner and blank-slate Jane…

Ouch! If Malkin is any indicator, it would seem that Norton’s recent string of bordering-on-silly fringe right policy prescriptions–“abolishing” the Department of Education, the federal government having “no role” in health care, etc.–aren’t exactly winning over the conservatives as intended. In fact, they might be in the process of blowing right past those contrivances.

Charlie Black, though? Where have we heard that name before? We find it particularly interesting that Michelle Malkin is using Mike Huttner’s talking points to hit Norton where it hurts the most, the iconoclastic conservative base–robbing Norton of the ‘anti-Washington’ energy last week’s election was supposed to be all about. Rather, Norton is identified as part of the problem…