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Kevin Igoe is the former deputy chief of staff of the Republican National Committee and former executive director of the Maryland Republican Party. He was a consultant to the successful 2014 campaign of Larry Hogan for governor and served as chief of staff of the Maryland Department of Budget and Management from 2015 to 2023. He wrote this column for The Baltimore Sun.
As the former deputy chief of staff of the Republican National Committee when Republicans gained 63 U.S. House seats to establish a governing majority, I know something about winning elections. Rep.Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican, does not.
I believe conservatives who believe she does are sleepwalking through their civic life and enabling America’s leftward drift. So, to be blunt, it is time for those conservatives to wake up!
Republicans need to come back to the concerns of real Americans. What matters is not the move to vacate, in congressional parlance. What matters is the price of the weekly grocery bill.
The Republican Party that I love and have spent my life working on behalf of, is in danger of being viewed by a significant number of flag-loving Americans as a bunch of spoiled immature brats who would rather argue among themselves than defeat their real opponents in political and policy debate.
Recently, Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who has won elections in a purple state, said that Greene “is dragging our brand down.” Tillis went on to call Greene “uninformed” and a “total waste of time.” U.S. Rep. Marc Molinaro, a New York Republican who represents a swing district, said that Greene’s political theater must “come to an end.”
There is a prerequisite to making public policy. It is called winning elections. In today’s America, winning elections does not start in the House Republican caucus. In fact, in a large part of America, winning elections ends there. The constant bickering, the infighting, the votes against moving legislation to the next level of the legislative process are self-defeating exercises that a huge majority of real Americans do not understand and care about even less. Now, Greene threatens to throw onto the political wreckage another grenade in the form of a vote to remove the conservative Republican Speaker of the House.
Marjorie Taylor Greene may be a clickbait leader in the basement of the Cannon House Office Building. However, she and her ilk are totally irrelevant in the produce and meat aisles of the Safeways, Wegmans, Giants, Publixes and Albertsons across the American heartland.
There is a peace-and-quiet vote out there, and the Chaos Caucus, led by Marjorie Taylor Greene, is driving it away from all Republicans, up and down the ballot.
Governing is about solving problems for hard-working American families. Until Republicans seize control of their messaging from Marjorie Taylor Greene and her amigos, including U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, my beloved conservative Republican philosophy will remain a minority view subject to self-inflicted ridicule by much of America. The Republican Party, and the conservative movement, will be better off when MTG comes to mean “Marginalizing Taylor Greene.”
