Before the official opening of the Values Voter Summit, early risers packed a breakfast sponsored by United in Purpose, an organization founded and funded by conservative venture capitalists to identify and turn out conservative Christian voters, and a major sponsor of the VVS.
UIP founder and GOP donor Ken Eldred told attendees that the 2018 election is about “judges, judges, judges,” adding that getting more conservative judges on the court “can change the whole nature of the country.”
Donald Trump said the most important election was the last one. But actually the most important election is this one. We have to take back--keep the House. We have to add to the Senate so we have the spine to accomplish the things we need to do.
“What is this all about? It’s about judges. It’s about judges, judges, judges. We had a great dinner last night with Mitch McConnell and the point he made is that the Senate is about personnel. That’s what they do. He said, you can pass laws, a tax law lasts four years. But if you can replace the judges, they last 20 or 30 years, and you can change the whole nature of the country.
The Democrats know that better than anybody else. And that’s why this huge battle is going on. Because the court has been the primary way of changing our nation, rather than passing laws, because they can’t get this stuff passed. It would never have passed. But if they can they get five judges they can pass anything. ...
Eldred than led a prayer in which he thanked God for the 2016 election results, saying there is no doubt in anyone’s mind in the room that it was God who gave us the 2016 results. He prayed that God would “give us another shot” and “guide and direct us so that we can bring this nation back to its roots, to its Christian values.”
“Open the door, Father, open the door for renewal and transformation that the Lord Jesus Christ would be the King of America once again,” he prayed.
Most of the breakfast session focused on the state of public opinion in key 2018 races and the ultimate importance of voter turnout. But the topic returned briefly to judges during the Q&A when someone asked how the battle currently raging over the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh might factor in.
Ralph Reed, a longtime conservative political operative, eagerly took the question:
I think this has totally whipsawed on the left, and on the Senate Democrats. I think not only the way they did it, by holding the allegation to the last minute and then dropping it after the FBI investigation had been done, and everything else. But also the way the attorneys, and the Democratic handlers...are handling this woman’s allegations, by essentially saying, ‘We have all these demands.’ Listen, if you have been the victim of assault, and this guy is about to go on the court, you’re willing to tell your story. They offered in private, they offered in public, they offered in open hearing, they offered to fly staff out to California and take affidavits.
And I think the American people, not just people like us, but all the American people, look at this process, which has been so corrupted, and so debased by the politics of personal destruction and by character assassination, I think people are watching this and going, ‘If you can do this to an altar boy and a Boy Scout like this, then you will destroy anyone or anything to advance your political interests. Count me out.’
