Ingraham pushes back on Palin primary threat

Conservative radio host Laura Ingraham, one of the high-profile certified non-moderates urging the GOP to support John Boehner's debt ceiling bill, leveled criticism at Sarah Palin during today's show for raising the prospect of 2012 primary challenges to House Republicans.

Palin published a Facebook message Thursday urging Republicans to stand firm on fiscal issues, adding: "Everyone I talk to still believes in contested primaries."


Though Palin didn't explicitly say that pro-Boehner Republicans should face challenges from the right, Ingraham argued in her broadcast that Palin's note was unhelpful to the GOP — and to the tea party.

"Well, just, watch out, 'Everyone I talk to still believes in contested primaries.' God bless her, Sarah Palin's saying that in a message she put out," Ingraham said.

She proceeded to run through a list of conservatives who have endorsed Boehner's plan, quipping sarcastically: "I guess we're threatening, implicitly, explicitly, Paul Ryan, Col. Allen West, Mike Pence is gonna be out of the House of Representatives. He'll be the governor of Indiana. Maybe we can run someone else as governor of Indiana, to run for the governorship, 'cause Pence is obviously a sellout. Can I have the whole list of sellouts? I need the list so I can make sure I understand who's going to get the primary challenge."

"It's a very odd way to go about things if we have a common goal," Ingraham continued, urging tea party-aligned Republicans to seek a "real and meaningful" role — "not just, ok, I'm the spoiler here. I stood on principle, everybody else is impure."

"You can stand on that soapbox and it might make you feel good in the moment. It make might you feel good to put out these Facebook postings," she said. "But in the end, does it actually advance your cause? And does it advance the cause of fiscal restraint, which I think we all have?"