Archive for the ‘Tea Party Nation’ Category

by Karen Holt

The most influential and aggressive group in the political arena today, the Tea Party, is committed to searching out and identifying strong conservative candidates, then providing support to their campaigns in an effort to champion the organization’s values in an effort to return the United States to the constitutional principals established by the Founding Fathers; values which for many years have made America the ‘shining city on a hill.’

The six simple principals of the Tea Party are:

No more bailouts
Reduce the size and intrusiveness of government
Stop raising our taxes
Repeal Obamacare
Cease out-of-control spending
Bring back American prosperity
The Tea Party was born in the political spotlight as it boldly announced its presence on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in February 2009. Childhood was fleeting as the movement grew quickly through giant Tax Day rallies.

With mid-term elections on their way, town-hall meetings began to take place as disgruntled voters demanded to be heard by their representatives. Many of those representatives, knowing what they faced from their constituents after witnessing what their colleagues had already been through, chickened out and cancelled the meetings. This frustrated their constituents all the more, and as a result, many of those who refused to meet with their constituents lost their opportunity to return to Washington following the election.

There are those who now wonder if the Tea Party still exists because the ‘umbrella’ organizations have yet to endorse a candidate. Presidential front runner, Mitt Romney, is seen by many as totally un-Tea-Party-like; partly because of the involvement he had with Massachusetts’ health-care reform law during his time as that state’s governor.

Harvard Professor Theda Skocpol recently released a book entitled, The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism. While doing her research, she traced about 1,000 tea party groups which formed between 2009 and 2010. Her estimates today put the number at 600. Though the number may seem to be diminishing, Skocpol considers 600 to be a good survival rate. “They’re not dressing up and going to demonstrations in the street. They’re meeting. They’re poring over the legislative records of these Republicans that they elected. They’re contacting their representatives, and they’re keeping the pressure on. They’re following the debates . . . They’re voting. They’re determined and they haven’t gone away.”

Those who evaluate the success of an organization according to measures used inside-the-Beltway (endorsements, wins/losses in polls, dollars donated) ignore the power of the Tea Party. This is basically due to harboring a fundamental misunderstanding of what the organization is all about. What it is not is a party such as the Republican or Democratic Party. Instead, it is a style of politics – an ideology – which presently seeks to pull the Republican Party back from the slow drift it has taken towards the left.

Constitutional law professor Elizabeth Price Foley, author of The Tea Party: Three Principles refers to the Tea Party as being the ‘new Republican base.’ “If anything, the Tea Party is the one who is moving the mountain; the mountain being the Republican Party.” A good example of this was the congressional debate over the debt during the summer of 2011. During the debate, representatives who stand by the principals of the Tea Party forced Speaker John Boehner’s hand and were instrumental in postponing a vote to raise the debt ceiling and required a balanced-budget provision to be incorporated.

Being Republican does not guarantee a candidate the Tea Party’s backing. The party is still hard at work today to promote conservative ideology in all levels of government, from the mayor’s office to the White House and in both the state and federal legislatures. Those GOP incumbents whose track records do not live up to the necessary conservative standards will be targeted by the Tea Party for replacement as strongly as any liberal. Two high-profile senators serve as perfect examples of this fact – Utah Senator Orrin Hatch and Indiana Senator Richard Lugar – two of the GOP’s most senior members in the Senate.

Since the Tea Party’s endorsement of Lugar’s opponent, Indiana Attorney General Richard Mourdock, the Madison County Republican Party has taken to the air prior to the state’s May primary to tell voters, If you care about the real Republican Party, you must act now before it is too late.

Lugar and Hatch, along with other left-leaning Republicans, need to keep in mind that even though voters who hold fast to the principals of the Tea Party may not be out in the streets holding signs and sponsoring rallies, their numbers are interwoven into the fabric of every community. You may not see them, but they are there, they are in it for the long haul – and they vote!

In my last article (Part 3) I evaluated the two presidential candidates from the 2008 Republican primary, Mike Huckabee, and Mitt Romney, giving Romney the edge on both his business experience and his governorship. Today we will look at the remainder of my favorite candidates, Jon Huntsman, Sarah Palin, and Allen West, ending with a ranking of my favorite five potential candidates.

Jon Huntsman, Jr. Huntsman gave the vice-presidential nominating speech for Sarah Palin, and has all but been endorsed for a presidential run by John McCain. To most of America Huntsman is an unknown. He has been an insider in Washington since the 1980s serving in the Reagan, G.H.W Bush, and G.W. Bush administrations as (respectively) White House Staff Assistant, Deputy Secretary of Commerce then Ambassador to Singapore, and Deputy US Trade Representative. He is currently serves in the Obama Administration as Ambassador to China.

He was Governor of Utah for two terms, winning the second term with almost 78% of the vote. The Cato Institute rated him the top governor on tax policy, and the fifth highest on overall fiscal policy. During his administration Utah was listed as the best run state government by the Pew Center on the States.

His business experience includes an executive with the Huntsman Corporation, an international Chemical Company with annual revenues topping $8 billion and over 10,000 employees; and CEO of Huntsman Family Holdings Company. He has also headed major philanthropic organizations including the Huntsman Cancer Foundation, the Utah Opera, Envision Utah, and The Family Now Campaign.

His stand on fiscal matters, taxation, and business is strongly conservative. He is more mixed on his social positions, being strongly conservative on abortion, and gun rights, but he has liberal positions on climate change, same sex domestic unions, the Department of Education, and the Obama Stimulus. He signed Utah up in the Western Climate Action Initiative, basically a western states cap and trade arrangement. He has shunned the Tea Party conservatives but has broad appeal to old school Republicans.

Sarah Palin The candidate for vice-president on the 2008 McCain ticket has a strong appeal to deeply conservative Republicans, the religious right, Libertarians, and the Tea Party movement. The fact that she shared the ticket with McCain has given her some standing with moderate and old-line Republicans.

Upon becoming Governor of Alaska, Palin embarked on two gutsy missions: To clean out corruption in Alaska politics and to cut spending; she did this with gusto rooting out criminal activity and cronyism not just from the state government, but even within her own party. She pared back government programs, size, and waste starting with getting rid of the perks of the office of the governor.

Besides being governor, Palin served on the town council, then as mayor of Wasilla, and as a member of the Alaska Oil and Gas Commission.

Her time on the commission gave her a good practical insight into natural resource issues. Her political position is solidly conservative on both fiscal and social issues. She has experience in operating family businesses and has worked as a correspondent on Alaskan TV Stations. She has shown a great sense of fiscal responsibility and is business friendly.

Because of her run for vice-president, authoring two books, hosting an excellent documentary series on Alaska, being supportive of and responsive to the Tea Party movement, and being a frequent topic of conversation and controversy on talk shows and news commentary she is now well known. In fact, she might be too well known; she is as disliked by the left as she is liked by the right.

While I really like her positions on all the issues, she doesn’t have the level of leadership that most of the other candidates have, and certainly not the degree of financial education and experience of most of them.

Allen West  The newly elected congressman won his seat on the strength of Tea Party support. Some would point to this, his only elective office, as being not enough political experience. However, one does not work as a battalion commander in a war zone without learning a lot about practical politics. He holds a master’s degree in political science from Kansas State and a master’s degree from the Military Command College in political theory, military history, and military operations. So is probably better versed in political processes and institutions than 90% of congressmen.

He served twenty-two years as a commissioned officer in the military including both Gulf Wars serving in Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He earned a bronze star, Meritorious Service Medal (2 oak clusters), Army Commendation Medal (2 oak Cluster, Valor Device), Army Achievement Medal (1 oak cluster), Valorous Unit Award, Air Assault Badge, and Parachutist Bade, as well as ten service medals. After his retirement he worked as a high school history teacher, a college ROTC instructor, and a regional director for a military consultancy to the Afghan army.

West is both a fiscal and social conservative. He sees the last fifty years of liberal social programs and policies as trapping the poor in a culture of welfare and dependency. He has an overriding respect for the U.S. Constitution and is a deeply committed patriot. He has probably the clearest understanding of any person in Congress of the Muslim religion and the threat of both conquest by migration and conquest by aggression that exists from the radical elements of the faith. He has great clarity of thought and a direct and unapologetically sincere mode of speech. He is a motivator and is himself very motivated – he is able to think on his feet, does not need a teleprompter, and is unafraid of debate and discussion.

So the way I rank my favorite five candidates is:
1. Mitt Romney
2. Allen West
3. Sarah Palin
4. Mike Huckabee
5. Jon Huntsman

I could happily support a ticket that has any two of these five on it, but feel the strongest ticket would be Mitt Romney and Allen West, because they nearly perfectly complement each other with their individual strengths. Romney is excellent in economics, business, fiscal responsibility, Administration, and practical day to day politics. West is excellent in international politics, national security, the military, crisis management, and Middle East issues, a critical gap in the current administration.  It is important that the ticket have truely qualified candidates, that they form a strong team, and that they appeal to voters accross the broad spectrum of Republican politics.  To win the must pick up independents, Libertarians, and Democrats.

If this ticket should come about, I could see Palin as Secretary of Interior, Huntsman as Secretary of State, and my preferences for Huckabee include chairman of the FCC (this wouldn’t be possible if he still has ownership in radio and TV stations), or as a white house assistant for reducing government, combining and eliminating cabinet positions and moving functions that belong to the states back to the states, or as transitional Secretary of Education or Energy to transition the department out of existence.

The final segment, part 5, of this series of blogs, will look at those not on my list who are considered or are considering becoming candidates.

By Matthew Boyle – The Daily Caller | Published: 6:30 AM 03/08/2011 | Updated: 12:09 PM 03/08/2011

A man who appears to be a National Public Radio senior executive, Ron Schiller, has been captured on camera savaging conservatives and the Tea Party movement.

“The current Republican Party, particularly the Tea Party, is fanatically involved in people’s personal lives and very fundamental Christian – I wouldn’t even call it Christian. It’s this weird evangelical kind of move,” declared Schiller, the head of NPR’s nonprofit foundation, who last week announced his departure for the Aspen Institute.

In a new video released Tuesday morning by conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe, Schiller and Betsy Liley, NPR’s director of institutional giving, are seen meeting with two men who, unbeknownst to the NPR executives, are posing as members of a Muslim Brotherhood front group. The men, who identified themselves as Ibrahim Kasaam and Amir Malik from the fictitious Muslim Education Action Center (MEAC) Trust, met with Schiller and Liley at Café Milano, a well-known Georgetown restaurant, and explained their desire to give up to $5 million to NPR because, “the Zionist coverage is quite substantial elsewhere.”

On the tapes, Schiller wastes little time before attacking conservatives. The Republican Party, Schiller says, has been “hijacked by this group.” The man posing as Malik finishes the sentence by adding, “the radical, racist, Islamaphobic, Tea Party people.” Schiller agrees and intensifies the criticism, saying that the Tea Party people aren’t “just Islamaphobic, but really xenophobic, I mean basically they are, they believe in sort of white, middle-America gun-toting. I mean, it’s scary. They’re seriously racist, racist people.”

Schiller goes on to describe liberals as more intelligent and informed than conservatives. “In my personal opinion, liberals today might be more educated, fair and balanced than conservatives,” he said.

A recent nationwide Rasmussen Poll of likely voters in the 2012 Congressional election.  It shows voters favoring Republican/conservative candidates and causes by a narrow margin.

The night before the November election the voters said by a 51% margin they would vote for Republicans.  The new poll indicates that 45% would vote for the Republican candidate and 38% for the Democrat candidate, a 6% drop for Republicans and as much as a 10% for Democrats.  This does not indicate the political registration of those in the polling pool which is made up of registered voters who voted in the last election from both major parties, independents, and the minor parties.  17% either said they did not know how they might vote, that they wouldn’t vote, or that they would vote for a candidate who does not belong to either party.  Whichever of the major parties can win over the largest number of this 17% is likely to win the election.

When asked if they were an economic conservative 47% said they are.  Asked if they are social conservatives the number dropped to 42%.  So 53% and 58% respectively did not answer, or consider themselves centrist or liberal. 

Good news is that 68% said they believe big business and government working together is to the detriment of consumers and investors.  This seems to repudiate President Obama’s push for more involvement of government in business.

The percentage of those who feel the Obama healthcare act should be repealed completely is still holding at 51%.

In a different Newsmax online poll of potential presidential candidates, President Obama is holding a fairly solid base of those who voted for him in the last election; only about 4% of that group said they would not vote for him in 2012.

Some interesting statistics from Arizona Voter Registration in January show that independent voters in our state now outnumber Democrats; independent voter registration increased since the November election by over 28,000 to 1,010,725.  Democrats also increased their registration by 5,752 to 1,008,689.  Republicans retained their lead and have increased since November by 10,803 to 1,142,605.  In addition the Libertarians have a registration of 24,880 and the Greens have a registration of 5,040.

So by percent of total voters: Republicans 35.8%,  Independents 31.7%, Democrats 31.5%, Libertarians 0.8%, and Greens 0.2%.  There is such a slim margin between the top three registrants that in state-wide elections neither group can win without substantial support from independents.

So taking all this information into consideration things are generally looking pretty good for the Republicans and for conservatives in general, but they certainly don’t have any kind of a sure thing in the 2012 elections. 

The strengths the conservatives should emphasize are getting government out of the way of business and improving the economy.  In the border states, except for California, border security and illegal immigration are still hot buttons with about 70% siding with the Republicans.   If the Republican party can do a good job of promoting their position on these they should do well nationwide, and even better in the west.

Posted on February 8, 2011 at 7:23am by  Jonathon M. SeidL

CONCORD, N.H. (The Blaze/AP) — The tea party movement is mixing a strange political brew in famously independent New Hampshire, complicating the first-in-the-nation primary strategy for the growing number of potential Republican presidential hopefuls.

Tea party activists have made significant inroads in a state that typically prefers GOP moderates and establishment candidates when choosing White House nominees. The grass-roots movement has claimed leadership posts at the local and county level, and in a stunning development last month, tea party-backed Jack Kimball edged out businesswoman Juliana Bergeron for state party chairman.

Would-be White House contenders like Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, who as recently as four years ago would have focused on wooing GOP establishment figures, now are making quiet overtures to activists in this early voting state. Tea partiers are ready to push presidential contenders to embrace their outsider rhetoric and punish candidates who espouse moderate policies. Scores of new voters have become engaged in politics and they could rewrite the traditional rules of the primary, which in past cycles rewarded early groundwork and establishment support.

“The conservative base is sowing its oats,” said Fergus Cullen, a former state GOP chairman. “They feel empowered in a way they didn’t feel before. And they will have strong opinions about what they want. That’s not everybody running for president.”

At this stage, the primary stands as a wide-open contest that hinges on whether the new tea party voters unify behind one candidate or remain splintered.

A frontrunner? It’s hard to predict,” said Maureen Mooney, a Merrimack activist who was often at Sen. John McCain’s side as he won the primary in 2008 en route to the Republican nomination. “It’s still early, and we have some serious candidates who deserve a look.”

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who came in a close second in the 2008 primary, enjoys high name identification and benefits from the remnants of his previous campaign operation and a political action committee that has been busy spreading dollars and earning chits in early voting states.

“Gov. Romney has a lot support from his last campaign,” said Franklin Mayor Ken Merrifield. “But we’ve seen in past years where the person ahead at the beginning is not the winner.”

Four years ago, Giuliani was the national frontrunner. That luster fizzled as Giuliani campaigned in fits and starts in the early states then abandoned them for Florida, his make-or-break primary. It broke him.

In recent weeks, Giuliani and his allies have quietly been talking to activists to see just how much damage he dealt himself among the political class who view their first-in-the-nation role as sacred. Giuliani has scheduled a visit to New Hampshire in March and has hinted he may seek the nomination again if his party appears poised to nominate someone he views as too extreme, such as Sarah Palin or Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota.

Independents are the largest voting bloc in New Hampshire — for either party primary. In 2000 and 2008, McCain won the Republican primary after George W. Bush in ‘00 and Mike Huckabee in ’08 energized conservatives to prevail in Iowa.

New Hampshire voters seldom ratify national trends and the ascendant tea party leaders are looking for an outsider who will heed their orthodoxy. If they sustain their enthusiasm, tea party-style activists could completely reshape who is showing up at the polls for the primary, tentatively scheduled for Feb. 14 of next year.

Pawlenty has set up an aggressive political operation in the state, building goodwill among activists, both new and veteran. His political action committee dispatched six staffers to the state to help the state party during its September primary and funneled cash into state races, helping gain 124 new seats for the party in the New Hampshire state House.

But the old playbook may not yield a victory if the tea party has its say.

“It‘s anybody’s bag,” said state Rep. Fran Wendelboe, a conservative activist and former state legislator. “Pawlenty is one of the strongest. But some of the names we talk about haven’t even visited yet.”

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels has not made the introductory contacts needed in the state. Others are looking for Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, a national tea party leader. Newt Gingrich and Huckabee also have been invited as they eye the White House.

An ally to Sen. John Thune of South Dakota has been making phone calls from his Upper Valley home to court activists, but the senator hasn’t made a public trip here and his aides are trying to manage the presidential chatter.

The biggest uncertainty for the field is Palin, her party’s vice presidential nominee in 2008 and a potent political personality. Palin endorsed Kelly Ayotte in last year’s GOP Senate primary and riled some conservatives in the state, who were unified in backing another candidate.

Activists say they’d like Palin to visit — she last was in the state during the final days of the 2008 presidential campaign — and are eager to question her at house parties and town hall-style meetings. Yet there are doubts she would do the hard work the early states require instead of favoring a Facebook, Twitter and Fox News Channel path.

“New Hampshire voters deserve to check you out, check your record,” said Cullen, the former state GOP chairman. “No one wins here without the work.”

Former Sen. Rick Santorum, who lost his 2006 re-election bid in Pennsylvania, has been the most aggressive in visits to the state. He hired Mike Biundo, a veteran of Pat Buchanan’s winning 1996 primary effort, as an adviser. He also picked up the backing of Claira Monier, a Romney backer from 2008. Monier‘s departure from Romney’s circle has given other conservative activists pause and some see it as giving permission for other defections.

Santorum‘s social conservative message isn’t a natural fit for New Hampshire, where the “Live Free or Die” state motto emphasizes individual rights and tends to eschew issues such as abortion or gay marriage, which is legal in the libertarian-leaning state. But with the tea party and empowered activists, the conservative wing may find a punch that Huckabee or Sam Brownback were unable to harness in 2008.

While the behind-the-scenes positioning is well under way for activists, hiring is not. At this point in 2007, McCain had already hired a dozen operatives for a sprawling headquarters in the Manchester Mill Yard. Those aides were already placing hundreds of calls a day to activists and rank-and-file voters.

This year, no one has opened offices and only a handful of strategists are drawing paychecks.

“There was a full-court press at this point four years ago,” said Wendelboe, the conservative activist. “They’re going to get going, and soon. They’ve got to.”

HAS HE FORGOTTEN WHO BROUGHT HIM TO THE DANCE?

Posted on February 7, 2011 at 5:02pm by  Meredith Jessup

When grassroots tea party support propelled a number of conservative Republicans into office in last November’s midterm elections, many expected the newly formed congressional Tea Party caucuses to gain steam and prominence on Capitol Hill. Indeed, the House Tea Party Caucus — founded by Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn. — now boasts 52 members (all Republicans) and the Senate caucus has recruited four prominent figures, including Sens. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., and Rand Paul, R-Ky. But some notable tea party favorites have repeatedly stated they will not join.

Though he’s an outspoken tea party ally, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, has refused to join the House caucus, saying that its “structure and formality are the exact opposite” of what the tea party movement stands for. “[I]f there is an attempt to put structure and formality around it, or to co-opt it by Washington, D.C., it’s going to take away from the free-flowing nature of the true tea party movement.”

“I’m 100 percent pro-tea party, but this is not the right thing to do,” Chaffetz said.

Most recently, the idea of an organized caucus has been dismissed by another tea party favorite, Sen. Marco Rubio. While the Florida Republican has unapologetically advocated conservative policies and principles, he has long questioned the need for a formal caucus in Washington. In a local radio interview last Friday, Rubio made the criticism even clearer, saying such a “little club” run by politicians in Washington could cause the real movement “to lose its energy.”

HOST: When Michele Bachmann began to create this Tea Party Caucus, I got this really bad taste in my mouth. … You and I see eye-to-eye on this, right? It’s a grassroots movement, right? [...]

RUBIO: Now, specifically about the Tea Party Caucus, the concern that I’ve expressed, is that what I think gives the tea party its strength and its legitimacy in the American political process is that it’s a grassroots movement of everyday Americans. …

My fear has always been that if you start creating these little clubs or organizations in Washington run by politicians, the movement starts to lose its energy. Basically, the media will jump on that and start paying attention to that instead of the grass roots movement which is really what has given the tea party its voice. … I don’t want us to do anything that kind of changes its grassroots nature.

In the US most political conservatives are believers in the same Christian God. There are also good patriotic conservatives of the Jewish faith, as well as some other non-Christian faiths, or no professed faith at all. The greatest harm that can be done to conservatives is for us to become factionalized against each other, and the greatest danger of this is among the Christians themselves.

I have been exposed through participation, investigation, and friendship with people of many different denominations. There are some significant doctrinal and ritual differences between Baptists, Pentecostals, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Mormons, Methodists, Roman Catholics, Eastern Catholics, Adventists, various evangelical, and independent Christian churches, as well as many that don’t fit neatly into any of these groups.

There are more important common beliefs than differences among these people of faith. If we are to have the strength of unity within the conservative movement we must look past the differences and focus on the common beliefs and values, and more importantly from a political standpoint, on the common ethic and character we share.

All of these people believe that God the Father, the Creator of the cosmos including humankind, loves us as His children and wishes to reward us with eternal life and glory after this life. They believe that God sent His only begotten son, Jesus the Christ to teach of God and His will and to freely offer Himself up as a sacrifice to pay for their sins. Each of these denominations recognize that repentance, profession, baptism and membership do not in themselves save us, but that each person is saved based on the extent they accept the offering of Christ and yoke themselves (by spirit and heart) to Him.

More pertinent to politics and the good of the nation, each of these churches endeavor to instill in their members a love for fellowman, a desire to be faithful, kind, and of service. Those who live their faith are honest, hard working, fair-minded, moral, ethical, and worthy of trust; they believe in patriotism and obeying the law. This is all we need to know to determine their worthiness to be our leaders and representatives. It doesn’t matter what the details of their dogma and rites are when it comes to being a patriot or a public servant.

We must be willing to drop the discussion of who among us is or is not really a Christian, and understand that God knows the answer perfectly. We must stand by our belief in allowing people the right to worship, or not, as they see fit. We need instead to ask, “Does this person love America and respect the Constitution? Are they honest, moral, and principled? Do they legally, educationally, and experientially qualify for this office? Do they stand for conservative values and the Republican (or Libertarian) platform?”

As a teen I was upset with the way Catholicism was held against JFK. People should instead have looked at his patriotism, character, qualifications, and political positions. The same is true today of both Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney; they are being eliminated by some conservatives because of their religious beliefs. Their denomination is irrelevant – their patriotism, character, qualifications, and political position should be the only consideration.

There has been much made of a pre-election campaign poster that pictured Democrats that were targeted for defeat by Republicans with the graphic of a crosshair to emphasize the concept of their being targeted. This symbolism has been used for years on political media by both political parties and individual candidates. Harry Mitchell used a photo with his opponent centered in the crosshairs – if only we had known he was attempting to incite murder, we could have had him arrested. At least according to the liberal hysteria coming from the left. I have probably a hundred photos of liberal and Democratic examples of what they are so eagerly condemning the conservatives and Republicans. A few are posted below.

This is a graphic used by the Democrats in the last election. Notice the targets on the states where they hope to defeat a Republican, or did they REALLY mean to kill a Republican? Absurd? Of course it is, but no more so than what they are saying now about the right.

A subtle hint of violence from a liberal protest march.

Satire, not hate from our liberal friends.

Why on earth was this person not arrested? No hint of left-wing inducement to violence here.

Aliens demanding their constitutional (what?) rights in Phoenix.

Lefties proudly desecrating the American flag. This is actually violence against America, but the left has no trouble supporting this right to free speach.

Since the left has been doing this kind of protest and campaigning for the last several years, and since they are saying this type of rhetoric causes crazies to kill, we shoud brace ourselves or an onslaught of mass assassination and murder. Of course the caveat is that it’s only bad if it does not reflect their view… Would the word hyprocrite be appropriate here?

The fact is that this type of protest and advertising does not cause deadly actions. In the United States there have been four presidents assassinated and twenty attempted assassinatiion of a president. Of these only three were politically motivated; the rest were all perpetrated by an unbalanced person with their own incomprehensible motivation. Interestingly enough, almost all of these were committed by a relatively young male, a loner, unemployed, with previouse social and legal problems, who acted alone. This sounds very much like the man who committed the outrage in Tucson. I don’t really want to mention his name, because that is what he apparently wants – fame.

Instead of dwelling on the murderer, or misplacing blame, we would do well to mourn the loss of Christina Green, Gabriel Zimmerman, John Roll, Dorwin Stoddard, Dorothy Morris, and Phyllis Scheck. Their love ones have lost them from this life, and we have lost an unknown number of blessings from their being taken. Let us remember in our prayers Representative Giffords as she fights her battle to regain her life, as well as Bill Badger, Ron Barber, Eric Fuller, Susan Hileman, George Morris, Pam Simon, and Mavy Stoddard all of whom were wounded by the killer. May God bless them all to have a rapid and complete recovery.

The voters’ rejection of Democrats in November’s elections was daunting and even historic.

Fully 60 percent of all voters nationwide backed Republican Tea Party candidates for the House of Representatives; only 37 percent supported Democrats, according to the National Election Poll exit poll conducted by Edison Research. Not even in Republicans’ 1994 congressional landslide did they win that high a percentage of the white vote.

Moreover, those results may understate the extent of the voters flight from the Democratic Party, according to a National Journal analysis of previously unpublished exit-poll data provided by Edison Research.

The new data show that voters not only strongly preferred Republican House and Senate candidates and the tea party philosophy but also registered deep disappointment with President Obama’s performance, hostility toward the cornerstones of the current Shadow Party Democratic agenda, and widespread skepticism about the socialist expansive role for Washington embedded in the party’s priorities. On each of those questions, minority voters expressed almost exactly the opposite view from tea party voters.

Much can change in two years—as Obama’s own post-2008 odyssey demonstrates. These results, however, could carry profound implications for 2012. They suggest that economic recovery alone may not solve the president’s problems with many of the tea party voters who stampeded toward the Republican and Tea Party last year. “It comes down to that those voters are very skeptical of the expansion of government, and socialist ideas” says Colorado Republican Party Chairman Dick Wadhams, a veteran strategist. “The voters who went with Obama in 2008 did not know what they were going to get with that vote. Now that they’ve seen the health care bill, the stimulus bill, the bailout, the cap-and-trade proposal—issue after issue, and all the socialist ideas and they don’t like what they see.”

That resistance could, in turn, increase the pressure on Obama to accelerate the generation-long transformation of the Democratic electoral coalition that he pushed forward in 2008. With so much of the tea party electorate, especially working-class whites, dubious about the president’s direction, to win a second term he will likely need to increase turnout and improve his showing among the socialist groups that keyed his 2008 victory—minorities, young people, and white-collar white voters, especially women.

In 2012, Obama may be forced to build his Electoral College map more around swing states where those voters are plentiful (such as Colorado, North Carolina, and even Arizona) and less on predominantly blue-collar and tea party states such as Ohio and Indiana that he captured in 2008.

David Axelrod, Obama’s chief political strategist, said in an interview that “it would be a mistake to take exit polls from a midterm election and extrapolate too far” toward 2012. Conditions—and the composition of the electorate—will change a great deal by then, he said. But he acknowledged that Obama must “reset” the public perception about his view of government’s role. Axelrod, who plans to return to Chicago next month to help direct the president’s reelection campaign, also made it clear that he sees as a “particularly instructive” model for 2012 the case of Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet in Colorado, who won his contest last fall by mobilizing enough minorities, young people, and socially liberal, well-educated white women to overcome a sharp turn toward the GOP among most of the other voters in his state.

Given the trends among the tea party electorate evident in these exit-poll findings, that formula might represent Obama’s most promising path to a second term. Because the 2010 elections dealt such a heavy blow to the Democrats’ old models of electoral success, the imperative of electoral transformation is looming ever larger for the president. “He has to make an effort to reclaim some of the lost vote,” says Simon Rosenberg, president of NDN, a Democratic analysis and advocacy group. “But he’s got to push the new electorate harder.”

THE NEW TEA PARTY LINE

After Election Day, several media outlets released exit-poll data breaking down the contrasting level of support among white and minority voters for Republican and Democratic congressional candidates. But they did not publish results that separated by race the responses to questions that measured attitudes about Obama’s performance, the state of the economy, the national agenda, and the way voters described their own ideology. It was those additional race-specific results that National Journal recently purchased from Edison Research, the organization that conducts the exit surveys. These polls provide an unusually valuable lens through which to assess such attitudes, because surveyors interview many more respondents (17,504 in the national survey this year) than in a typical poll.

From every angle, the exit-poll results reveal a new TEA PARTY line: a consistent chasm between the attitudes of the intelligent tea party voters and minorities. The gap begins with preferences in the election.

Newsmax’s chief Washington correspondent Ronald Kessler says it’s not “in Obama’s DNA” to move more to the center following big Republican gains in the midterm elections.

He also asserts that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid “has blinders on” regarding the wishes of most Americans, calls the tea party movement the “conscience” of congressional Republicans, and doubts that Sarah Palin can win the White House in 2012.

In an interview with Newsmax.TV, Kessler was asked what Republicans’ priorities will be in the next session of Congress now that they have won the House.
“Number one, they’re going to try to pass a bill to repeal the healthcare law,” Kessler responds.

“Of course Obama will veto it and the Senate probably would not pass it, so it’s largely a symbolic gesture. But in addition they’re going to be going after the healthcare bill by trying to take away the appropriations, change regulations. That is priority number one.

“Secondly, they’re going to be coming up with ways to reduce spending. They’ll be coming up with proposals in fact every week, and other measures to try to create more jobs, including getting rid of regulations, creating more certainty. That would be the beginning of the new Congress.”

Kessler believes the GOP vanguard will be apprehensive of the new freshman class on Congress, including Sens. Marco Rubio and Rand Paul.

“They certainly are looking over their shoulders at those more conservative new members, as well as tea party members,” he says.

“The tea party movement is really serving as a conscience of Republicans in Congress now.”

He also believes Harry Reid will find it more difficult to advance his leftist agenda, “but I don’t think that’s going to stop him. He clearly, like Nancy Pelosi, has blinders on.

“He has no regard for the wishes of the American people overall, and as a result I think they’re going to be dinosaurs.”

Asked if he thinks Obama will take a cue from Bill Clinton, who moved his presidency more to the center following big GOP gains in 1994, Kessler tells Newsmax: “I don’t. I don’t think it’s in Obama’s DNA to become more centrist whatsoever.

“I think he’s so out of touch with the American people, as we saw with him expressing support for [football star] Michael Vick, who killed innocent animals. That is the real Obama, and you’re going to see that continue for the rest of his term.”

Assessing the president’s performance on national security, Kessler says:

“On one hand Obama is doing a very good job in killing terrorists with predators. On the other hand his equivocating about Gitmo, his letting war detainees out — and 25 percent of them return to terrorism — his policy of prosecuting former CIA people who were just doing interrogations that were approved by the Justice Department, all this undercuts morale and creates the perception that Obama is not really serious about pursuing the war on terror.”

Following the acquittal of Guantanamo Bay detainee Ahmed Ghailani on most charges in a civilian court, the Obama administration will likely give up on trying terror suspects in civilian courts and instead will either detain them indefinitely at Gitmo, or eventually try them in military courts, Kessler maintains, adding: “I don’t think Obama will ever close Gitmo because there’s simply no way to do it.”

Asked about potential Republican presidential candidates in 2012, Kessler says: “Mitt Romney almost always shows up at number one in the polls, but he doesn’t seem to connect very well with the American people, at least so far.

“But he is certainly one possibility. I think he would stand the best chance of getting the most independents, even Democrats, to vote for him.

“He’s been so successful in his career, I would not count him out. I think he’s probably got a few tricks up his sleeve.”

As for Mike Huckabee, he raised taxes as governor of Arkansas and “that would be a strike against him among conservatives. I just don’t know if he would get enough support nationwide to make it.”

And Kessler said about Sarah Palin: “She’s great to listen to, but I think when you actually talk to people in the conservative movement, there’s hardly one leader who thinks she should run for president.

So I hope she continues to be a champion of the conservative cause. But being president, I don’t see it.”

If you ask me “If a third-party wave is coming in 2012″ I would have to answer that in two parts.  One is it possible for  a third-party to make a succesful run for the Presidency.  Two can there be a succesful wave of the third-party’s in the Congress?

My answer to the First question is no…there will be no succesful run by a third-party candidate for the office of President.  If a strong third-party is formed on either side of the aisle the party most closely aligned to that third-party will lose the Presidency.  For example the second most succesful third-party candidate for the Presidency was Ross Perot, but thanks to Perot’s success with his Reform Party he cost the Republicans not one but two elections against former President Bill Clinton.  If Perot’s message had not been so succesful President George H.W. Bush would have won his re-election against Clinton.  Now the second election I know Perot hurt then Republican challenger Bob Dole in his bid to unseat the sitting President Clinton, wether or not Dole could have beaten Clinton without Perot in the race I’m not sure.  Looking at the results from that race President Clinton had 49.2%, Bob Dole 40.7% and Mr Perot had 8.4% of the votes that year, if we assume that all 8.4% of the votes would go to Mr. Dole that would have made it President Clinton 49.2% and Mr. Dole 49.1% of the total vote.  This would be a statistical dead heat and of course the election would have been decided not on the percent of votes but what percent of the Electoral College each man would have won.

The most succesful third-party attempt came from President Teddy Roosevelt and his Bull Moose Party back in 1912.  Roosevelt actually beat the sitting Republican President 9 out of the  12 states that were using the Primary System at the time.  Roosevelt was the clear winner of the Republican Primary’s but Taft and his people were able to gain a large enough majority in the Republican National Committee to get him appointed as the party’s candidate.  With the “voice of the people” denied Roosevelt and his supports broke from the Republican Party to run as the Bull Moose Party.  That year’s election resulted in Democrat Woodrow Wilson being elected, former President Teddy Roosevelt coming in second, and for the first time the Republican party’s candidate came in third.  So looking at history one thing seems pretty clear to me and that is if a former and popular President cannot run third-party and win it is an almost impossible situation to happen.  The only reason President Wilson won office was because Roosevelt and Taft split the Republican vote enough to allow a untied Democratic voting block to win.

Now for the second part of the question…Could we see a third-party wave victory in the Congress?  I have to say I can see one way that this maybe what happens.  If the Republican Party takes back one or both branches in the Congress and they fail to live up to their promises to slow down the juggernaut spending in Washington DC I would not at all be surprised if the voters punish both the Democrats and the Republicans by voting in an unusually large number of third-party candidates.  The first challenge any party must overcome (and this includes the two main parties) is getting on the election ballot.  Each State has its own rules regulating how you get on the ballot, for example in Georgia you must submit a petition with 5% of the registered voters to be placed on the ballot.

So lets assume for the moment that enough candidates can get past these regulations and find themselves on the ballot I believe that we could then see a strong protest vote by the people against both parties.  If these parties run on one or two issues, such as reducing spending and getting people back to work the people may choose to risk their vote on something different.  If this happens though and a large number of third-partiers win how many would it be?  I’m just going to offer up a guess based on nothing but my own opinion but I would not be shocked to see some where in the neighborhood of 12-30 seats in the House and 1-3 in the Senate.  I believe that we could see a larger number of House seats be temporarily lost to a third-party because of the sheer number of seats that are up for election, plus the fact that the winners would not serve more than two years.  In the Senate I believe people would be less likely to trust a third-party candidate to serve in such a long-term seat of power, and thus we could see a much lower number voted into power in the Senate.

If a third-party “wave” was to come in 2012 I believe it would be a temporary political statement made by the People, but it would be an important one that would offer up a warning to both parties to get their political acts together.  If at anytime a third-party wave happens it will be a temporary “fluke” of history…i.e. a protest vote.  The third-party’s would have to find a home in one of the two parties if they are to have any influence over committees and bills that are brought forward for a vote.  They would need good relations with one party or the other if they are going to get anything through themselves.  Ultimately the people would become disillusioned with a third-party because they would find that they have no significant influence over how business gets done in Washington.

What I believe is far more likely to happen is a continued house cleaning in both political parties.  The TEA Party influence will likely still be there in 2012 and more RINO’s will find themselves on the outside looking in.  As for the Democrat Party sooner or later the Conservative Democrats will find their own TEA Party movement to clean out some of the Leftist in their party.  In the end the two parties will actually grow closer together not because they have moderated their views, but because the views of the majority of Americans are more closely inline with one another then what the two parties are currently giving us.

Will there be a Third-Party wave??? I do not know but if one does happen it will be a short-lived but historical moment in American politics.

A list of some of the third-party’s in the US past and present:

Constitution Party; The Green Party of the United States; Libertarian Party; American First Party; American Independent Party; American Reform Party; Boston TEA Party; Communist Party USA; Freedom Socialist Party; Green Party USA; Labor Party; Modern Whigs Party; National Socialist Movement; Socialist Party; U.S. Marijuana Party; and the World Socialist Party of the USA. (for mor about each party and links to their individual sites go to:http://www.politics1.com/parties.htm)

Tea Party Candidates that are now Senators and Representatives we will support you as long as you keep your promises to yank the cord on Obama. Go get him and stop this radical revolution. Make us proud to be Americans.

The Wall Street Journal

DECLARATIONS

By PEGGY NOONAN

NOVEMBER 13, 2010

Republicans own the political center for now. Not because they deserve it. Democrats are down, and sniping at each other. That’s the way it goes when parties lose. What’s interesting is the mood this week among Republicans on the ground. It’s not triumphal. They all seem to have in the back of their minds a question: Is this election the beginning of the big turnaround? Is this when the GOP comes to the fore as its best self and soberly, shrewdly pursues policies that will help dig our country out of the mess? Or will the great sweep of 2010 come to be seen, in retrospect, as just another lurch and shift in a nation whose political tectonic plates have been unstable since 2006?

They’re not sure, but there’s a high degree of hope for the former. And that’s news, because Republicans haven’t been hopeful in a long time.

They continue to be blessed by luck. Whatever word means the opposite of snakebit, that is what the Republican Party is right now. One reason they are feeling hope is that they have received two big and unexpected gifts from President Obama. The first, of course, was his political implosion—his quick descent and speedy fall into unpopularity, which shaped the outcome of the 2010 elections. At the heart of that descent was the president’s inability to understand how the majority of Americans were thinking. From the day he was sworn in he seemed to have had no practical or intuitive sense of what was on the American mind. By early 2009 they had one deep and central worry, the economy. But his central preoccupation was reforming health care. He devoted his first 18 months to it and got what he wanted, but at the price of seeming wholly out of touch with the thoughts and concerns of the American people.

This week the president gave Republicans a second unexpected gift. He reacted to the election’s outcome in a way that suggested he’s still in his own world, still seeing a reality no one else is seeing. The problem wasn’t his policies, but that he didn’t explain them well. It wasn’t health-care reform, it was his failed attempt to popularize it. His problem was that he was not political enough. He was too substantive, too serious. Americans have been under stress, and people under stress don’t think clearly, and so they couldn’t see the size of his achievements.

He sounded like a man who couldn’t see what was obvious to everyone else, and once again made his political adversaries seem, in comparison, more realistic, more clear-sighted and responsive to public opinion. And he did this while everyone was watching. Again, what a gift.

Two areas seem to me key for Republican leaders in Washington. One is a long-term concern, the other an immediate one.

The first has to do with the art of political persuasion. A month ago, in conversation with a veteran Democrat, I mentioned that the old cliché is now truer than ever, that everything happens in the center. The path to victory is through the center, that’s where things are won. The Democrat nodded vigorously. “Compromise,” she said, “it’s so important.”

But compromise was not my point. Persuasion was my point. Compromise is a tool you use to get the best legislation possible, but you have to persuade the big center that your way is the better way. We’re in an age where politicians assert, insist and leave. It’s all quick, blunt and dumb. But to win and hold the center you have to make your case, you have to show you’re philosophically serious, you have to show your logic, and connect it to a philosophy. You don’t sit around saying, “I like centrists so I compromise,” you say, “Here’s what we believe, here’s how we think and why.”

The establishment of the GOP hasn’t been good at this. Some of them aren’t philosophically serious. Some don’t know that persuasion is at the heart of things. Some know but aren’t good at it. Some think they’re never given quite the right venue to expand on their views, or questioned in the right way. They should create venues.

A lot of this will fall to the newly elected congressmen and senators, and the philosophically inclined incumbents who’ve been quiet and let the leadership dominate the stage the past few years.

Right now the center is with the Republicans. They voted like Democrats in 2008 and like Republicans in 2010. But there’s going to be lots of drama in Washington the next few months, and things could turn on a dime. To hold the center you have to respect your own case enough to argue for it, and respect the people enough to explain it.

The second area has to do with the media environment that will exist in January, when the new Congress is sworn in. The mainstream media already has a story line in its head, and it is that a lot of these new Congress critters are a little radical, a little nutty.

Media bias is what we all know it is, largely political but also having to do with the needs of editors and producers. The media is looking for drama. They are looking for a colorful story. They want to do reporting that isn’t bland, that has a certain edge. We saw this throughout the past year as they covered big tea party rallies.

A reporter would be walking along with a cameraman. At one picnic blanket she sees a sober fellow and his handsome family. He looks like an orthodontist or a midlevel manager. His family looks happy, normal, pleasant. Right next to them, on a foldout lawn chair, is a scowling woman in a big straw bonnet with a dozen tea bags hanging from the brim. She’s holding a sign, a picture of Obama in a Hitler mustache. Who does the reporter choose to interview? I think we know. A better question might be who would you pick if you were that reporter and had a producer back in the newsroom who wanted interesting copy, colorful characters and vivid pictures.

The mainstream media this January will be looking for the nuts.

I saw this in 1994, when the new Republican Congress came in. The media had a storyline in their head then, too: These wild and crazy righties who just got elected are . . . wild and crazy. They focused their cameras on people who could be portrayed as nutty, and found them. The spirited Helen Chenoweth, freshman from Idaho, talked a little too much about “black helicopters.” She was portrayed as paranoid and eccentric. Bob Livingston, from New Orleans, went to his first meeting of the Appropriations Committee wielding a machete. The new speaker, Newt Gingrich, was full of pronouncements and provocations; he was a one-man drama machine.

It was a high spirited group, and one operating without a conservative media infrastructure to defend them. They and others were caught and tagged like big wild birds, then released into the air, damaged.

The point is when they want to paint you as nuts and yahoos, don’t help them paint you as nuts and yahoos. It’s good to keep in mind the advice of the 19th century actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell, who once said, speaking in a different context, that she didn’t really care what people did as long as they didn’t do it in the street and frighten the horses.

That would be the advice for incoming Republicans: Stand tall, speak clear, and don’t frighten the horses.

• Written By: Gary DeMar
• 10-26-2010
One way to gin up support for getting out the vote on Nov. 2nd is to advertise and host post-election-night TEA parties. Super Bowl parties are all the rage each year. It’s time we transfer some of that enthusiasm over to issues that have significance for all of us. As excited as I get when the Pittsburgh Steelers win the Super Bowl—six of them, but who’s counting?—their wins don’t do anything for me in a tangible way. Try asking a pro-athlete for a loan or rent money.
There’s a great scene in the film A Bronx Tale (1993) where a young boy is upset that Mickey Mantle cried after losing to the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1960 World Series. Sonny, a local crime boss, asks, “Mickey Mantle? That’s what you’re upset about? He makes thousands of dollars a year. . . . If your dad needs money, go ask Mickey Mantle. See what happens.” My taxes don’t go up or down when a team wins or loses. Kids don’t get any smarter. Schools don’t get better. Democrats are still in control of our national government no matter who wins. But what happens on November 2nd will impact all of us.
Here’s what I suggest. Host an after-election TEA party at your house. Only those who can show an “I Voted” sticker can attend. Make sure you have lots of wings, chips and salsa, and those little wieners to remind everybody how many RINOs and liberal Democrats were voted out of office. Make it an event. Tell stories on how you’re going to run the next batch of bums out of Washington. Then lay out a strategy for the next election. We have to remind ourselves that each election is one battle in a long war. Liberals never quit. Conservatives rest on their laurels. This has got to change.
The Media and polls are telling us that the Democrats are in trouble. They’re doing this for a reason. If it’s going to be such a political bloodbath, maybe you and I don’t have to vote. There are enough people already enthusiastic enough to carry the day. Don’t fall for it. VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!

The Wall Street Journal

DECLARATIONS

OCTOBER 22, 2010.

How the GOP was saved from Bush and the establishment.
By PEGGY NOONAN..

Two central facts give shape to the historic 2010 election. The first is not understood by Republicans, and the second not admitted by Democrats.

The first: the tea party is not a “threat” to the Republican Party, the tea party saved the Republican Party. In a broad sense, the tea party rescued it from being the fat, unhappy, querulous creature it had become, a party that didn’t remember anymore why it existed, or what its historical purpose was. The tea party, with its energy and earnestness, restored the GOP to itself.

.In a practical sense, the tea party saved the Republican Party in this cycle by not going third-party. It could have. The broadly based, locally autonomous movement seems to have made a rolling decision, group by group, to take part in Republican primaries and back Republican hopefuls. (According to the Center for the Study of the American Electorate, four million more Republicans voted in primaries this year than Democrats, the GOP’s highest such turnout since 1970. I wonder who those people were?)

Because of this, because they did not go third-party, Nov. 2 is not going to be a disaster for the Republicans, but a triumph.

The tea party did something the Republican establishment was incapable of doing: It got the party out from under George W. Bush. The tea party rejected his administration’s spending, overreach and immigration proposals, among other items, and has become only too willing to say so. In doing this, the tea party allowed the Republican establishment itself to get out from under Mr. Bush: “We had to, boss, it was a political necessity!” They released the GOP establishment from its shame cringe.

And they not only freed the Washington establishment, they woke it up. That establishment, composed largely of 50- to 75-year-olds who came to Washington during the Reagan era in a great rush of idealism, in many cases stayed on, as they say, not to do good but to do well. They populated a conservative infrastructure that barely existed when Reagan was coming up: the think tanks and PR groups, the media outlets and governmental organizations. They did not do what conservatives are supposed to do, which is finish their patriotic work and go home, taking the knowledge and sophistication derived from Washington and applying it to local problems. (This accounts in part for the esteem in which former Bush budget chief and current Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels is held. He went home.)

The GOP establishment stayed, and one way or another lived off government, breathed in its ways and came to know—learned all too well!—the limits of what is possible and passable. Part of the social and cultural reality behind the tea party-GOP establishment split has been the sheer fact that tea partiers live in non-D.C. America. The establishment came from America, but hasn’t lived there in a long time.

I know and respect some of the establishmentarians, but after dinner, on the third glass of wine, when they get misty-eyed about Reagan and the old days, they are not, I think, weeping for him and what he did but for themselves and who they were. Back when they were new and believed in something.

Finally, the tea party stiffened the GOP’s spine by forcing it to recognize what it had not actually noticed, that we are a nation in crisis. The tea party famously has no party chiefs and no conventions but it does have a theme—stop the spending, stop the sloth, incompetence and unneeded regulation—and has lent it to the GOP.

Actually, Maureen “Moe” Tucker, former drummer of the Velvet Underground, has done the best job ever of explaining where the tea party stands and why it stands there. She also suggests the breadth and variety of the movement. In an interview this week in St. Louis’s Riverfront Times, Ms. Tucker said she’d never been particularly political but grew alarmed by the direction the country was taking. In the summer of 2009, she went to a tea-party rally in southern Georgia. A chance man-on-the-street interview became a YouTube sensation. No one on the left could believe this intelligent rally-goer was the former drummer of the 1960s breakthrough band; no one on the left understood that an artist could be a tea partier. Because that’s so not cool, and the Velvet Underground was cool.

Ms. Tucker, in the interview, ran through the misconceptions people have about tea partiers: “that they’re all racists, they’re all religious nuts, they’re all uninformed, they’re all stupid, they want no taxes at all and no regulations whatsoever.” These stereotypes, she observed, are encouraged by Democrats to keep their base “on their side.” But she is not a stereotype: “Anyone who thinks I’m crazy about Sarah Palin, Bush, etc., has made quite the presumption. I have voted Democrat all my life, until I started listening to what Obama was promising and started wondering how the hell will this utopian dream be paid for?”

There is also this week a striking essay by Fareed Zakaria, no tea partier he, in Time magazine. He unknowingly touched on part of the reason for the tea party. Mr. Zakaria, born and raised in India, got his first sense of America’s vitality, outsized ways, glamour and crazy high-spiritedness as a young boy in the late 1970s watching bootlegged videotapes of “Dallas.” What a country! His own land, in comparison, seemed sleepy, hidebound. Now when he travels to India, “it’s as if the world has been turned upside down. Indians are brimming with hope and faith in the future. After centuries of stagnation, their economy is on the move, fueling animal spirits and ambition. The whole country feels as if it has been unlocked.” Meanwhile the mood in the U.S. seems glum, dispirited. “The middle class, in particular, feels under assault.” Sixty-three percent of Americans say they do not think they will be able to maintain their current standard of living. “The can-do country is convinced that it can’t.”

All true. And yet. We may be witnessing a new political dynamism. The Tea Party’s rise reflects anything but fatalism, and maybe even a new high-spiritedness. After all, they’re only two years old and they just saved a political party and woke up an elephant.

The second fact of 2010 is understood by Republicans but not admitted by Democrats. It is that this is a fully nationalized election, and at its center it is about one thing: Barack Obama.

It is not, broadly, about the strengths or weaknesses of various local candidates, about constituent services or seniority, although these elements will be at play in some outcomes, Barney Frank’s race likely being one. But it is significant that this year Mr. Frank is in the race of his life, and this week on TV he did not portray the finger-drumming smugness and impatience with your foolishness he usually displays on talk shows. He looked pale and mildly concussed, like someone who just found out that liberals die, too.

This election is about one man, Barack Obama, who fairly or not represents the following: the status quo, Washington, leftism, Nancy Pelosi, Fannie and Freddie, and deficits in trillions, not billions.

Everyone who votes is going to be pretty much voting yay or nay on all of that. And nothing can change that story line now.

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
By Pat Buchanan

Wednesday, October 6, 2010
WASHINGTON
After John McCain’s defeat, even amateur political analysts could see a trend ultimately fatal to the Republican Party.
Ninety percent of McCain voters were white and 90 percent Christian. But Christians have fallen to 75 percent of the population and are sinking, and white Americans have fallen to 66 percent of the population and are headed for minority status by midcentury.
The handwriting is on the wall. Soon, even GOP sweeps of two-thirds of the white vote that Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan managed will not be enough to capture the presidency. And as the GOP base contracts, the Democrat coalition — due to Third World immigration, anchor babies and higher birth rates — steadily expands.
Yet, within the Barack Obama coalition — over 60 percent of Asian-Americans, 68 percent of Hispanics, 78 percent of Jews, 95 percent of blacks — fissures and fractures have become visible, not only along racial and ethnic lines but along issue and ideological lines.
“The high-profile Florida Senate race” between Gov. Charlie Crist and tea party favorite Marco Rubio, writes The Washington Post, “has evolved into a battle that is tearing apart Democrats.”
How so? Florida Democrats nominated Kendrick Meek, the only black with a shot of sitting in the U.S. Senate in 2011. However, Meek’s former House colleague, Robert Wexler, has “all but ordered the state’s many Jewish voters to back Crist.” What is Wexler thinking?
Black-Jewish tensions inside the Democrat coalition have arisen in recent years, as Jewish contributors have poured money into races to defeat black members of Congress seen as hostile to Israel. Many blacks take the side of the Palestinians as an oppressed Third World people of color. Yet, this is by no means the only fracture.
Proposition 8, the California referendum to outlaw same-sex marriage, won the support of a majority of Hispanics and 70 percent of blacks. On social issues like abortion, Hispanics and blacks, two of the most churched peoples in America, regularly vote against white liberals.
Yet, blacks at 40 million and Hispanics at 50 million, now living side by side in the cities, also clash over spoils and turf. In California, Hispanic and black gangs are engaged in what one sheriff calls “a civil war of the underclass.” In U.S. prisons, black-white violence now takes a back seat to black-Hispanic violence.
On referenda to cut off social services and keep illegal aliens from getting driver’s licenses, blacks vote solidly conservative, as black Americans have been displaced as the nation’s largest minority and now have rivals for diminishing social welfare benefits and the fruits of affirmative action.
Where disparate Democrats still find common ground is on growing the government and redistributing the wealth from the private to the public sector, from those who have to those who have not. The crisis of the Party of Government, however, is that we have entered an era where most Americans distrust government. And with the national debt surging to 100 percent of gross domestic product and a third consecutive deficit running at 10 percent of GDP, we are entering a time of austerity. Now, it is not who gets what, but who gets cut.
Successful politics, it is said, is about addition, not subtraction. But, in the coming age in America, it will also be about division.
Pat Buchanan is the author of the book “Churchill, Hitler and ‘The Unnecessary War.’”

“I don’t think this is a secret. Dick Armey and FreedomWorks, which was one of the first organizational mechanisms to bring the Tea Party movement together…”

“Their anger is misdirected.”

– Barack Obama, Rolling Stone 9/28/10

Can you believe that?!

Barack Obama thinks Tea Partiers are angry at him, but only because they don’t know any better. Or even worse, because FreedomWorks has DUPED them into it!

I knew he was out of touch, but this is getting ridiculous.

What he calls anger, I call passion. And let me tell you, it’s pointed in EXACTLY the right direction.

Passion for liberty, directed at the overreaching government policies which rob us of freedom.

Passion for the Constitution, directed at the arrogant politicians who violate its limitations.

Passion for free markets, directed at the excessive taxation and regulation which destroy prosperity.

The truth is, there’s plenty of misdirection going on. But it’s Mr. Obama who is doing the misdirecting.

He’s misdirecting our economy toward joblessness and poverty. He’s misdirecting our people toward servitude and tyranny. He’s misdirecting our nation toward weakness and mediocrity.

Today, FreedomWorks is launching a major advertising and PR campaign to dispel his distortions and set the record straight. Please click here to sign our Stop Misdirecting America Petition right away.

By adding your name to this growing list of American citizens, you will declare to President Obama, the media, and the world EXACTLY what it is your passion is directed at:

- Generation-robbing deficits and debt which threaten to destroy the American Dream for all posterity;

- Crippling new cap-and-trade taxes on energy, hikes in the personal income tax, and a host of other redistributionist tax schemes that rob the American people of the fruits of their labor;

- Government takeovers of our healthcare system and freedom-crushing individual mandates;

- Bailouts of irresponsible and rightfully-failing banks, businesses and labor unions;

- Foolish economic theories which have deepened our recession and sent unemployment skyrocketing.

Please, click here RIGHT NOW to sign the Stop Misdirecting America Petition.

Honestly, FreedomWorks would love to be able to take credit for the pro-freedom movement sweeping America. But you and I both know the truth; that this citizen uprising is a response to an overbearing Washington and exacerbated by Barack Obama’s agenda and steadfast commitment to failed anti-liberty ideas.

And it’s a movement that’s growing! We are about to fundamentally transform Congress on November 2nd. But we can’t let Barack Obama diminish our message by claiming it’s “misdirected.”

With your help, we’ll dispel Barack Obama’s dishonest attack on FreedomWorks and the good men and women of the Tea Party movement.

With your help, we’ll set America back in the right direction

VOTE

Steve Eichler, TeaParty.org- “The Tea Party is not only defining the November election, but also America in the foreseeable future.”

With the U.S. midterm elections five weeks away, the Tea Party already is the big winner of 2010.

The Tea Partiers believe they’re on the cutting edge of a revolution: the “future of politics,” as Palin says. More likely, they’re a short-term catalyst for Republicans and a long-term problem.

Nevertheless, their victories are impressive — toppling the Republican Party’s choices in Senate races from Alaska to Delaware, with Nevada, Colorado and Kentucky in between. Scores of House candidates around America have embraced the Tea Party agenda.

The effect on non-Tea Party Republicans is palpable. The party’s 2008 presidential nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona, has shifted right on issues from immigration to tax cuts after being challenged by a Tea Party-type candidate. The former maverick is going to the Tucson Tea Party’s rally Oct. 9.

Presidential hopeful and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, always a good weathervane, is assiduously courting the group. Immediately after Tea Party candidates Sharron Angle in Nevada and Christine O’Donnell in Delaware won upset primary victories, Romney embraced them with campaign contributions.

Amending the Constitution

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, a non-movement right conservative, has embraced the Tea Party’s general anti- immigration posture; he actually endorsed changing the 14th amendment of the U.S. Constitution to bar citizenship for children born in America to undocumented immigrants.

Karl Rove, once an arbiter of conservative sentiment, in a moment of serious analysis on Fox News, criticized O’Donnell the night she won the primary, saying her extremism made her unelectable. Tea Party Republicans assailed Rove, who quickly backtracked and then bragged about funneling money to O’Donnell’s campaign. There are shades of the French Revolution here.

The Tea Party agenda isn’t well defined, though it is anti-government, anti-spending, anti-immigration and anti-compromise politics. In an America beset by a 9.6 percent unemployment rate and plenty of anxiety and anger, there is a receptive audience.

Republican Leaders

The House Republican leader, John Boehner of Ohio, and his Senate counterpart, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, both say they’ll have no trouble working with Tea Party advocates in the next Congress.

Boehner is a mainstream conservative Republican and a veteran legislator who likes to selectively cut deals. That’s not what most Tea Party disciples are likely to say they were sent to Washington to do.

And McConnell, every day, will hear the footsteps of South Carolina Republican Senator Jim DeMint, one of the genuine godfathers of the Tea Party’s success. DeMint likely will have a batch of newly elected followers in the next Senate, and his willingness to take on established candidates has shaken some in his party.

Utah’s Orrin Hatch, a conservative in the Boehner mold who has periodically worked with Democrats over the years, is up for reelection in 2012. He is cognizant that his three-term Senate colleague, Robert Bennett, with a similar political profile, couldn’t even get on the ballot at the Utah State Convention this year. Next year, Hatch will reach across the aisle at his own peril.

Alienating Independents

A number of Republican strategists say there is little evidence the Tea Party agenda will turn off voters. That holds true for a midterm election, which often is a referendum on the incumbent party rather than a choice. It usually isn’t applicable when a party acquires power, or in a presidential election year. A number of the most prominent Tea Party candidates this year embrace views that might not appeal to swing voters.

More than a few House Republican candidates talk about privatizing Social Security and cutting back on federal support for Medicare. That won’t sit well with senior citizens, a majority of whom are expected to vote Republican in November.

Senate candidates include Alaska’s Joe Miller, who has said unemployment compensation is unconstitutional; Colorado’s Ken Buck, who says he opposes the principle of separation of church and state; Nevada’s Angle, who said the Obama-inspired $20 billion fund for Louisiana oil-spill victims that BP Plc was required to create was a “slush fund”; O’Donnell, who equated masturbation with adultery; and Kentucky’s Rand Paul, who decried the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Flat Tax

The Tea Party’s official Contract from America 10-point agenda isn’t so incendiary, though calls for a balanced budget, a single flat tax rate and lower taxes, including those on capital gains and estates, are a challenging policy prescription.

Some of the money behind the Tea Party movement or its offshoots has little in common with grassroots populism. The New Yorker magazine recently detailed the ties with the multibillionaire Koch brothers, who privately and aggressively pursue both ultraconservative policies as well as provisions favoring their far-flung corporate empire.

And one Tea Party offshoot demands that “special interests be eliminated.” That would be enough to give heartburn to a Tea Party supporter such as Mississippi’s Haley Barbour, formerly a rich, important Washington lobbyist.

Crushing Dissent

This movement isn’t tolerant of dissent within the ranks, which may cause some other Republican politicians indigestion. For example, this year, the Tea Party took over the Maine Republican Party convention and adopted platforms that called for a 12-year term limit for senators, ending the congressional health-care plan, opposing abortion and abolishing the Federal Reserve Board.

None of this is supported by the state’s three-term Republican senator, Olympia Snowe, who is up for re-election in 2012. She could be vulnerable to a challenge from the right in a small-turnout primary. If she became an independent, she’d probably be safe for life.

And one 2012 Republican presidential hopeful may well seize an opportunity and run as the anti-Tea Party candidate; that used to be called a Big Tent Republican.

All that may or may not happen. On this Nov. 2, however, the tea will be flowing.

Why It’s Time for the Tea Party – The populist movement is more a critique of the GOP than a wing of it.

By PEGGY NOONAN
The Wall Street Journal
September 17, 2010
This fact marks our political age: The pendulum is swinging faster and in shorter arcs than it ever has in our lifetimes. Few foresaw the earthquake of 2008 in 2006. No board-certified political professional predicted, on Election Day 2008, what happened in 2009-10 (New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts) and has been happening, and will happen, since then. It all moves so quickly now, it all turns on a dime.
But at this moment we are witnessing a shift that will likely have some enduring political impact. Another way of saying that: The past few years, a lot of people in politics have wondered about the possibility of a third party. Would it be possible to organize one? While they were wondering, a virtual third party was being born. And nobody organized it.
Here is Jonathan Rauch in National Journal on the Tea Party’s innovative, broad-based network: “In the expansive dominion of the Tea Party Patriots, which extends to thousands of local groups and literally countless activists,” there is no chain of command, no hierarchy. Individuals “move the movement.” Popular issues gain traction and are emphasized, unpopular ones die. “In American politics, radical decentralization has never been tried on such a large scale.” Here are pollsters Scott Rasmussen and Doug Schoen in the Washington Examiner: “The Tea Party has become one of the most powerful and extraordinary movements in American political history.” “It is as popular as both the Democratic and Republican parties.” “Over half of the electorate now say they favor the Tea Party movement, around 35 percent say they support the movement, 20 to 25 percent self-identify as members of the movement.”
So far, the Tea Party is not a wing of the GOP but a critique of it. This was demonstrated in spectacular fashion when GOP operatives dismissed Tea Party-backed Christine O’Donnell in Delaware. The Republican establishment is “the reason we even have the Tea Party movement,” shot back columnist and Tea Party enthusiast Andrea Tantaros in the New York Daily News. It was the Bush administration that “ran up deficits” and gave us “open borders” and “Medicare Part D and busted budgets.”
Everyone has an explanation for the Tea Party that is actually not an explanation but a description. They’re “angry.” They’re “antiestablishment,” “populist,” “anti-elite.” All to varying degrees true. But as a network television executive said this week, “They should be fed up. Our institutions have failed.”
I see two central reasons for the Tea Party’s rise. The first is the yardstick, and the second is the clock. First, the yardstick. Imagine that over at the 36-inch end you’ve got pure liberal thinking—more and larger government programs, a bigger government that costs more in the many ways that cost can be calculated. Over at the other end you’ve got conservative thinking—a government that is growing smaller and less demanding and is less expensive. You assume that when the two major parties are negotiating bills in Washington, they sort of lay down the yardstick and begin negotiations at the 18-inch line. Each party pulls in the direction it wants, and the dominant party moves the government a few inches in their direction.
But if you look at the past half century or so you have to think: How come even when Republicans are in charge, even when they’re dominant, government has always gotten larger and more expensive? It’s always grown! It’s as if something inexorable in our political reality—with those who think in liberal terms dominating the establishment, the media, the academy—has always tilted the starting point in negotiations away from 18 inches, and always toward liberalism, toward the 36-inch point.
Democrats on the Hill or in the White House try to pull it up to 30, Republicans try to pull it back to 25. A deal is struck at 28. Washington Republicans call it victory: “Hey, it coulda been 29!” But regular conservative-minded or Republican voters see yet another loss. They could live with 18. They’d like 8. Instead it’s 28.
For conservatives on the ground, it has often felt as if Democrats (and moderate Republicans) were always saying, “We should spend a trillion dollars,” and the Republican Party would respond, “No, too costly. How about $700 billion?” Conservatives on the ground are thinking, “How about nothing? How about we don’t spend more money but finally start cutting.”
What they want is representatives who’ll begin the negotiations at 18 inches and tug the final bill toward 5 inches. And they believe Tea Party candidates will do that.
The second thing is the clock. Here is a great virtue of the Tea Party: They know what time it is. It’s getting late. If we don’t get the size and cost of government in line now, we won’t be able to. We’re teetering on the brink of some vast, dark new world—states and cities on the brink of bankruptcy, the federal government too. The issue isn’t “big spending” anymore. It’s ruinous spending that they fear will end America as we know it, as they promised it to their children.
So there’s a sense that dramatic action is needed, and a sense of profound urgency. Add drama to urgency and you get the victory of a Tea Party-backed candidate.
That is the context. Local Tea Parties seem—so far—not to be falling in love with the particular talents or background of their candidates. It’s more detached than that. They don’t say their candidates will be reflective, skilled in negotiations, a great senator, a Paul Douglas or Pat Moynihan or a sturdy Scoop Jackson. These qualities are not what they think are urgently needed. What they want is someone who will walk in, put her foot on the conservative end of the yardstick, and make everything slip down in that direction.
Nobody knows how all this will play out, but we are seeing something big—something homegrown, broad-based and independent. In part it is a rising up of those who truly believe America is imperiled and truly mean to save her. The dangers, both present and potential, are obvious. A movement like this can help a nation by acting as a corrective, or it can descend into a corrosive populism that celebrates unknowingness as authenticity, that confuses showiness with seriousness and vulgarity with true conviction. Parts could become swept by a desire just to tear down, to destroy. But establishments exist for a reason. It is true that the party establishment is compromised, and by many things, but one of them is experience. They’ve lived through a lot, seen a lot, know the national terrain. They know how things work. They know the history. I wonder if Tea Party members know how fragile are the institutions that help keep the country together.
One difference so far between the Tea Party and the great wave of conservatives that elected Ronald Reagan in 1980 is that latter was a true coalition—not only North and South, East and West but right-wingers, intellectuals who were former leftists, and former Democrats. When they won presidential landslides in 1980, ’84 and ’88, they brought the center with them. That in the end is how you win. Will the center join arms and work with the Tea Party? That’s a great question of 2012.

At Lincoln Memorial, a Call for Religious Rebirth
By KATE ZERNIKE and CARL HULSE
New York Times Aug 28, 2010

WASHINGTON — An enormous and impassioned crowd rallied at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday, summoned by Glenn Beck, a conservative broadcaster who called for a religious rebirth in America at the site where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech 47 years ago to the day.

“Something that is beyond man is happening,” Mr. Beck said in opening the event as the crowd thronged near the memorial grounds. “America today begins to turn back to God.”

It was part religious revival, part history lecture, as Mr. Beck invoked the founding fathers and the “black-robed regiment” of pastors of the Revolutionary War and spoke of American exceptionalism.

The crowd was a mix of groups that have come together under the Tea Party umbrella. Some wore T-shirts from the Campaign for Liberty, the libertarian group that came out of the presidential campaign of Representative Ron Paul, while others wore the gear of their local Tea Party group, or of 9/12 groups, which were founded after a special broadcast Mr. Beck did in March 2009.

But the program was distinctly different from most Tea Party rallies. While Tea Party groups have said they want to focus on fiscal conservatism and not risk alienating people by talking about religion or social issues, the rally on Saturday was overtly religious, filled with gospel music and speeches that were more like sermons.

Mr. Beck imbued his remarks on Saturday and at events the night before with references to God and a need for a religious revival. “For too long, this country has wandered in darkness,” Mr. Beck said Saturday. “This country has spent far too long worrying about scars and thinking about scars and concentrating on scars. Today, we are going to concentrate on the good things in America, the things that we have accomplished, and the things that we can do tomorrow.”

Mr. Beck was followed on stage by Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate and former Alaska governor, who said she was asked, in keeping with the theme of the day, not to focus on politics but to speak as the mother of a soldier.

“Say what you want to say about me, but I raised a combat vet, and you can’t take that away from me,” said Ms. Palin, whose son Track served in Iraq.
But Ms. Palin did not steer entirely clear of politics. In a veiled reference to President Obama and his pledges to fundamentally transform America, she said, “We must not fundamentally transform America as some would want; we must restore America and restore her honor.”

Many in the crowd said they had never been to a Tea Party rally, but they described themselves as avid Glenn Beck fans, and many said they had been motivated to come by faith.

Becky Benson, 56, traveled from Orlando, Fla., because, she said, “we believe in Jesus Christ, and he is our savior.” Jesus, she said, would not have agreed with what she called the redistribution of wealth in the form of the economic stimulus package, bank bailouts and welfare. “You cannot sit and expect someone to hand out to you,” she said. “You don’t spend your way out of debt.”

Mr. Beck’s themes were ones he returns to on his radio and television shows, and people in the crowd echoed his ideas, saying that “progressives” were moving the country toward socialism and that the country must get back to a strict interpretation of the Constitution, which would limit the role of the federal government and do away with entitlement programs.

“The federal government is only to offer us protection from our enemies and help us when we need it,” said Ron Sears, 65, who came on a caravan of three buses from Corbin, Ky. “The states are supposed to control education and everything having to do with their citizens, except when they need federal help.”
Mr. Beck billed the event as the Woodstock of this generation, telling listeners that for decades, people would be asking, “Were you there?”
He had instructed his fans to leave their protest signs at home and to bring their children.

While there were few signs, people carried American flags or yellow “Don’t Tread on Me” banners, which have become mainstays at Tea Party rallies.
The event had the feeling of a large church picnic, with people sitting on lawn chairs and blankets with coolers and strollers.

Officials do not make crowd estimates because they are unreliable and can be controversial, but event organizers put the number of attendees at 500,000; NBC News said it was closer to 300,000, but by any measure it was a large turnout. The crowd stretched from the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Monument.

The rally organized by Mr. Beck, a Fox News broadcaster who has been critical of Mr. Obama and Congressional Democrats, has come under attack as dishonoring the memory of Dr. King by staging the event on the anniversary of his speech. Critics have suggested that Mr. Beck was trying to energize conservatives for the midterm elections.

Across town, several hundred people packed a football field at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School to stage a rally commemorating Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
“We come here because the dream has not been achieved,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, an organizer of the rally. “We’ve had a lot of progress. But we have a long way to go.”

“They want to disgrace this day,” Mr. Sharpton told the crowd, referring to Mr. Beck’s event.
While the crowd at Dunbar was mostly African-American, the audience at Mr. Beck’s rally was overwhelmingly white, though a number of speakers and performers were black.

Among them was Alveda King, a niece of the civil rights leader, who in a speech said that if Dr. King were alive he would commend the organizers of the event and “would encourage us to lay aside the vicious lies that cause us to think we are members of separate races.”

Mr. Beck made a surprise visit on Friday to a convention held by FreedomWorks, a Tea Party umbrella group, for Tea Party supporters. He received a thunderous welcome from a crowd of about 1,600 in Constitution Hall.

He told the crowd that he had begun planning his march on Washington a year ago, thinking “it was supposed to be political.”
“And then I kind of feel like God dropped a giant sandbag on my head,” he said.

“My role, as I see it, is to wake America up to the backsliding of principles and values and most of all of God,” he said. “We are a country of God. As I look at the problems in our country, quite honestly, I think the hot breath of destruction is breathing on our necks and to fix it politically is a figure that I don’t see anywhere.”
Raymond Hernandez contributed reporting.