GOP and the Tea Party
As they look to make gains in statehouses and Congress this year, Republicans are trying to harness the Tea Party energy that helped make an unknown named Scott Brown the senator-elect from Massachusetts.One of the memes that has been pushed by Democrats is that the Tea Party movement is a function of the Republican Party. It has been used as a way of denigrating the Tea Party participants and along with a series of homo erotic insults. This story indicates just how unrealistic that meme is.But it may not be easy, as one Republican in Colorado learned the hard way.
When Scott McInnis appeared on Fox News last month underneath a title calling him the “Tea-Party-backed candidate” for governor, he triggered a tempest. Tea Party leaders fired off angry e-mail messages and public statements insisting that he was not their choice.
“Let it be known that we will not be used by any party or candidate!” Lu Ann Busse, the head of a coalition of Tea Party brethren known as 9/12 groups, declared at a “Defend the Republic” rally where she was invited to set the record straight after Mr. McInnis’s appearance.
Mr. McInnis said it was Fox that gave him the description without consulting him. But he was quick to try to make amends, issuing a statement on his Web site, and in the weeks since he and the head of the state Republican Party have toured Colorado meeting with Tea Party groups.
Across the country, many Tea Party activists believe that they have to work within the Republican Party if they want to elect fiscally conservative candidates. But they want the party to work for them — not, they argue, the other way around.
For Republican officials, managing the tensions between the two parties — one official, one potent — can be something like a full-time job.
“I do spend a lot of my time running interference,” said Dick Wadhams, the chairman of the Colorado Republican Party.
“I’m a big believer in the Tea Party groups,” he said. “I’m not going to claim that every Tea Party or 9/12 leader thinks I’m hunky-dory, but I do think the people who I’ve reached out to would acknowledge that I’ve welcomed them into the Republican Party. It’s a big priority of mine.”
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I have been pointing out for some time that the Tea Party movement sees the Republican party as a vehicle for pushing its agenda and not the other way around. The Tea Party Movement is actively attempting to take over the infrastructure of the Republican party from the ground up starting at the precinct level.
Where the Tea Party is most at odds with some members of the GOP is over spending and earmarks. They are true deficit hawks who want to restrain spending. They also want to restrain government control over our lives and that is one reason why they opposed the Democrats control freak health care bill.
I don't recall the Times engaging in the insults to those in the Tea Party Movement although they may have quoted some Democrats who have. Democrats also insulted those at the Town Hall meeting who tried to convey their opposition to the health care bills. Insulting voters is not a good way to persuade them to your point of view and it only adds to the anger that is now swamping their agenda.
The Tea Party Movement is a part of the American tradition. It is what the elite few who want to rule the many, as the current Democrat Party and many old-line Republicans, would oppose. It comes from a unique tradition of local home rule, where government was no further from the governed than one day’s horseback ride, and individual interests were more important than are community interests. That led to the more involved citizen, the town hall meetings and even the vigilante movement. From the early days, the Tea Party Movement is but an extension of American traditions and perfectly correct. Surely, the Old World, such as England and France, would never permit such a thing, as their traditions were inclined to be bloody conflicts, not peaceful demonstrations. The differences are cited in the Changing Face of Democrats, Our Libertarian Roots Lost, on Amazon and claysamerica.com.
ReplyDeleteThree interesting books that address these points among others are
ReplyDeleteForced Founders : Indians, debtors, slaves, and the making of the American Revolution in Virginia;
Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution; both by Woody Holton
Founding Brothers : The revolutionary generation; by Joseph Ellis
Unruly Americans is very interesting