The Tea Party "loser" narrative, the decoupling

Via-My Brenner Brief Column

(See part one here)

The continuing rise of the Tea Party has the GOP establishment still worried.

Photo By Author
DC 2009

As the 2012 elections approached the rise of the  Tea Party continued and they were no longer an unknown entity either to the nation or to the GOP establishment.  The initial enthusiasm that all “right” leaning America felt as they witnessed a spontaneous grassroots movement percolate seemingly out of nowhere to dominate the political scene in 2010 was being replaced by institutional animosity.  As that same movement revealed that it was not a partisan movement but an ideological one bent on a different kind of change.  Despite the diverse nature of the Tea Party it was clear that the underpinnings of the movement were based almost solely on two bedrock principles, a return to fiscal sanity and re-establishment of the constitution as the law of the land. Everything else was a distant third including party politics.

On the surface it seemed like the GOP ought to have embraced this new-found source of enthusiasm and electoral clout but things did not play out that way.  The Tea Party was a principle driven movement whose spontaneous combustion onto the political scene was neither spontaneous or a coördinated movement at all.  The Tea Party formed from a boiling cauldron of years of frustration by millions of conservative and libertarian minded Americans coming together in loose knit local confederations to express their pent-up anger at the direction the nation was headed.  Much to the GOP establishment’s surprise that anger was also directed at them. The battle was not to take on the Democrats, the battle was/is to change the direction of the country and the enemy was/is Washington D.C. and the power structure which was/is bankrupting the nation, undermining constitutional freedoms and in general destroying the American ideal. And it did not matter which uniform you wore because both sides were responsible for the deterioration. Once the GOP establishment realized that they were not immune to the wrath of the “masses”  rather than join the revolution they did what good bureaucrats always do, they began to protect their turf.

By the time the 2012 election cycle rolled around, what should have been a cake walk election for the Republicans across the board as 2010 had pretty much been instead became an us versus them contest between the “establishment” and the primary base of the GOP.  While the insiders lectured the people fumed.  The “outsider” Romney of 2010 became the “insider” Romney of 2012 and as the primary season wore on it became a contest between Romney and the “non-Romney” candidate of the week until only Rick Santorum was left to lose.

Which brings us to the elephant in the room of the 2012 election season, Tod Aikin. of “legitimate rape” fame  The GOP establishment and the media hang that elephant around the Tea Party like an anchor in hopes of drowning the movement.  But here is the simple question that is never asked, if Tod Aikin was the Tea Party candidate that sunk the GOP’s Senate hopes, who was the establishment candidate that he beat?

In the Missouri Republican senate primary in 2012 there were three legitimate contenders, Aikin the five term U.S. Congressman, Former  State Treasurer Sarah Steelman and St. Louis businessman John Brunner.  Aikin’s Tea Party credentials were that he was a member of the Tea Party caucus in the House and had been endorsed by fellow House caucus members Michelle Bachman (R-MN) and Steve King. R-IA).  Steelman on the other hand had been endorsed by Sarah Palin, The Tea Party Express and Senator Mike Lee (R-UT).  If there was an “establishment” candidate it was John Brunner who was endorsed by the Chamber of Commerce, but he was also endorsed by Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) who had been elected in 2010 as a Tea Party candidate and Freedom Works with its strong ties to the Tea Party. 

All three candidates had ties to and could legitimately have claimed to be Tea Party candidates. So whoever won was going to wear the Tea Party mantle into the general election. In fact a lengthy Christian Science Monitorarticle published the week before the election described it this way:

In Missouri, tea party support is spread across all three candidates, with Ms. Steelman receiving an endorsement from Sarah Palin, Mr. Akin receiving one from US Rep. Michele Bachmann, and Mr. Brunner being endorsed by the tea-party-friendly FreedomWorks group in Washington.

An ABC News article called the race a “Tea Party Mashup.” and called Aikin the conservative Christian candidate who would appeal to  social-issue voters, which indeed he was and which he did.  Two points that are important to remember though, Aikin’s comments that caused the firestorm fed by Karl Rove and crew, had absolutely nothing to do with the Tea Party,  they were spoken or misspoken while he was wearing his social conservative hat.  In addition it was not some “outside the beltway”  Tea Party bumpkin that cost the Republican’s the Senate seat in Missouri, it was a five term sitting congressman who was elected to that office long before the Tea Party ever came into existence and whom the GOP gladly wanted in their ranks in the House.

Whether Aikin could have recovered from his stupid comments is doubtful, but it became impossible once the GOP establishment threw him under the bus and continued to use him as a speed bump on every conceivable occasion.  That old party unity thing again don’t you know? When Republican’s eat their own it is assured that the media will continue to serve up further courses. Which is exactly what happened in Indiana.

Richard Murdock was a decent candidate and would probably be an US Senator today had it not been for the Aikin statements.  His comments in a debate would probably have drawn little or no attention if they had not come in the wake of the Aiken controversy.  In fact the question that prompted his statements would probably have never been asked without the “Aikin problem.” The hypersensitivity of the “rape issue” which is a manufactured contrivance made to trip up religious candidates on the right undid him  The fact that Murdock did not handle the question better is regrettable but candidates in both parties make mistakes all the time and it has nothing to do with whether you believe in the constitution and fiscal responsibility it is a matter of whether the party has your back, the GOP definitely did not have Murdock’s back.

Not so candidate macaca in Virginia.

Whereas Aikin and Murdock are excoriated and thrown in the face of the Tea Party Movement for losing their elections because they are inarticulate Tea Party boobs, we hear not a word about the failure of two former Governors losing in states where there were not only sitting GOP governors but the Republican’s held the legislatures. George Allen (R-VA) and Tommy Thompson (R-WI) were sold by the “experts” as being perfect candidates for the time. Both of these “perfect” candidates lost by nearly 6%. As did many other establishment backed candidates in 2012 such as Rick Berg (R-ND), Denny Rehberg (R-MT), Connie Mack (R-FL), Heather Wilson (R-NM), Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), Scott Brown (R-MA) and a slew of other Republicans who lost in less competitive races. All of the candidates mentioned above have served in Washington either as congressman, Senators or cabinet officers.  Besides all being old Washington “hands” they now have one more thing in common, they all lost Senate races in 2012 along with Murdock and Aikin.

Was the Todd Aikin defeat the worst of the most “winnable” races to be lost in 2912? Probably but not much worse than Rick Berg’s loss of an open seat in North Dakota where Romney carried the state by 20%.  Remember Aikin was facing an incumbent in a purple state.  So why is Berg’s candidacy not scrutinized and ridiculed as having “cost the Republicans the Senate?” Or Allan’s or Thompson’s or Rehberg’s?  All seen as competitive if not very winnable seats going into the election season.  All of which establishment candidates failed at miserably.

The reason these races are ignored is simple, to analyze these elections is to admit that the GOP “insider’s” candidates did no better than the Tea Party “losers.” In fact they did worse. So who were the non-incumbent Republicans that won their races in 2012?

NE-Deb Fisher, endorsed by Sarah Palin and other Tea Party conservatives

AZ- Jeff Flake, endorsed by Freedom Works, Senate Conservative Fund and Club for Growth

TX- Ted Cruz,

Well is there really any more to say?

The Tea Party “loser” narrative

Via-My Brenner Brief Column

Is the Tea Party helping or hurting the Republican Party in elections?

Photo by Author
Tea Party Rally September 2010

Perhaps of all the false narratives thrown out about the Tea Party and they are legion, the most easily defeated by actual facts is that the Tea Party somehow has caused the GOP not to gain control of the Senate. The first point that must be remembered is that the Republicans held the Senate for over a decade until they lost it in 2008.  In one election cycle the GOP went from a ten seat majority to losing control of the senate and they did this all on their own, without any Tea Party to blame.

It must also be recognized that it is very difficult to combat false assertions that are deemed to be facts.  The false assertion in this case is that but for poor Tea Party candidates the Republicans would have gained control of the Senate. This assertion is based on the unknown, I could just as easily say that if not for poor GOP candidates the Republicans would control the Senate.  After all in the last two election cycles far more GOP candidates have lost senate elections than Tea Party backed candidates, which is a fact  Really the only way that this false narrative can be made to stick is by ignoring one side while focusing on the other which is precisely what the GOP establishment with the gleeful help of the media does constantly.

If you look at how the “civil war” in the Republican Party has played out over the last five years it is basically that when the “entitled” establishment does not get their way, meaning no opposition in primaries, they wine and cry. When they actually lose they often times take their ball and go home or in some cases actively work to destroy the Tea Party backed nominee.  Then with Alinsky like tactics they accuse the Tea Party of seeking to destroy the Republican Party while it is they who are by far most responsible for the divisiveness.

The electoral facts do not live up to the false narrative.  Although the Tea Party has been responsible for some less than stellar candidates, so too has the GOP establishment.  But more important perhaps is how the GOP has mis-characterized the Tea Party’s failures  while ignoring their successes.  So a look back at the record might be a good place to start.

Let’s begin by looking at the 2010 Senate contests.  The first thing that is necessary is to identify who were the Tea Party backed candidates in the general election and who were not. This is more important in 2012 but we shall stick to 2010 for now.  Although some of these names are not recognized as Tea Party Senators today, IE Toomey and Johnson, they clearly identified themselves as being so during the 2010 election cycle.

In 2010 there were 34 Senate contests, of those 25 were being defended by incumbents while 9 were open seats. Here are the Republican candidates who were actively backed by the Tea Party and sought their support, with a star next to those who were facing an incumbent. Those in italics won their election and are now Senators.

• AK- Joe Miller *
• CO- Ken Buck
• DE- Christine O’Donnel
• FL- Marco Rubio
• KY- Rand Paul
• NV- Sharon Angle*
• PA- Pat Toomey*
• UT-Mike Lee
• WI-Ron Johnson *

Of the nine clearly identifiable Tea Party Senate candidates in 2010, five won their elections, two unseating sitting Democratic incumbents.

A couple of other significant notes that need to be made.  Joe Miller lost his election in Alaska to an incumbent Republican, Lisa Murkowski, who in a fit of divisive self-interest ran as a write in Independent.  It is possible, indeed very likely had she not inserted herself in the race after losing in the primary that Joe Miller would have been elected as a Republican Senator from Alaska. It could  also be argued that Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire belongs on this list as well since she was endorsed by Sarah Palin  and had some Tea Party support which the media and the GOP establishment consider the same as a Tea Party endorsement.

So in fact the only Tea Party candidates who lost in 2010 were Buck, O’Donnel and Angle.  Buck lost in a purple state by 1.68%, Angle lost in a purple state to a five term incumbent who just happened to be the sitting Majority Leader in the US Senate. O’Donnel, probably the weakest of the candidates lost in a solid blue state. The important thing to remember though is that all of these candidates that lost and some that won were not enthusiastically supported by the GOP establishment.  In fact in some cases, O’Donnel and Angle in particular they were actually derided in the media by “our side.”  In the case of  Nevada and especially Colorado,  more positive and enthusiastic support from the GOP might have made a difference, instead there was ridicule.

A quick list of other GOP “losers” in the 2010 Senate election cycle.

• CA-Carly Fiorina *
• CT- Linda McMahon
• HI- Cam Cavasso*
• MD- Eric Wargotz*
• NY- Jay Townsend*
• NY- Josef DioGaurdi *
• OR- Jim Huffman*
• VT- Len Britton*
• WA- Dino Rossi *
• WV- John Reeves Raese

How many Democratic incumbents did the Republicans unseat in the 2010 cycle? Two, Russ Feingold and Arlen Specter both defeated by Tea Party candidates. How many Republican Senators were unseated in 2010? One, Robert Bennet by a Tea Party Candidate Mike Lee who held the seat for the GOP.

Then  there is the story of Marco Rubio and Charlie, which way does the wind blow, Crist whom the GOP actively supported right up until he became an independent. There were two Republican candidates who lost their primaries and instead of backing the GOP winner as good party member are supposed to do, they not only did not support the party’s choice, they turned and ran against them, Charlie Crist of Florida and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Both of these candidates were “establishment” backed candidates and both acted in the most divisive way possible. So much for party unity.

Just to wrap up the 2010 Senate election cycle.  There is another Tea Party Senator that was elected in 2010, Tim Scott of South Carolina. Although elected to the House he was appointed to replace Jim DeMint when he left to take over the Heritage Foundation. Scott will be elected in his own right this fall having tremendous approval ratings in the state. The only African-American Republican Senator is virtually ignored by the GOP establishment, simply because to tout him would be to highlight his strong Tea Party roots. So much for reaching out and diversity.

Interesting isn’t it how you hear the drumbeat of  negativity about Angle and O’Donnel coming out of the establishment still while they ignore their own failures IE, Fiorina, McMahon and Rossi.  Were these seats any less winnable than Colorado or Nevada? It is probable that Mike Castle would have won Delaware, but is this loss or even the loss of the others reason enough to attack the most energized and committed portion of a political party’s base.  If the GOP establishment actually believes this, then not only are they out of touch with that base, they are very foolish and incompetent political strategist.

Tomorrow the 2012 debacle.

Putin’s grand scheme bommerangs back to hit U.S. politics

Via-My article in The Brenner Brief

Putin’s grand scheme dividing his biggest threat,the GOP

CREDIT: Wiki Commons

As the Ukraine situation devolves into an uncertain future it is having the effect of clarifying the U.S.  domestic political picture. By highlighting the Republican Party’s divide on future American foreign policy, Russia’s intervention into Ukraine has pit two strong elements of the GOP coalition against one another.

The two factions, the so-called neocons who have in the past held great sway over Republican Party policy and politics and the rising power within the GOP of the more libertarian elements on the right, have not as yet reached a means for peaceful coexistence and the Ukrainian crisis highlights this divide.  Unlike the schism which has been created between the “establishment” and the grassroots “Tea Party” element of the GOP this foreign policy divide cuts across all elements of the Republican Party landscape. In 2010 as the Tea Party swept the Republicans into power in the House it was also primarily responsible for sending two of the GOP’s rising stars to the U.S. Senate, Marco Rubio of Florida and Rand Paul from Kentucky.  Although Rubio’s light has dimmed somewhat with the grassroots due to his foray into the immigration quagmire, he is still seen by most on the right as an articulate spokesman for individual freedom and a champion for constitutional conservatism.  Rand Paul has spent much time and effort in an attempt to reach out and draw new constituencies into the GOP fold, primarily the youth, which he hopes to attract to his libertarian philosophies and principles.  Both Senators are considered not only to be rising stars in the Republican Party, but also potential 2016 presidential candidates. These two “Tea Party” senators though have vastly different views on the Ukrainian situation. Rubio put out a Press Release on the crisiswhere among other points he recommended:

…. We should also stand with Ukraine as the interim government attempts to deal with these provocations. This includes immediately providing the lethal assistance they requested weeks ago. We also need to take measures to reassure our allies in Central and Eastern Europe by deploying more alliance assets to their territories to reinforce our NATO commitments to their security.

Rubio’s statements on and prescriptions  for the Ukrainian situation virtually mirror those of Senator John McCain (R-AZ) perhaps this generationsleading spokesman for the neocon viewpoint. Given his background as the son of Cuban immigrants, it is not surprising that he would have a more aggressive stance on  international matters  as it relates to foreign tyrants.  When  Senator Tom Harkins (D-IA)  recently took to the Senate floor and gave a speech praising the Cuban healthcare system, Rubio responded with an  impassioned and well received rebuttal showing not only his gifts as an orator but his sincere passion in regards to tyrannical foreign regimes. At the same time that Rubio is promoting the Right’s typical response to foreign interventions and bullying by tyrants such as Putin, Rand Paul is counselling what for the GOP is a new direction in foreign policy. Paul has put out only one press release on Ukraine, which in itself is telling, and that was back on February 28, 2014.  In the statement the Kentucky Senator took a more “internationalist” tone calling on the Russians to remember “that stability and territorial integrity go hand in hand with prosperity.” Since his initial formal response, Paul has made statements that indicate that he has absolutely no desire to be drawn into what he sees as a European problem but would use every non-military tool at the United States disposal to punish Russia. In an op-ed for Time he set out what a Paul Administration would do in response to Russia’s aggression, though slightly more aggressive than the Obama Administration’s feeble response, it is far from the cold warriormentality which has dominated GOP policies for the past several decades.  Perhaps most telling in his opinion piece he attempts to remind his Tea Party base what America’s biggest enemy is, and it is not Putin:

America is a world leader, but we should not be its policeman or ATM. At the end of the day, I still agree with former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen — the greatest threat to America’s security is our national debt. Russia, the Middle East or any other troubled part of the world should never make us forget that the U.S. is broke. We weaken our security and defenses when we print money out of thin air or borrow from other countries to allegedly support our own.

Two “Tea Party” Senators with different views of how the United States should proceed in what still is a hostile world in the twenty-first century.  The foreign policy debate between the factions was ongoing but under the surface of other policy matters, Putin through his aggression has just brought it to the surface. It is not that Marco Rubio does not believe in fiscal responsibility or that Rand Paul does not believe in a strong national defense both men believe in both.  What this particular schism brings to the fore of Republican politics is more about priorities and tactics than divisions.  The fact that some are attempting to paint either man as somehow not “right” enough because of their differing priorities is actually counterproductive.  both men represent views which reflect their different backgrounds and has nothing to do with either man’s commitment to the constitution or the nation. Personally I might prefer one man over the other as President, but I have no doubt that either man would lead the nation in a different and better direction than it is heading now and upon that there ought to be no debate on the right.

Says It All

Via-Reason

Still here

What the Tea Party Congress accomplished

Via-Washington Examiner

Conn Carrol

Liberal blogger Ezra Klein and conservative Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan., don't agree on much. But they both have made the case that the Republican House of the 112th Congress was a total failure.

It is easy to see why a committed progressive like Klein would be down on the 112th. After all, its liberal predecessor passed a trillion-dollar stimulus, enacted a government takeover of health care and institutionalized the power of Wall Street's Too Big To Fail banks by passing the Dodd-Frank financial regulation law. Compared with the 111th historic expansion of government into every aspect of American life, the 112th Congress was destined to be a disappointment for liberals.

But why is Huelskamp so upset?

On Jan. 1 of this year, Huelskamp released a statement explaining, "Despite a tremendous mandate from voters in 2010 to cut spending, get America's fiscal house under control, and restore proper procedure, this House of Representatives has achieved few or no real accomplishments. It is a disappointing ending to a disappointing two years."

If Huelskamp thought he and his fellow Freshman Republicans could waltz into Washington, reject every plan that wasn't perfect and remake the federal government's entire entitlement system in just two short years, he was always bound to be disappointed.

But if you look at the hard numbers -- if you look at the tax-and-spending trajectory that the United States was on before the 112th Congress was sworn into office, and then look at the path the U.S. is on now -- you'd see that Republicans in Congress have made tremendous progress in shrinking the size and scope of the federal government.

Just weeks after Huelskamp was first sworn in, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released its annual Budget and Economic Outlook for fiscal years 2011 through 2021. That document showed the federal government was on track to spend $3.7 trillion in 2011, or 24.7 percent of the entire U.S. economy, and a total of almost $50 trillion ($49.8 trillion to be exact) through 2021. At the same time, tax revenues were set to rise from just 14.8 percent of GDP in 2011 to 20.8 percent in 2021.

Huelskamp and his Republican colleagues changed all that. The 2011 Budget Control Act cut spending by $1.5 trillion, and the sequester cut it by an additional $1.2 trillion. At the same time, House Republicans were able to preserve nearly all of the expiring Bush tax cuts and cut the debt.

The CBO's Budget and Economic Outlook for fiscal years 2013 through 2023 shows just how much House Republicans have actually accomplished. The federal government is now on track to spend just $46.2 trillion through 2021. That is a $3.6 trillion spending cut. And instead of taxes eating up 21 percent of the U.S. economy in 2021, now the government is set to take in just 18.9 percent. The 2021 national debt is projected to be a bit lower, too, down from the earlier $18.25 trillion in 2011 to just $17.87 trillion today.

Despite all of this supposedly economy-killing "austerity," unemployment has steadily fallen, too. When Republicans took control of the House in 2011, the nation's unemployment rate was 9 percent. Today, it has fallen to 7.7 percent.

Conservatives have every right to be cynical about the Republican Party's track record on cutting taxes, spending and debt at the federal level. But since they regained control of the House in 2011, Republicans have actually done an admirable job on all three fronts, considering they face a hostile Senate and Obama in the White House.

Just three months ago, many in Washington were predicting Obama would steamroll Republicans into accepting higher taxes for millions of earners, undoing the sequester and maybe even passing new stimulus spending. Instead, Republicans have stayed unified, outfoxed Obama, preserved and made permanent most of last decade's tax cuts (including permanent indexing of the Alternative Minimum Tax) and let the sequester cuts occur on schedule. As a result, Obama's approval ratings have tumbled, and his entire second-term agenda is in jeopardy.

House Republicans still have to figure out how they will handle the debate over the debt limit this summer. But over this Easter break, they can take a minute to acknowledge how much they have already accomplished.

ON Fire

Tea Party State of the Union Response with Rand Paul

No thank you, Karl Rove

Via-NY DAILY NEWS

The Republican establishment must give way to new leadership

Republicans were sent to the woodshed in 2012. And when you’re sent to the woodshed, you sit there quietly and think about what you’ve done
.
But somehow, Karl Rove doesn’t think he played a part in all that. Despite more than $170 million spent through his American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS super PACs, and nearly nothing to show for it, Rove believes the simple solution is to slap a new label on his outfit and go rake in some more dough.

“The Conservative Victory Project, which is backed by Karl Rove and his allies who built American Crossroads into the largest Republican super PAC of the 2012 election cycle, will start by intensely vetting prospective contenders for congressional races to try to weed out candidates who are seen as too flawed to win general elections,” reported The New York Times over the weekend.

But there are plenty of Republican donors who are furious at Crossroads for wasting their money and aren’t going to be fooled by Rove’s rebranding strategy — or his promises that he will get better results the next time around.

I talked to one Republican operative in Washington who put it this way: “These guys took millions of dollars from big donors last year and lined their pockets. The new money will benefit all the same staff, pollsters, admen and vendors. It’s throwing good money after bad.”

Frustrated donors are looking for new places to put their money, and they’ll have no shortage of grassroots organizations to consider.

As my colleague Steve Kornacki wrote in Salon, “Given their demonstrated ability to rile up the conservative grassroots and deliver serious financial boosts to their preferred candidates, they probably have the means to fight Rove’s new effort.”

Rove Vs. the Tea Party

Via-TownHall

Ben Shapiro

During the 2012 election cycle, Tea Partiers were told by their supposed betters that their ignorance of everyday politics meant that they should take a back seat to the Republican Party establishment. Brandishing the so-called Buckley Rule with quasi-religious fervor -- the notion that Republicans should run the most conservative candidate who can win -- the establishment GOP proclaimed that the only presidential candidate who could win was Republican Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts. They suggested that four-term former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson was a shoe-in for the Senate. They explained that the Tea Party was responsible for failed Senate candidates like Todd Akin (false) and Richard Mourdock (true).

They knew best.

The only trouble was, they didn't.

As it turns out, the Buckley Rule relies on prophecy. No good political strategy relies on Carnac-style crystal ball reading; a better rule would have been to nominate conservatives who are articulate (Pat Toomey, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz), regardless of whether the wise men who loved John McCain and Mitt Romney think conservative positions make candidates unelectable.

But despite their 2012 losses, the establishment has decided that the problem in 2012 wasn't their own incompetence -- it was the dastardly Tea Party, which in its zealotry for conservatism, has ignored the need for victory.

And so the Karl Rove establishment leaked to the far-left New York Times that the "biggest donors in the Republican Party" were working with the leaders of Rove's American Crossroads super PAC to "recruit seasoned candidates and protect Senate incumbents from challenges by far-right conservatives and Tea Party enthusiasts who Republican leaders worry could complicate the party's effort to win control of the Senate."

Why didn't Rove and company tell the Times that they were interested in training conservative candidates in media fluency? Why didn't they approach the Tea Party instead, and offer their get-out-the-vote services and electoral strategies?

Because, at root, there is a clash at the heart of today's Republican Party. The Tea Party wants to change tactics. The establishment wants to discard principle.

Read entire article

Tea Party Re-Flexes Its Muscle

Via-Roll Call

By Janie Lorber

The state of the tea party evokes Mark Twain: Reports of its death were an exaggeration.

Tea party activists who say they deliberately sat out the fiscal cliff debate are ready to reassert themselves as Congress and the Obama administration take up the debt ceiling and automatic spending cuts under the sequester.

The Tea Party Patriots, a national umbrella organization that claims 15 million supporters, is urging its members to confront lawmakers in their districts. They want Congress to let the $109 billion in cuts stand and not increase the government’s borrowing power. And with an eye toward 2014, the nonprofit is soliciting donations and identifying targets for its newly formed political action committee.

“We have six or seven weeks to be influential here,” said Bill Pascoe, a Washington-based conservative strategist who provides weekly legislative updates to the Patriots.

“Get on their schedules, so that they understand that we are not going away, that the movement is growing up a bit,” added Jenny Beth Martin, the Patriots’ co-founder, in a conference call with supporters Sunday night.

Activists such as Martin are warning followers not to openly advocate a government shutdown as a way of resolving the debt limit talks.

During the fiscal cliff showdown, tea party activists were silent, only going public after a deal was struck to chastise those who voted for the package. They say that was all part of a plan to highlight what they see as Speaker John A. Boehner’s political weaknesses — and then deny him another term as speaker.

Read entire article

Tea party isn't done yet

Via-Capitol Journal On Line

George Will

Connoisseurs of democratic decadence can savor a variety of contemporary dystopias. Because familiarity breeds banality, Greece has become a boring horror. Japan, however, in its second generation of stagnation is fascinating. Once, Japan bestrode the world, jauntily buying Rockefeller Center and Pebble Beach. Now Japanese buy more adult diapers than those for infants.

America has its lowest birth rate since at least 1920 — family formation and workforce participation have declined in tandem. But it has an energy surplus, the government-produced overhang of housing inventory is shrinking and the average age of Americans’ cars is an astonishing 10.8 years. Such promising economic indicators, however, mask America’s democratic decadence, as explained by the Hudson Institute’s Christopher DeMuth (The Weekly Standard, Dec. 24):

Deficit spending once was largely for investments — building infrastructure, winning wars — which benefited future generations. Now, however, continuous borrowing burdens future generations in order to finance current consumption. Today’s policy, says DeMuth, erases “the distinction between investing for the future and borrowing from the future.”

Most Americans will be spared the educational experience of fiscal cliff-related tax increases and spending cuts. Still, December’s maneuverings taught three lessons.

First, there will be no significant spending restraint. Democrats even rejected a more accurate measurement of the cost of living that would slightly slow increases in government benefits.

Second, Barack Obama has (as Winston Churchill said of an adversary) “the gift of compressing the largest amount of words into the smallest amount of thought.” His incessant talking swaddled one wee idea — raising taxes on “millionaires and billionaires.” He has nothing pertinent to say about the steadily worsening fiscal imbalance that will make sluggish growth — under 3 percent — normal.

Third, one December winner was George W. Bush because a large majority of Democrats favored making a majority of his tax cuts permanent. December’s rancor disguised bipartisan agreement: Both parties flinch from cliff-related tax increases and spending decreases. But neither the increases nor decreases would have tamed the current $1 trillion-plus budget deficit nor made a discernible impact in the unfunded liabilities of the entitlement state.

This state cannot be funded by taxing “the rich.” Or even by higher income taxes on the middle class. Income taxes cannot fund the government liberals want, and they dare not seek the consumption and energy taxes their entitlement architecture requires. Hence, although Republicans are complicit, Democrats are ardent in embracing decadent democracy.

As economists Glenn Hubbard and Tim Kane explain in National Affairs quarterly, America’s political system “cannot govern the entitlement state” that “exists largely to provide material benefits to individuals.” Piling up unsustainable entitlement promises has been improvident for the nation but rational for the political class. The promised expenditures, far in excess of revenues, would come due “beyond the horizon of political consequences.”

“Our politicians,” say Hubbard and Kane, “are acting rationally” but “politically rational behavior is now fiscally perverse.” Both parties are responding to electoral incentives to neither raise taxes nor cut spending. Hence, “the clash over raising the debt limit that gripped Washington during the summer of 2011 was the beginning, not the end, of our fiscal woes.”

But the perils of the entitlement state are no longer (in Hubbard’s and Kane’s words) “safely beyond the politicians’ career horizons.” Furthermore, a critical mass of Republicans reject the careerists’ understanding of “politically rational” behavior. The media, which often are the last to know things because their wishes father their thoughts, say the tea party impulse is exhausted. Scores of House Republicans and seven first-term Republican senators (Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Pat Toomey, Ted Cruz, Ron Johnson, Marco Rubio and Tim Scott) will soon — hello, debt ceiling — prove otherwise.

Taking Up the Debt Ceiling War

Via-Front Page Magazine

By Arnold Ahlert

The tax battle is over. Democrats, President Obama and their media cheerleaders succeeded in getting a nervous and divided Republican Party to acquiesce to a bitter bargain. They allowed taxes to rise, while getting almost nothing in return in terms of spending cuts, other than vague promises to be fulfilled sometime in the future. Given the tenor of the times — with entitlement mentality run amok, our spendthrift president’s reelection in November, and the certainty that anything short of capitulation would have been framed by the media as a Republican-created debacle — perhaps it was the only reasonable course of action Republicans could take right now. In the upcoming and far more serious battle over the debt ceiling, Republicans must unify for the simplest of reasons: either they extract serious spending cuts from Democrats and the Obama administration in exchange for raising the debt ceiling — or the nation is headed for fiscal collapse.

Republicans desperately need to educate Americans about our current trajectory. In the last four years, the national debt has increased by more than $5 trillion, including $2.1 trillion of additional debt accumulated since August 2011, when the debt ceiling was raised from $14.3 trillion to $16.4 trillion. Thus, a mere seventeen months later, America technically went bankrupt again on New Year’s Eve. This means that until further credit is authorized by the House in the form of raising the debt ceiling – again – Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner will have to move money around in federal accounts, a process he claims will buy us about two more months before technical bankruptcy becomes genuine bankruptcy.

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Republican Diversity Fueled by Tea Party

Via-National Journal

By Josh Kraushaar

For Republicans who believe the tea party is responsible for the GOP's struggles, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s decision to choose Rep. Tim Scott to replace Jim DeMint in the Senate would have come as a stunner. The nation’s second Indian-American governor appointed the only African-American who will be serving in the Senate come 2013. And not only are they both Republicans, they are tea party-aligned conservatives who took on the party establishment and won.

It’s ironic that at a time when party strategists are publicly panicking over the party’s need to diversify or face extinction, they’re blind to the reality that if it wasn’t for the much-maligned tea party, the Republican Party would be even more homogeneous than it is today.

Haley, a little-known state senator before being elected governor, would never have had a chance at becoming governor against the state’s good ol’ boy network of statewide officeholders. Scott would have been a long shot in his Republican primary against none other than Strom Thurmond’s youngest son. Marco Rubio, now the hyped 2016 presidential favorite, would have stepped aside to see now-Democrat Charlie Crist become the next senator, depriving the party of one of its most talented stars. Ted Cruz, the other Hispanic Republican in the Senate, would have never chanced a seemingly futile bid against Texas’s 67-year-old lieutenant governor, seen as a lock to succeed Kay Bailey Hutchison.

But all those upset victories--all of which at the time seemed shocking--took place because of the conservative grassroots’ strong sentiment for outsiders who campaigned on their principles, and not over their past political or family connections. Even a decade ago, party officials would have been more successful in pushing these outsider candidates aside, persuading them to wait their turn. (In Rubio’s case, it almost worked.) Now, in an era where grassroots politicking is as easy as ever thanks to the proliferation of social media, more control is in the hands of voters. And contrary to the ugly stereotypes of conservative activists being right-wing to the point of racist, it’s been the tea party movement that’s been behind the political success of most prominent minority Republican officeholders.

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It’s Not Over by a Long Shot

Via-American Spectator

By Ned Ryun

Conservatives must wage a perpetual campaign.

FOR YEARS I'VE BEEN TALKING about the “Long War” and the need to prosecute a perpetual campaign against the progressive left. Many people scoff at the notion of perpetual campaigning and say it detracts from the business of governing. Those people are usually liberals, who don’t like it when conservatives look and sound as if they may actually put up a fight, or conservatives who shudder at the thought of real work when they think a white paper will do. But the perpetual war is necessary.

Scenes From Indian River Tea Party Rally 10/20/2012

Tea Party rally draws thousands to Indian River County fairgrounds

Indian River Tea Party

We Built It. Washington Broke It. We'll Fix It!

Tony Katz

Deneen Borelli

Congressman Allen West

Congressman Connie Mack

 (Candidate for US Senate)

Former US Senator Connie Mack.- Rep. Connie Mack- Priscilla Mack

Rep. Bill Posey, Rep. Allen West, Rep. Connie Mack

Singing "God Bless America"

More Pictures here

The importance of showing up

Via-Washington Examiner

Glenn Harlan Reynolds

Last month, I wrote that though Woody Allen once said that 80 percent of life is showing up, in politics it's more like 100 percent. With the election now just weeks away, that statement is looking truer and truer.

The polls show the presidential race neck and neck. But that's among people who respond to polls. The actual election will hinge on who actually shows up to vote.

Pollsters try to account for this with "likely voter" models, which adjust the raw data based on who's likely to go to the trouble to vote not just spout off to a pollster. But those models are more art than science.

So the outcome hinges on who's genuinely motivated enough to vote -- and to encourage other, like-minded voters to do the same. In politics, this is called the "ground game," and it gets a lot less attention than the "air game" of TV commercials, etc., because, well, covering the ground game requires reporters to get off their butts and report, as opposed to just channel-surfing.

In 2008, Obama had the GOP beat hands-down in this department. His motivated army of volunteers, including many college students, was knocking on doors, arranging to drive people to polling places and generally stirring up the enthusiasm. McCain's people, on the other hand, were mostly just going through the motions.

In 2012, things are likely to be different, but the race may well turn on whether they are different enough.

College students -- perhaps contemplating a lifetime of living with their parents in the depressed Obama economy -- aren't showing the kind of enthusiasm they showed last time around. Now it's the Obama campaign that seems to be going through the motions.

Republican grass roots, on the other hand, are motivated. As someone I know said on Facebook recently in response to the latest press flap about an alleged Romney gaffe, "Is there anything Romney could say that would keep me from voting against Obama in November? Hell no." That sentiment seems to be widespread.

Also, the Tea Party -- which wasn't around back in 2008 -- is adding grassroots muscle that the GOP lacked last time around. All over the country, Tea Partiers are doing the unglamorous work of knocking on doors, compiling voter lists, arranging Election Day car pools and so on. And in some places, they're going further.

One project -- Volunteers for Virginia -- aims to take people from red states like Tennessee and Texas and get them to Virginia, a swing state, to do grassroots work between now and Nov. 6. Another group, NobamaNevada, is taking Tea Partiers from deep-blue California to work in swing-state Nevada. In both cases, the idea is to move resources from where they won't help to places where they will.

That's the sort of thing that big-bucks professional campaigns do all the time. But this time, the Tea Party movement is doing it on its own. Self-organizing, rather than being organized.

For two reasons, I think there's more of this going on than meets the eye.

The first is that it's hard to cover. I only know about these two operations because people who read my blog emailed me about them. Grassroots organizing, more or less by definition, takes place under the radar. (In fact, the old USAF term for flying below the radar was "in the grass.") And many Tea Party activists are probably happy to do without press coverage, for fear that will encourage people on the other side to get organized too. Tea Party groups, and allies like Americans For Prosperity and Freedomworks, are happy to communicate with supporters and volunteers via email and websites, but are probably just as happy not to get media coverage that might inspire the opposition.

The second, of course, is that the mainstream press isn't very interested in covering this kind of thing anyway. Stories about Obama grassroots organizers in 2008 were fine. Stories about the Tea Party organizing this time around would conflict with the preferred (if somewhat contradictory) narratives that the Tea Party is (1) just a bunch of billionaire-funded astroturf; and (2) a preserve of racist "bitter clingers" who are too busy digging for Obama birth certificates to engage in hard political work.

Either way, these kinds of initiatives will make a difference. The question, again, is whether they'll make enough of a difference.

In 2010, the Tea Party movement delivered a huge setback to Obama and the Democrats in congressional elections. And from 2010 up to now, it's delivered telling blows to insufficiently responsible Republican legislators in one primary election and caucus after another. (Just ask former Utah Sen. Robert Bennett, or Indiana's Richard Lugar, or even the victorious but chastened Orrin Hatch).

But now comes the Tea Party's biggest test. Can it swing a close presidential election against a dependency-loving incumbent, and in favor of a fiscally responsible challenger?

It's an important test for the Tea Party movement, and for America. Stay tuned.

41 MILLION TEA PARTY SUPPORTERS SET TO VOTE

Republicans Will Win because We Know What's at Stake

Via-American Thinker

By Karin McQuillan

The Romney election team has decided the most effective course to re-election is through centrist voters. They have chosen to contrast Romney's effectiveness versus the nation's disappointed hopes in Obama. That may be the right approach to win the small handful of swing voters. But that isn't why we will win this election.

We will win because conservatives know what is at stake and we know we can't afford to lose. That is why the Tea Party base is going to work their butts off to get out the vote. That is how we took back the House in 2010. It is how Ted Cruz won the Senate nomination in Texas, though he started out 2% in the polls. It is how a career politician like Richard Lugar was replaced by Richard Mourdock in Indiana. It is why Paul Ryan has generated more enthusiasm than Romney. It is why we have elected a younger generation of stunningly excellent deficit-hawk governors whom conservative voters are jazzed about.

The Republican establishment, the Democratic Party, the mainstream media, and self-promoting light-weights don't want the public to be informed about who Obama is. It is too creepy and too awful. Few people are willing to say those hard truths about our first black president. It isn't nice. It doesn't make you look moderate.

Thanks to the politicized mainstream media misrepresenting the real Obama, he has a strong shot at re-election. They know that the more people learn about Obama, the more he is a turn-off. So they have made sure the majority of voters don't know. They have made sure people are afraid of being labeled racist even for listening to the information that is available.

Happily, even added all together, the old opinion-makers don't have the monopoly on the public sphere, not any more. Democrats succeed in blinding their own side. But they haven't blinded our side. The unintended result: only our side is charged up.

Even if Obama supporters are ignorant of who he is, the facts are still real. The effects of Obama's destructive leadership are all around us, and it is a bitter pill. Their side is glum and dispirited. They are out of work. In fact, his core supporters -- the young, single women, blacks, Hispanics -- are suffering the most from Obama's attacks on our economy. When he prints money like confetti and blocks energy development, they are the ones who are paying inflated prices for gas. They don't know or accept that Obama is wrecking our economy on purpose, but they are struggling to get through each day and each week, and it doesn't make for enthusiastic voters.

The Romney election team has only hinted at the profound choice before our citizens. Every speaker at the convention described how the American Dream was realized in their family. They joked about Obama's 'you didn't build that' slip. But they didn't spell out the contrast: Obama, and his progressive cheerleaders, do not believe in the American Dream. The American Dream is open to everyone, as Condoleezza Rice, Artur Davis and Mia Love testified, but it creates winners and losers. To Obama, that's bad. He doesn't understand that being in a land of opportunity lifts everyone up, creating a level of prosperity even for our poor, and a generous social safety net for our old and incapacitated.

Our president thinks our country is deeply flawed. His basic understanding of how things work is that the rich profit by keeping poor folks down. His sense of fairness demands government redress the balance. He knows how to play on fears of racism, on resentment of the rich, on people's desire to think someone else will pay for everything they want. He wants to tear our country apart and tear us down, in order to rebuild us as a low-level egalitarian society, robbed of growth and dynamism but more 'fair.' He is succeeding very well in reducing us to a mediocre country, short on work, short on hope, but rich in resentment.

In a 2001 interview, Obama is on tape saying that our very Constitution has a tragic flaw. He criticizes the American Constitution because it protects freedom and limits government in the Bill of Rights, and doesn't go on to redistribute wealth. Obama rejects our forefathers' special genius in limiting the abuse of government power and protecting individual autonomy. He sees limits on government as a failure of justice and a tragedy. When he was running for president, he didn't tell voters that the change he believed in is what he calls 'redistributive change.' As Obama explains our Constitution:

If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court. ... the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. .... It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution... Says what the Federal government can't do to you, but doesn't say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasn't shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was ... there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that.

Obama is criticizing Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights movement for only fighting for equality under the Constitution, instead of challenging the Constitution for not dictating 'redistribution of wealth.' He, Obama, community organizer, understands the political "coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change."

Obama understands very well that if he was honest with the public about his background, his values and his goals, he would not win an election for dogcatcher. So he has lied and hid, with the help of a politicized media, and he has cowed the Republican establishment into silence with threats of being labeled racist.

It worked in 2008, but it won't work in 2012. The number of conservatives who understand our president has grown to the tipping point. We're not intimidated by nasty name-calling. We know our principles are above reproach.

We feel deep in our hearts and souls that this election is not your normal Democrat versus Republican. Our choice is between capitalistic freedom and socialist tyranny, between economic expansion and economic decline, between the America we love and a down-sized America, punished for her hubris of being great. The Tea Party wing knows this. We feel the call of history, to stand up and get out the vote, or lose our country. We are fighting for our lives.

The Democrat voters I speak to don't know anything is at stake. In their partisan zeal, they have refused to inform themselves about Barack Hussein Obama. They don't have a clue and they don't want to have a clue. When I asked one friend what he sees at stake, he starts mumbling about education. Another says only a Washington or a Lincoln makes a historical impact. They don't realize, and will never admit, they elected a negative Washington/Lincoln who is leading us away from freedom.

When one side realizes they are fighting for their lives and their country, and the other side thinks Obama is a nice, middle-of-the-road guy handed a hard problem, who will win? If one side is fighting for freedom from government intrusion and the other side is fighting for free contraception, who will win? When one side is fighting for their children's future and the other side is living "their 20s in their childhood bedrooms staring up at fading Obama posters," who will win? When one side is fighting for rule of law, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the other side thinks Obama is cool, who will win?

We know the Republican establishment was complicit in the long term decay of limited government that culminated in Obama. We also understand that Obama is beyond the norm of big spending politicians of either party. We know who he is and we are very afraid.

We have Dinesh D'Souza's hard hitting film, 2016: Obama's America. It has grossed almost 30 million dollars in 61 days at over 2000 movie theatres, making it the number three movie in America. 2016 had the highest per-theater average among the top twelve movies on the North American box-office chart. Obama's memoir is no longer the pages of a book few bothered to read -- in the movie you hear Obama reading his own words, hear Obama's own voice. We can see the images of the places and people who shaped his political beliefs.

After this movie, millions of people will not just be voting, they will be working against Obama with everything they've got. No one from our side can see this film and not be galvanized to action.

We have American Thinker and all the other conservative new media to help us understand the scope of the problem. We have the Tea Party to solve it. We have Freedomworks' amazing get-out-the vote efforts. Thanks to the internet, voters in red states who have no local opportunities to make a difference can click onto freedomworks.org and volunteer to do phone banking in a crucial swing state. The Tea Party in my small western town has volunteered to help get Josh Mandel elected in Ohio. We will help Romney win Ohio, while assuring a conservative Senate that will set limits on whoever is president. Technology is extending our political reach.

Democrats will continue to be ignorant, depressed and demoralized. They think the issue is a war on women. We know it is Obama's war on America.

Conservatives know what we are fighting, and we will fight with all our strength, all our resources, all our hearts and our minds. That is why we will win.

Vile self destruction

It never ceases to amaze me how unimaginative and predictable a large segment of Progressive Liberalism is and how the Democratic Party has allowed itself to be defined by the rantings and total falsehoods of an extremist segment of its constituency. Not only are they being defined by this extremist element, in many ways they have embraced it in much the way a frightened man would embrace a grizzly in order not to be mauled to death by it.

Consider these two recent stories both from left leaning publications. The first is titled "Jesse Jackson Blasts Tea Party at Martin Luther King Jr. Event" with the sub-header stating, The civil rights leader says the group is up to old racist tricks. and begins:

"The Tea Party is not new," Jackson said. "It's just a new name for an old game."

Jackson told the audience that the Tea Party's tenets are simply a form of veiled racism that was used in the past to oppose federally mandated integration on the basis of state’s rights. The luncheon honored civil rights pioneers and featured guests and speakers such as Andrew Young, former United Nations ambassador and mayor of Atlanta, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and NAACP President Benjamin Jealous.

Note that this was not just a typical race baiting speech given by Jackson, but one at a very important event attended by members of key Democratic constituencies the administration and congress. By not denouncing this hateful rhetoric the Democratic Party tactically endorses it.

Now consider the next story which appeared in Politco the same day titled "Tim Scott is the tea party talent scout". Really the picture which accompanies the story, as they say, is worth a thousand words.

Tim Scott is not only a freshman congressman from South Carolina, he represents a conservative district and beat the grandson of Strom Thurmond in the Republican primary to get to the general election which he won with 65% of the vote. He along with Allen West of Florida are considered Tea Party favorites and as the Politico story points out with its typical liberal elitist snarkiness:

Scott’s town halls are hosted by a number of local GOP and tea party groups, uneasy allies in the feverish pitch to find a nominee to defeat President Barack Obama in 2012. But his fans in the state describe him as the elected official who could unite the two groups: he is tea party in ideology and but not in temperament, able to keep one foot in official Washington, where he’s an elected freshmen representative to the House leadership team, and one foot firmly planted in the South Carolinian tradition of political rebellion. That’s evident in his frequent votes against party leaders on major bills like the continuing resolution and debt ceiling deal this year, when Scott and his fellow South Carolina freshmen refused to support leadership despite late-night lobbying efforts to bring the delegation on board.

The definition of racism is:

rac·ism   [rey-siz-uhm] Show IPA
noun
1.a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others.
2.a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.
3.hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.

Under no definition of racism could Tim Scott, Allen West, Herman Cain or the many other African American, Hispanic, Indian-American, candidates enthusiastically supported by Tea Party groups throughout the country be possible. As Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots said in reponse to Jessie Jackson's comments:

"It is unfortunate that at an event intended to honor the memory of an American hero who gave his life to ensure equal rights for every American, Jesse Jackson would choose to use the moment to make false statements which detract from the memory of Martin Luther King Jr.,"

This continued smearing of every day Americans is becoming more and more vile and is beginning to backfire on Democrats, as the truth of what they have become is growing more apparent to the general population. It is just a matter of time before the Democratic Party implodes, brought down by the acceptance and embracing of an ideology far from the mainstream of American values and principles. A party which accepts and promotes lies as a strategy to attain and maintain power can not and will not survive in America.