Tea Party Activists Are Scalding the GOP
Perhaps it will begin to dawn on GOP leaders that those who protest Obama and the Democrats at Tea Parties are not automatic supporters of any and all Republican candidates. In Tea-Party Activists Complicate Republican Comeback Strategy, the Wall Street Journal reports:
The rise of conservative “tea party” activists around the country has created a dilemma for Republicans. They are breathing life into the party’s quest to regain power. But they’re also waging war on some candidates hand-picked by GOP leaders as the most likely to win.
The column covers numerous races around the country, focusing on the November 3rd special election in New York’s 23rd Congressional District. Dede Scozzafava is the GOP candidate. She is running against not just the Democrat candidate, Bill Owens, but also against Conservative Party candidate, Doug Hoffman:
Ms. Scozzafava, he [Doug Hoffman] noted, was pro-choice, backed gay marriage, supported Mr. Obama’s stimulus plan and favored making it easier for unions to organize. The New York Conservative Party gave her a rating of 15 out of a possible 100, based on her votes in the state assembly.
“I really felt that the Republican bosses who selected her were misrepresenting her as a Republican,” said Mr. Hoffman in an interview. “I felt the voters in this district, number one, deserve to know what her real record is, and number two, deserve a choice besides a liberal Republican and a liberal Democrat that’s going to support Nancy Pelosi,” the Democratic House Speaker.
The Florida race between Marco Rubio and Charlie Crist is also mentioned:
In Florida, Republican leaders were elated when popular Florida Gov. Charlie Crist agreed to run for the Senate. He has adopted policies such as an aggressive approach to global warming that appeal even to Democrats. Those very policies infuriated conservatives, as did Mr. Crist’s decision to campaign with President Barack Obama on behalf of the president’s $787 billion stimulus package.
“He was Judas to the Republican Party in the state of Florida and across the country,” says Robin Stublen, 53, of Punta Gorda, co-state coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots, a loose national coalition. “He sold us out for 13 pieces of gold.”
Crist is running into trouble in Florida. The St. Petersburg Times has a political ear to the ground: Charlie Crist supporters alarmed with Rubio.
Regardless, some of Crist’s top supporters are worried….More and more, they say, likely Republican voters are leaning toward Rubio and away from Crist, who’s having trouble undoing his man-hug of Barack Obama.
…They’re nervous. So is Crist, who’s unexpectedly dropping in at Republican committee meetings, where straw poll after straw by rank-and-file Republican base voters show the base favors Rubio.
This quote from the Wall Street Journal describes the GOP’s mistake. Those who attend Tea Parties can think for themselves.
“The tea-party movement, in my judgment, has proven to be very real, but it’s precisely the fact that it’s real that makes it difficult to take advantage of,” says Vin Weber, a former Minnesota congressman and now a top Republican strategist. “They don’t want to be co-opted by the Republican Party.”
UPDATE: Erick Erickson has had numerous posts on the fight going on within the GOP. In Judas Goats And Principles he has this quote from Bill Kristol on the WSJ column (Erick’s emphasis):
the Wall Street Journal has a story on the race with the headline Tea-Party Activists Complicate Republican Comeback Strategy. The truth is the opposite: The GOP establishment complicates the Republican and conservative comeback strategy.
This afternoon in BREAKING: Scozzafava Possibly Mulling Party Switch, Erick had this news on the NY-23 race, again from The Weekly Standard (his emphasis):
Asked via email if Scozzafava would commit to running in a Republican primary in 2010, Burns replied last night, “Dede is focused on the election that is Nov. 3.”
He wrote that Scozzafava currently “is a vote for Rep. Boehner” to be speaker of the House.
__________
H/T: Wall Street Journal, St. Petersburg Times RedState, The Weekly Standard.
[1]
The two races you profiled, INC, Crist/Rubio, and the NY-23 with Hoffman running as a 3rd party to the establishment party candidates, are the races to watch.
They will be bellweather races, so to speak. If both Rubio and Hoffman either win, or get close to winning, it will definitely be a strong message to GOP standard-bearers that things are a-changing….and, party bosses better do more than passive listening to groups like the tea parties!
[2]
My “hope for change” is the Tea Party movement co-opts the GOP party. We shall see…
[3]
What the Reps won’t grasp is that the Teas are a group of people determined to take their country back. The want transcends party affiliation.
[4]
So, what’s the problem? I view this as a good thing.
I wonder when it’s going to dawn on the GOP Elites that we are tired of doing their bidding and we really don’t care what Mike Murphy, Kevin Madden, Steve Schmidt et all want us to think or for whom they want us to vote. In fact, their endorsement of a candidate is most likely to turn me against that person.
[5]
Amen mpthompson (#2).
Off topic but great news:
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=509251
Viva Calderon!
[6]
YO!!! Anybody who has NOT ordered Palin book ‘Going Rogue’ you have the chance of a lifetime. $9, shipped! Here’s the link.
Walmart and Amazon are having a minor price war.
Makes a cheap gift for that liberal black sheep in the family.
Enjoy!
[7]
‘My “hope for change” is the Tea Party movement co-opts the GOP party.’
Third-party movements virtually never succeed.
It makes more sense to try to reform the GOP from the inside, starting at the grassroots.
Even then, we’re probably going to end up with socialism and socialism-lite as our two choices.
[8]
Did Palin write it, or was it ghosted?
[9]
Phineas….I think what mpthompson is saying is that the Tea Party takes over the GOP….not a third party movement. At least that is the way I interpreted it, Mike will have to speak to it himself.
I totally agree 3rd party is just a disastrous strategery.
[10]
YO!!! Anybody who has NOT ordered Palin book ‘Going Rogue’ you have the chance of a lifetime. $9, shipped!
Thanks, but I went to go purchase it from Walmart and I get this damn message when checking out:
This item cannot be shipped to the address you entered due to state restrictions. Please go back and remove this item from your order, or enter a different shipping address.
WTF? It’s a Kalifornia conspiracy I tell you. I guess Amazon will get my business.
[11]
Does the book come with ammo? That might explain it.
[12]
I’m not in favor of third parties because of the Perot/Clinton effect. At the moment this is a primary war within the GOP except for the NY special election.
Palin collaborated with Lynn Vincent who writes for World, an excellent Christian news magazine.
[13]
I think what mpthompson is saying is that the Tea Party takes over the GOP….not a third party movement.
Yep, that is what I meant. I also see a 3rd party as a recipe as an electoral disaster and would only be a “last resort” type option. However, I’m not certain how the majority of those who participate in Tea Parties feel about starting a 3rd party. Hopefully they are pragmatic about the issue.
[14]
mpt…I got the same message. Ordered through Amazon instead!
[15]
The Tea Party movement should wield the very real threat to go 3rd party if the GOP establishment mount a war against their participation. It they are forced to go 3rd party it would decimate the Republicans, but I’m not sure the GOP elites would really care as it just makes them more free to curl up and cuddle with the Dems.
[16]
What I’m hoping for is that incumbents are voted out across the board in 2010.
To my mind the only long-term solution to this dynamic of corruption and liberal creep is a constitutional amendment for term limits.
The Founders never intended for a seat in Congress to be a full-time job or a life-time appointment.
In the short-term, the best thing is to encourage local representation. With modern communication and information technology, there is no need for representatives to be in Washington except for a handful of days.
I would be much more inclined to vote for a candidate that pledged to do that and also signed a written commitment to resign after two terms.
[17]
The problem with that mpt, is that many in the GOP would rather see it lose than be conservative. McCain and Graham are two of these.
They will try to run the conservatives out, and if they fail, they themselves will leave and join the dems.
If conservatives go third party, the remaining Rs will simply join the dems and we lose.
If conservatives retake the GOP, well, the liberal Rs will leave, think Allahpundit or Chekote, they would happily vote dem if Palin, for example, or Thompson, or Reagan for that matter, won the GOP nod again….
So we have to earn our wings back with performance in office. This is what will win the independents back, trust.
Bush threw that trust away, and the McCains of the party don’t care if it ever comes back.
Gonna be a long struggle.
[18]
Great post, #16, Phin…..
[19]
A third party initiative would take conservatives out of power for decades. I agree with rwy and pg in getting rid of rinos in red states and incumbents in over 12 years in DC.
Tea partiers should exert pressure, not exercise it.
[20]
If conservatives retake the GOP, well, the liberal Rs will leave, think Allahpundit or Chekote, they would happily vote dem if Palin, for example, or Thompson, or Reagan for that matter, won the GOP nod again…
I believe there is the inescapable fact that a portion of the GOP doesn’t want anything to do with conservatism — for them it’s mostly about taxes and that’s about it. They could care less how centralize or powerful the government gets, if it can do it with relatively modest taxes then it’s alright with them. Of course, that’s an anathema to those of us here.
That being said, at some point there must be a splitting of the ways. I just don’t see a way around it. Either the GOP does indeed go conservative and we lose the liberal wing as they become Donks, or their is a deeper split in the GOP where the GOP becomes Donk-lite and the conservative 3rd party is formed.
Of course, I believe it is most everyone’s preference to see the liberal wing of the GOP drift to the Donks as their numbers would likely be made up for by conservative independents and perhaps even former Dems who are disgusted by the communist now in charge of their party. If the conservatives are sent packing from the GOP it’s going to be terrible for everyone as the Dems win every election.
The ultimate split can be mild or it can be painful. I guess we’ll just have to wait to see how it goes.
[21]
Haha. Hey I was just trying to save someone a buck. Its the same Palin book everyone was a ga ga three weeks ago. Guess folks here don’t like being cheap. Your loss.
[22]
MPT, sorry you can’t order it.
[23]
To my mind the only long-term solution to this dynamic of corruption and liberal creep is a constitutional amendment for term limits.
The Founders never intended for a seat in Congress to be a full-time job or a life-time appointment. — PG
Term limits are not the answer. All that does is make the staffers and lobbyists more powerful in drafting legislation. Do you really think that 100
monkeys, Senators pounding on the keyboard could draft a 1000+ page bill in the space of a couple of months? Hell half of them don’t even know how to use a computer/word processor. All this garbage was cranked out by staffers, NGO’s and lobbyists. Term limits only make the legislators more dependent on the forces we are arrayed against.You want to affect Congress? Congressmen get 4 staffers in DC and 3 at the district. Senators get 4 staffers in DC and 9 at the State. Period. When there are no resources to write bills, then bills will not be written.
I do however agree that representation should not be a full time job.
[24]
I got mine for $9 from Amazon — seems that Walmart and Amazon are having a price ware. I also had $3 on my gift certificate balance so the shipping was free too.
[25]
Drdog…Krauthammer suggested that Congress should only be allowed to work one hour per week. Even that might be too much.
[26]
MPT, good deal. Only problem is going Amazon to get the free shipping ya gotta spend $25. But I am still agast you could not order because you are in CA.
[27]
Bruce,
Were close to that figure. Cavuto made mention that most of those Congress critters bug out around noon Thursday, and don’t return till around noon Tuesday. So we get 2 days max out of these guys.
But sort of buttresses my point I made above. With only 16hrs a week do We the People really think these mind midgets can get so much done in so little time. No, they have an army of staffers to do the heavy lifting. Kill off the staffers and the damage that can be done by these idiots grind to a halt.
We complain about these legislators not reading the bills. Well if they HAD to write the damn things they would know what is in them wouldn’t they?? Our Republic is dying by subcontracting.