Tea party plans to abandon GOP stars
Four years ago, the movement and its potent mix of anger and populism persuaded thousands of costumed and sign-waving conservatives to protest the ballooning deficit and President Obama’s health care law. It swept a crop of no-compromise lawmakers into Congress and governor’s offices and transformed political up-and-comers, including Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, into household names.
But as many tea party stars seek re-election next year and Rubio considers a 2016 presidential run, conservative activists are finding themselves at a crossroads. Many of their standard-bearers have embraced more moderate positions on bedrock issues such as immigration and health care, broadening their appeal in swing states but dampening grass-roots passion.
“They keep sticking their finger in the eyes of the guys who got them elected,” said Ralph King, a co-founder of the Cleveland Tea Party Patriots. “A lot of people are feeling betrayed.” SOURCE
This post is likely to anger a few readers but quite frankly, I am way past caring about that.
Four years ago I tried to tell people that the TEA Party was a very poor handicapper when it came to the winners of political races and exactly WHO was a good candidate to support and so forth.
Marco Rubio was one that I tried to warn people about.
You hear people talk about having *gaydar*, the ability to spot out a homosexual person almost immediately? Well, I don’t have that. What I do have is an innate ability to spot fakes, faux Conservatives and RINOs. RINO finder maybe?
I don’t know how I do it, I honestly have NO idea, but I can, most of the time, spot out a fake long before he or she makes their RINO self known as such to the community. Marco Rubio was one that I KNEW was a RINO right from the start but the TEA Party and its *shot callers* and members fell for Rubio hook, line and sinker.
The tea party is a loosely knit web of activists, and some are hoping to rekindle the fire with 2014 primary challenges to wayward Republicans. But many more say they plan to sit out high-profile races in some important swing states next year, a move that GOP leaders fear could imperil the re-election prospects of former tea party luminaries, including the governors of Florida and Ohio.
I make no secret of the fact that I was once connected to the TEA Party. I was Vice President of our local TEA Party here in Rowlett and I have to say, that group, and the TEA Party in its original inception was one dandy idea, right up until the train left the station and promptly derailed because of Drama Queens disrupting meetings, no sense of direction and lack of ANY leadership.
That *loose knit web of activists* thing has been the major downfall of the TEA Party.
The TEA Party has been notorious in its efforts to keep themselves *leaderless*. Many in the TEA Party make it a point to tell any and all that will listen, “We have NO leaders, we are ALL leaders”, or some such nonsense, for them it’s a thing to be proud of.
Anyone that has ever been in a position of leadership knows; you either have LEADERS and organization or you have a rabble. That was the primary reason for my leaving the TEA Party; I refuse to be a part of a disorganized rabble that spurns leadership!
Sadly, when leadership did appear it turned out to be hard-core Libertarians and Ron Paul supporters. The Drama Queen disruption continued, the meetings and occasional rallies were an opportunity for the women from the *retirement home* to have an excuse to get out and come to town and the Rowlett TEA Party promptly fell to pieces.
I know that there are efforts afoot to rebuild the TEA Party, locally and on a national scale, and honestly, I do wish them well, but I have to say, far too many of us that consider ourselves to be REAL Conservatives were left with a *bad taste* in their mouths from the original TEA Party and its 2 or 3 rebirths thus far.
One of the biggest issues I have with the TEA Party is their propensity to advocate *sitting out* an election as is called for in the above blockquote.
A couple of elections ago the Rowlett TEA Party called for citizens to *sit out* a particular race here, one for a position on the City Council. It was a 3 way race and it was obvious that there was going to be a run-off election because none of the candidates were exciting enough to garner a clear cut majority in the primary election, so, local TEA Party leaders called on voters to *sit that race out* until a clear cut 2 person race was established.
Once again we hear calls to *sit it out* from the TEA Party, this time on a national scale.
Well folks, here’s how I see it; REAL Conservatives, REAL Patriots don’t *sit out* elections and ANY so-called political group that would call for such is NOT what they claim to be. We may not have the best ticket to pick from sometimes, most times actually, but a REAL Patriot takes the time to get into the study of candidates, and as much as it pains me to do so, sometimes we have to hold our noses and vote for the *lesser of the evils*.
But TRUE Americans don’t sit it out.
The shame of the matter is that we have to even consider *the lesser of the evils* at all, and if the TEA Party had ANY pride at all they would drop the *sit it out* line and start demanding better candidates, maybe even running better candidates.
If the TEA Party had any PRIDE in themselves that is.
In about the five years I’ve been coming here, I haven’t always agreed on what you might have said about a particular politician and I don’t say anything but I just sit back and watch that candidate or politician. I have to say, you have been correct in your initial assessment of the person in ever case I can think of. I’ve learned that if Fred raises the red flag about a politician, I need to keep a close eye on that politician and what they do. Best case in point for me is Sarah Palin. I though she was it at first but you kept warning us and by gosh, you were right. She’s a drama queen in it for herself and nobody but herself.
Those who choose “sitting it out” are the ones who gave us Obama for second term. We knew what Obama was all about and is planning on doing to America by time the 2012 election rolled around; every American who is the least bit Conservative knew it and so did those on the left. I know people who profess themselves to be Christians who sat it out because they would not vote for a Mormon. These people gave us one of the most ungodly men to ever inhabit the White House. They knew but refused to get off their self-righteous high horses and at least vote for someone who might have given this nation a chance at recovery.
Ya know, I deliberately avoided mentioning Palin by name in this one but I assumed that anyone that knows me would realize who I was referring to…
Bob F (and Fred) There HAS been one you didn’t support that Fred and I had discussion about on more than one occasion (and that’s the Canadian-born Senator with Cuban heritage from Texas)…
Overall though Fred, you’re pretty accurate in your RINO detection!
Just like the GOP, the TEA Party abandoned ME — I didn’t abandon IT.
They forgot their OWN acronym: T-AXED
E-NOUGH
A-LREADY
As Wikipedia even writes :
The Tea Party movement is an American political movement that advocates reducing the U.S. national debt and federal budget deficit by reducing U.S. government spending and taxes.[1][2]
And it seems like the GOP and the TEA Party have completely forGOTten these goals.
They want to continue with spending and approve more taxation.
It’s going to all crash. I say: “LET IT CRASH.”
I have MY precious metals. I have MY water. I have MY food. I have MY distance from civilization. I have MY defenses.
Molon Labe.
Bring it on.
BZ
As Phil Harris said:
“?You can watch things happen; you can make things happen; or you can wonder what the fuck happened.”
In my life, I’ve made things happen. Just as I make things happen today with the troops I supervise.
BZ
Somebody has to get the Right’s act together and pronto as we definitely don’t want Hillary in 2016 nor do we want Barack to have a majority in the house & senate from the 2014 election. So far it looks like nothing is happening.
Sitting out an election is one of the worst things I can think of for a person or group to use to express their disapproval. Doing so takes our voice out of the process when it needs to be present the most. Just like Bob said above, because so many Christians refused to vote for Mitt Romney, Barack Obama is in the White House for another four years. I know Romney isn’t perfect, but at least he has some morals about him. Considering the choices we had, voting for Romney should have been a no-brainer.
It was a no-brainer for me…
Our tea party lost its way for the most part. It became involved in petty disputes over local candidates. We came together over the national election. I am wondering when many of them started to become in local elections that may have caused the problems. A good concept, but riff with potential bickering when putting together local slates.
Sitting out an election is tantamount to waving the *White Flag of Surrender*. If you’ve got no guts to make a hard choice what are you doing here (IN America) and in your life?? Waiting for something to happen? Life doesn’t always hand you a bowl of cherries to pick the best one out. Most times you have to take the best at hand. When some particular religion, ideology, like or dislike gets in the way and causes a person to *sit out an election* that person is not one who *makes things happen*(see BZ above!).
We MUST talk to as many of our friends and neighbors as possible and make sure that no one *sits out* this 2014 election, no matter the *reason*. Fight with your vote, fight with your words. We must stand tall for our country.
Well, the “tea” party needs to STICK to it’s issues. NO NEW TAXES! Too many times religious superstitionists have kidnapped the agenda to tout “no abortion” or “no homosexual marriage” or whatever. You wanna talk fiscal issues, let’s go. You wander into making me heel to YOUR superstitions, get off. I can probably live better “offshore” with my retirement than stick around and fight for “anti-abortion” or whatever. Hell, in 100 years it won’t make any difference anyway.
Fully agreed… When I was still associated with the TEA Party, in fact, I was NEW at it, the 1st rally, there was this OLD Pentecostal type woman that wanted to speak during the time allotted for citizen input and all she did, for her entire 5 minutes, had nothing to do with the TEA Party, it’s CORE VALUES or anything even remotely associated WITH the TEA Party…
She literally spent 5 minutes crying and sobbing and saying, over and over, abortion must be stopped, we must save all of those poor little babies…
Look, I am as anti-abortion as a man can be but there’s a time and a place for ALL things, that was NOT the time nor place for an anti-abortion crying screed, and when I said so to the other members of the TEA Party you would have thought that I was SATAN personified and had said PISS ON CHRISTIANITY or something…
The TEA Party, as a whole, can’t find their asses with BOTH hands, a set of directions and a Garmin GPS unit, and people like that, and her being held up as a shining example are the reason why… No focus, no leadership and NO direction…