Tea Party’s purity push steers GOP to the right

WASHINGTON - The tea party’s demands for ideological purity have caught some GOP presidential hopefuls off guard, forcing them to awkwardly defend past decisions as they watch hard-right rivals gain ground.

It’s painfully ironic for some of the Republicans most often mentioned as possible challengers to President Barack Obama in 2012. Stances that gave them national attention and credibility are now being used as cudgels to attack them as wobbly centrists.

Minnesota’s Tim Pawlenty, for instance, gained a reputation as a pragmatic governor of a Democratic-leaning state. But now conservatives are berating him for accepting federal stimulus funds that helped him close a budget gap.

South Dakota Sen. John Thune, who also draws talk as a possible 2012 contender, said a federal bailout of banks was needed when he voted for the plan in 2008. Now, with tea party activists railing against the bailout, Thune is pushing efforts to end it.

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Tea Party’s purity push steers GOP to the right

It’s called holding their feet to the fire!

There are some Patriots in America that are fed up with the status quo, business as usual and the Good Ol’ Boys club. We’re fed up with Casper Milquetoast, RINO leadership that tries to pass itself off as Conservative, and when election time rolls around, as VERY Conservative.

Think John McCain.

And Mitt Romney, the closest thing to an early front-runner — and, perhaps, the establishment candidate — is struggling to explain why he expanded health care as Massachusetts governor, even as he attacks Obama’s similar plan for the nation.

I won’t call Romney a flip-flopper, but there does seem to be a bit of duplicity in his thoughts. I am personally convinced that we can’t have that in a President. Romney made a mess of health care in Massachusetts, would he not do likewise if he were POTUS? Possibly even complicate the ObamaCare debacle even more?

Meanwhile, there’s increasing buzz about some hardline conservative Republicans who, until recently, rarely drew mention in presidential conversations. Chief among them is Texas Gov. Rick Perry. He handily defeated Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in last month’s Republican gubernatorial primary after positioning himself to her right on nearly every issue.

I support Rick Perry in his run for the Texas Governorship. I believe that Perry would make an excellent Texas Senator once his time as Governor is done. He’d make a great replacement for John Cornyn when that election comes around.

And since Kay Bailey Hutchison was mentioned — She LIED to the people of Texas — She told us that she was going to resign from the Senate and run for Governorship of Texas. Well, she ran. She lost. She lied.

She is still our senior U.S. Senator and it looks like she will remain so for another two years. That’s when we need to fully retire the Ol’ Girl and bring in new blood.

And libertarian-Republican Ron Paul bested Romney and everyone else in a straw poll of presidential favorites at February’s gathering of the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Perry and Paul are among the numerous potential candidates scheduled to speak this weekend to about 3,000 activists in New Orleans at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference.

If the GOP is so stupid, so desperate and so out of touch that they would consider Ron Paul to be a viable candidate for the office of President, then it’s time for the GOP and the RNC to be shown the door as a TEA Party emerges and gets active in the REAL world of politics and not just as a grass roots organization!

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the GOP’s vice presidential nominee in 2008, draws big, enthusiastic crowds wherever she goes, even if party insiders question her ability to be elected president. She’ll be in New Orleans, too.

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