Lord Morningstar
House minority leader John Boehner claimed during a radio appearence that there are "no major differences" between the beliefs of the tea party crowd and the GOP.
There has been lots of coverage of the Tea Party convention at Opryland this weekend. The speech delivered by Sarah Palin was broadcasted live in its entirety complete with post game analysis on several networks. I would guess that the Sunday morning news talk shows will feature an additional healthy dose of more Tea time.
Is Boehner right? Notice during the Q&A last night that when Palin was asked about the GOP, whe said the party would be wise to include the tea partiers and they cheered.
“The Republican Party would be very smart to absorb as much of the Tea Party movement as possible.â€
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/80 ... y-movement
What we are seeing is NOT the foundation of a new third party independent of the other two. What we are seeing is NOT a third party which will seriously challenge for races around then nation from the ground up. What we are seeing is NOT the beginnings of a 2012 third party running its own candidate in the presidential election. Now that could change with time and unforseen developments, but right now something very different is going on.
Its like some weird alien mating ritual where these two very similar creatures think they can seduce the other, mate with it and then consume the other and use it for food to sustain itself and make itself stronger. There is a belief that the traditional establishment GOP was on the ropes and maybe down for the count before the whole Tea Party thing came along last year to energize them and give them some focus. The GOP seems this as an opportunity to redefine their brand, to rebuild their ranks, and to provide millions of new voters which will translate into ballot box victories just like the one in Massachusetts.
The Tea party folks see this as the chance to take over an existing structure with offices and ballot access in all 50 states without having to go through the terribly complicated work of building a true new party and conning voters into believing that this third party - unlike any in past century and a half - can win.
Of course Boehner is right and there are tremendous swaths of territory where their beliefs cross paths and intersect. You could make a quick list of things that are fairly obvious. Consider that both the Tea Party people and the establishment GOP both
- have a deep hatred for Barack Obama
- have an even deeper hatred for what they call Big Government
- are devoted to this vague concept of smaller government without clarifying it
- have opposed the health care reforms before Congress
- are anti-tax so strongly that it approaches as a nearly religious belief
- they have open loathing for labor unions and the union movement
- are opposed to measures favored by the Civil Rights communities sometimes to the point of open racism
- are anti-immigration and anti-immigrant sometimes to the point of xenophobia
- generally are what is termed "pro-life" which is more accurately anti-abortion
Are there differences? Sure. There are with any two different groups. Support for Wall Street is the obvious one. But there is enough common ground to unite them. In the end there is one realization that will unite them together in that mating dance. Their hatred of President Obama and his Big Government will overcome any differences they may have.
This from Mark Skoda, Chairman of the Memphis Tea Party convention on how his Teapartiers will decide to support candidates from now on
The group's leaders plan to support candidates who stand for a set of "First Principles."
Those principles are: fiscal responsibility, lower taxes, less government, states' rights and national security. Prospective political candidates will be expected to support the Republican National Committee platform. If a particular candidate meets the proposed criteria he or she would be eligible for fundraising and grassroots support.
So unless one is intentionally wearing a pair of thick blinders so they do not see reality, it should be obvious that while the Tea party group and the GOP may not be exactly twins, they are siblings in the same family. Yeah, they may fight and squabble and disagree from time to time but they still are closely related and have far more in common than the differences which may divide them from time to time.
You can find more from the article the above quote was taken from here
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/ ... -case.html