Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Sen. Jim DeMint (S.C.) and Rep. Mike Pence (Ind.) are looked upon with more favor by the Tea Party than Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich, according to a report in The Hill.
“I don’t think anyone’s disqualified. I think the two that would have the longest row to hoe would be Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich,” Meckler told the publication, anecdotally recalling conversations with many self-identified Tea Party voters.
Meckler said DeMint and Pence, by contrast, excite Tea Party voters much more, The Hill reports.
One reader commented: “As a progressive I think the Tea Party is the best thing that ever happened to the GOP. These far right libertarian spoil sports will insure that the GOP loses in 2012 by relentlessly applying their litmus tests and continue to shrink the GOP big tent.”
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While these clowns busied themselves eviscerating the Dream Acts and hispanics in particular, the great west has grown from 7.5% hispanic to 22.5%. As the golden states go so go the nation. The GOP has not done the right thing here and it looks wrong some more. Good luck with all that wingnuttios. As Ahnold says : Hasta la Vista bay bays…Kate Hancock
The good news: What Kate said.
The bad news: The corporatist DLC-dominated Democratic Party has become so flaccid and weak and so contemptuous of what used to be its progressive base that the populist uprising — born from legitimate anger at the pain out there — got appropriated and pre-empted by the far right.
There’s much common ground between progressives and the Tea Party(since they largely experience the same pain), but their explanations for how it the crisis happened and how to move forward differ radically.
The country would benefit from a progressive populist uprising, but … don’t hold your breath.
We’re going to see a little more of this “progressive populist uprising” in our county, however, thanks to the extreme right’s and some local “powers that be”‘s (civil, elected and business) outright contempt for citizens who don’t agree with them. Signs of it are apparent now in some recent local election results.
Some of them (old and new), and mentioned here from time to time, have treated their naysayers like dirt for years. You don’t see this attitude nearly as much in the eastern end of the county.
I was glad to see the GV Planning Commission approve the Hospitality House relocation, and I expect our county supervisors will shift more toward the middle with Terry Lamphier on board. Cooler heads in business and government also will want to “build a bridge” with the rest of the state, so we won’t be so isolated politically and culturally.
The “fringe” will be more exposed than before.
http://www.benemery.org/1/post/2010/4/the-tea-party-have-it-correct-but-wrong.html
When I wrote this piece running for office hadn’t even entered my mind. It was the Citizen United decision that pushed me into throwing my hat in.
I was dangled this question over and over again throughout the campaign “What do you think of the Tea Party?”
A provocative answer was expected but the thing is I agree with what has the Tea Party angry. The are two big differences between the Tea Party and Progressive Populists.
1) Corporate funding and having a national outlet as a mouthpiece (Fox)
2) Progressive Populists have connected the dots that our government is broken and it is big money special corporate interests who controls our government.
Having done this we have alienated the media who will not cover progressive movements like it once did because the national media is controlled by less than 10 corporations who have interlocking boards with other major industries.
The day will come when the corporate segment of the Tea Party will cross the line with the real grassroots part of the movement and that is when we will have the great change that is so desperately needed. Until then we need to keep trying to be rationale and educating people on how the “For Sale” sign is still on the lawn of our Capital.
Ben, I agree the TP has some legitimate concerns but it’s who they align themselves with (corporates, FOX) and the tactics employed that have caused me to become totally disenfranchised with them.
What the Tea Party has accomplished, that is , the legitimate grass roots voice, which does not by any means necessarily represent the movement, is the problems. Where they fail is offering solutions. It is not difficult to to perceive that a nation whose government is in debt 12 trillion dollars needs to change something in the way things are done. Don’t think any average citizen couldn’t figure that out. And thank you, Ben Emery, for your brief and to the point analysis of how we got into that mess. It finally got through to voters in 2008 that it was perhaps not wise to elect the foxes to guard the hen house. But determining changes needed and then bringing them about is the hard part. Not the least of what is needed is, obviouisly, kicking out the foxes, who have done a good job of gaining control in both major parties, so that means major structural changes in how power is alloted, and how the people are best to be represented. The first job of the Obama Administration was to stabilize the economy, in danger of falling off a cliff and bringing on a World Depression of proportions which would make that of ’29 seem mild. That has been done, though not without cooperation and leadership from the foxes who actually brought on the problem but whose interests surely lay in solving it. Once jobs begin coming back enough to consider the crisis economic situation really over, and the economic danger ameliorated, then concerned citizens can begin hoping for and working for the changes in government and how politics is conducted in the U S to reduce the far too wide income gap which has occurred over the Reagan-Bush/Cheney years and bring back a more truly representative and democratic form of government, which is what the writers of our Constitution wanted, than what we have. Since the Constitution is always being referred to by Tea Party followers as what our guide in government should be, this is something they and Progressives should be able to agree on Anyone for public financing of elections? Don’t laugh.