Is South Carolina the Last Gasp for Tea Party in GOP Nomination?
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With the South Carolina primary five days away, the tea party movement has accelerated its efforts to leverage what is likely its last opportunity to influence the Republican nomination process.
The movement has thus far struggled to coalesce behind one candidate. Despite Mitt Romney’s victories in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire and endorsements from the likes of conservative South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, he has yet to win the support of the elusive tea party.
Many in the grassroots movement vehemently oppose the former Massachusetts governor, who they deem to be no different than President Obama, politically and ideologically. In a poll conducted by Judson Phillips, founder of the Tea Party Nation, 40 percent of tea partiers said they would not vote for Romney in the general election.
“Romney is not a moderate. He is a liberal. He is almost as far to the left as Barack Obama,” Phillips, who organized the first tea party convention in February 2010, said. “Had Obama been governor of a state, his policies would’ve looked identical to what Romney’s looked like when he was governor of Massachusetts.”
The tea party movement has a strong presence in South Carolina. Only four percent of those surveyed in a November poll by Clemson University opposed the conservative movement, and many in the movement see South Carolina as the last frontier to make a concerted effort to derail Romney’s candidacy.
“If he wins here, it’s game, set, match Romney,” author and Clemson University professor J. David Woodard said.
At a major convention held by the Tea Party Patriots this weekend, Romney was notably missing from the list, which featured candidates Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum and GOP heavy hitters such as Haley and Sen. Jim DeMint.
The Republican senator from South Carolina who has emerged as a tea party star told ABC News Friday that Romney needs to work on his empathy.
“I know I had to do it a few times in my career and I had sleepless nights and it killed me to do it, but I was doing it to save the other employees in my company and keep it going,” DeMint, a former marketing consultant, said. “If he doesn’t explain this, well, he’s going to see this again if he’s the nominee in the general election.”
But the biggest trouble for the tea party movement is the failure to unite behind one candidate, in many ways hurting the movement that already lacks a cohesive leadership. “The tea party is so fractured and we are so independent … that by the time we have one conservative left standing, it may too late,” said Phillips, who has endorsed Gingrich.
And that, Phillips added, could hurt the Republican Party in November. Grassroots momentum by tea party activists helped propel many first-time candidates into Congress in 2010, and the Republican party will need that to ensure a win.
“Worst-case scenario, we find a candidate whose a third-party candidate. That means Obama would get a second term. We realize that but Romney is little better than Obama,” Phillips said. “A Romney nomination is a lose-lose scenario for the tea party. We’ll have Obama in the White House for a second term or we’ll have a liberal in the White House. There is very little upside to that.”
But it is going to be a tough task. Even tea party sympathizers have hinted at a Romney candidacy. Haley, who surged to the governorship with tea party support, endorsed the former governor, upsetting many of her supporters. Freshman Rep. Tim Scott, who rode the same wave to Congress, also acknowledged there’s a divide among conservatives.
“When you have Rick Perry, when you have Mr. Santorum, Mr. Gingrich all working on the social conservative platform in South Carolina, you see there is a divide on the social conservative side,” Scott said in an interview with CNN’s John King last week. “So I think it’s going to be very difficult for any of us to find one candidate that becomes the anti-Romney candidate in the next nine days.”
Since the movement’s ascent in 2010, some tea party fans believe its influence is fading. It has been less visible in the 2012 election scene and has been in some ways overshadowed by the leftist Occupy Wall Street movement. Unlike three years ago, the movement has also been less visible on the national circuit, with virtually no gatherings to boast of in Washington D.C.
“It is almost impossible to believe and downright sickening to accept that in light of the clear mandate of the tea party that the GOP stands on the cusp of returning to ‘establishmentarianism,’” wrote conservative columnist and radio talk show host Kevin McCullough. “But it appears that for all the big talk, tens of thousands of local rallies, and the single largest non-inaugural event to ever occur on our nation’s mall, the tea party has died. Which is sad. And it’s sad for me personally as a supporter, because I believed in the movement and I even addressed those patriots, on that mall, that cloudy Washington day.”
Tea Partiers, however, charge that although they might not be able to influence the presidential race as much as they had hoped, they still plan to make a dent in this year’s state and congressional elections.
“There are several people interested in the presidential election,” said Shelby Blakely, executive director of The New Patriot Journal, a publication of the tea party Patriots, “but there is a larger group that’s focused on the congressional election in 2012 and to continue to elect tea party-minded individuals within the U.S. Congress.”
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Conservatives remind me of many religious people. They all have checklists of what they feel constitutes a “true conservative”. Unfortunately for them, all the checklists are different. And since conservatives, and the religious, are unwilling to bend or listen to other’s ideas, they end up fractured, with each candidate claiming to be the “true” one.
Posted by: Plantain_11 | January 16, 2012, 7:53 am 7:53 am
Actually, the biggest trouble for the Tea Party is their extreme narrow mindedness. Thinking that all of the ills of the country can be solves by reducing taxes is a simpleton idea.
Posted by: john locke | January 16, 2012, 8:02 am 8:02 am
Social conservatives live in their own little bubble …..no idea what the real world is like …..how can anyone possibly say that women shouldnt be allowed to abort a child especially when the world has a population problem …..but I will say conservatives are 100% right about how to handle the economy …..hence why I’m a libertarian…..
Posted by: connor94 | January 16, 2012, 8:08 am 8:08 am
Actually, the biggest trouble for Occupy Wall Street is their extreme narrow mindedness. Thinking that all of the ills of the country can be solved by raising taxes is a simpleton idea.
Posted by: Tom T | January 16, 2012, 8:12 am 8:12 am
President’s Day is coming. That’s when President Obama steps out of the White House, and if he sees his shadow, we have one more year of unemployment.
Posted by: newcountryman | January 16, 2012, 8:21 am 8:21 am
The tea party has been a disgraceful embarrassment and its supporters should be ashamed of themselves. Its demise is gratefully received. It social mores are sickening to the vast bulk of americans as was their frantic desperation to spread the message to quell their own transparent, self centered fears.
Posted by: nick | January 16, 2012, 8:31 am 8:31 am
The media keeps try to say the Tea Party movement is dead, they wish. Just because they don’t stand around in parks, taking dope, urinating on streets, etc it does not mean their golds have changed to take this country out of debt and make our leaders responsible. They have jobs!
Posted by: Freedom | January 16, 2012, 8:41 am 8:41 am
wouldn’t it make more sense for the tea party to back Ron Paul as their candidate-considering he is the hypothetical godfather of the movement?
Posted by: thyhg | January 16, 2012, 8:51 am 8:51 am
Huma Khan demonstrates typical MSM cluelessness of the Tea Party. The Tea Party “movement” was never about social conservatism. Yes, they joined late and even some of the leaders are driven by social issues.
However, the groundswell grassroots movement was and continues to be fically conservative, social libertarian, and national defense hawks. Ww want the government out of our pockets/pocketbooks and out of our lives.
We are far more likely to be Ron Paul supporters than gingrich, santorum, and perry combined. We are with him on fiscal and social issues, where we diverge is on his true believer (libertarian) conspiracy theories and isolationism foreign policy.
Don’t even begin to believe we support the social conservatives. Tyranny of the right is no better than tyranny of the left. They both want to controlour lives to support their agendas. We are having none of it.
Many of us are supporting Ron Paul, not because we think he can win, not because we would even want himto be president. We are striving to send a message to Mitt Romney and the Replublican establishment, “if you want to win your better listen to our concerns”!!!
Posted by: spiritrider | January 16, 2012, 8:56 am 8:56 am
What would expect; the Tea Party movement has better ratings than ABC News. Will this year the last gasp for ABC News Division,
Posted by: JungleCogs | January 16, 2012, 9:11 am 9:11 am
The Tea Party started out as a great idea. If they had stuck to their beliefs, Ron Paul is the only one who fit their agenda. Alas, now it’s the same old rhetoric we’ve heard from years from all parties. What a shame.
Posted by: sonnyboy | January 16, 2012, 9:15 am 9:15 am
“Ouch!” …….. Seems to me that there’s a MAJOR divide among the right-whiners about that “flip-flopper” (Romney). A lot of folks on the right (i.e., the Tea Party folks) can’t stand the fact that they’re going to be forced to “PINCH THEIR NOSES” as they cast their votes in November and vote for someone who is essentially a “liberal” (Willard “Mitt” Romney), even after all of their complaints about how much they “can’t stand liberals”.
I guess the “Grand Whining Party” ain’t got their backs on this one, and are forcing the medicine down their throats, i.e., “STOP YOUR GRIPING TEA PARTIERS AND JUST VOTE FOR ROMNEY!” (hehehehe!)
It’s going to be either that, or…
OPTION (B) – Write Ron Paul in as a “Write-In” this coming November.
OPTION (C) – Stay home and don’t vote, and protest the Republican party forcing someone you don’t want down your throats.
LOL! …. I’d recommend every execute OPTION B.
Posted by: Forrest Gump is DEFINITELY a Republican | January 16, 2012, 9:23 am 9:23 am
I think the premise of the Tea party is that each individual should have things their own way, no compromises. Otherwise known as “spoiled brat syndrome”. This kind of thinking doesn’t fit very well with a political process. The really scary thing about these loons is taht they all think they should be able to go right out and buy a gun and carry it around so they can win their my way or the highway arguments.
Posted by: Steve From NH | January 16, 2012, 9:24 am 9:24 am
Nope. The Tea Party has one big opportunity next November. They’ll be pulling out all stops to defeat Obama’s Teat Party (as in “suck on the Government Teat” party).
Posted by: meab | January 16, 2012, 9:40 am 9:40 am
Actually, the biggest trouble for Occupy Wall Street is their extreme narrow mindedness. Thinking that all of the ills of the country can be solved by raising taxes is a simpleton idea. Posted by: Tom T | January 16, 2012, 8:12 am.
LOL! If that were true, you would be correct. However, since what you posted is a lie, that makes it worth ignoring.
Posted by: A Cynic | January 16, 2012, 9:44 am 9:44 am
This is hilarious…this is a primary…none of it will matter 3 months from now (assuming things are over)…BTW the Tea Party has mainly voted for Mitt.
Posted by: Spencer | January 16, 2012, 9:57 am 9:57 am
What a laugh! These idiots really, really, I mean REALLY don’t understand the Tea Party; it’s principles and motivations. First of all, morons, Tea Party People do not believe that lowering taxes will cure the world of its ills. That’s the crap talking points your dummycrap leaders feed to you. Second, if you think this is the last gasp of the Tea Party, then take note of the fact that this is the most conservative field of candidates we’ve had for years. And finally, come November, note the makeup of congress and who is sitting in the Oval Office. Then you can comment on the status of the Tea Party. But for now, please, please keep your head in the sand.
Posted by: hamidgo | January 16, 2012, 9:58 am 9:58 am
BTW the Tea Party has mainly voted for Mitt.
Posted by: Spencer | January 16, 2012, 9:57 am.
According to who?
Posted by: A Cynic | January 16, 2012, 10:00 am 10:00 am
Romney and Obama like to peas in a pod. No thanks
RON PAUL 2012
Posted by: Cam | January 16, 2012, 10:03 am 10:03 am
POSTED BY: FORREST GUMP IS DEFINITELY A REPUBLICAN | JANUARY 16, 2012, 9:23 AM 9:23 AM, you and CYNIC would be happy about that, but don’t worry those who support getting our fisical house in order, stop the decline of our economy, holding our elected officials accountable are well and thriving, not all of us stand on streetcorners but watch what you liberals are up to next. You seem to get more frustrated as time goes by. You don’t complain when GE sends jobs to China AFTER receiving massive bailouts, you don’t complain when this administration tries to become venture capitalists and lose all the taxpayers money and jobs, yet you complain about Bain, apparently you want everyone to be equally poor and only a few that control the money, people like SOROS, BUFFET and the insider traders in the congress and house.
Posted by: Lizzie | January 16, 2012, 10:05 am 10:05 am
The sweeping generalizations made by liberal posters herein as regards the Tea Party are patently inaccurate and disingenuous. Tea Party activists come from across the political, racial and generational spectrum. They are members of a true grassroots movement, consisting of those who demand fiscal sanity and governmental accountability. The movement is far from ‘extreme’ or ‘dead’ yet the media persist in perpetrating that myth at their peril. It’s the media who has breathed its last gasp. Its credibility and relevance has long since expired. Stick a fork in ABC, it’s done.
Posted by: gobnait | January 16, 2012, 10:20 am 10:20 am
The Tea Party has no candidate in the GOP, but that does not mean it;s going away. Watch for the Tea Party to start small with local candidates. It’s going to take a long time to take down the GOP and replace it with a genuine libertarian conservative party.
Posted by: Rick Rock | January 16, 2012, 10:32 am 10:32 am
The thing is, the Tea Party is NOT about social issues. There are SO many Tea Party groups & one of the original Tea Party groups has -already- endorsed Romney. I cannot understand why any of the other Tea Party groups wouldn’t get behind a man that has balanced his states budget every year he was in office, slashed spending, cut the size of government & has the best chance of beating Obama.
Posted by: Diana_FL | January 16, 2012, 10:32 am 10:32 am
Romney will be the nominee. The Tea Party candidates are withering away. Make of that what you will.
Posted by: JAB | January 16, 2012, 10:34 am 10:34 am
The absurdity of this process is that 10 months from the election, after one quarter of one per cent of the electorate has exercised their choice we’re being told our choices are irreversible.
As for the agenda of the Tea Party Movement, it is clearly delineated in the Constitution. It is true that their is no Constitutionalist choice but Ron Paul left in the GOP race, but that simply emphasizes how important the Congressional races will be in 2012 and how necessary it is that Constitutionalists be elected to every available position.
America can only be restored by restoring Constitutional governance.
Posted by: fbanta | January 16, 2012, 10:41 am 10:41 am
… but don’t worry those who support getting our fiscal house in order, stop the decline of our economy, holding our elected officials accountable are well and thriving…..You don’t complain when GE sends jobs to China AFTER receiving massive bailouts…….Posted by: Lizzie | January 16, 2012, 10:05 am.
I swear you are the most factually challenged poster on these boards. First of all, Democrats do support fiscal responsibility. Saying we do not is stupid. We just have a differing view on it, because we include ending corporate welfare in there and the Right LOVES corporate welfare. Second, our economy is actually doing OK right now. The main problem is high unemployment. But corporations are still sitting on record piles of cash and making profits. Third, Democrats want to hold politicians accountable as much as Republicans do. Saying we don’t is, again, plain stupid. Fourth, “GE never received a bailout from the U.S. government, and did not participate in TARP. GE did willingly participate in other programs widely available to hundreds of financial institutions that were designed to stabilize the economy, including the Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program (TLGP) and the Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF). In both these programs, taxpayers actually profited from GE’s participation through fees and interest.” And FYI, people on the Left DID complain – loudly – about GE sending jobs overseas. You obviously were not paying attention as usual.
Posted by: A Cynic | January 16, 2012, 10:43 am 10:43 am
Nobody’s individual opinion matters much, but my POV has been for some time that the Tea Party is MUCH MORE about the House and Senate races and not which candidate the Republican party nominates for President.
Whether or not the intensity stirred within the “tea party” by Obama’s policies in 2008 and 2009 remains as strong in 2012 as it was in the 2010 elections remains to be seen. But don’t look at the Republican presidential nominee as the figurehead for the right of center coalition of voters. Reversing Leftist policies and agendas will happen with a more conservative House and Senate even if the president is a RINO.
Posted by: Dale | January 16, 2012, 11:00 am 11:00 am
The tea party is irrelevant. They were always a front for the health insurance industry. Conservative values and issues are represented by the evangelical Christians not the tea party. The tea party will support whoever the GOP establishment tells them to.
Posted by: tmferretti | January 16, 2012, 11:11 am 11:11 am
hmm
Posted by: jack | January 16, 2012, 11:20 am 11:20 am
The Tea Party, and its movement has been destroyed by the very ones that support the media. Greedy Corporations like Goldman Sachs, which is the number one supporter of both Romney, and Obama. Follow the money not the movement. People like Haley, that claim they support the Tea Party, are the ones that have been bouight. They endorse candidates like Romney, and become hypocrites, and traitors to the truth. Haley’s career will be over! That is a promise.
Posted by: kmindeye | January 16, 2012, 11:35 am 11:35 am
LIZZIE | JANUARY 16, 2012, 10:05 AM, SAID:
“You seem to get more frustrated as time goes by. You don’t complain when GE sends jobs to China AFTER receiving massive bailouts…”
======================================
LOL! …. “Frustrated”… please Lizzie, don’t make me laugh so hard.
The only frustration that the poster, “A CYNIC”, and I may be feeling is the frustration of not understanding how confused right-whiners like you have no clue. Regarding your comment above, here are the facts:
(A) That “bailout” you whine about in your post, would not have happened without the law pushed by the Bush administration, also known as “TARP”, and formally known as “The EMERGENCY Economic Stabilization Act of 2008″… pushed by G.W. Bush’s Treasury Secretary and signed by G.W. Bush on October 3rd, 2008, before Obama was even elected. LOL! ….. and you’re saying would need to go back and put a Republican back in the White House? (You Lizzie, are one confused “puppy”.)
(B) LOL! … and as far as GE “sending jobs overseas”… LOL! …. you must be talking about GE moving “a handful of their top managers” of their Wisconsin X-Ray Division (LOL! … i.e., about 8 people) to China. For once in your life, please Lizzie, do some reading! And when I say, “do some reading”, I don’t mean the reading at the right-whiner blogs that you get all you bad information from. I mean, this kind of “neutral” reading (LOL!):
ARTICLE TITLE: “GE X-ray leaders move to China”
TEXT: “‘A handful’’ of top managers will move to the Chinese capital and there won’t be any job cuts, said Anne LeGrand, general manager of X-ray for GE Healthcare. The headquarters will move from Wisconsin amid a broader plan to invest about $2 billion across China, including opening six “customer innovation’’ and development centers. The division should have ‘double-digit’’ growth rates as the country converts from film and analog to digital X-ray technology, LeGrand said.”
SOURCE: Bloomberg News, July 26, 2011
(C) Lastly, if you’re really worried about American manufacturing jobs going overseas, go to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics and take a look at what happens to American manufacturing jobs when Republicans are in the White House, vice when Democrats are in the White House:
Republican administration LOSSES in U.S. Manufacturing Jobs over the past 34 years . . .
. . . . . . Reagan = -582,000
. . . . . . Bush # 1 = -1,266,000
. . . . . . Bush # 2 = -4,555,000
TOTAL = – 6,403,000 (“6.4 million” MADE IN AMERICA jobs “GONE” during Republican administrations)
Democratic administration GAINS in U.S. Manufacturing Job over the past 34 years . . .
. . . . . . Carter = + 836,000
. . . . . . Clinton = + 323,000
. . . . . . Obama = + 109,000 (in 2010) and + 225,000 (in 2011)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . = + 334,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs gained in the last 2 years.
TOTAL = + 1,493,000 (“1.5 million MADE IN AMERICA jobs “GAINED” during Democratic administrations)
Posted by: Forrest Gump is DEFINITELY a Republican | January 16, 2012, 11:56 am 11:56 am
I think Cynic (just above) has hit the nail on the head. I’d add, what are the alternatives to Romney? And, I’d add further, that Romney will be an improvement over Obama, who has been weakened enormously in the last two years by Tea Party critiques. Hey, have you forgotten the last house elections or the apparent future state of the Democratic majority in the Senate? How some headline grabbing reporter can make Romney’s success out as a Tea Party failure is beyond me. I do compliment the publication on the “grabbiness” of the headline, though.
Posted by: stubbs | January 16, 2012, 12:02 pm 12:02 pm
>>> But it appears that for all the big talk, tens of thousands of local rallies, and the single largest non-inaugural event to ever occur on our nation’s mall, the tea party has died
That’s an idiotic statement. Our local meetings have over 150 attendees per month, the same as it did back in 2010. Just because we’re not holding rallies on the DC mall, it doesn’t mean we’ve given up. This is just a whine from someone who addressed our group at one rally. He fancies that if he’s not being asked to speak to us, that we must be dead. That’s a pretty small view of the largest political movement in the US in the last 100 years.
Posted by: John | January 16, 2012, 12:10 pm 12:10 pm
The Tea Party will just move on to Congressional and Senatorial campaigns. Winning is good, as is providing support for those you support. If your candidate doesn’t win you just move on.
Posted by: HenryC | January 16, 2012, 12:12 pm 12:12 pm
Our local meetings have over 150 attendees per month, the same as it did back in 2010. Posted by: John | January 16, 2012, 12:10 pm.
Well la di da. Just proves that back in 2010 it was already past it’s expiration date.
Posted by: A Cynic | January 16, 2012, 12:22 pm 12:22 pm
The people on the far-right wing of Republican conservatives remind me of most extremist groups. They all have checklists of criteria for what constitutes a “true conservative”. Unfortunately for them, all the checklists are different; AND, like many people, they are not always entirely well-informed about every candidate’s positions, history, etc. etc. And since extremists are never willing to bend or listen to other’s ideas, the Republicans end up splintered, creating the real threat of helping to elect their Democrat opponent.
I initially admired and supported the Tea Party people; but my feelings are beginning to change on that issue. I want a government smaller in size and scope. I want spending cuts. But any group of people whose strong ideology may result in Obama being re-elected is no better than LIBERALS …. and will not have my support.
Posted by: RedInDenver | January 16, 2012, 12:23 pm 12:23 pm
What a silly Huma article. The reason Mitt is ahead, is that 3 conservs and Ron Paul’s group are splitting the votes. With Hunt out, Mitt will pick up more. The Teas will come in Nov. to vote against Obama and the entire Dem Senate and House slate. So why does that mean the END of the Teas?? Please. Only a leftist flack would hope for that. When Nov. comes, the whiners in the GOP now, will realize that the real enemy and tyrant and killer of our American heritage, history and values, plus our eco. liberties, energy , health and education choices is the national Dem Party and one , BHO!
Posted by: Glenn Koons, LB, Ca. | January 16, 2012, 12:26 pm 12:26 pm
here’s where the rubber meets the road:
‘anybody’ beats obama. are we clear now?
Posted by: factually speaking | January 16, 2012, 12:35 pm 12:35 pm
Headline: Fact Check burst of donations flowing from Romney’s rich supporters to Santorum’s campaign insuring South Carolina’s conservative vote remains split and Romney pulls off a “2008 McCain” style win?
Posted by: NewtsArmy | January 16, 2012, 12:44 pm 12:44 pm
Why no mention of Ron Paul in this article? He was just endorsed by the darling of the TEA Party in South Carolina, Senator Tom Davis.
Posted by: End the Fed | January 16, 2012, 12:45 pm 12:45 pm
The “Tea Party” is not going away. That said, their influence does not lie in the ability to elect a President. They MAY be able to prevent a Republican they perceive as being too moderate from being elected. But they can’t get “their guy” elected.
But that doesn’t mean the “Tea Party” is without political influence. They have the ability to, and will continue to, influence Congressional House races. And possibly Senate races. This gives political voice to voters who would otherwise be drowned out by larger more populous states.
Posted by: Stockton Joe | January 16, 2012, 1:02 pm 1:02 pm
The tea party became irrelevant when they sent those grid lock contributors to the House and Senate. Now no one will support tea party candidates for fear of more obstructionism. The Warren vs Brown race in Massachusetts is evidence of this.
Posted by: tmferretti | January 16, 2012, 1:14 pm 1:14 pm
It is, because the Tea Party activists fell back into the usual socially conservative positions, at the expense of the motivating force of the Tea Party: fiscal conservatism.
That so many so-called Tea Party people mock and pillory Ron Paul is indicative of how far they’ve strayed from their own message. They’re pushing me to a third-party vote as the only manner in which I can register my frustration with government overreach, both in spending and in general intrusiveness in my personal life.
Posted by: The Globalizer | January 16, 2012, 1:19 pm 1:19 pm
TMFERRETTI wrote “The tea party became irrelevant when they sent those grid lock contributors to the House and Senate. Now no one will support tea party candidates for fear of more obstructionism. The Warren vs Brown race in Massachusetts is evidence of this.”
———————————-
I disagree with this. The Warren vs. Brown race in Massachusetts has nothing to do with who is elected in South Carolina or Tennessee or Georgia or North Carolina or Texas. There will always be States that elect “Tea Party” candidates as House Members (and maybe Senators). Just because Massachusetts or California does not, doesn’t mean NOBODY will.
Posted by: Stockton Joe | January 16, 2012, 1:31 pm 1:31 pm
I don’t know where Huma Khan comes from but as far as I’m concerened .she can emigrate back to that Mid-East hellhole. And for all the other Libturd idiots (which is oxymoronic) the Tea Party WON by CHANGING the DIALOGUE in WASH DC: Do you simpletons think that Obozo The Cown would pretend to be a taxcutter or someone willing to shrink government without the TEA PARTY being THE GAMECHANGER????
Posted by: Fools and Idiots | January 16, 2012, 1:33 pm 1:33 pm
STOCKTON JOE
Scott Brown won the Senate seat in Massachusetts (one of the first races the tea party became involved in) due to tea party support and funding. He knows he’s in trouble now. During the tax reduction extension fiasco he was the most vocal republican in the Senate slamming the tea party caucus in the House.
Posted by: tmferretti | January 16, 2012, 2:00 pm 2:00 pm
they just out Ron Paul entirely. so so sad. the decline of American journalism. Ron Paul is the LEAVE grandfather of the Tea Party. Ron Paul 2012. Revolution is coming people. within the decade. Go Tea party and go RON PAUL !!
Posted by: go tigers | January 16, 2012, 2:16 pm 2:16 pm
Fools and Idiots, the Koch brothers thank you for your support.
Posted by: A Cynic | January 16, 2012, 2:17 pm 2:17 pm
The Tea Party is essentially a state organization that is designed to work at that level. They have attempted to step into the national race but that is not there strength. Look at the 2010 elections and the Tea Party elected at the state level many of the Republican candidates to congress. That is where they need to stay. In Florida they need to get out of the national politics and focus on the process of defeating Senator Bill Nelson and electing Republican to the two new seats in the house. By doing that they will eventually be able to have an effect on the national level. Speaker Tip O’Neil said it best “all politics are local” control the local, control the state and then you control the national scene. Stick to what bring you to the dance.
Posted by: Chuck I | January 16, 2012, 2:19 pm 2:19 pm
It is wishful thinking to believe the TEA Party has gone away. You will hear from us again in a big way very soon. We will get behind RINO Romney and he will pull in all of the Independent voters. On his coattails we will sweep into office thousands of congressional, state and local conservatives. See you in November.
Posted by: wisehiney | January 16, 2012, 2:43 pm 2:43 pm
ABC News only wishes that the tea party would drop dead – seeing as Disney and Cap Cities are in the bag with the Democrats and Obama.
Posted by: B. Samuel Davis | January 16, 2012, 2:48 pm 2:48 pm
How can anyone watch the Republican debates and think that anyone of them would govern like Obama? Romney is not perfect, but, as a conservative, I’ll crawl a mile to vote for him (compared to Obama). I hope the Tea Party sticks around. It has done a lot of good (so far). Just be careful about your blind spots.
Posted by: SeattleMark952 | January 16, 2012, 2:58 pm 2:58 pm
The tea party was formed by the health insurance industry to try to defeat and now repeal the Affordable Health Care Act. Their main purpose was to elect republicans who would not vote for that bill. Their disguise was that they were going to make Washington work for the people. We’ve all seen how that has worked.
The health care industry supports Mitt Romney because he will do nothing to repeal the law that gives them a monopoly in most states. The tea party will dutifully follow suit.
Posted by: tmferretti | January 16, 2012, 3:08 pm 3:08 pm
I always love reading these MSM stories. they’ve been proclaiming the death of the Tea Party since before the 2010 elections.
as others have pointed out above, the Tea Party has NOTHING TO DO WITH SOCIAL ISSUES. many TP’ers are pro-life, but not all–I’m not. what we all have in common, tho, is lowering taxes and reducing the size of government. I know the MSM likes to think of the Tea Party as just a branch of the KKK, but that’s as silly as calling the Democrats a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. oh wait…
Posted by: michiganruth | January 16, 2012, 3:46 pm 3:46 pm
The health insurance industry was opposed to President Obama’s attempt to reform our health care system even though the majority of Americans wanted it changed. They had the republicans in the Congress in their pocket but they knew they couldn’t go head-to-head with the president without the help of the people. They organized and funded the tea party (people who hated President Obama) to be their mouthpiece.
The tea party had no other agenda than to defeat this president and go back into letting the health insurance industry dictate their own terms to the American people. Now the tea party has come out of the closet and most Americans don’t like what they see.
Posted by: tmferretti | January 16, 2012, 3:55 pm 3:55 pm
As others have pointed out here – some more eloquently than I – the Tea Party’s power and influence is at the Congressional District level – and to an extent at the State level. Certainly the Tea Party cannot now (and quite possibly never) be a “major player” at the National level. However, the Tea Party HAS been able to get “their agenda” talked about Nationally. It’s the same with Ron Paul, and also Ralph Nader. They’re both perennial Presidential candidates who don’t/can’t win. And we talk about their message.
The editors at ABC News, and NBC and CBS and CNN and MSNBC and Fox and CurrentTV, as well as all the print outlets, blather about Congress’ national rating as if that means anything – and they should know better. The voters in Massachusetts don’t elect their Congressional Representatives based on what the voters in Tennessee think. And the voters in Tennessee REALLY don’t care what the voters in Massachusetts think either. Everybody hates the other guy’s crook, but they love their own crook.
So as much as ABC News and Huma Kahn may not like it, the Tea Party isn’t going anywhere. And as much as Fox News and Sean Hannity may not like it, Code Pink isn’t going anywhere either.
Posted by: Stockton Joe | January 16, 2012, 5:03 pm 5:03 pm
Mr. Phillips is full of….himself. The vast majority of folks who self identify as Tea Party people will vote for the GOP candidate in an effort to roust Obozo from the WH. We would vote for Genghis Khan to get Obozo out.
Posted by: Andrew Litkowiak | January 16, 2012, 5:52 pm 5:52 pm
The Tea Party will best focus on House races. There is too much corporate money in senate and presidential races.
Posted by: Nexialist | January 16, 2012, 9:17 pm 9:17 pm
The TEA party is a natural reaction to a perceived higher spending interventionist big government. Although their message is simplistic, sometimes, people have to latch on to a single message to focus all the forces of dissent onto a single voice.
And if they are naive, the idea that governments can spend us out of a recession today is plain intellectual dishonesty. Keynes paradox of thrift is true at an age when governments have very little debt, when the capacity to borrow does not introduce a ticking time bomb.
The idea that the aggregate demand equation is a tautology increasing as the government spending component ballons is clearly wrong for the simple reason that the other components will stay still is clearly wrong. We see that private sector investments shrinks much faster than government stimulus spendings can explode. This is why Greece is in trouble. Business loses confidence in governments when they are faced with uncertain increasing costs.
The TEA party message may be too simplistic, but the single issue they attack is a correct one. It is not the only solution, but it is one that needs to be brought up because both political parties have establishment forces that do not see anything wrong with growing the size and scope of government. The other issues like innovations, technology, that is best left to the private sector, not in any bureaucracy.
Posted by: Nick Le | January 16, 2012, 10:34 pm 10:34 pm
Funny how liberals tells us what the Tea Party is or is not. LOL They have no clue.
Posted by: Steve | January 17, 2012, 7:11 am 7:11 am
Fact is a lot of the Independents are Tea Party activists.
Posted by: Steve | January 17, 2012, 7:22 am 7:22 am
If Obama wins, the Congress will still be either split or populated by Republicans so he won’t be able to do anything anyway so I’m not too worried. Of course, the country will still be a wreck because of his lack of presidential leadership and realistic policies. This election will prove my point, though, that there is a serious epidemic of stupidity in this country especially if Obama wins.
Posted by: Terry | January 17, 2012, 9:00 am 9:00 am
President Obama will win re-election by a landslide. This country is never going back to the same old trickledown policies that got us into this recession in the first place. None of the republican candidates has proposed anything except tax breaks for corporations and de-regulation of the financial markets.
The question is, does the President have coat tails long enough to throw out the “do nothing” republicans from Congress?
Posted by: tmferretti | January 17, 2012, 11:48 am 11:48 am
The teabagger party is a has been. These teabaggers have backed nothing but losers and have gotten them elected to federal,state,local offices, and these people are so ignorant of the isues at hand and have ignored all of them. Instead they put forward their own radical, crazy, insane agenda which has now made this country a 3rd world country.
Posted by: neastsider | January 17, 2012, 2:34 pm 2:34 pm