U.S. 2012 Election

[a_majoor]

Hypothetical T.E.A. party candidates outpoll Republicans. What does this portend (especially given traditional third parties don't do well in the United States?). Can a third party rise and displace the GOP? Historical analogy actually says "yes", the Republican Party rose from the ashes of the Whig movement and Lincoln was a prominent Whig befor becomeing a leading light in the "Radical Republican" movement and ultimatley President:

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/december_2009/tea_party_tops_gop_on_three_way_generic_ballot

Tea Party Tops GOP on Three-Way Generic Ballot
Monday, December 07, 2009 Email to a Friend ShareThis.Advertisement

Running under the Tea Party brand may be better in congressional races than being a Republican.

In a three-way Generic Ballot test, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds Democrats attracting 36% of the vote. The Tea Party candidate picks up 23%, and Republicans finish third at 18%. Another 22% are undecided.

Among voters not affiliated with either major party, the Tea Party comes out on top. Thirty-three percent (33%) prefer the Tea Party candidate, and 30% are undecided. Twenty-five percent (25%) would vote for a Democrat, and just 12% prefer the GOP.

Among Republican voters, 39% say they’d vote for the GOP candidate, but 33% favor the Tea Party option.

For this survey, the respondents were asked to assume that the Tea Party movement organized as a new political party. In practical terms, it is unlikely that a true third-party option would perform as well as the polling data indicates. The rules of the election process—written by Republicans and Democrats--provide substantial advantages for the two established major parties. The more conventional route in the United States is for a potential third-party force to overtake one of the existing parties.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.

The standard Generic Congressional Ballot shows Republicans holding a modest lead over Democrats. It appears that the policies of the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress are currently enough to unite both those who prefer Republicans and those who prefer the Tea Party route.

Data from the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll shows that just 55% of conservatives nationwide consider themselves Republicans. Recent polling shows that 73% of Republican voters believe their leaders in Washington are out of touch with the party base.

Republican voters are paying a lot more attention to the Tea Party movement than anyone else. Forty-three percent (43%) of GOP voters are following news about the movement Very Closely. Another 30% are following it Somewhat Closely. Just 12% of Democrats are following stories about the Tea Party movement Very Closely.

Seventy percent (70%) of Republican voters have a favorable opinion of the Tea Party movement while only seven percent (7%) offer an unfavorable view. Interestingly, 49% of Democrats have no opinion one way or the other.

Among unaffiliated voters, 43% have a favorable opinion of the Tea Party efforts while 20% say the opposite.

Forty-one percent (41%) of all voters nationwide say Republicans and Democrats are so much alike that a new party is needed to represent the American people. Republicans are evenly divided on this question, while Democrats overwhelmingly disagree. However, among those not affiliated with either major party, 60% agree that a new party is needed, and only 25% disagree. Men are far more likely than women to believe a new party is needed.

As for the voting preference, the Tea Party bests the GOP among both men and women and in all age groups except those over 65.

The Tea Party candidates are the first choice among political conservatives. Among moderates, the Tea Party candidates are more popular than Republicans. However, nearly half of all moderate voters prefer a Democrat.

Among the Political Class, not a single respondent picked the Tea Party candidate.

However, among those with populist or Mainstream views, 31% prefer the Tea Party, and 26% are undecided. Twenty-three percent (23%) pick a Republican candidate, and 19% are for the Democrat (See more on the Political Class-Mainstream divide).

 

[Rifleman62]

Sarah Palin

Note comment re third party: excerpt from  http://www.mediaite.com/online/will-sarah-palin-go-third-party-rogue-in-2012/

WaPo’s Chris Cillizza pulled this little nugget from a Friday afternoon interview Palin gave to radio talk show host Lars Larson in which Palin doesn’t flat out reject the idea of a third party candidacy — in this news cycle that’s practically the same embracing it. From The Fix:

Asked by Larson whether she would consider running as a third party candidate, Palin said: “That depends on how things go in the next couple of years.” Larson told the 2008 vice presidential nominee that answer “sounds like a yes” to which she responded: “If the Republican party gets back to that [conservative] base, I think our party is going to be stronger and there’s not going to be a need for a third party, but I’ll play that by ear in these coming months, coming years.” Which, to the Fix’s delicate ears, sounds like Palin leaving the door wide open.

And now the eye opener from the LA Times no less: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/12/sarah-palin-barack-obama-poll-gap-narrows.html

Excerpt:

Shocker polls: That Sarah Palin-Barack Obama gap melts to 1 point; and

Obama's new Gallup Poll job approval number is 47%. Last month it was 53%.

Regular Ticket readers will recall how in this space in late November we pointed out that Obama's closely watched job approval slide was coinciding with Palin's little-noticed rise in favorability. And it appeared they might cross somewhere in the 40s.

Well, ex-Sen. Obama, meet ex-Gov. Palin.

The new CNN/Opinion Research Poll shows Palin now at 46% favorable, just one point below her fellow basketball fan.

 

[a_majoor]

More on what's shaping the electorate for 2012:

http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2009/12/07/the-first-sign-of-corruption/

The First Sign Of Corruption
posted at 4:39 pm on December 7, 2009 by Doctor Zero
printer-friendly The first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that the end justifies the means. – Georges Bernanos

The Climagate scandal is a perfect illustration of this statement. Modern society provides plenty of other examples. The extensive corruption of our political system is one of the strongest arguments against the ongoing fusion of government and industry. People of all political persuasions are generally willing to conceded that too many politicians are corrupt. I have always wondered how intellectually serious liberals can reconcile this with their desire to increase the power of the State.

I suspect the answer lies in the belief that this new crop of statists will be honest, unlike all the generations before them. This is a dangerous delusion. Corruption festers in every large organization, but politics are more vulnerable than business… and when the two merge together, they become particularly toxic.

Political corruption is easily camouflaged, and often debatable. Since politicians live to debate, nailing them down on charges of corruption often feels like trying to pin down a drop of water with a staple gun. If a politician sponsors legislation that would truly benefit the public, but would also make him personally wealthy, is he corrupt? We would certainly view him as more corrupt if he tried to conceal his personal benefits… but if he was scrupulous about disclosing them in advance, it’s unlikely he would be able to pass the legislation, especially if he faced determined opposition.

Consider the current example of Senator Max Baucus, who took his girlfriend on taxpayer-funded junkets overseas, and has been trying to secure a U.S. Attorney position for her. She might be a splendid candidate for U.S. Attorney, as Baucus will doubtless continue to argue. That doesn’t make her nomination smell any better. It also won’t make an overtaxed electorate, shivering in the cold shadow of trillion-dollar deficits, feel any better about paying for her luxurious jet-setting romance with the Senator..

The Republicans proved themselves sadly capable of shoving their noses in the treasury during their last years in power, and were punished by the voters for it. The corruption of the Obama Democrats is truly breathtaking. Virtually nothing this Administration does is conducted in a honest, open manner. Everything from the “stimulus” bill, to Cash for Clunkers, to frantic attempts to buy House and Senate votes for the government’s health care takeover, is wrapped in pork and glazed with payoffs, cooked with a secret recipe that you can’t see without a subpoena. Some of this corruption is enabled by the Democrats’ largely accurate sense that the media will not hold them accountable for it, certainly not with the same vigor they would pursue Republicans. The raging rapids of taxpayer cash surging through Washington are a factor as well. Reckless deficit spending has made purchasing a representative or Senator the only investment guaranteed to increase in value.

At this scale of government, corruption is endemic. It doesn’t make that much of a difference which party sits on top of that much power. With the rare exception prosecuted by law enforcement, there is little immediate risk of penalty for dirty politicians. It takes years to get them voted out of office, and their local electorate might not be eager to displace a powerful, long-term incumbent with a new representative… especially if the incumbent has brought a lot of money home to the district, in addition to lining his own pockets. Big Government even corrupts the voters.
Bring all of these factors to an even higher level of centralized power and money, and it’s easy to see why the global warming movement – the birthing cry of world government – is so incredibly corrupt. The amount of money and power tied up in this movement is staggering. In fact, as they become increasingly desperate to fight off a public outraged by the Climagate revelations, the global warming cult might make the case they’re “too big to fail” – cutting off the billions of dollars poured into the global warming hoax would cost thousands of jobs, and destroy the corporate barnacles that grew around the shadow of climate change legislation, such as Al Gore’s carbon credit sales. The transnational elite planning to divide the wealth of nations through climate-change hysteria is even less accountable than Barack Obama’s corrupt Democrat Party. As Mark Steyn memorably put it, where would we go to vote these guys out of office?

At the heart of the Left’s indulgence of political corruption lies the mistaken conviction that “public service” transforms politicians into exemplars of civic virtue, or that political office attracts a large percentage of such civic-minded individuals. In reality, the political class is even more greedy and selfish than wealthy businessmen… because they spend much of their time in the company of such wealthy men, and believe themselves entitled to riches and luxuries. Max Baucus doubtless attends a lot of campaign events sponsored by rich supporters who can afford to fly their girlfriends to Europe for a romantic getaway, and he believes himself morally and intellectually superior to these men – the remorseless logic of statism demands it. It only makes sense to place politicians in control of industry if they’re better than the industrialists they control, after all.

The mythic ideal of Cincinnatus, the selfless citizen-legislator who reluctantly leaves his farm to serve the Republic, is incompatible with the combination of endless incumbency and gigantic amounts of government power. We are foolish to place our trust in a system that requires an impossible level of virtue from politicians to function as designed. A limited government can better protect the economic health of its citizens by policing corruption from the private sector, under the direction of term-limited representatives who will never become worth the risk of buying off. The larger government becomes, the more its arrogant ruling class believe themselves worthy of royal treatment… and the more justified they feel about lying to the public for their own good. That is why the climate change elite gathered in Copenhagen this week is outraged that anyone would dare question their right to save a foolish world from itself, by lying through its teeth in a bid to seize power.

 

[a_majoor]

As always, the real questioon is how will the libertarian/conservative movement in the United States be able to capitalize on this?

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/12/14/cook-report-number-of-likely-democratic-house-seats-down-to-218/

Cook report: Number of “likely” Democratic House seats down to … 218

posted at 5:48 pm on December 14, 2009 by Allahpundit
Share on Facebook | printer-friendly

A bare majority. Actually, there are only 39 seats listed in the “lean Democratic” and “Democratic toss-up” columns, but as Taegan Goddard points out, if you toss in Bart Gordon’s retirement today in a very winnable GOP district you’re down to the magic number. But never mind that. Follow the first link to Cook and skim the column of “likely Democratic” seats, which are considered safe-ish, to see how many come from districts with a Republican-leaning PVI. If you see multiple retirements in that column — and the NRCC thinks you very well might — then suddenly a bunch of seats are in play on top of the 40 that are already shaky. Marc Ambinder looks ahead:

But the biggest psychological driver of congressional retirements is the perception that the next election won’t be worth the personal/political/ego rewards of the 2010-2011 congressional cycle. It’s not so much that Democrats expect to be in the minority, although it is possible. It’s that Democrats of a certain type — John Tanner, Bart Gordon, Brian Baird — expect to be in a narrower, more liberal majority that forces them to take harder votes — a majority where the new Republicans elected from open district seats are suddenly invested with major bargaining powers.

The downside of this? A Blue Dog who’s given up on being reelected is a Blue Dog with nothing to lose in voting for a liberal ObamaCare bill. Which, ironically, makes last month’s slight downtick in unemployment doubly good news, as it might convince enough centrist Dems that the economic recovery will save them next year that they’ll stick to their guns on O-Care.

Speaking of likely Democratic victories, here’s Paul Ryan on Captain B+ and his odds on being reelected. Sad to say, I think he’s wrong about this one, only because the GOP field right now is, shall we say, “a solid B-.”

Update: More Hope and Change for conservatives, this time courtesy of lefty pollster PPP:
Do you think Democrats in Washington have too much power right now?
50% Yes, 40% No

The GOP’s within two on their generic ballot.

 

[tomahawk6]

A number of democrat incumbents arent even going to run next year. The so called blue dogs are particularly vulnerable to republican opponents. The election next year will be all about the economy. If it doesnt get better alot of democrats will be out. I just dont see the democrats retaining a majority in the House. In the Senate they will lose some seats but should retain a majority but will lose their filibuster proof edge. My estimate would be 52-48. Reid himself is on very thin ice in Nevada and could lose. Some folks think Obama wants a republican majority to run against in 2012. Obama's problem is that he campaigned as a centrist but has governed from the far left. His policies are right out of Ayn Rand and 1984. His poll numbers fall each week as independents pull away. Healthcare looks like its in serious trouble and cap and trade as well. Both programs would hit the middle class very hard with even more taxes. Obama will use regulation to acheive the same goals if he can which will not endear him to the public.

 

[a_majoor]

Republicans should take note; they might not be able to capitalize on the disarray in the Administration and the Congress when voters are thinking like this:

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/12/16/2154426.aspx

Tea Party more popular than Dems, GOP
Posted: Wednesday, December 16, 2009 5:00 PM by Mark Murray
Filed Under: Democrats, Republicans, Polls

From NBC's Mark Murray and Domenico Montanaro
Just how angry is the public with the country's two leading political parties? Angry enough that the conservative, libertarian-leaning Tea Party movement is more popular than either the Democratic or the Republican parties, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

The Republican Party maintains its net-negative favorable/unfavorable rating in the poll, with 28 percent viewing it positively and 43 percent seeing it in a negative light.

For the first time in more than two years, the Democratic Party also now holds a net-negative fav/unfav, at 35-45 percent.

By comparison, the NBC/WSJ poll shows the Tea Party movement with a net-positive 41-23 percent score.

Yet looking inside those numbers, more than three-quarters (76 percent) of those who say FOX News is where they get their news see the Tea Party movement positively, versus just 4 percent who see it negatively.

That's a stark contrast to how viewers of the competing cable networks CNN and MSNBC see the movement. More of those viewers have a negative opinion of it (36 percent) than a positive one (24 percent).

Those who get their news mostly from broadcast TV (either NBC, CBS or ABC) are split -- 28 percent view it positively, versus 27 percent who view it negatively.

The entire NBC/Journal poll comes out at 6:30 pm ET.

 

[a_majoor]

The stakes in 2010 and 2012 are very high indeed:

http://www.jerrypournelle.com/view/2009/Q4/view601.html#believer

"Angry Liberals Edge Toward a Mutiny" says the Wall Street Journal.

    Liberal blogs such as Daily Kos are blasting the Senate bill, especially since it dropped a government-run "public option" and killed a plan to expand Medicare. Liberal House members are venting their fury at senators who are lukewarm on the revamp, especially Connecticut independent Joe Lieberman and Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson. Labor unions are protesting proposed taxes on high-value insurance policies.

    "It's time for a couple of obstructionist senators to get out of the way, to not put their personal and political interests ahead of...the interests of millions of people who don't have health care right now," said Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, part of a union backlash against the bill that burst into view Thursday.

Our masters have spoken. The King of the Iron Law Bureaucrats, Andy Stern, has told us what we must do. Get busy and pass that health care bill! Be sure there's a public option!

The true rule of Barney Frank and Chris Dodd is at stake. Get with it.

Actually, the health care bill looks to be a Democrat suicide pact. It's all less popular now than it was when Hillarycare delivered the House of Representatives to Republicans for the first time since Harry Truman. There hasn't been a greater opportunity for Republicans in lifetimes. Of course after Hillarycare we had Newt Gingrich and the Contract with America, and a party organized to take advantage of opportunities. Today we're not so fortunate. Newt was a great Speaker, and his resignation was the biggest Party disaster I know of. He would never have allowed the crazy "big government conservatism" that destroyed the Party while allowing the government's cash infusions into real estate to drive the housing bubble. Yes, of course, the original expansions of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were done under Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, but the Republicans did little to nothing to restrain that madness, and didn't do anything about the insanities of Credit Default Swaps. Republicans didn't do anything about the evil ratings companies (whose approval is still written into the law). Neither did the Democrats.

Even so, the opportunities are here. Dodd is vulnerable. Reid is vulnerable. The Democrat majorities are fragile. I will leave it to Democrats to see if they can revive the old Democrat Party. The question is, can the Republicans revive their Party? Are there any leaders who can build a new coalition?

What's at stake is the whole future of the American experiment of putting freedom and liberty ahead of security and welfare. "We believe that each man is the best judge of his own interest." That's what's at stake. This may be the last opportunity for that view of the world.

If the Republicans can't get their act together -- and I haven't seen all that many signs that they can -- then we may very well end up with Barney Frank's America, with Value Added Tax, the country run largely for the benefit of the officers of the Service Employees International Union, and a full cradle to the grave welfare state tottering on the edge of bankruptcy; something that can't really be dismantled without a full collapse and another Great Depression.

Energy and Freedom produce wealth. That's astonishingly obvious. Whether we can get there from here is another story. That view isn't very popular with the current Republican leadership.

Third parties aren't the answer. The majority of Americans are Center-Right in outlook, and most believe in freedom. It's true in both parties. It would be fine if we could Take Back Our Government, but first shouldn't we take back our Parties?

Given Dr Pournelle's views on political parties, thinking of the short timelines and adding the information (from previous posts) that the Libertarian/Classical Liberal T.E.A. party movement is actually more popular than either current American party, the obvious solution would be for the T.E.A. partiers to institute takeovers of the Republican party on a district by district basis. While they are at it, they should also take over electoral wards in Civic politics and State districts as well, the potential for chain reaction economic collapses as cities and States go bankrupt due to unstainable and unfunded pension and benefits is probably the greatest hidden danger in the US and thus global economy.

 

[Rifleman62]

"obvious solution would be for the T.E.A. partiers to institute takeovers of the Republican party " and that is exactly what is being said down here along with the comment:  just like the radical left is now taking over the Democratic Party.

There appears to very little chance of a three party system, that's why the takeovers.

 

[a_majoor]

Heh:

 

[a_majoor]

Dominos are being set up for 2010; this will certainly change the calculus for 2012:

http://deumcolere.wordpress.com/2009/12/22/democrat-rep-switches-to-gop/

Democrat Rep. Switches to GOP
December 22, 2009

A member of the House of Representatives for the Democrats, Parker Griffith (D-Ala), will switch to the Republican Party. The switch, confirmed by Griffith as well as Republican and Democrat Party sources, comes as a result of what Griffith calls ”those in the Democratic leadership” who “continue to push an agenda focused on massive new spending, tax increases, bailouts and a health care bill that is bad for our healthcare system.” Griffith, who was elected to the House of Representatives in the 2008 elections, will become the first Republican to represent Alabama’s 5th congressional district since 1869.

The move by Griffith seems to show the concerns that many, more conservative, Democrats are feeling about their leadership, especially with the massive overspending that differs from their fiscally conservative beliefs. While Griffith often voted with the Republicans while in the House, this still isn’t good news for Democrats, who just expended a lot of political capital pushing an unwanted health care bill through the House. Griffith, an oncologist with a medical degree from the University of Louisiana Medical School, voted against the bill, said to be a major reason in his switch.

The Democrats are dismissing this, saying that Griffith was essentially a Republican all along. However, this shows that the Blue Dog Democrats, an extremely important group if the Democrats want to hold on to power, has members who are ready and willing to bail out of the Democrat machine. It is also positive news for Republicans, who can now crown their anti-spending campaign with this achievement. While a small triumph, this is nonetheless a brief but important moment in the gradual recovery of the American right.

 

[Rifleman62]

All the Blue Dog Democrats voted and are voting for the health care bill.

 

[a_majoor]

More on how the T.E.A. party movement might be able to move the goalposts (and some pitfalls they may encounter)

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/tea-party-2010-revolution-brewing-or-is-that-some-weak-tea/

Tea Party 2010: Revolution Brewing? Or Is That Some Weak Tea?

Posted By Andrew Ian Dodge On January 3, 2010 @ 12:00 am In . Column1 02, Opinion, Politics, US News | 74 Comments

As the nation and the tea party movement prepare for the new year, President Obama and the Democrats have been rushing forward legislation which will forever change the country and raise the deficit.

How far has the tea party movement come since the beginning of last year? A massive event occurred in Washington, D.C., on 9/12, and even greater numbers of people demonstrated all over the country to express their frustration. But ultimately, have they achieved any results? The bills have still gone through, and Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Obama have shucked aside criticisms.

Ignoring the (majority) public outcry, some legislators have gone so far as to ban tea party members [1] from their offices under penalty of arrest. Most of the MSM, excluding Fox, has carried the Democrats’ water, portraying tea parties as a fringe movement at best and domestic terror breeding at worst.

Fox has covered the tea parties, though selectively — driving the ratings of Beck and Hannity and legitimizing non-grassroots groups like FreedomWorks [2] and Tea Party Express [3]. Fox’s coverage assisted the left’s portrayal of the tea parties as astroturf, and the GOP-tied groups made it very hard to claim the movement is non-partisan.

So now what?

What should the tea party movement be doing to make itself more effective and to not exist merely as an exploitable outlet for the frustrated?

Some are pushing the idea of a Perot-like third party to challenge the two major parties on all fronts. Others are desperately against such a move, concerned that the tea party movement will hurt the Republican Party and “cost” them victory in 2010. The tea parties have very limited time to affect the outcome of 2010, and the logistics of a national third party seem overwhelming.

Another approach — and one that seems more logical — is for tea parties to endorse candidates that adhere to their principles, whatever the party.

A state third party has been formed from the movement. Florida already has itself a registered tea party [4] to challenge both parties, though it will be interesting to see if they are alone or one of many. Many states have very difficult, perhaps unreasonable, registration requirements for forming a third party.

Will the tea party movement be able to swing races? Their ranks do not lack for motivation and energy, but they may not possess the skills necessary to affect change in state politics. They also may lack money and an effective fundraising apparatus. They may be able to work with local candidates for 2010 primaries, however they will be hard-pressed to find brand new primary candidates to run between now and primary registration dates. This obviously depends on state law, but getting it sorted is a colossal task that takes coordination and great effort.

What may have affected the development of the activists is the fact that many seemed to have been suffering under the delusion that they were “reinventing” politics at the grassroots. Politics is politics, and even the tea party movement has been affected by egos, personality clashes, regionalism, and fakery.

The tea party movement may be best served by operating locally. Mass rallies in D.C. and phone-calling initiatives do not seem to be effective in modern politics. Local activism could have an actual effect, and is a good part of what the left has done to gain power.

The movement needs to be thinking about 2012 and beyond. They need to train themselves to effectively work in the political sphere that exists, not the fantasy one that has been created by the enthusiasm of the movement. Obama fooled millions with a promised “new dawn in politics.” The tea party movement must be wary of reality.

They have the drive and might; they need skills and patience. This year is pivotal for Republicans, Democrats, and politics in general, and the tea party movement has decisions to make regarding its direction.

Article printed from Pajamas Media: http://pajamasmedia.com

URL to article: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/tea-party-2010-revolution-brewing-or-is-that-some-weak-tea/

URLs in this post:

[1] ban tea party members: http://va5thdistrict.com/2009/11/17/tea-party-banned-from-perriellos/

[2] FreedomWorks: http://www.freedomworks.org/

[3] Tea Party Express: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/tea-partiers-come-to-the-aid-of-california-farmers/

[4] a registered tea party: http://www.floridateaparty.us/index.html

 

[a_majoor]

The Dems expect to go up against "W" and Governor Palin in the next election cycle. Looks like the policy book is empty on the progressive side. Maybe the Dems can also try running against Stephen Harper as well....

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB10001424052748703436504574640310139975426.html

Post, Post-Partisan

How worried are Democrats about the mid-term voting only 10 months away? "If the election were held today, we'd lose the House," Democratic campaign consultant Tom King told the Huffington Post this week, expressing a view that HuffPo says is echoed by a number of Democratic strategists in off-the-record conversations.

Democrats are reportedly busy devising a strategy as a firewall against a citizen revolt at the polls. Rather than emphasize their party's accomplishments, they will attack Republicans for wanting to restore the discredited Bush era. "The Republican party in Washington today is no different than the Republican party that ran the Congress before," Rep. Chris Van Hollen, head of the Democratic House campaign committee, told the liberal Talking Points Memo.

Without delay, campaign strategists are advising Democratic clients to use bloggers, phone banks, direct mail and canvassers to try to create a negative impression of their GOP opponents. Labeling their GOP candidates as being part of the Sarah Palin or Tea Party wing of the GOP will be the key element. One Democratic consultant told Huffington Post that the 2010 election "basically comes down to one thing. You've got to kick the [bleep] out of somebody."

No doubt both sides intend to play rough this political year. Still, it's striking how much Democrats have pivoted away from the civility that President Obama pledged to bring to Washington.

-- John Fund

Instapundit says:

Given that the Tea Party is currently outpolling both Democrats and Republicans, this seems ill-advised. . . .

 

[a_majoor]

The T.E.A. party has become a full fledged political movement:

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/tea-party-nation-would-like-to-announce-the-following-efforts-and-status-of-the-nationwide-tea-party-convention-81413572.html

Tea Party Nation Would Like to Announce the Following Efforts and Status of the Nationwide TEA Party Convention
NASHVILLE, Tenn., Jan. 14 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --

Media

First, we are pleased to announce that the convention has sold out and we now have a waiting list which we will continue to try to clear as opportunity presents. 

In this light, we have had numerous requests for press passes and the resulting expected coverage.  However, as we have set expectations that this is a working convention, we have tried not to make it a media event.

In fact, Tea Party Nation has received hundreds of requests for press credentials to cover this convention.  Everyone from a small town newspaper in Iowa to Fox News has asked for press credentials.  We have had requests from Canada, England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Norway, Croatia and Japan.  We have been hard pressed to accommodate all of these requests and do not have the space or resources to support the entirety of the press corp. Indeed, we have asked the hotel if they would be willing to provide a press room during the convention.

However, given these practical limitations, we have approved the following press organizations:

Fox News

Breitbart.com

Townhall.com

The Wall Street Journal

World Net Daily

About Tea Party Nation:

Tea Party Nation is a C-Corp.  We do not focus on donations, and provide a service and network for like-minded conservatives and TEA Party leadership.  TEA Party Nation is operated entirely by volunteers.

Tea Party Nation has an Advisory Board made up of nine (9) individuals who have been with Tea Party Nation since its formation.  This Advisory Board is instrumental in greeting new members, moderating the site, putting out our newsletter and making the policies and decisions for Tea Party Nation.

Between last February and the present, Tea Party Nation has seen members come and go.  We have tried to deal fairly with our present and former relationships, however, not without some criticism.  This criticism has been unfortunate and we believe, unwarranted.  However, it is the policy of Tea Party Nation not to focus on past challenges, but to stay focused on the task of advancing the conservative cause and defeating liberalism.

With that in mind, we will not be making any comments regarding former members.

The National Tea Party Convention

Last summer, our founder, Judson Phillips, approached the Advisory Board about a need for the Tea Party movement to move beyond holding rallies.  At this time, the Tea Party Nation Advisory Board discussed the need for a Tea Party Convention.  We envisioned a convention where delegates from the various Tea Party groups could gather, network, gain training and discuss the advancement of the movement.  In this light, we began development of the plan resulting in the current incarnation of the event.

Certainly, we are not professional event planners.  We have been most appreciative of the many members, volunteers and professionals who have helped us bring this vision to fruition.  These people have managed a tremendous task and put a convention together in a matter of weeks that normally takes a year to plan.

As stated, the convention is now sold out.  There is an extensive waiting list.  We have delegates coming from Maine to California and as far away as Hawaii.  And as of this morning, we invited RNC Chairman Michael Steele and DNC Chairman, Tim Kaine to come and have a dialogue with the attendees.  We are awaiting a response and are looking forward to an excellent event with the excitement of the attendees, leadership and speakers.  We are grateful for the overwhelming response and appreciate the positive results expected from this convention.

In the end, we appreciate the fact that differences of opinion exist, but our leadership and our volunteers are committed to the successful conclusion of this convention.  We appreciate the interest of all those associated with this event.

Tea Party Nation

www.teapartynation.com


SOURCE Tea Party Nation

RELATED LINKS
http://www.teapartynation.com

 

[a_majoor]

This sort of behaviour should be of great concern to everyone (American or not). We should not be complacent either; are Canadian election lists being manipulated? This isn't a totally open and shut question, we have seen very questionable behaviour from Elections Canada wrt campaign funding (Many Liberal leadership candidates owe tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars and have yet to pay off these debts despite clear laws requiring them to do so; Elections Canada has been notably silent about this. What else isn't being said?):

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/democrats-plan-for-election-2010-cheat/

Democrats’ Plan for Election 2010: Cheat

Posted By Sarah Durand On January 18, 2010 @ 12:00 am In . Column2 02, . Positioning, Politics, US News | 67 Comments

Destroying the integrity of U.S. elections has been a longtime project for the far left. For over a decade, elected Democrats have manipulated the American people into believing their counterfeit altruistic intentions to enable more citizens to vote. Though largely flying under the radar, they’ve been looking for ways to use our legislative system to trump up fraudulent votes and their subterfuge knows no boundaries.

In 1993 Congress passed the National Voter Registration Act [1], commonly called “motor voter.” Under the deception that it would boost voter turnout, the bill laid the foundation for much of the voter fraud we’ve seen over the last 15 years.

Motor voter set stringent provisions and regulations to restrict states’ abilities to remove names from the voter registry. Consequently, people who have died or moved away from many states are still registered to vote there, and many eligible voters are registered multiple times. Several states have more registered voters [2] than actual citizens. For example, Colorado has a million more registered voters [3] than citizens who are eligible to vote. And, at one time, some counties in Missouri had as much as 153% [2] of their population registered to vote.

Although motor voter was signed into law by then-President Bill Clinton, the bill is also tied to our current president. In 1995, then-attorney Barack Obama successfully fought for the law [4] in an Illinois court on behalf of ACORN. Later, in true you-scratch-my-back-and-I’ll-scratch-yours spirit, ACORN returned the favor, running Obama’s illegal get-out-the-vote [5] campaign that led to his 2008 presidential win. However, the campaign should be best known for prompting investigations [6] of ACORN voter fraud in 13 states.

Even Hillary Clinton suffered the consequences of her husband’s motor voter passage, according to a complaint [7] filed by her 2008 presidential election campaign committee. The complaint accused the Obama campaign of efforts to “manipulate the voter registration process in its own favor.” Other charges were that caucus chairs “deliberately miscounted votes to favor Senator Obama” and that unregistered persons and children’s votes were deliberately counted as Obama votes.

Since the passage of motor voter, liberals have become even more ambitious, attacking the integrity of the election process through the Soros-funded Secretary of State Project (SoSP) [8]. Because each state’s SoS is responsible for overseeing elections, leftists believe that if they control the SoS, they control the outcome of the elections. The main goal of the SoSP is to secure the election of far-leftist secretaries of state who have no problem throwing out thousands of Republican votes, while counting votes of the deceased, illegal aliens, and Mickey Mouse [9] instead. And, as a non-federal 527, they can accept unlimited contributions towards their goal.

SoSP has taken credit for bringing into power 11 of their 13 supported secretary of state candidates since 2006. According [8] to the SoSP site, one of those elected, Mark Ritchie [10], “pulled off a major upset, with [SoSP] support,” and played a decisive role in the Minnesota Franken-Coleman senatorial race [11]. Although Coleman originally won the race, Ritchie oversaw the recount, delivering victory to Franken and giving Senate Democrats their 60th vote.

Another secretary of state helped by the SoSP was Jennifer Brunner [12] of Ohio, who refused [13] to take action to verify 200,000 questionable voter registrations in the 2008 elections. Apparently, expecting the Social Security number on the voter registration form to match the name of the person registering to vote is a “veiled attempt at disenfranchising voters [14].”

One of the stated [15] goals of the SoSP is “universal, automatic, and portable voter registration.” Currently, many liberals in Congress are fighting to grant this wish through a universal voter registration bill [16]. This bill would be a federal mandate that gives the federal government power over the state governments’ election processes. According to John Fund [17] of the Wall Street Journal, “The feds will tell the states: Take everyone on every list of welfare recipients, take everyone on every list of unemployed you have, take everyone on every list of property owners, all driver’s license holders, and register them to vote, regardless of whether they want to be.” Proponents of this bill, Chuck Schumer [18] and Barney Frank [19], are not at all concerned with the felons or illegals on these lists, or the duplicate voter registrations that will be created for those on several lists.

Universal voter registration was a longtime goal of Columbia University professors Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven of the Cloward-Piven Strategy [20]. The goal of their political strategy is to overthrow the current system of government and replace it with socialism. Newsmax’s James Walsh reported on this issue in 2008, stating [21], “By advocating massive, no-holds-barred voter registration campaigns, [Cloward and Piven] sought a Democratic administration in Washington, D.C., that would redistribute the nation’s wealth and lead to a totalitarian socialist state.” Notably, Cloward and Piven were present at the ceremonial signing [22] of motor voter, beaming at the success of phase one of their ultimate plan to destroy the validity of the election process.

Much of what the universal voter registration bill will contain has been outlined in the Brennan Center for Justice’s [23] Voter Registration Modernization Policy Summary [24]. This summary calls for states to be required to enact permanent statewide voter registration. The center suggests a federal voter registration modernization act where, “once a voter is on the rolls, she would be permanently registered within the state and able to vote without re-registering even if she moved within the state or changed her name.” Unnoted in the summary is that such a system would crown married women the lucky winners of two votes each per election.

With the exception of Soros’s SoS Project oozing of obvious corruption, other initiatives like motor voter and universal voter registration appear innocent on the surface. But history tells us that if we open the door to voter fraud, ACORN and the like will walk through it. The combination of Soros money, corrupt leaders, and Ahmadinejad-esque election laws is a perfect recipe to force us into a fascist, interminable oligarchy where we the people have no voice. The legislation of this generation is enslaving the next; another example of “chains we can believe in [25].”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Article printed from Pajamas Media: http://pajamasmedia.com

URL to article: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/democrats-plan-for-election-2010-cheat/

URLs in this post:

[1] National Voter Registration Act: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Voter_Registration_Act_of_1993

[2] more registered voters: http://blog.heritage.org/2008/10/09/motor-voter-acorn-vote-fraud/

[3] million more registered voters: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2464198/why_colorados_secretary_of_state_race_pg3.html?cat=8

[4] fought for the law: http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/700499,CST-NWS-Obama-law17.article

[5] get-out-the-vote: http://www.acorn.org/index.php?id=2811

[6] investigations: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Yzc0ZjZhMjdjNzU5MzEzNGU0ODg3ODA5MThjNWZmMDc=

[7] complaint: http://www.israpundit.com/2008/?p=1253

[8] Secretary of State Project (SoSP): http://www.secstateproject.org/

[9] Mickey Mouse: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1077707/Why-Mickey-Mouses-vote-Democrats-rebound-Obamas-chances-U-S-president.html

[10] Mark Ritchie: http://www.sos.state.mn.us/

[11] Franken-Coleman senatorial race: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_election_in_Minnesota,_2008

[12] Jennifer Brunner: http://www.sos.state.oh.us/

[13] refused: http://spectator.org/archives/2008/11/07/sos-in-minnesota

[14] veiled attempt at disenfranchising voters: http://www.ohio.com/news/break_news/31101144.html

[15] stated: http://www.secstateproject.org/races/

[16] universal voter registration bill: http://blog.couragetosee.com/?p=823

[17] According to John Fund: http://conversations.blackvoices.com/top-news/4f0620e551114a3da130c144bc705f43/can-falsified-registrations-become-votes/ec8dc6a6c0784873841a0a5bfc9df133?sn=0

[18] Chuck Schumer: http://schumer.senate.gov/

[19] Barney Frank: http://www.house.gov/frank/

[20] Cloward-Piven Strategy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloward%E2%80%93Piven_strategy

[21] stating: http://newsmax.com/Politics/obama-voter-fraud/2008/09/22/id/325456

[22] present at the ceremonial signing: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/clowardpiven_government.html

[23] the Brennan Center for Justice’s: http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/universal_voter_registration_draft_summary/

[24] Voter Registration Modernization Policy Summary: http://www.brennancenter.org/page/-/publications/VRM.Proposal.2008.pdf

[25] chains we can believe in: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=95135

 

[tomahawk6]

Cheating works only if its close- a la Al Franken in Minnesota. Tuesday we shall see if Republican Scott Brown wins in Mass. the bluest of blue states,then the dem's may start pulling away from the Obama agenda.

 

[a_majoor]

And while the T.E.A. partiers organize for the mid terms, one person stands between them and the Administration!:

http://dodocanspell.blogspot.com/2010/01/who-is-ellie-light.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DodoCanSpell+%28Dodo+Can+Spell%29

Who is Ellie Light ?

She is probably a dark creature of the night and needs sunlight to be thrown on her. The wheels of the PR machine that brought Obama to the WH have seen their day and are now coming unhinged. About time! What follows is what investigative journalism should be all about, a thinking process that leads a journalist to fit pieces into a jigsaw puzzle and then show the  work to the readers. My bets are on the HillBuzz guys, that they will solve the mystery of Ellie Light. Bloggers are turning out to be better journalists than those newspaper hacks and the MSM have ever proven to be.

On Thursday evening, The Plain Dealer's Sabrina Eaton reported on "Ellie Light," who'd had virtually identical letters to the editor published in newspapers around the country, with most of them claiming a different hometown in each paper's circulation area.........

And the HillBuzz guys say: We’re delighted some in the media are waking up to the fact that the current administration, and its army of astroturfing trolls, has been playing them like a harp from Hell.

“Ellie Light” has been posting pro-Utopia editorials in papers across the country, using a different address each time.What she says is cut and pasted over and over again, pursuant to the PR goals of the current White House.

This is trolling, people. It’s what we’ve been trying to draw your attention to. This is what David Axelrod’s public strategies firm specialized in. It’s what the DNC and White House are engaged in, with MSM support, 24/7.....

 

[a_majoor]

Jerry Pournelle on the T.E.A. party movement. His thought that the partiers should find it easier to capture the Democrat Party is somewhat counterintuative, but then again even Robert A Heinlein once ran for office as a Democrat....

http://www.jerrypournelle.com/view/2010/Q1/view606.html#Noonan

Nuts and Creeps and GooGoos Oh! My!

She takes longer to say it than I would, but Peggy Noonan in today's WSJ has a very good analysis of the Bay State Election. I particularly like her characterization of the political parties as the Nuts (Democrats after Clinton) vs. the Creeps (Republicans in the post Gingrich era).

I had started today's View in notes at my breakfast table, and came upstairs after my walk to find this from long time friend Robert Bruce Thompson, a hard core libertarian. He begins by quoting me in View:

>This is not a turn to Republicanism in Massachusetts, and the
>Republicans had better not think it was. This was a big tea party. Or
>so it seems to me.

Of course it was. If "none of the above" were on option on ballots, very few Democrats or Republicans would have been elected in the last decade or two.

I think the Massachusetts election was just one more sign that the major political parties are starting to implode. With more than 50% of registered voters in some areas registering Independent, the "major" parties aren't nearly as major as they used to be. And they're steadily losing ground almost everywhere.

I see the major parties' organizations from national down to precinct levels becoming increasingly immaterial. The only things they've ever been good for are fundraising and getting out the vote. Ron Paul decisively demonstrated that the Internet is a viable way to raise money, and it's also obviously a superb tool for organizing grassroots campaigns. Over the next decade or two, I expect to see (R) and (D) after the names of elected politicans become increasingly rare, replaced by (I). If it weren't for the infrastructure in place that assumes two parties--primaries and so on--this would happen even faster.

-- Robert Bruce Thompson

I replied, then expanded that into today's View:

Fund raising and getting out the vote is the sinew of politics. GooGoo movements -- Good Government, non-partisan -- emerges often enough and sometimes sweeps in, but flashes past. The parties remain. Now much of that political history is from the days when the important politics was local, city machines and such like, and increasingly all the importance is being turned to national; but the history is applicable all the same. GooGoos don't last and party bosses know this. Getting the vote out and raising money wins elections.

The big problem is described by Peggy Noonan in today's WSJ : people see the parties now as the Nuts -- Democrats -- vs. the Creeps -- Republicans. Both parties have been captured, the Creeps by the Country Club crowd who think they have an hereditary right to rule and to the spoils of election, and the Nuts by a bunch of political theorists who dig Marx or his intellectual descendents allied with the union leaders who just want more and provide much of the ground game power.

Who can blame the union leaders? If the government is going to tax and spend, the logical position is "Don't tax me, spend on me, and I'll vote for you." The problem is that what the nation needs is people who do NOT directly benefit from government, and don't vote for a party for what they can get out of it, but for what it will do for the country. That's a hard position to take if you're unemployed and your health care runs out and you can't afford COBRA and your kids are sick. Even if you know better, even if you know that in the long run we can't exist by having government workers be the only people with secure employment and a real income, the temptation to take something from the government -- hell I paid taxes for all those years -- and vote to continue, or simply to get into the secure employment sector, is enormous.

What is needed is a restructure, taking the power to Do Good as well as to Tax and Spend out of Washington and handing it back to the States, where the inevitable result of tax and spend is bankruptcy. We can afford to have California and Michigan go bankrupt. We cannot afford to have the Federal Government collapse in an big Atlas Shrugged spasm. Ayn Rand didn't tell us what happens after you trace the sign of the dollar in the air; but it wasn't likely to be pretty. Think of Detroit writ large, only the regulators continue to be on the payroll and are now desperate to raise their department budget through fines and closer enforcement. Anarchy ain't pretty; degenerate democracy is even less so.

In other words, what is needed is that the Democrats stop being run by the Nuts, and the Republicans understand that the purpose of government isn't to let the Creeps run riot, and the only way to do that will be to really believe in transparency and subsidiarity and to understand that each man really is the best judge of his own interest; to return to a point when each election isn't so vital, you can afford to lose one, and the professional politicians are tamed down to where they used to be. That won't be easy. The natural course for a professional politician is to become a rapacious wolf and offer the voters more than his opponent can offer: in other words to promise largesse from the public treasury, and I don't give a damn about Snopes debunking that phrase: democracies really can't survive if the elections turn out to be contests for largesse from the public treasury, and that has been known since Aristotle and Cicero.

Without a party organization the tea party movement will go to hell. It's going to have to build a party structure because we aren't going to stand down from the mad era of Americans with Disabilities Act and No Child Left Behind: and it's going to take more than just deregulation. Some things have to be regulated. Anti-trust is important. Things too big to fail ought not exist, and that has to be fixed. It won't be easy. The Nuts and the Creeps will make common cause to stop any such movement.

The tea parties need a real Party structure, a permanent way to raise money and get out the vote. Whatever is built will be subject to the Iron Law, and that has to be understood as well. The best remedy for all that is to make the prize less worthwhile: so that winning an election isn't paradise and losing it is not ruin. One ought to have more power over one's life than that, which was the original notion of the United States. Of course none of that is taught in the schools, and the teachers generally don't even know it; how many civics teachers have read The Federalist? It's considered too hard now, even for undergraduates. I was told that when I assigned the Federalist to sophomores; reminding my academic colleagues that the Federalist was originally a bunch of letters to the editors of newspapers got derisive laughter, probably because they didn't believe me.

Sorry for the ramble. My point is that for a while the tea party movement can continue in typical GooGoo fashion, but if it wants to dismantle some of the blob it will need to have a Party. It's easier to take over a party than to build a new one, or at least historically that has been the case. But the movement will need people who will reliably turn out to raise money and get out the vote.

I'd think the tea party has a better chance of getting control of the Democrat Party myself, but that's a guess based largely on 50 years of trying to keep the Republicans somewhere near their principles, and eventually losing to the Creeps every time. The day after Reagan left office there was not a Reagan appointee left in Washington. The Bush Dynasty had never forgotten anything except the pledge "Read my lips, no new taxes." That one Bush forgot very quickly. The Country Club is well entrenched. Ask anyone from the Reagan movement. Taking some of the control from the Country Club and returning to Reagan Repubicanism will not be easy.

But it's worth a try. For something more see my introduction to Take Back Your Government.

 

[Edward Campbell]

This article, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail provides an update on the antics activities of one of Thucydides’ favourite political movements, the brilliantly named Tea Party:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/brewing-up-a-political-storm/article1455526/

The American Right
Brewing up a political storm
As its adherents meet in Nashville, it remains an open question whether the Tea Party movement will change history the way its namesake did

Konrad Yakabuski

Washington — From Thursday's Globe and Mail
Thursday, Feb. 04, 2010

Political scientists will tell you that American protest movements typically come and go. Adherents can't sustain their indignation indefinitely. Sooner or later, the source of their grievances dries up.
But what if it's a geyser?

For members of the bustling U.S Tea Party movement, which approaches its first birthday this month, the past year has provided a gusher to get galled about. The behemoth bank bailouts, epic expenditures by government and an impenetrable, state-led plan to reform health care chafe them still.

As hundreds of Tea Party organizers arrive in Nashville today for their first national “convention,” they will draw on new wells of outrage with the $1.6-trillion (U.S.) budget deficit President Barack Obama tabled this week and reports that state ward AIG is preparing to pay another $100-million in executive bonuses.

But the event, which has itself been the subject of protest by some Tea Partiers, is also a test to see whether the movement that emerged from last year's ad-hoc anti-bailout and anti-health-care-reform rallies can move beyond its petulant adolescence to become a venerable force in U.S. politics.

Factional infighting, power struggles at the top and resistance from many Tea Partiers to the institutionalization of their movement – and to its co-opting by the Republican Party – are threatening to drown out the real message they want politicians to hear: The American government has overstepped its bounds.

Or, as Sarah Palin recently put it: “Government, you have constitutional limits. You better start abiding by them.”

Ms. Palin is the star of the Nashville convention, which aims to provide Tea Party organizers from across the country – most of them self-described political novices – with the skills and savvy needed to translate their enthusiasm into influence at the ballot box.

The titles of many workshops – such as, “How to do Voter Registration Drives and Where to Find Conservative Votes” – are similar to those you'd find at any gathering of Republican strategists. Indeed, Tea Partiers are increasingly infiltrating local GOP organizations in every state, dictating the criteria for choosing the party's candidates for this fall's midterm congressional elections.

They are also teaching the GOP a thing or two about modern politicking.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain looked like a hopeless Luddite next to Mr. Obama during the 2008 campaign when he admitted he didn't know how to send an e-mail. Tea Partiers, however, have outdone even Mr. Obama's vaunted team of twentysomethings in their use of social media to draw in previously disengaged voters. Not surprisingly, several sessions at the convention are devoted to taking the technology wars up a notch.

Mr. McCain's running mate, Ms. Palin, is a Facebook phenomenon herself, with 1.26 million fans on the site she now uses as her principal means for diffusing her populist message. She will be the keynote speaker at the Nashville convention, which is organized by an inchoate group called Tea Party Nation.

Were it not for Ms. Palin's imprimatur, the convention might have degenerated into a vaudevillian bust. And it still could. Several competing Tea Party groups pulled out of the event, purportedly over its “for-profit” status, steep $550 registration fee and the less-than-reassuring credentials of TPN founder Judson Phillips. Mr. Phillips, a suburban Nashville lawyer specializing in drunk-driving cases, declared personal bankruptcy in 1999 and recently owed $22,000 in back taxes.

But when pressed by Fox News last week to say whether, in light of the controversy, she was still going to the convention, Ms. Palin shot back with a characteristic, “You betcha.”

In a USA Today column this week she reiterated her enthusiasm: “Everyone attending this event is a soldier in the cause. Some of them will be driving hundreds of miles to Nashville.…But participation won't be limited to those in Nashville who have a ticket. …We'll also be speaking with thousands of Americans watching online at twitter.com/SarahPalinUSA and the conversation will continue on my Facebook page.”

That ability to use new technology to fire up folks who hadn't previously paid much attention to politics used to belong to Mr. Obama. But the post-election Organizing for America campaign launched online by Obama strategist David Plouffe has been largely considered a flop.

Instead, it's the Tea Party movement – which takes its name from the 1773 Boston Tea Party that preceded the American Revolution – that is now harnessing social media the most effectively.

“The Tea Party could not have mounted a convention so early without the Internet,” Ross Baker a political science professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey, opined in an interview. “People who once tried to stir up opposition to government policy with pamphlets and radio advertisements can do it now with a few mouse clicks.”

It's not just Democrats who are worried about that. The Republican establishment is petrified that GOP candidates who aren't up to ideological snuff could find themselves in three-way races with Democrats and independent candidates backed by Tea Partiers. That's what happened in November. Democrats won a normally solid Republican district in New York State after the Tea Partiers backed the conservative candidate, splitting the vote on the right.

Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown's moderate stand on many issues didn't prevent him from earning a massive infusion of cash and support from out-of-state Tea Partiers in his successful bid last month to take the late Ted Kennedy's Senate seat.

But in primary races under way across the country to select Republican candidates for this fall, Tea Partiers are pushing moderate GOP candidates out of the running entirely or forcing them to veer dramatically right. Evidently, the exasperation that almost a year ago began to drive a motley cast of political outliers to show up with homemade signs reading, “Our soldiers didn't fight and die for socialism” is not abating.

Mr. Obama conceded as much yesterday.

“The headlines that people are seeing is, ‘bank bailout, recovery package,' and it all kind of merges together into just this blob of spending, and people aren't seeing, how is this benefiting me,” the President told Democratic Senators. “It just looks like Washington business as usual. And all that suspicion gets amplified.”

If the modern-day Tea Partiers can get past their suspicion of each other they, too, might change the course of U.S. history. We'll have a better idea after Nashville.

A quibble, first: It is not clear to me that the Good Grey Globe’s introductory line “The American Right” is accurate. While there is, still, a visible and viable “left wing” in American (and British and Canadian) politics I am not satisfied that there is anything like a coherent “right” any more. Even if there was I’, not sure I would put the Tea Party in it.

Ms. Palin and some Tea Party adherents seem to be aiming for a Jeffersonian policy when she says, “Government, you have constitutional limits. You better start abiding by them.” Jefferson offered the Americans reduced taxes, a slim, trim military budget, and, inter alia a plan to extinguish the public debt; simplicity and frugality became the hallmarks of his administration. That used to be the foundation of Republican policy – but George W Bush and the interventionist wing put paid to all that.

The point I find most interesting is that, simultaneously, the Republicans are trying to take over the Tea Party while some Tea Party activists are trying to take over the Republican Party. Perhaps this can facilitate a split in the Republicans that I think is necessary for its survival. Perhaps the Christian Right and the Rush Limbaugh wing and some of the libertarian Tea Party elements will abandon ship and form their own party, leaving a moderate Republican movement that preaches and practices traditional small town, small business, frugal, fiscally responsible, efficient government, isolationist – in other words Jeffersonian - values. That Republican Party has a hope of winning back the congress and the White House, maybe not in 2012 but starting then.

 

[Kirkhill]

I can't find the reference immediately but I believe that I read recently that Tea Party enthusiasts include disaffected Left Wingers and conservative Democrats.  The conservative Democrats on fairly obvious grounds.  Their loyalty to the party is more tribal than philosophical.  The Left Wingers are a little more complex -  Democrats courted "Hippies" on social grounds but "Hippies" are ultimately anti-government (government = fascism).  Your average Haight-Ashbury Summer of Love graduate is no more enamoured of Democrats telling them what to do than Republicans.

NOTE - this is not an original thought.  Others have been here before.  I just happen to agree with it.

Cheers.