US POLITICS SPRING 2011: Let's just call off this country.

otm

I will repeat: there is no Tea Party, it's a press-created name for a fervent GOP grassroots that has existed since 1980.

I think Teabaggers are much more likely to bolt to a third party than liberal Democrats are.

they'd need someone rich, dumb, creepy and narcissistic enough for them to bolt to. a ross perot only comes around once in a great while.

they'd need someone rich, dumb, creepy and narcissistic enough for them to bolt to.

Donald Trump came thiiiis close

I will repeat: there is no Tea Party, it's a press-created name for a fervent GOP grassroots that has existed since 1980.

this isn't entirely true, there are existing Tea Party organizations (Tea Party Express, Dick Armey's Freedomworks) that could conceivably be leveraged into a party aparatus. and the press didn't make up those organizations, they were funded and developed by GOP hacks like Armey.

not a successful or particularly effective party apparatus, mind you, but the general structure is there

they'd need someone rich, dumb, creepy and narcissistic enough for them to bolt to

Palin comes pretty close

Those groups have existed since 1980 under different names and with less funds; it's a shock to the national press that the descendants of Richard Viguerie's direct-mail campaigns and Ralph Reed's phone conferences have made an impact?

I will repeat: there is no Tea Party, it's a press-created name for a fervent GOP grassroots that has existed since 1980.

― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, July 11, 2011 1:26 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

not sure i agree. fox news helped promote the name and idea, but it originated at the grassroots level, and fox is at least as much a political advocacy organization as it is "the press." rise of the tea party movement is a distinct contemporary event within american conservative politics, even if the basic philosophies and organizing strategies have been in place for ages.

ugh Ralph Reed

but yeah obviously this is a demographic/wing of the party that goes way back. whether they bolt or not... eh, remains to be seen. if Romney starts to really lock things down I'd say the odds increase

no it isn't - their influence is just magnified given the circumstances xp

that said i side with shakey here - call it what you want, or don't: the 'tea party' represents a genuine and enthusiastic bloc

FOX News and the national press gave this faction of the GOP its legitimacy, not realizing that the elections of Reagan and George W. Bush already did.

has anyone watched that "boogie man" movie about lee atwater? it's on netflix on demand.

xp my memory is that there really was some kind of organic 'tea party' type of thing but it was more a loose label for disaffected goldbug/ron paul types through the last year of W. tax day protests, that kind of thing. as soon as obama entered office it took on a different life, blew up, was bought out, however you want to put it.

what is being called 'tea party' now is not new tho, no. and i think really unlikely to go their own way.

Oh wait: I'm not dismissing TP enthusiasm and legitimate fears. I admire them more than Democrats.

there were definitely self-identified 'tea party' groups at the local level long before the national republican party thought to pay attention to them.

I admire them more than Democrats.

― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, July 11, 2011 4:37 PM (24 seconds ago)

same

They're holding their representatives accountable! They're not like Democrats who year after year go, "Oh well, I gotta vote for Gore/Kerry/Obama cuz god knows what THE OTHER SIDE is gonna put on the Supreme Court."

i.e., of course anti-tax, anti-gov't "tea party" libertarianism isn't entirely new, but the sudden ascendancy and coherence of these philosophies into a powerful movement with explicit goals, well-attended rallies, electable candidates, GOP-redirecting power and so forth is a legitimately new wrinkle in american conservative politics.

I gotta get off the bus at that point k3v & alfred

I mean I don't have any admiration at all for either side but your choices here are people who will sit idly by while other people hurt you & lie about how they wanted to help vs. people who are actively trying to hurt you - the former category at least might be fun to take in a movie with, the latter are just a drag

I don't wanna go to a movie with them – I want them angry enough to blow up the projectionist for threatening to show "Transformers 3."

They're holding their representatives accountable!

this, and yeah, on that level, i "admire" them (in a distanced sense) far more than current democrats. more than the democratic party, more than its candidates, and more than its constituency. the tea party and its candidates/supporters are active, engaged, morally committed, and willing to make and stand by strong demands. everything any worthwhile political party needs to be.

yeah I cannot take what they are standing for out of the equation

of course not. on that level, they're reprehensible and i admire them not at all.

(that other level, i mean...)

No one here has expressed support for the GOP platform.

Here's what makes the national press so excrutiating. From The NYT story posted this afternoon about Obama's press conference:

The president’s tone about his Democratic allies changed as well. Mr. Obama appeared eager to demonstrate that the difficulties House Speaker John A. Boehner is having with conservatives was matched by Mr. Obama’s willingness to talk tough to his own liberal constituency.

Obama's willingness to shit on what is presumably his base is as courageous as Kerry, Gore, and Clinton's.

Wait never mind: his true base is Wall Street. Sorry.

This is the kicker line: “Let’s do it,” (Obama) said. “I’m prepared to do it. I’m prepared to take on significant heat from my party to get something done.”

They're holding their representatives accountable for not holding up idiotic economic and social policy lines. There's also enough fragmentation in belief that the only common thread really ends up being "don't vote for anything that involves payment" including but not limited to federal programs that tea partiers depend on (medicare, ssi).

yeah but in the 20s & 30s the business community needed Americans a lot more than they do now; it's all about "emerging markets" now. We're already in debt, so we've fulfilled our purpose.

seriously; the matrix aliens weren't nice but at least they needed our bodies for batteries

http://i.imgur.com/k8xni.jpg

They're holding their representatives accountable! They're not like Democrats who year after year go, "Oh well, I gotta vote for Gore/Kerry/Obama cuz god knows what THE OTHER SIDE is gonna put on the Supreme Court."

― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 11 July 2011 20:40 (1 hour ago)

Come presidential election time, they totally are like that. Do you really think Tea Partiers are going to sit out presidential elections if the GOP candidate isn't conservative enough? They think Obama is a communist marxist muslim terrorist whatever. In my view, one of the strengths of the Republican party, and their base, is that they are BETTER at rallying around their candidate no matter what, because they have so thoroughly demonized their opposition.

yup

do you guys not remember 4 years ago

when GOP turnout was depressed and tons of the party hated McCain

and McCain had to pander to the base by making a desperate hail-mary VP nomination. which still didn't save him.

Do you really think Tea Partiers are going to sit out presidential elections if the GOP candidate isn't conservative enough?

We'll soon see! Can't wait!

McCain's campaign was a trainwreck and he had previous election cycles worth of baggage - he ran against W. & the base hated him forever for it

red = bush; yellow =mccain, 2000 primary:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/2000_Republican_Primary_Results.svg

when GOP turnout was depressed and tons of the party hated McCain

― a man is only a guy (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, July 11, 2011 6:06 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

and McCain had to pander to the base by making a desperate hail-mary VP nomination. which still didn't save him.

― a man is only a guy (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, July 11, 2011 6:06 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

this is... uh, a generous retelling of the events

well, it's not really, but they're not perfectly comparable situations -- one of the reasons why mccain lost was bcuz he didn't appeal to the GOP base as much as w bush, but it was only one of the reasons

Do you really think Tea Partiers are going to sit out presidential elections if the GOP candidate isn't conservative enough?

no. they're not that passive. they'll more likely force the candidates they want on the GOP.

the GOP circa 2008 much more a party that was in disarray than one that stood up nobly and said "you don't support republican values, so we're not voting for you"

they'll more likely force the candidates they want on the GOP.

― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Monday, July 11, 2011 6:12 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

this is really hard on a national level -- they tried to in 2008, but they failed, which is why there was a lot of moaning about mccain -- maybe they'll be able to do it in 2012, but i have my doubts

they're not directly comparable for all sorts of reason but the base wasn't motivated by McCain and I'm sure that depressed GOP turnout. This is in response to the assertion that the GOP base ALWAYS turns out, no matter what. It just isn't true.

i think the problem w/ that statement is that bases ALWAYS do turn out, that's why they're the called "the base" -- i think ppl, including republicans themselves, probably overestimated the size of the base

really what you can see in all this is Obama trying to pry the oligarchic wing of the GOP out of the GOP entirely - "come deal with me! I'm reasonable!" - so that the GOP will be a hollowed-out shell of nutjobs who can't win elections. that's the real conflict going on here.

sorta got the sense that gop knew they couldn't win that time around and were like, "hey look, an old man! let's throw him on the fire. *inferno* bahahaha! look at him dance around!"

man McCain wanted it SO BAD

lol hunt3r that is a grim little poem right there, well done

I should have been clearer: it's more true to say that the GOP screens its candidates more closely in local races than the Dems. The GOP after all loves to nominate the tired old satrap (Dole, McCain) every couple of cycles.

It's totally true that the GOP nominates the tired old satrap when they know they won't win (e.g. 1996, 2008).

"We got rid of THAT fossil"