The Wisconsin Tea Party movement is not gelling to Tommy Thompson who presumed he would have an easy nomination to be Wisconsin’s next Republican Senator. Tea Party activists have rallied against him in Wisconsin and now the state party seems poised to shut out a group that has been so helpful in battling the recall efforts there. According to several people I’ve spoken to on | Read More »
With a hat tip to Drew Ryun for the title of the post, Tim Carney brings word this morning that some Republicans think they are too important to have their budgets cut. The Republican Study Committee, the organization of conservatives in the House of Representatives, is proposing further cuts in spending to Congress’s budget. Some Republicans are flipping out and going to 12 on a | Read More »
Here’s a rule of thumb — if engaging the tea party movement, focus on the local groups, not the big groups. Tea Party Express has one heck of an impressive track record this year at the national level and they need to be commended for that, but all things being equal it is the local groups that have the volunteers, get out the vote efforts, | Read More »
I told you a while back about a small group of Republican Senators sitting down for drinks at the Capitol Hill Club. They’d been to a tea party rally that day and were openly mocking the tea partiers. One of them, a guy tea partiers adore, seemed to hold them in open contempt at this table. Well, between the tea partiers and Jim DeMint, these | Read More »
It would be really funny if it were not true. Remember the advertisement from the Republican Governors Association themed “Remember November”? The left went nuts because the ad was so effective. The RGA followed it up with a new ad ridiculing the over the top rhetoric and distortions from the media. Well, the Democratic Governors Association has decided to wade into the fray. The DGA | Read More »
“Cass Sunstein has favored the government using outside parties as government propaganda agents to paint their opposition as fringe and undermine their credibility.” Astroturf is the act of professional interest groups designing campaigns that appear to be grassroots efforts, but are not. It is what the left has accused the tea parties of being. Only more and more it looks like the anti-tea party movement | Read More »
“[T]o change the paradigms, to … blow them up, we must get involved in the existing processes of politics and government, not create something new to compete.” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer admits the tea party movement is getting members of Congress to thing about retiring. Most excellent. And that is what the movement should be about, more or less, but there is much more | Read More »
“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” The dirty little secret about my writing is that it captures my real time thinking on issues. I do not sit down with a plan, map out a long term strategy, and then center my writing around that. I have an idea and I expound upon it. You are | Read More »
“These concerns are American and we do ourselves a disservice if we segment ourselves into anything less than heirs of our American Revolution.” We stand at the one year anniversary of tea parties in America. Just over a year ago, in February, Rick Santelli, fired up on CNBC, predicted a national movement of protest against what was happening in Washington — something akin to the | Read More »
It did not do Kay Bailey Hutchison any good in Texas, but she made the most of Dick Cheney endorsing her. In Utah, Bob Bennett has lined up Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, and Dick Cheney — calling in every imaginable favor to show he is the preferred candidate of the Republican Party. In other years that might help Bob Bennett, but as Utah Republicans go | Read More »
One of the stories coming out of CPAC this year is the embrace of the tea party movement not by the Republican Party, but by the conservative movement. The issues of spending and smaller government are shared across the board. But while conservatives are embracing the tea party movement, Republican Senators continue castigating tea party activists and hoping they shut up and go away. The | Read More »
Governor Sarah Palin took to the stage at the National Tea Party Convention on Saturday night and hit it out of the park. She hit all the notes perfectly. She threw in some great lines. But above all else, she proved herself authentic, sincere, and in touch with conservatives and independents. You can see the whole speech here. As Andrew Malcolm noted, she started by | Read More »
I sneaked up to Nashville to scope out the “National Tea Party Convention.” I wrote critically of the tea party convention some time ago and expressed some serious concerns that Sarah Palin was going to hurt herself unintentionally by associating with it. I’m glad I went and saw it for myself. To be clear: I still have concerns. I still think there were some people | Read More »
I always like reading Frank Rich. He’s like the anthropologist who always gets it wrong. It makes for great comedy — think Mr. Bean as Jane Goodall. Behold his latest overreach that leaves such a stink he must not have worn deodorant before reaching. I write this only because Rich uses me to prop up his straw men. He writes: Last week a prominent right-wing | Read More »
Ralph Benko has a good defense of the grassroots at ParcBench, but I think the premise on which it is based (a statement by Patrick Ruffini) is a misreading of Patrick Ruffini. I haven’t actually talked to Patrick, but I venture to guess that I know him well enough to know what he meant. Patrick’s original is here. The nugget rubbing people the wrong way | Read More »
“Conservatives have a perfect opportunity to shift an existing Republican seat to the right. They should seize the opportunity and defeat Bob Bennett.” Poor wittle conservatives. Nobody wistens to the poor wittle conservatives. The Senate Minority Leader talks like a conservative, but behind closed doors he does everything he can to shut down conservative small government agenda items and pro-life measures so he doesn’t have | Read More »
The left is so thin skinned, after months of using homsexual innuendo to smear tea party activists, celebrating Dick Cheney needing back surgery, cheering Glenn Beck’s appendix and wishing it would kill him, etc., etc., etc. the left is demanding that Marsha Blackburn condemn the rhetoric used by tea party activists. Blackburn is refusing. What words do the left object to? “Socialist,” “evil,” “totalitarian,” etc. | Read More »
The Politico has an article out today on tea party activists getting involved in their local political parties. I’ve been preaching on this for a while. The reporter, Alex Isenstadt, interviewed me for his article and gave me the last word. I’m partial to my quote: For some, supporting insurgent campaigns or waging primary bids just isn’t a strong enough signal to send to a | Read More »
Steven F. Hayward, writing in the Washington Post today, postulates that the conservative movement is currently brain dead. It is a fashionable statement among those living in Washington, D.C. housed at think tanks. And I guess it is when think tannkers are pushing out columns on the lack of ideas rather than pushing out columns with ideas. Nonetheless, I generally agree with Steven Hayward that | Read More »
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