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Tea Party Two: The Town Hall

It could show NCNA the way home.

By: Josh Painter (Diary)  |  May 12th, 2009 at 07:08 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

This just in from Politico’s Andy Barr:

Hoping to recapture the grassroots energy of last month’s “tea parties,” Republican Govs. Mark Sanford of South Carolina and Rick Perry of Texas will host a tele-town hall Thursday that’s being dubbed “Tea Party 2.0.”

The Republican Governors Association said it is expecting 30,000 people to participate in the town hall, which will take place roughly one month after the much-publicized anti-tax tea party rallies held in hundreds of locations across the country on April 15, the tax filing deadline.

Sanford and Perry will each speak for several minutes before opening up the town hall to up to an hour-long question and answer session.

Sanford spoke at a tea party event in Charleston, and his battle with his legilature over stimulus funds is being closely watched. Perry attended three tea parties in Texas and rather publically endorsed a state House resolution reasserting the Lone Star State’s sovereignty.

While a town hall meeting won’t have quite the impact of the original, Ver. 2.0 could be a step forward for the resistance to Obama Nation. A town hall format, with its questions and answers, will be more difficult for The Left to demonize than the enthusiastic public demonstration which went before. And, since both governors are being touted as possible 2012 GOP presidential nominees, it will be interesting to see them interact both with the grassroots and with each other in a town hall venue.

Perhaps best of all, however, it parallels the NCNA listening tour and could show that group that the overwhelming majority of the Republican Party’s rank and file has already decided the question of what the GOP’s principles should be. There is no question among the grassroots of whether the party should be more conservate or more moderate. The only remaining question is how best to get the party back to practicing the principles it should never have so carelessly abandoned.

- JP

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  • jfpurdue01

    You can sign upon their website for the call. I’m looking forward to it, as I think Sanford is a very reaganesque conservative with libertarian roots. Also, Sanford spoke at 3 tea parties as well (Columbia, Charleston, and Greenville).

  • dforston

    What part of “we don’t want politicians involved” part of the tea parties did they not understand?

    • jfpurdue01

      This event is being billed as two governors who want to listen to those citizens who organized the tea parties. It is a great chance for two possible (one probable) 2012 candidates to listen to the citizens involved with the tea parties… And Sanford is chair of the RGA, so he has plenty of influence aside from being a top 2012 contender.

  • Praying

    Must we demonize ALL politicians? Those two are a couple that “get it right” – lets support what is good and get rid of what is bad (Fortunately, Arlen Specter did that for us, but there are others…). I think it is a wonderful way for those of us who do not live in SC or TX to get a glimpse of these two men – I for one am not going to judge anyone right now. Also, as the co-chair of the Knoxville Tea Party, I think it is important to continue to move this idea forward – we can’t just keep having protest demonstrations or we really will start to look like a bunch of right wingnuts… Besides, we WORK for a living, remember, so it’s a little harder to attend a rally.

    • RetiredFF

      These two American Patriots and others out there know what the Tea Parties were all about!! This will be a great opportunity to see who may also jump on board as well. Hopefully the 10th and 16th amendments will be spoken of during the town hall. Tax day is over, we do need to name some upcoming parties, such as Freedom Parties, Independence Parties, Liberty Parties, Individual Rights Parties. How about plain old Patriot’s Parties. The momentum needs to keep building and reaching out, if not, our nation will disappear behind the smoke and mirrors of this pathetic administration.

  • JadedByPolitics

    the TEA Party name because THEY ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM!!!! I do not think they quite understand that We The People are ANGRY with them ALL!!!

    • gazill

      but, from what I have read, these two governor’s appear to be outliers of the RINO party, ergo, not part of the problem, but representative of the type of solution(s) we seek. If a squishy RINO, such as McCain, tried to co-opt, I would hope the tea partiers would give them what for….

      • jackbenimble

        Governor Goodhair an outlier?

        I’m not a Texan but because I watch the illegal immigration issues closely I have watching this guy for years and as far as I can tell he is just another opportunistic panderer. He says one thing when he is running for office and does another after he gets elected. And he has even better hair than Bloggo.

        Mark Sanford seems to be a class act and the real mccoy.

        If the Republican Party manages to co-opt our local Tea Party Movement then I am done with it. I really think Republicans played a very large role in getting us into our current mess and I really don’t think they have learned anything significant except that they want their power back so they can go on with big government Republican style.

        • http://impudent.blognation.us/blog kyle8

          I thought much the same. But there are a few issues (alas not immigration) in which he has remained firm on, and lately at least he seems to be one of the very few Republicans talking conservatively.

          So there might be a little more too him than just Keith Olbermann hair.

  • clement

    I think the internet freaks (ronulans, truthers, etc) might make this town hall, well, interesting.

    We’ll see I guess.

  • red_dawn

    We don’t need any more “listening tours”. THEY ALREADY KNOW WHAT WE BELIEVE!! They need to teach the uninformed voters what we STAND FOR.

    We don’t need any more of this mamby-pambyness. Leaders lead/squishes and RINOs listen, take polls and conduct ficus groups.

    We need to educate the American People about the real and coming danger of the MarxistFascist 0bama JUNTA before it is too late.

    Don’t listen – educate!

    • jackbenimble

      The problem is that the Republican Party stands for nothing because while we have professed princitples it has been a very long time since our leaders have practiced them. The American People already have a good understanding of what we stand for: big government, incompentence, cronyism and corruption.

      At the last Tea Party I was standing in line and a Republican organizer was going down the line handing everybody a flyer called “10 Reasons I am a Republican”. As he handed them out he said apologetically to each person in line: “now if we could only get our team in Washington to believe these things”. I read the flyer, agreed with it and realized that to the average Republican politician it was just so much butt-wipe.

      Rush is right about the listening tours but he is wrong about them teaching. Our leaders in Washington are not FIT to teach our principles and everytime they pretend to they just make themselves look like worse hypocrits. It is time for them to shut-up and live our principle and regain some credibility.

  • Karina

    He’s under a lot of fire for it in SC and the Dems are running ads against him. There’s tons of disinformation about it and he’s trying to clear it up. I, for one, think it’s a great idea. The legislature isn’t listening to him so he’s taking his message to the people. It’s the right thing to do.

    • Karina

      I meant not taking ALL the money. He did take some and is now trying to pay down state debt while the legislature wants to fund new ongoing programs with one time money.