Armey says “unreliable” Republicans are Tea Partiers’ only hope
Dick Armey says the Tea Party movement is willing to back Republicans for office, but only if they agree to reform their sinful ways when it comes to fiscal dangers like the budget deficit and the federal debt.
In fact, he predicts that Tea Partiers and their conservative allies will be around for a long time to make sure Republicans who get into office avoid the perils of backsliding on the road to fiscal purity.
“If we’ve got any hope at all, we must put it, as unreliable as they are, with the Republicans and try to rehabilitate them, reform them … and manage their behavior,” the former House Republican majority leader told a National Press Club luncheon.
Armey is likely to know what he’s talking about. His nonprofit group, FreedomWorks, has been busy organizing, training and facilitating Tea Party rallies since the movement surfaced early last year.
Some suspect FreedomWorks of trying to co-opt Tea Partiers for Republicans. But Armey insists his only objective is to push a conservative agenda aimed at maximizing liberty and minimizing government control.
“I call it small government, grass-roots activism. The Tea Party activists are a part of it, FreedomWorks is is part of it. FreedomWorks is the longest standing most active organization within this movement,” he said. “Make no mistake about it. These are not ‘kookie’ birds. Right now the greatest player, the big tent on the political scene in America, is called the Tea Party movement.”
McCain says he was misled, but not everyone agrees
John McCain says he was misled by former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson into supporting the Wall Street bailout.
“We were all misled,” the Arizona Republican told NBC’s “Meet the Press” over the weekend.
Misled in what way?
With the economy showing every sign of burning to the ground, McCain says Paulson told Congress the Bush administration wanted to buy up toxic mortgages blamed for the conflagration. But he turned around and gave the money directly to Wall Street.
“Whoever thought that we would, when we passed that, we would own General Motors and Chrysler, GMAC? I mean, it’s beyond what anyone had anticipated,” McCain said.
Dick Durbin, a leading Senate Democrat, confirms part of the story: Paulson’s initial pitch was for money to buy up bad mortgages; then the focus switched to Wall Street’s balance sheets.
Bayh wonders if partisanship will encourage a new Ross Perot
Evan Bayh wants out of Washington but wonders if the partisan bickering he leaves behind will one day be swept aside by a new Ross Perot riding a third-party tidal wave of public anger.
“If (voter) frustration continues to grow and the American people say ‘a pox on both your houses,’ then there’s some prospect for a third-party type movement,” the Democratic senator from Indiana told ABC’s Good Morning America.
Bayh hastens to add that he doesn’t believe that would really happen.
Why not? “I think that ultimately we can make progress within the two-party system,” he said.
Good luck.
Polls say voters are angry about the partisan bickering that has engulfed legislative initiatives from healthcare reform and climate change to financial regulation and job creation.
Republicans and Democrats both catch blame. But Democrats, as the governing party, could suffer most in November’s congressional elections. Republicans did the suffering in 2006. Meanwhile, the conservative Tea Party movement has candidates from both sides rattled.
Nader doesn’t have a balanced brain cell left in his skull. At one time, he was an option. No longer.
2012 may be an open door for Palin, but first comes 2010
Sarah Palin’s right. It would be absurd for her not to consider a White House bid in 2012, especially while Tea Partiers are chanting, “Run, Sarah, run!” But first come this November’s elections, which could help build Palin’s credibility if her high-profile public appearances (and repeated attacks on President Barack Obama) actually help conservative candidates get elected to Congress and important state offices around the country. If.
Some political experts say Palin’s weekend keynote speech at the big Tea party in Nashville was her best since the 2008 GOP convention — detailed, focused and high on energy. Lucrative, too, given the $100,000 speaker’s fee, though the on-stage interview seemed a bit scripted, especially the part about what she’d do if she were president. The appearance also kicked off a busy travel schedule to help candidates in this year’s campaign. On Super Bowl Sunday, she was in Texas helping Republican Gov. Rick Perry with his March gubernatorial primary contest against Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. Polling results show Hutchison trailing the incumbent by 15 percentage points and losing ground to a third candidate, Tea Party activist Debra Medina.
Palin spent much of her time in the Lone Star State assailing Washington, and by implication, Hutchison. She raised a huge cheer by pointing out in non-establishment fashion that Texans might like to secede. But moving the national political applause needle to the right in 2010 could be much more difficult than rallying friendly audiences or using a talking hand to bash that “charismatic guy with a TelePrompTer.” A state-by-state analysis of Obama’s job approval ratings by Gallup may offer a glimpse of the voter sentiment challenge that Palin and her conservative allies face this year.
The data show the president’s average approval for 2009 above 50 percent in 40 states including Gov. Perry’s Texas and the Tea Party conventioneers’ Tennessee. In fact, his ratings were substantially above 50 percent in more than 30 states including many in the Southeast, the Midwest and the Southwest, regions where Palin might hope to do well on behalf of conservative Republicans.
Whether Obama’s numbers can translate into good news for Democrats in November is an open question. And the doubts are palpable. In Massachusetts, where his 2009 approval rating was 66.8 percent, Tea Partiers helped Republican Scott Brown capture Teddy Kennedy’s Senate seat.
Photo credits: Reuters/Josh Anderson (Palin); Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (U.S. Capitol); Reuters/Jason Reed (Candidate Obama and Youngster)
A film classic ripe for a Washington-style update?
It’s Oscar nomination day, which means some in snow-covered Washington DC — Hollywood for ugly people, if you believe the old saying — are daydreaming about what it would be like to make a blockbuster film. “Avatar” seems to have the inside track in this year’s Academy Award race, but isn’t there an old classic movie ripe for a Washington-style remake?
How about “Meet John Doe”? It’s a Frank Capra morality piece made in 1941, where a soda jerk can speak basic truth and a rail-riding hobo is played by Gary Cooper, the George Clooney of his day. Everybody’s scrounging for a job and a buck, they’re laying off the old pros at the local newspaper and a cigar-chomping oil magnate wants to get into politics. Barbara Stanwyck plays a hard-driving columnist who fakes a letter from a mythical “John Doe” who says he’s going to leap off the city hall roof on Christmas Eve to protest widespread corruption and the state of the world in general.
But that’s all background. What makes it made-to-order for a 2010 remake is what happens when Gary Cooper a.k.a. “John Doe” speaks to a big gathering, reading remarks written by the columnist, who’s now in cahoots with the oil magnate: the crowd loves him so much they go out and form grassroots John Doe Clubs, just to be neighborly. No politicians allowed. They’re not partisan, they just want to make things a little better.
The oil magnate has another idea, to use the John Doe Clubs as a platform for his political ambitions. Meantime the columnist and the hobo fall in love, and decide they really are altruistic and want “the people” to succeed. It all winds up on the city hall roof in the snow on Christmas Eve, with (really) the “Ode to Joy” playing in the background.
OK, here’s the 2010 version: picture Scott Brown, the new Massachusetts senator, as this century’s John Doe, arriving in Washington to find a Senate tied up in knots, a House in disarray and a White House mired in debt and war. He’s buoyed by support from the John Doe Clubs of the 21st century, the Tea Party movement. Another Washington outsider, a telegenic former governor with ambitions of her own, is drawn to the nouveau John Doe and to the Tea Partiers. They go to the Tea Party convention but find their maverick message competing with entrenched Washington interests. Nobody goes up to the city hall roof, but the two newcomers emerge from the fray older and wiser and open their own PR shop.
Now the fun part — casting! Clooney would be perfect in the Scott Brown/John Doe role. Sandra Bullock would be ideal as the media star but why not get an acting amateur with real potential: Sarah Palin. For the person embodying the power elite, maybe Jack Nicholson. Again, there’s a non-actor who could fill the bill — Rush Limbaugh. He bears an uncanny resemblance to Edward Arnold, who plays the part in the original. And Limbaugh already has the cigars!
This is a screenplay that practically writes itself — so hit those keys!
Tea Party ‘warriors’ take aim at Florida Senate race
Conservative Tea Party activists had loads of fun in Boston last month helping Scott Brown chuck Teddy Kennedy’s forever-Democratic Senate seat into Republican waters.
Now the painted warriors hope to stage a reenactment of Florida’s Dade Massacre, with Republican Gov. Charlie Crist playing the ill-fated Maj. Dade.
A new Rasmussen Reports poll shows Crist 12 percentage points behind former state House Speaker and Tea Party favorite Marco Rubio in Florida’s Republican primary contest for the U.S. Senate. Rubio leads Crist 49 percent to 37 percent.
Rubio’s lead is only just outside the poll’s 5 percentage point margin of error, and 11 percent of the 449 people surveyed say they’re undecided. But the numbers suggest a fundamental change in voter sentiment since August, when Crist’s support stood at 53 percent. Rubio and Crist both hold a double-digit lead over likely Democratic nominee, U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, in the general election campaign to replace retiring Republican Sen. Mel Martinez.
Rubio’s fortunes present an important test of the Tea Party movement’s ability to draw votes. But there may be more than that at stake. Pundits say the Tea Party movement needs national leadership to become a true force in American politics. A Senate victory for Rubio could help give them that in time for the 2012 presidential election campaign.
But is the Tea Party movement really without leaders? An article in The New Yorker magazine points out the involvement of former House Majority Leader Dick Armey. It also notes that some well-heeled lobby groups and think tanks, including Americans for Tax Reform, the Club for Growth, Campaign for Liberty and the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, sponsored the Tea Party march in Washington last September.
Photo Credits: Reuters/Brian Snyder (Boston Tea Party Reenactment); Reuters/Mark Wallheiser (Charlie Crist); Reuters/Larry Downing (Dick Armey)
Americans should support any movement that will bring back our constitutional rights that have been allowed to degenerate due to both the Republican and Democratic parties. If the tea parties will do this than more power to them. Perhaps it will even bring about a third party that will be middle of the road with independents which will blunt the influence of both liberals and conservatives.
A Tale of Two Tea Parties
Is it the best of times or the worst of times for America’s Tea Party movement?
The answer may emerge in the next couple of weeks. A pair of Tea-Party-events-in-the-making suggest the movement, which has channeled much of the conservative opposition to President Barack Obama’s agenda, has reached a fork in the road.
It made headlines last summer as “Tea Party” rallies – evoking a famous protest in Boston against British rule in 1773 — were held across the country in opposition to bank bail-outs, Obama’s attempted healthcare overhaul, and other aspects of the White House agenda.
This weekend one offshoot of the movement is holding a conference in Dallas/Fort Worth called “Leadership Tea Party.” It is a low-key, nuts-and-bolts affair that is focused on the practical side of political training and winning elections. Sessions include: “Tea Parties: Legal Overview for Structures and Fundraising,” and “Victory in a Box.” The latter is about how to get out the vote in primary and general elections.
Richard Viguerie, a leading conservative figure and writer, will give the keynote address on Friday night. Among other things he is seen as a pioneer of get-0ut-the-vote tactics such as ”political direct mail.” The conference is being put on by a group called the Nationwide Tea Party Coalition.
This all suggests the movement — or part of it anyway — which last summer portrayed itself as grassroots and spontaneous, is following a path that has been well-trodden by other conservative groups in America linked to the Republican Party, such as the religious right. Effectively, it is organizing to push conservative candidates and issues with an eye to the 2010 congressional elections and the next White House race in 2012.
Palin said, “will give her speaking fee — widely reported to be around $100,000 — back to conservative political causes”. Interesting, as she no doubt counts herself as a conservative political cause. 
Why not with the help of the tea partier’s disgruntlement with the current politics,create a third national party to free the politics as usual from its partisan divide.As republicans and democrats are just two sides of the current ly defunct coin.