Clearly the tea parties wield considerable and demonstrable electoral power and neglecting to woo them is a dangerous game to be playing if one entertains national elected-office ambitions. It's probably that Romney is an old-school republican and he's essentially re-running the 2008 election, calculating that if he can win over the moderate center, he can afford to ignore what he perceives as the radical right tea-party caucus. What his handlers have failed to tell him is that the tea parties occupy both the center and right bases. Having broad appeal is good, but it's not necessary to alienate half of the base while posturing as a centrist to win the other half.
If Romney is the nominee, I guess I'll have to hold my nose and vote like I did with J.Mac but I won't like it. I don't want to have to cast another vote for a luke-warm centrist who's already lost a national nomination. Romney thinks it's his turn to be the GOP nominee. That's how these old-school guys think. He had his shot. Time for some new, untainted blood.
6 comments:
Romney's not my first - or even in the first 5 - choice. But, I think he'd be better both as a candidate and president that McCain. Of course, given what we have now, I have a hard time thinking of what could be worse.
He is making a big mistake regarding the Tea Party, as you say.
Romney's not my first - or even in the first 5 - choice. But, I think he'd be better both as a candidate and president that McCain. Of course, given what we have now, I have a hard time thinking of what could be worse.
He is making a big mistake regarding the Tea Party, as you say.
The National Tea Party will fail. The same Elite that control both the Republicans and Democrats - that own both sides of the False Left Right Paradigm - have already begun to infiltrate, corrupt and destroy it. ~Silver Shield
cartoon: March of Tyranny
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march_of_tyranny.jpg
Glen, there is no national tea party. That is precisely why they will endure. There are tea parties, with an "s", and they have little or no association with each other. Even if they cease calling themselves tea-parties, the rise of the libertarian/conservative voter as an electoral force will not go away quickly. If they do get co-opted by the GOP, then you are right. They will fail. And some of them who try to organize as if they are a major political party will find their membership drop as they adopt traditional compromised issue positions like the GOP.
"Pence and Huckabee are no different from DeMint, Romney, Gingrich, Giuliani, McCain, Graham, Palin, and Santorum – they are all ardent supporters of war, empire, and police statism." ~Laurence M. Vance
I don't know who Larry Vance is and his assessment of Pence and Huck remain to be proven. Only time will tell. I'm not a big Huck fan...too socially conservative in that he's likely to make social conservatism part of his platform. Nobody knows how President Pence would govern or how co-opted he would be. I think it's more important for the congressional membership to be tea-party-like conservatives as opposed to the CiC, since they control the purse strings and proper monetary policy will solve a lot of the problems of our country.
I think SP is a super person and good conservative but I'm just not sure if she's ready for prime time. All those other guys are yesterday's news as far as I'm concerned and I would find it hard to get excited about any of their candidacies.
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