DJ……that ticket was nominated by a convention not a primary. So how does your arguement support the primary choice that didn’t go the “Tea Party” way.

To the clueless……The Tea Party movement is just that. A movement. It is not a third party. It simply is made up of people from more than one party that are resisting wreckless spending and anti-American socialism that will devastate our way of life. The purpose of the movement isn’t about Republican nominations. If some GOPers that happen to have “Tea Party” connections are ticked off at old gaurd left wing Republican nomination tactics…..that is all it is.

That said, alienate the Tea Partiers at your own risk. They are organized, networked, and dedicated campaigners/voters. By nature, they hold a grudge and remember if you just screwed them or not. A primary favors Hurt but, that doesn’t mean that Tea Party “get out the vote” efforts won’t center on a favorite and defeat Hurt anyway.

What is laughable is guys like Mark. He dares to call himself a moderate Republican. Mark, your acting sucks…..bad. Tell us again about conservatism, geesh. Even a liberal Republican that genuinely did think Palin was harmful to McCain and even thought Rush was too conservative would never refer to those two people as disrespectfully as you have. They wouldn’t be defending the president the way you have. Criticize over the top characterizations of Obama, yes. Defend him generally, no. Even if they saw the Tea Party movement as a bunch of Ross Perot wannabe populists, they wouldn’t be referring to them with your vile term of “Tea Baggers”. Total lack of class on your part. Mark is far too Left wing to even qualify as a liberal Republican.

Of course you and the Democrats bemoan the loss of good Dems in GOP clothing. You prefer to work with other socialists in a faux bi-partisan manner. I’m sure you miss Chichester, Marty Williams, and even Russ Potts greatly.

What is steeping isn’t tea. Its fear. You guys don’t understand the Tea Party movement or how it has been so effective. How many Democrats are in Congress? There’s an ultra liberal in the White House and you STILL can’t pass your commie agenda? You have reason to be concerned. See you in November.

I consider myself a “tea partier” as I went to the 4/15 Tea Party in Richmond. Since the “tea party” movement is obviously not convincing the Congressidjits that we are serious, I suggest that we oust those deaf Congressidjits.

Hey, Republicans, conservatives, Tea Partiers–all of you (& me). Quit fussing with each other. in the 5th Congressional District, Perriello needs to GO.

On your own, now gone, blog, you posted how Ronald Reagan signed the Surface Transportation Assistance Act that included an increase in the fuel tax to fund needed transportation improvements. The Tea Party movement would have had a problem with Ronald Reagan if he was running for office today.

As a local Republican Party Chairman in Norfolk, I have to say I am disconcerted about your comments on “what is left of the GOP”.

All year, I have resisted any urge to make comments on my favorite blog–as I thought it’s not protocol to dignify or add any credibility to posts such as yours as an elected GOP official in my own city. I firmly feel that your assertions and generalizations of active members of the GOP are not from an informed standpoint. I would surmise, you must not have ever been actively involved in your local Republican Party unit, or the campaigns, or you would not say what you have said above. There is a difference between a voter who votes Republican normally, and a member of the Republican Party of VA who is active and supports Republican candidates with their time, talent & treasure to help them get elected. We come from all walks of life, opinions and ecomonic circumstances. If you want to comment on the members of the Republuican Party of VA -become one.

At this point, I would like to request a “Guest Post” from JR & other members of the Bearing Drift Board on my thoughts and opinions on this subject matter. This is an important discussion.

Best Regards,

Pam Brown
Chairman, Republican Party of Norfolk
VFRW Board of Directors
Past President, Norfolk Republican Women 2004-2005
Elected Delegate, 2004 & 2008 Republican Natonal Convention
87th District Chair-RPV
http://www.norfolkgop.com

Republicans helped pass, and may have even proposed if I recall correctly the first porkulus bill that prompted the famous moment on CNBC where a reporter called for these to happen. G.W. Bush departed from core Republican principles on many occasions, frustrating many who expected him to stay true to what he said he would do, in a reprise of his father’s “read my lips” debacle.

Remember that last presidential cycle Republicans nominated someone who had proposed borderline socialist and decidedly non-constitutional legislation. Republicans like John Warner and Arlen Spector supported gun control, amnesty for illegal aliens, and generally expanding government control over citizen’s lives in many ways.

Until recently, there wasn’t a Republican Party at the national level, at least one recognizable as the inheritors of Ronald Reagan’s legacy.

The Tea Party movement has kicked the Republican Party in the butt with a massive wake-up call: either stand for Republican values, or get the hell out of the way so someone else can stand for them. Enough of this hollow-shell garbage of let’s be a little less spend and debt happy than the Democrats. We’ll give you at least ten extra years before we transform into a European-style socialist country, they’d offer. Wouldn’t you like ten extra years of freedom before you become a serf?

The tea party only exists because those who would have stuck with a party that stood for smaller government, lower taxes, more freedom and less regulation had nowhere to go. No one was standing for them other than a rearguard of conservatives in the Republican Party that had little say in how the party operated. Why stay loyal to folks who turn around and partner with Ted Kennedy on a massive expansion of the Department of Education rather than find a way to eliminate it?

They’re just going to screw you a little more gently.

Now there’s all this concern that the people who got fed up with all this garbage to the point they had to do something on their own might want some sort of say in policy development and candidate recruitment. Yeah, go ahead and try to keep them out. You saw the polling. They’re bigger than the whole Republican Party, if you really make them choose sides. They’ll make the Republican Party look like Whigs in one election cycle. For those that don’t read history a whole lot, the Whigs disappeared in a single election cycle precisely because the leadership drifted away from it’s political base and the base felt they’d been sold out.

Right now all the creative policy ideas are coming out of the Tea Party movement and those Republicans who are in sync with it. The “moderates” (a term I believe to be inaccurate, probably better described as “Rockefeller Republicans”) have no ideas. None. They’re simply opportunists like John Warner, who announced that he would be anything the party wanted him to be once the window opened up for him to run so long ago.

At the state level we are quite a ways ahead of the national party in adjusting to this new reality, but we’re not quite all the way there. There’s still an old guard trying to play the opportunist game and berift of principles, but they’re slowly learning or at least faking it pretty well. They got some more work to do to earn back trust, and that’s being played out in some of these nominating races. Don’t sweat it so much, just run a fair process and it’ll all sort itself out. Don’t run a fair process, or make it seem to depart from fairness, and that revolt of Tea Party movement people starts to pick up steam.

In closing, anyone concerned about what would happen if policy-driven citizens seized control should remember the not too long ago days when John Chichester and Russ Potts were major figures in the Republican Party. Republicans were losing pretty badly in elections. “Virginia is turning blue” was a constant refrain.

Let’s not go back to those days.

First of all, Sarah Palin is not a failed governor. She accomplished more in her time as governor than Barack Obama did in his entire career in the United States Senate. Before that she served as an oil regulator, and before that she served as a very successful mayor.

Secondly, no one is really suggesting that moderates be pushed out of the Republican Party. However, one of the virtues of being moderate is that the opposite ends of the spectrum are likely to disagree with you at some point. I am all for moderates being in the GOP, however, I ask them to accept the premise that the Republican Party will likely take some positions that they don’t like. Because if you trace the Republican Party back to its 1856 roots, it is fundamentally a conservative party in the tradition of Jeffersonian ideals. Hence why the party named itself the Republican Party, after the Democratic-Republican Party of Jefferson.

Where the GOP once was a big tent – and welcomed moderates like myself, the GOP decided a decade ago to contract (I blame the mentality of morons like Rush who think in black and white – and who wanted to “clense” the party to the point where Reagan would have been driven back to the Dems) – that it didn’t need moderates, and it didn’t want them. When the GOP contracted the Democratic party grew.

What is left in the GOP is a confused, angry, semi-populist mob made up of too many people that think a failed governor from Alaska who has yet to finish a job and thinks the truth is whatever she wants it to be. Who think saying no is policy, who think bashing the President whenever and in front of whomever is approriate, and who have decided that their patriotism is on hold whenever someone they don’t like gets elected. It has become a pathetic and whiny party of victims.

My traditionally Conservative wife and even one of her friends who had an appointment under W. don’t think that the GOP represents them anymore – and the tea [partiers] are only hastening the demise of their party. The tea [partiers] are nothing more than the right-wing represenatation of the MoveOn.Org folks from the left, the only difference is the GOP is poised to hand over the keys to the kingdom to the tea [partiers] (if you need proof, remember all the Republican Representatives and even a few Senators who went out to speak at the 9/12 and anti-healthcare rallies) while the Dems are too large, too broad, and too smart to think of MoveOn as anything more than a facet of the party.

I would just like to see some real conservatives stand up and tell the tea [partiers] where to go – unfortunately the GOP has become so small that no GOP leader wants to, or can, risk alinating the crazies.

What is the Tea Party movement doing? These people are demanding that our leaders restrain themselves. Our government is forcing responsible citizens to assume the debts of irresponsible citizens. That is plainly wrong, but our government is doing it anyway.

Are all those involved in the Tea Party Conservative? No, but the basic thrust, making the case for individual responsibility, is Conservative.

Nonetheless, there is no organized group that can call itself The Tea Party. There are just people seeking to cloak themselves with the mantle of The Tea Party. We can characterize the movement, but movement has yet to coalesce behind a few individuals. Even when we talk about the Republican and Democratic Parties, we must admit these groups are relatively ill defined. The Tea Party has yet to become even that organized.

What the Tea Party movement has succeeded in doing is pulling both the major political parties back towards Conservativism. What Republicans hope is that most Tea Party activists will join with it. To make that happen, the Republican Party must actively seek the Tea Party movement’s support. That requires that the Republican Party coopt both the Tea Party movement’s most effective leaders and core objectives. That happened in the Virginia’s last election. Will it happen in the 2010 Congressional elections. Only time will tell.

Remember most of those involved in the movement though passionate are new to the political spectrum. They will learn fast I am sure.