An idea is circulating through the ranks of the Republican Party. They really do not have to pay attention to the Tea Party. After all, it does not matter who the GOP nominates, the Tea Party is so focused on getting Barack Obama out of office, it won’t matter. At least that seems to be their train of thought.
The latest incarnation of this way of thinking popped up yesterday when my friend Amy Kremer appeared on Fox News and said,"Whoever the Republican nominee is will have to have the support of the Tea Party movement, the entire Tea Party movement."
Amy is a good friend of mine. She and I go back to the early days of this movement, when we were both organizing (along with others) the first Tea Party events in February 2009.
Amy, I am sure, will be the first to agree with me this movement still has no leader. She is not the leader, nor is it me. And as does happen among friends sometimes, we disagree and the GOP needs to pay attention.
If the Republican Party believes it can simply give us another bad nominee and the Tea Party is just going to jump to the front lines and lead the battle for this nominee, they have another thing coming.
There has long been a civil war simmering in the Republican Party. It is the conservatives against the establishment Republicans. The conservatives are the activists who go out and put out yard signs, man phone banks and do the “boots on the ground” work that no campaign can live without. Every two or four years depending, the establishment GOP comes out, swears it is really conservative and after this election cycle conservatives will get what we want.
Then, the establishment gets elected, goes back to Washington and pretty much ignores conservatives until they are needed at the next election.
The Tea Party has a huge number of members who in the past have been those conservative activists. In the past, these conservatives would hold their noses, do what they had to and hope for the best. That was before the Tea Party movement. Since the creation of the Tea Party movement, the world has not been the same and this election will not be the same.
The GOP is on notice. We are not going to try to bail you out if you give us a bad nominee. We want a great nominee that we can work our hearts out for. We want change. We want to throw Obama and his merry band of socialists out of the White House and the halls of power. We want to consign socialism to the ash-heap of history.
If the GOP saddles us with another bad nominee, many if not most of the Tea Party people are not going to be out there working for him. Mitt Romney is a bad choice. Jon Huntsman is a bad choice. Gary Johnson is a disastrous choice. We may or may not be able to stomach Tim Pawlenty. Michele Bachmann is a better choice as is Herman Cain or if they run, Jim DeMint or even Rick Perry.
In 2008, the Republican establishment gave us John McCain. For that reason alone, the establishment needs to sit down and shut up. 2012 is our election. To the GOP establishment we simply say, we will lead. Follow us and we will have a GOP majority for the foreseeable future. Give us another John McCain and you can expect conservatives to vote with their feet.
Don’t take us for granted.
You do not automatically have the Tea Party vote.
Permalink Reply by Zbigniew Mazurak on Permalink Reply by Gary Gray on If Palin wants the Tea Party Vote, and Mine, she'd Better change her Amnesty Mind Set on Immigration Problems in this Country.
Palin doesn't get it.
Illegals Cost This Country Billions in Welfare, Billions More in Free Medical Care, Billions More for Free Education. The Costs for Prisons and Court Precedings. The Millions of Jobs they take from American Citizens. They mostly work for Cash, Cheating the Govt out of much needed revenue.
Gary, you nailed that one.
Palin doesn't get it on Amnesty. I suppose that you can't blame her, being from the state that is furthest from the Mexico border. But if she wants to run for president, then even that doesn't forgive her ignorance on the subject.
The thing that many people choose to ignore about Palin, is that she was the champion of "The Bridge to Nowhere". But then, when we bring that up, her supporters tell us that she was eventually against it. So let me see if I got this straight. She was for it, but that was before she was against it. Hmmm?... Where have we heard that before?...
I'm sure that Palin would get almost universal TEA Party support, were she the nominee. I'm sure that I would get out and support her. But I'm just as sure that B. Hussein and the lame-stream media would shred her on the above issues and more. I like her. I just don't thine that she can win. We have much better choices and a very few of them are actually running.
There are only three candidates who are running or who are possible candidates, who would absolutely not get my support, even against B. Hussein. That's Ron "Blame America First" Paul, Newt "Global Warming and Federal Mandate" Gingrich, and Rick "You'll take the NAFTA highway and like it" Perry.
In 2008, I went from being a strong Ron Paul supporter, to swearing that I will never again support him for any office and never vote for him for any office, under any conditions. He started off right, but like so many politicians, has gone off the un-American deep end. Similarly, I was once a big fan of Newt Gingrich. But his global warming initiative and recent undercutting of Republicans who oppose the individual mandate, make him little more than Nancy Pelosi "Lite".
Then there is Rick Perry. I find it both amazing and repugnant that Judson would even mention that arrogant RINO's name in the same sentence with good conservatives like Bachmann, Cain and DeMint. Remember that in 2008, Texas TEA Partiers tried their best to oust Perry from the governorship, for a number of reasons - not the least of which is his determination to shove the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC, aka: NAFAT Highway) down our throats. His arrogance and disdain for the opinions of the vast majority of Texas taxpayers was displayed in his imperious statement to the press, concerning the decision to kill the TTC, "The fact of the matter is that we really don't care what name they attach to building infrastructure in the state of Texas. The key is that we have to go forward and build the infrastructure…". In his first attempt to keep the TTC alive, they changed the "NAME" to "Innovative Connectivity in Texas/Vision 2009", in which case, he and his RINO buddies even went so far as to blatantly state that only the "NAME" had changed and that the original projects would simply continue as individual projects. But that name-change didn't take. So Perry and his RINO cronies tried other ideas, like calling it "Keep Texas Moving" or "Ports to Plains Corridor". But the point is that Perry is not just a RINO. He is an arrogant RINO, of the worst kind, who is bound and determined to shove his RINO agenda down the throats of unwilling taxpayers, who have fought him all the way. The only reason why he is still governor now, is because of the massive support that he received from the Dubyuh-backed, national RINO leadership, during his 2008 race.
If the best that the GOP can do is Paul, Gingrich or Perry, then that will tell me that both the GOP and the USA is done for. But at this time, I don't think that any of the three have even the slightest chance of winning the nomination in this political climate.
The TEA Partiers need to keep the pressure on, set conservative benchmarks and hold our candidates to those benchmarks, both in the primaries and in the general election. Paul, Gingrich and Perry will never get my vote in any election.
If you're wondering how I would vote, if one of them were to become the nominee, then rather than repeat myself here, I'll direct you to one of my previous posts on the subject, here.
Permalink Reply by Angi Stamm on Can you point me to some information that talks about Palins stance on Amnesty?
Permalink Reply by Shari on 
Permalink Reply by Mike Levla on Thanks. Answered my questions.
Permalink Reply by Zbigniew Mazurak on Permalink Reply by tom dodd on
...Illegal Immigration and Welfare Reform are two issues I don't think we'll get a straight answer on from any of the candidates while they're running... on immigration, I'd be happy if someone would just say they'd enforce the rules on the books ~ do that, and the illegal immigration problem would be settled in a few months!
Permalink Reply by Ed Daniel on Permalink Reply by tom dodd on
...of course she's electable. You've been listening to the wrong people...
Permalink Reply by Melanie Holden on © 2013 Created by Judson Phillips.
