TEA PARTY VS. PROGRESSIVE REPUBLICANS — BATTLE FOR THE SOUL OF THE GOP

www.theBLAZE.com ^ | December 3, 2012 | Meredith Jessup

[Yosemitest]

TEA PARTY VS. PROGRESSIVE REPUBLICANS — BATTLE FOR THE SOUL OF THE GOP
December 3, 2012 by Meredith Jessup

Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of articles examining what went wrong for the Republican Party in the 2012 presidential election and where the GOP goes from here.
Please visit our special section GOP: What Next? to follow the series stories and find related content.

–

Since Nov. 6, there has been no shortage of opinions as to why challenger Mitt Romney and the Republican Party failed to ouster President Barack Obama.  
Pre-election divisions in the Republican Party between moderates and conservatives have only widened since Romney’s defeat
and the party’s strategy for the future remains unclear, a source of contention and heated internal & external debate.



Specifically, many now wonder what the sobering 2012 election results means for the right-leaning Tea Party,

the champions of personal freedom and smaller government who exploded on the political scene in the 2010 midterm elections.
The re-election of a progressive like Barack Obama would seem to signal the end of the conservative Tea Party, but the movement’s conservative leaders insist that last month’s election results only vindicate the group’s message.


“The Tea Party is not a political party; it’s an informal community of Americans who support a set of fiscally conservative issues,” says FreedomWorks’ Matt Kibbe.
 “And when you take a look at the roster of new fiscal conservatives being sent to Congress next year, it’s clear our issues are winning.”

Indeed, although the Tea Party may be focusing the vast majority of its ongoing efforts on local issues,
the conservative movement has left an undeniable mark on the national GOP establishment.
The group’s mantra of uncompromising fiscal conservatism and limited government has remained a driving force in shaping Republican platform.

For proof of this, one need look no further than Rep. Paul Ryan’s ascendancy to the No. 2 spot on the GOP ticket.  
Once considered a fringe of the congressional conservative coalition, Tea Party-backed fiscal hawks like Ryan are now considered key players at the core of today’s Republican Party.

Critics, of course, will argue that Romney’s defeat in November signals a rebuff of these ideals.
“The 2012 elections have been the undoing of the 2010 Tea Party tsunami that crashed upon Washington,”
the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) proclaimed in November.  “The Tea Party is over.”

But the actual election results suggests this declaration is a bit exaggerated and vastly underestimates the conservative Tea Party’s influence in the GOP.

Despite defeats in states like Indiana and Missouri, the Republican Senate caucus gained three new Tea Party-backed members with the addition of
Ted Cruz of Texas,
Jeff Flake of Arizona
and Deb Fischer of Nebraska.
In the House, the Congressional Tea Party Caucus had 60 members before election day.  
Of those 60, six did not seek re-election, seven lost their races and 47 were re-elected.  
In addition, candidates endorsed by former GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum’s conservative PAC — Missouri’s Ann Wagner and Montana’s Steve Daines — also secured victories for the right.


“The Election Day losers were not the so-called ‘tea praters,’” Kibbe points out,
“they were the candidates embraced by (and some hand-picked by) the Republican establishment who failed to run on the winning message of economic freedom.”
When you boil it down, Kibbe argues, the lack of serious conservative candidates in 2012 meant many principled Republican voters chose to just stay home on Election Day.

This much is true — GOP turnout in 2012 was lower than both the 2008 and 2004 elections.
Turnout this year dropped by 7.9 million voters, falling to 123.6 million from 131.5 million in 2008.
This year’s underwhelmed electorate marked the first decline in a presidential election in 16 years.
Additionally, only 51.3% of the voting-age population went to the polls.  
When you couple low turnout with a few obnoxious and offensive comments on rape from gaffe-prone politicians,
it’s hard to say whether the GOP ran with bad policies or just bad candidates.

History also seems to be on the Tea Party’s side.
Election results aside, Bloomberg News‘ Albert Hunt predicted the end the GOP establishment
and continued rise of the conservative movement after Romney clinched the party’s nomination:


From Washington to the state capitals to the local level, the movement conservatives are in the ascendancy.
For years, the Republican base was divided; it’s now dominated by the movement types.

A comparison of Reagan’s last year in office to today illustrates the dramatic change.
Then, more than one-third of Senate Republicans were either genuine liberals such as Mark Hatfield, Lowell Weicker and Arlen Specter
or moderates such as Bill Cohen, Bob Packwood and Nancy Kassebaum.
With the retirement of Olympia Snowe of Maine there’ll be no more than two or three moderate Republicans in the Senate next year.

A quarter-century ago there were dozens of moderate Republicans in the House,

members like Chris Shays of Connecticut, Amo Houghton of New York, Bill Gradison of Ohio, Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania and Bill Frenzel of Minnesota.

Today there are very few House Republicans who break with conservative orthodoxy.

The changes are equally dramatic at the state and local level.
Moderate Republican governors are relics.

In Kansas this month, the right wing, led by the state’s conservative governor, drummed a number of the Bob Dole-type centrist Republicans out of the party.


Columbia University political science Professor Brigitte Naco has studied the rise and influence of the Tea Party movement.
“Some Democrats say the Tea Party is dead. That’s all baloney,” Naco says.
“The fact of the matter is when you look at the basic agenda of the Republican ticket, it’s pretty much what the Tea Party likes.”

But does the GOP’s Old Guard establishment acknowledge or understand this fact?

In recent weeks, House Speaker John Boehner has appeared wobbly on his commitment to the New Guard’s steadfast fiscal conservatism.
Before the election, Boehner downplayed any likelihood of a Republican compromise on the so-called fiscal cliff — the $1.2 trillion in mandatory spending cuts coming at the end of this year.  
But after Romney’s defeat, Boehner seemed to pivot, then characterizing Republicans’ re-elected House majority as a mandate to find “common ground” with House Democrats who demand increased spending and higher taxes.

“There will be some kind of war” between the GOP establishment and the Tea Party over the future direction of the party, longtime Republican Party consultant Mike Murphy told the New York Times.
On one side of the divide there are “mathematicians” like Murphy who argue
that the GOP must shift its political strategy and policy focus to attract the votes of Hispanics, blacks, younger voters and women;
on the other, there are those who believe that basic conservative principles — when articulated appropriately — will ultimately restore unity within the party and attract a wider base of national voters in the future.

Whatever course the party chooses to pursue, it will need to decide quickly as the countdowns to the 2014 midterms and 2016 presidential election have already begun.
“We are in a situation where the Democrats are getting a massive amount of votes for free,” Murphy warns.

“Republicans need not jettison their principles.
But they must avoid appearing judgmental and callous on social issues,” esteemed GOP strategist Karl Rove argued in the days following the election.

Tea Party favorite and Florida Senator Marco Rubio agrees:
“The party has to continually ask ourselves,
What do we represent?
But we have to remain the movement on behalf of upward mobility,
the party people identify with their hopes and dreams.
People want to have a chance.”

FreedomWorks’ Kibbe predicts the party’s pivotal shift that began in 2010 has put the GOP’s Old Guard on a collision course with a new generation of Republican leaders,
including Rubio, Ryan, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker,
whose steadfast support of small government and limited spending launched him to national fame in a (successful) battle against some of the country’s most ruthless labor unions.

“You are going to see a continuation of the fight between the Old Guard and all of the new blood that has come in since 2010, but I don’t know how dramatic it is going to be,” Kibbe says.
“It is getting to point where you can’t reach back and pull another establishment Republican from the queue like we have done with Romney.”

With Republicans holding onto their strong majority in the House of Representatives, we may see a more conservative voting bloc emerge in the 113th Congress than the 112th,
and the ongoing debate over the nation’s fiscal crisis may be a good indicator of the divided Republican Party’s trajectory for the next four years.

Will the party establishment steer the party to be more conciliatory when pressured by the White House and Democrats on Capitol Hill,
or will the GOP dig in against political concessions that threaten their undermining ideological principles?

“Republicans lost this year because they failed to recognize that economic freedom is trending in America.
The shareholders in America have spoken,
and they want senior management
to stay out of their homes
and to stop spending money we don’t have,”
Kibbe wrote days after Obama’s re-election.

“The party that can communicate that message
is the party that will win over the American electorate come 2014.”

[Yosemitest]

Thank you Meredith Jessup, and thanks to Glenn Beck for putting this editorial out.
To HELL with "Establishment Republicans" !Establishment Republicans

[Hardraade]

The ideological backbone of the democrats/communists is infiltration, infiltration, infiltration.

They will try to take over even the Tea Party, and to some degree we’ve already seen some false Tea Party initiatives.

[Yosemitest]

Let us ALL remember this.
"Establishment Republicans" lose everytime they're listened to.
They wouldn't care if they DO lose.
If they can't be in power, they don't want US in power.
It's just that simple.
It's WAR!

On another thread, WhiskeyX's analysis is very good onRepublican Primaries being manipulated by RINOs, and mind-numb Democrats following marching orders from the left.

" The Democrats-Progressives-socialists-communists-whateverits have a political tactic in the elections in addition to their typical vote frauds.
What they do is
have a Democrat pretend to run for election as a Republican in the general primary election against a genuine Republican challenger
who threatens to unseat an incumbent Democrat.
In the general primary election they then instruct nearly all of the Democrat voters,
their zombie voters in the graveyards, their captive nursing home voters, and voters in the prisons
to vote as Republicans for the Democrat running as a Republican in the general primary election.
Then the fake Republican candidate puts up a token campaign which loses
to allow the Democrat incumbent to win the General Election in November.
In this way the Democrats get to run only Democrats in the General Election,
leaving no genuine Republicans for Conservatives to vote for in that election.
Romney is represented as a former independent voter turned Republican,
but he serves the same purpose as the typical Trojan Horse Democrat running for election as a Republican. "

Very well described!
Maybe it's time we got some DINOs to copy this evil plan against Democrats.
But who would soil their name and credibility, to do such an evil thing against the real evildoers?


"Establishment Republicans" Want to Redefine the Term "Conservative"

"DO CONSERVATIVES WANT TO WIN IN 2012 OR NOT?"

DO CONSERVATIVES "ESTABLISHMENT REPUBLICANS" WANT TO WIN IN 2012 OR NOT?

Palin was my first choice, but she dropped out.
Bachmann became my first choice,and she dropped out.
Cain was my second choice, but he dropped out.
Now ... Newt was my second choice, but he challenged Rush.
So now ... Rick Santorum, who use to be my third choice, is now my first choice.

But Romney, ... well at least he's not as bad as McCain was.

Jack Kerwick wrote an article on May 24, 2011 titled The Tea Partier versus The Republican and he expressed some important issues that I agree with.

Thus far, the field of GOP presidential contenders, actual and potential, isn’t looking too terribly promising.

This, though, isn’t meant to suggest that any of the candidates, all things being equal, lack what it takes to insure
that Barack Obama never sees the light of a second term; nor is it the case that I find none of the candidates appealing.
Rather, I simply mean that at this juncture, the party faithful is far from unanimously energized over any of them.

It is true that it was the rapidity and aggressiveness with which President Obama proceeded to impose his perilous designs upon the country
that proved to be the final spark to ignite the Tea Party movement.
But the chain of events that lead to its emergence began long before Obama was elected.
That is, it was actually the disenchantment with the Republican Party under our “compassionate conservative” president, George W. Bush,
which overcame legions of conservatives that was the initial inspiration that gave rise to the Tea Party.

It is this frustration with the GOP’s betrayal of the values that it affirms that accounts for why the overwhelming majority
of those who associate with or otherwise sympathize with the Tea Party movement
refuse to explicitly or formally identify with the Republican Party.
And it is this frustration that informs the Tea Partiers’ threat to create a third party
in the event that the GOP continues business as usual.

If and when those conservatives and libertarians who compose the bulk of the Tea Party, decided that the Republican establishment
has yet to learn the lessons of ’06 and ’08, choose to follow through with their promise,
they will invariably be met by Republicans with two distinct but interrelated objections.

First,
they will be told that they are utopian, “purists” foolishly holding out for an “ideal” candidate.

Second, because virtually all members of the Tea Party would have otherwise voted Republican if not for this new third party,
they will be castigated for essentially giving elections away to Democrats.



Both of these criticisms are, at best, misplaced; at worst, they are just disingenuous.
At any rate, they are easily answerable.

Let’s begin with the argument against “purism.” To this line, two replies are in the coming.


No one, as far as I have ever been able to determine, refuses to vote for anyone who isn’t an ideal candidate.
Ideal candidates, by definition, don’t exist.
This, after all, is what makes them ideal.
This counter-objection alone suffices to expose the argument of the Anti-Purist as so much counterfeit.
But there is another consideration that militates decisively against it.

A Tea Partier who refrains from voting for a Republican candidate who shares few if any of his beliefs
can no more be accused of holding out for an ideal candidate
than can someone who refuses to marry a person with whom he has little to anything in common
be accused of holding out for an ideal spouse.
In other words, the object of the argument against purism is the most glaring of straw men:
“I will not vote for a thoroughly flawed candidate” is one thing;
“I will only vote for a perfect candidate” is something else entirely.



As for the second objection against the Tea Partier’s rejection of those Republican candidates who eschew his values and convictions,
it can be dispensed with just as effortlessly as the first.

Every election season—and at no time more so than this past season—Republicans pledge to “reform Washington,” “trim down” the federal government, and so forth.
Once, however, they get elected and they conduct themselves with none of the confidence and enthusiasm with which they expressed themselves on the campaign trail,
those who placed them in office are treated to one lecture after the other on the need for “compromise” and “patience.”

Well, when the Tea Partier’s impatience with establishment Republican candidates intimates a Democratic victory,
he can use this same line of reasoning against his Republican critics.
My dislike for the Democratic Party is second to none, he can insist.
But in order to advance in the long run my conservative or Constitutionalist values, it may be necessary to compromise some in the short term.

For example,

as Glenn Beck once correctly noted in an interview with Katie Couric,
had John McCain been elected in 2008, it is not at all improbable that, in the final analysis,
the country would have been worse off than it is under a President Obama.
McCain would have furthered the country’s leftward drift,
but because this movement would have been slower,
and because McCain is a Republican, it is not likely that the apparent awakening that occurred under Obama would have occurred under McCain.


It may be worth it, the Tea Partier can tell Republicans, for the GOP to lose some elections if it means that conservatives—and the country—will ultimately win.

If he didn’t know it before, the Tea Partier now knows that accepting short-term loss in exchange for long-term gain is the essence of compromise, the essence of politics.

Ironically, he can thank the Republican for impressing this so indelibly upon him.

I'm fresh out of "patience", and I'm not in the mood for "compromise".
"COMPROMISE" to me is a dirty word.
Let the RINO's compromise their values, with the conservatives, for a change.

The "Establishment Republicans" can go to hell!

[Yosemitest]

It's probably beyond us to infiltrate the Democrats Communist, but for those who could stomach it,

they should and they should insert a poison pill in them,
and report the Communists' actions to us.

I remember reading another article that's worth rereading.
For more information on today's problems, read this from August 4, 2008.

Topic: Collectivism

A Fabian Socialist Dream Come True

---

The gradual revolution of the Fabian Socialists is quickly becoming a reality in America.
by Republicae (libertarian)
Monday, August 4, 2008

The Fabian Society began in England in 1887 by a very small group of elitist socialist that sought to reform society gradually into one of socialism instead of through violent revolution.
At first their purpose was to be an alternative in Britain for the more dominate Marxist Social-Democratic Federation,
but their true goal was to accomplish socialism through a very gradual process using the voting booth and representative democracy as their instrument of change.
In fact, one of their symbols is a Turtle with the motto:

"When I Strike, I Strike Hard".
Another symbol is the Wolf in Sheep's Clothing and the Globe on an Anvil being hammered into the Fabian model.

The Fabian Plan for gradual Socialist Revolution was as definitive as it possibly could be, to say it has been a conspiracy is simplistic in the extreme.
It instituted a widespread educational program for its leadership and its minions,
as time progressed, it opened schools, such as the London School of Economics, and the New School of Social Research.

One stroke of genius was that instead of advocating a Socialist State, they assisted in the implementation of the Welfare State,
which as we should all know is merely a few steps away from a purely Socialistic State.
It was, of course, implemented gradually, and played upon the weaknesses of human nature to gain popularity.
Unlike the usual Socialist points of views, the Fabians didn't advocate complete State ownership of businesses, industry, agriculture or land,
instead they sought to involve the State into very specific areas of importance
such as electric power production, transportation, precious metals and of course, credit.
The remaining balance of economic systems would be left to the private sector however;
it would be highly regulated by the State and operated according to the wishes of the State.

If you look at Britain, you will see that they accomplished their goals with ease
and while American has been more difficult, the goals are the same
and they have made enormous advances toward those goals, as we all know.
Much of their accomplishments have been realized without using that dreaded word: Socialism.
They have brought the Fabian Dream to America through an extremely brilliant system that has been openly accepted by the voters of this country
without the hint of suspicion on their part that they were voting a Socialistic system into place.

Now, make no mistake about it, Fabian Socialists are Statist, they are absolutely authoritarian in their philosophy.
Their long-term goal has always been a Socialistic Dictatorship with full-imposition of a very legalistic society where the individual is simply a part of the collective.
An example of this can be found in the writings of one of the founders of the Fabian Society, George Bernard Shaw
speaking of the Socialist Utopia, he said:
"Under Socialism, you would not be allowed to be poor.
You would be forcibly fed, clothed, lodged, taught, and employed whether you liked it or not.
If it were discovered that you had not the character and industry enough to be worth all this trouble,
you might possibly be executed in a kindly manner;
but whilst you were permitted to live, you would have to live well."

Of course, all of this would be in the best interest of society as a whole and the whole made up simply of parts,

individuals merely cogs in the machine of social justice.
This idea of social justice is the biggest selling point and perhaps the easiest to peddle to the people.
Programs of social reform, incremental at first, allowed for the tempering of the people;
allowing for them to grow accustom to the intervention of the State in the affairs of the individual.
Of course, such reforms are never an end unto themselves
only stepping-stones to a greater Socialist construct of society.

Regarding the great strides made toward these goals, Max Beer stated with confidence:
"There was no reason for Socialists to wait for revolution.
The realization of socialism had begun the moment when the State became accessible to social reform ideas."
Indeed, the revolution was already half realized at the moment when the State stepped over the threshold of progressive social construction
and intervention into the private lives of the people.

The first step in any Socialist plan is the reform of capitalism,
when the capitalist system is sufficiently neutralized the rest comes relatively easy.
The first step to an efficient plan of capitalist neutralization is control over the money supply
and for that a central bank is required along with a fiat monetary system,
in this country that was initiated with the advent of the Federal Reserve.
Later, of course must come effective controls over major infrastructure and services,
all accomplished through the New Deal.
The New Deal accomplished substantial feats toward the Fabian Socialist construct
with numerous price controls, quotas, subsidies, inspections, regulations, licenses, fees, penalties
and massive government interventions into what was formerly private enterprise.
Although you would never hear politicians of either political party to admit to support the ideals of socialism,
they nevertheless not only support such measures, but also promote them.


We have recently seen a greater push toward socialism, though few realize it.
The government is assuming more and more responsibility for and authority over the economy,
all under the guise of protecting the people from potentially unscrupulous free marketeers.
We are being moved yet another step closer to the dream-society of the Fabians.
Of course, these are simply steps, essential parts to a much broader agenda,
one that is authoritarian in nature and execution, even the centrally planned economy is a mere step, not the end product.
It is all carefully crafted, manufactured to ensure the most popular support possible for "people-friendly" solutions
while instituting a fraudulent system of central control over the unsuspecting public.
The system has been marketed to the public, one specific component at a time,
each component essential to the completion of the whole
and that is the brilliance of this gradual imposition of Fabian Socialism in this country.

The greatest bulwark against tyranny in America has always been the system of private ownership and free enterprise,
it is the cornerstone of our system of government
and without it our freedoms and liberty are in jeopardy.

Central economic planning is, in a very basic sense, the keystone to Fabian Socialism,
for in order for it to succeed, central State planning and control must replace the system of free enterprise.
While it was not necessary for the State to actually own or directly control all the elements in the economy
it is enough for the State to have the right to assert itself in any area that it deems necessary.
The Fabians called it "the democratization of economic power", in other words socialized and centralized control over economic direction within the country.

In 1942, Stuart Chase, in his book "The Road We Are Traveling" [link to 82.795 MB pdf copy of book] spelled out the system of planning the Fabians had in mind;
the interesting thing is to look at that plan in comparison to 2008 America.


1. Strong, centralized government.

2. Powerful Executive at the expense of Congress and the Judicial.

3. Government controlled banking, credit and securities exchange.

4. Government control over employment.

5. Unemployment insurance, old age pensions.

6. Universal medical care, food and housing programs.

7. Access to unlimited government borrowing.

8. A managed monetary system.

9. Government control over foreign trade.

10. Government control over natural energy sources, transportation and agricultural production.

11. Government regulation of labor.

12. Youth camps devoted to health discipline, community service and ideological teaching consistent with those of the authorities.

13. Heavy progressive taxation.

It should be evident that while Socialist no longer use the name that the plan is Socialism at its heart.
The Fabian Socialist Revolution began in earnest in this country in 1933 with the imposition of the Welfare State and has been steadily progressing since.
Those who are promoting this system, whether in the Republican Party or Democratic Party, are nothing less than Traitors,
guilty of a type of high treason that deserves the most punitive penalty for such treachery.
Listen carefully to the propositions of both McCain and Obama;
I suspect that you will quickly find both of their positions are not only similar,
but propose in essence and detail the Fabian Socialist construct.
The system that these marauders are imposing upon us will ultimately alter our system of government beyond recognition.

It is all accomplished with the utmost respectability of course,
they would not dream of such an imposition without popular support
and they will make sure that they have popular support.

In 1933, they proposed that private enterprise had failed
leaving the jobless to starve,
hope to fade
and that the State must step in to save the country
and protect the people from the dangers associated with the inherent problems of free enterprise.
Today, the call is very similar, the State must step in to protect the people.
The Corporate State is, in the minds of Fabians, the ultimate protector of the common man, the provider of security on all fronts,
but it requires our complete compliance and the relinquishment of our liberty in exchange.
The State is to ultimately be the only one allowed wealth,
the problem is that wealth is the people's wealth confiscated in exchange for their hard labor.
It is, in essence, a plan for a modern feudal society of peonage
and the people are the peons.

Proofs of a Conspiracy?
Look around...

In Liberty and Eternal Vigilance,
Republicae-Seditionist

Wake up people! Look what the Democrats have done!

[Hardraade]

Lol. Is not really beyond us to infiltrate. To some degree we’ve been doing that, and large-scale even. We have membership in places you wouldn’t believe ;).

We’ll be offering our services to the right, for profit, but I’m no businessperson really. So the sane bit of the enterprise will eventually be handled by Mesta.

[Yosemitest]

I can abide the left.
I'd wind up in a nut house if I listened to them for very long.
I can't wait until we "gather the tares" for destruction.

[Yosemitest]

Mesta (mā`stä) seems to be quite an interesting word.



Etymology

The word comes from Latin animalia mixta ("mixed animals"), beasts of diverse owners, nobles and Church that hired the shepherds. The coming together of animals to attribute them became a meeting of shepherds. When the council was established, it was also called mesta.

[Son House]

Already started, Starve the Beast 2.0, because we know what is in the US Constitution and why it is there. RINO’s can cause a lot of anxiety, but the purge wasn’t going to happen over-nite.

[NKP_Vet]

RINOs, along with every democrat in Washington, DC, should be arrested and immediately held for high crimes and treason against the United States. It’s either that or we dead as a country. Welcome to the United Socialist Republic of America.

[sakic]

Should we put them in camps first.or just execute them?

[muawiyah]

There's a serious question to address here ~ do the Republicans represent the Democrats, or maybe some other body of people?

Those who think the public voted for compromise of some kind with the Democrats must imagine that the Republicans represent the Democrats!

Take a good look at the election results ~ Obama got 7 million fewer votes this time than last. The Republicans got about the same number as before, but if they'd gotten as much as they did in George Bush' second election, they'd won it all!

Some wonder where the missing Bush Republicans were ~ thinking that they must be 'moderates' of some kind who stepped aside to punish the Conservatives. Actually, they're dead ~ the Boomers are coming of age ~ the END OF LIFE CYCLE ~ where they start having to deal with a far higher death rate. Unless you make up for their loss with an aggressive voter registration drive among younger potential voters, you lose!

As i recall it, and as many others even in the Romney camp are beginning to point out, his campaign didn't make that effort ~ didn't even think it was necessary. After all, he'd said he was going to go after the 10% of undecided moderates who'd decide the election.

Guess they forgot to register because whatever they decided they didn't vote!

Also, there are no moderates anyway

[Hardraade]

Thing is, nice people don’t fight the communists very well.

You need cutthroats. Reagan was decidedly one of the most not-nice critters in US politics, when he had to be.

Nice is people like Moynihan being more or less murdered by Hillary Clinton. His forced endorsement of Hillary is as grotesque as anything you’ll see out of Obama.

[freeangel]

“Specifically, many now wonder what the sobering 2012 election results means for the right-leaning Tea Party,”

Well, it certainly means more for the establishment GOP which just committted suicide. It is now officially dead to independents, libertarians and tea party thinkers.

[Hardraade]

I’ve said this before: Normal people don’t deal well with psychopaths, which is what you have on the left.

Reagan had the killer instinct. He’d go for the throat and kill you, pleasant as he might seem.

[broken_arrow1]

Nice post, thanks.

[Strategerist]

This much is true — GOP turnout in 2012 was lower than both the 2008 and 2004 elections. Turnout this year dropped by 7.9 million voters, falling to 123.6 million from 131.5 million in 2008.

The author of this piece is an incompetent idiot.

Turnout for Romney was higher than in 2008, and is still higher even when accounting for population growth.

And right now total turnout is only 3 million votes behind 2008, with about a million more uncounted votes.

[central_va]

What a mess. I am not reading that crazy formatted thing.

[Apple Pan Dowdy]

In the primaries the Tea Party (true conservatives) backing and votes where split between numerous candidates (Palin,
Bachmann,Cain,Santorum, etc) while the establishment had already met behind-closed-doors and picked Romney. So what chance did we have? Our vote was so watered down that the establishment’s choice was a given.

What if the Tea Party meets behind-closed doors before the primaries and decides on a candidate that we will all back? There is a good chance that TOGETHER our votes will outweigh the establishment’s choice.

[upchuck]

GOP turnout in 2012 was lower than both the 2008 and 2004 elections. Turnout this year dropped by 7.9 million voters, falling to 123.6 million from 131.5 million in 2008. This year’s underwhelmed electorate marked the first decline in a presidential election in 16 years.

I read this as the voters saying to the GOP-e, "Your candidate SUCKS. Give us a Conservative to vote for, not some Progressive."

[basil]

Yes—mark me down as one for the TEA party....