I think parties are unavoidable. It's simply the natural outcome of political evolution. The only way anybody can win in a democracy is a unified coalition. Parties form naturally because the only other outcome that is stable in practice is dictatorship. It's better to find some way to acknowledge this reality and deal with it.
REPORT CA-TEA PARTY ...”Being that new media was our way to spread the word out to the masses, you can surely imagine that the mainstream lefty media did nothing but put words in my mouth yesterday. Everyone from the Los Angeles Times to the Daily News to NBC took everything I gave them and ran it thru the spin cycle. They were angry that they would not put words in my mouth and I would NOT allow them to make my Tea Party a mean spirited Obama hate machine. Every time I mentioned this was an AMERICAN event and not a REPUBLICAN event the reporters became angry. Every time I told them that people across the political spectrum planned on attending, they would say “Well I guess the democrats showing are conservative or blue dog democrats, right?”. I made it VERY clear to these reporters and spinsters that they were no long needed in the pursuit of spreading information about events and rallies, and that social networking worked just fine for my event in getting the word out. Nothing makes an activist like myself get the warm and fuzzies quite like telling a reporter from the LA Times that he was not needed and Facebook did just fine spreading the information we needed to get out!
All and all these Tea Parties stood for something simple. Something every American has the right to, and that’s taxation WITH representation. This sent a message to both Democrats and Republican elected officials alike that you represent the people. We don’t represent YOU! Nothing beats a gathering of discerning minds just trying to flex their first amendment muscle and fight for their right to party, Tea Party that is!
http://www.capoliticalnews.com/blog_post/show/1841 While there were plenty of anti-Obama signs (”Obama: Hitler gave good speeches, too”; “President B.O., your budget stinks”) at both the San Francisco and Sacramento rallies Wednesday, Republicans shouldn’t think this “revolution,” as it was referred to from the Sacramento stage, is theirs.
“Are you guys tools of the Republican Party?” Meckler asked the crowd that packed the west lawn of the Capitol in Sacramento.
The crowd’s response: Boooooo!
Much anger at rallies
The “tea baggers” were angry about government bailouts. Angry at getting fewer services for their tax dollars. Angry at President Obama for approving the bailouts, at former President George W. Bush for not restraining federal expenditures and at Congress and the Legislature for spending “like drunken sailors” - one of the day’s more popular refrains.
The crowds at both rallies were largely white and nearly all of those interviewed identified themselves as Republicans or conservatives. Conservative Fox News commentators like Sean Hannity talked up the rallies for weeks and hosted their programs from them Wednesday. And conservative advocacy organizations like FreedomWorks - led by former House GOP Majority Leader Dick Armey - helped organize Wednesday’s efforts, leading some to deride the events as “Astroturf” or false grass roots rallies.
Still, if Republicans don’t seize this street energy “it could turn into a third-party movement,” Glenn Reynolds, creator of the popular right-of-center Instapundit blog, told National Public Radio Wednesday.
Conservatives frustrated
Michael Semler, a political science professor at Cal State Sacramento, said that the tea party protests stem in large part from conservative frustration with the Democratic president, who still enjoys high support in the polls.
“They want to find something to stick to him, and they can’t,” he said. “Mr. Obama has developed a smart strategy, being on the news and doing something every day,” as he did Tuesday, when he delivered a comprehensive speech on the economy - then followed it up “doing even something as mundane as playing with a dog.”
Such savvy moves in media, Semler said, have served to suck the oxygen from the room for many of the conservative pundits - especially in a week when Obama “got the 3 a.m. phone call” regarding Somali pirates and managed to win applause for the resolution of that potential crisis.
That means “the right wing doesn’t have a story line, and they’re frustrated,” he said.
While the namesake Boston Tea partiers were upset by British taxation without colonial representation in 1773, Wednesday’s protesters were frustrated by and angry at the quality of their representation. Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Sacramento, was the rare politico at the podium Wednesday, as organizers said they rebuffed several Republicans who wanted to attend.
Michael Reagan, the talk show host and son of the former president, drew one of the loudest roars of the day when he ripped Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger at the Sacramento event by saying, “Arnold, you are no Ronald Reagan.”
How will it be paid for?
Others there just wanted answers about the bailouts.
“What I want to know is, how are we going to pay for all of this?” said Paul Kreutz, 51, of Sacramento, who held a sign that read, “You had me at Geithner.”
In San Francisco, about 500 fired-up activists gathered in the shadow of City Hall, carrying anti-tax signs with sayings such as “Save some for us, you pigs” and “Spread the poverty.”
“This is the opportunity that people have been waiting for,” said Melanie Morgan, the former talk show host and co-founder of Move America Forward, a grassroots conservative group. Watching as tea bags were distributed to the protesters, who pinned them on lapels, Morgan said the feeling among many of them was “exuberant.”
Sally Zelikovsky, who said she is a stay-at-home mother of three from San Rafael, said that, like others in the crowd, she had come to a spring weekday protest because “people are seeing this country going in a direction they find distasteful.”
A call for impeachment
Jim and Suzanne DuMolin of Tiburon were equally passionate, jointly holding a sign calling for Obama’s impeachment. That move, said Jim DuMolin, was justified - despite Obama’s current popularity and his democratic election by U.S. voters. “It does not give him the right to transcend” the boundaries of presidential powers, DuMolin said. “He has promised a socialistic approach to government. That’s really very little difference from Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.”
http://www.capoliticalnews.com/blog_post/show/1837
Its simple math...you don’t get a majority when you divide by 3. 3rd party = Bill Clinton via Ross Perot
We can take back the GOP but the force you saw in the streets will have to be applied to the local and state level GOP. That means someone from the family has to attend party meetings.