Conservatives target their own fringe

politico ^ | February 27, 2010 | Kenneth P. Vogel

[neverdem]

After months of struggling to harness the energy of newly engaged tea party activists, the conservative establishment — with critical midterm congressional elections on the horizon — is taking aim for the first time at the movement’s extremist elements.

The move has been cast by some conservatives as a modern version of the marginalization of the far-right, anti-communist John Birch Society during the reorganization of the conservative movement spearheaded by William F. Buckley Jr. in the 1960s and 1970s.

“A similar effort will be required today of conservative political and intellectual leaders,” former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson wrote in his column in The Washington Post. “It will not be easy. Sometimes it takes courage to stand before a large crowd and proclaim that two plus two equals four.”

But for Gerson and other conservatives, this is not just an intellectual exercise. They have a very specific political goal: to deprive Democrats and their allies of a potentially potent weapon to use against the GOP in November.

“I don’t believe we should be giving [extremists] a platform or empowering them to do anything based off their conspiracy theories,” said Ned Ryun, president of American Majority, “because they give the left ammunition to try to define the tea party movement as crazy and fringy.”

The attempt “to clean up our own house,” as Erick Erickson, founder of the influential conservative blog RedState, puts it, is necessary “because traditional press outlets have decided to spotlight these fringe elements that get attracted to the movement, and focus on them as if they’re a large part of this tea party movement. And I don’t think they are.”

Until recently, organizers and activists mostly seemed content to ignore, or in some cases tolerate, extremists in their ranks, confident they’d be drowned out by the hundreds of thousands of activists who took to congressional town halls and marches around the country to protest big-spending initiatives pushed by President Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress.

But inflammatory rhetoric such as former congressman Tom Tancredo’s racially tinged speech at this month’s tea party convention, reports of the involvement of right-wing militia groups and the continued propagation of conspiracy theories about Obama have sometimes cast the movement in an unfavorable light.

Erickson has advised new tea party organizers on how to avoid affiliations with extremists and this month banned birthers — conservatives who believe that Obama was not born in the United States and is, therefore, ineligible to be president — from his blog. (He has long blacklisted truthers, those who believe that the U.S. government was complicit in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — a conspiracy theory with devotees across the political spectrum.)

“At some point, you have to use the word ‘crazy,’” said Erickson.

Ryun’s American Majority, a group that trains tea party activists and others around the country, has done much the same thing. Its website has moved to close its sessions to activists who identify themselves with the birther, truther or militia movements or the John Birch Society.

Ryun conceded that extremists are involved in the tea party movement. But he said, “It’s just such a small percentage, and it should not be portrayed as representative of the broader movement.”

The fringe fighters’ methods range from censuring signs at rallies or banishing unruly participants completely to challenging the media’s focus on the fringe and highlighting the movement’s diversity and tolerance.

They have gone out of their way, for example, to promote activists and movement-backed candidates of color, including tea party stars Marco Rubio and Allen West, running for U.S. Senate and House, respectively, in Florida, and Texas Senate candidate Michael Williams — all Republicans.

Ryan has another strategy. He has commissioned a poll that he thinks will show that tea partiers share with independent voters a commitment to reducing taxation and government spending and prove that the tea party movement is “very much mainstream.”

But the tea party movement’s decentralized structure, vaguely defined goals and anti-establishment tone make it an attractive place to channel angry feelings. Mainstream media organizations such as The New York Times, which recently ran a 4,500 word story on the infiltration of the movement by a militia-linked group called Oath Keepers, have recently focused on these aspects of the movement.

Independent of their actual numbers, it’s in both political parties’ interests to inflate the influence of the other side’s fringe, said Tom De Luca, a Fordham University political science professor who studies political movements and wrote the 2005 book “Liars! Cheaters! Evildoers! Demonization and the End of Civil Debate in American Politics.”

“That creates this dynamic that seems to exaggerate the influence of the extremes,” De Luca said.

Much as conservatives have sought to link Democrats to environmental extremism or socialism, he said, it’s an obvious countermove for the left to try to link Republicans with the more extreme elements that have gained traction around — and sometimes within — the tea partiers.

So it was that liberals have demanded to know where Republicans stood on Obama’s citizenship, or that last week found left and right debating which side had more in common with Andrew Joseph Stack III, the software developer who crashed his plane into the IRS offices in Austin, Texas.

The left seized on a comment by hard-line conservative Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), reportedly expressing his empathy for the pilot’s anti-tax views. Rush Limbaugh retorted that Stack “sounds like he's blaming Bush and Reagan," asserting that he sounded “almost word for word [like] Nancy Pelosi. Almost word for word [like] Rahm Emanuel and Barack Obama.”

De Luca predicted that another “Bill Buckley moment” will occur only when the political damage done by extremists outweighs the boost the tea party movement has provided to conservatives generally and the Republican Party specifically.

“My guess is their basic stance will be to try to juggle as long as they can,” he said. 

That approach — and its drawbacks — were on display at last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference, the annual gathering of Washington’s conservative establishment. It featured the John Birch Society as a co-sponsor. And while conference organizers nixed a panel on Obama’s citizenship, a birther contingent still made its presence felt, as did the Oath Keepers, who co-sponsored the conference.

After filming a brief segment at the conference, liberal MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, a leading tea party antagonist, concluded on her show that “the conservative movement right now is really not afraid to let its freak flag fly. … They‘re happy to show off the ‘we want another revolutionary war,’ ‘we think the black president is arrogant,’ ‘we think the apocalypse is nice’ side of themselves.”

Liberal commentators similarly highlighted the extremism on display at this month’s National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Tenn., which included a speech by WorldNetDaily Editor Joseph Farah questioning Obama’s citizenship and one by Tancredo asserting Obama was elected because "we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country."

A blogger on the liberal site Daily Kos asserted Tancredo’s speech revealed the “REAL reason” tea partiers are upset: “A black man is President and their White Privelege [sic] is fading.”

Tancredo’s speech was not widely condemned by conservative intellectuals or media, but immediately after Farah delivered his, he was confronted in a hallway outside the convention hall by conservative media entrepreneur and fellow convention speaker Andrew Breitbart, who said it was a disservice to the tea party movement to infer its activists are “all obsessed with the birth certificate, when it’s not a winning issue.” 

Others cited the jeering of an anti-gay activist at CPAC who condemned organizers for inviting gay Republican group GOProud to participate. Conservative author and TownHall columnist Ashley Herzog said it was proof that “CPAC, and the conservative movement in general, isn’t a haven for haters after all,” and urged the left to view a video of the incident, which she said is evidence of “a lack of bigotry [that] must be painfully puzzling to liberals.”

Conservatives similarly pushed back against a New York Times blog post that accused a CPAC speaker of ripping Obama “in racial tones," partly by affecting a "Chris Rock voice" to mock the president.

They noted that the speaker — like comedian Rock — is from Brooklyn and speaks with a regional accent, and demanded an apology.

And in a clever Web video that went viral this week, the Dallas Tea Party called out MSNBC host Keith Olbermann, who had mocked the mostly white makeup of the Nashville convention of what he called the "Tea Klux Klan," comparing its racially diverse leadership to MSNBC’s mostly white host lineup.

Judson Phillips, the Nashville tea party activist who organized this month’s convention, said it’s incumbent on local tea party leaders across the country “to control the message and to prevent the tea party movement from being hijacked.”

In the run-up to a July tea party convention he’s planning in Las Vegas, Phillips said, he’s planning to ask speakers “to stick to our message, which is unity headed into the fall.”

[NoGrayZone]

"on the infiltration of the movement by a militia-linked group called Oath Keepers,"

I must stop right there. I can't read this crap anymore!

[browardchad]

parsy, who thinks it is probably a good move, but wonders if Tea Party can coalesce

All the tea party needs is a good cat herder. With a scratch-proof shield.

[parsifal]

I can’t even think of a good candidate.

[Ben Ficklin]

Although you don't know it, your statement makes it very easy to to define who the fringe is.

"defining fringe as anyone":

1. Anyone who has a problem with illegal aliens------Being opposed to illegal immigration IS NOT fringe, but Tancredo and many, many others are opposed to legal immigration and that is fringe.

2. A right to keep and bear arms------That is not fringe, but those that want to open carry are fringe.

3. Pro-life----- that is not fringe, but among the pro-lifers there is a significant number who are also anti-contraception and they are fringe.

4. Doesn't believe in Global warming------obviously there is not technical consensus on CO2's effect so that is not fringe, but among that group is a very, significant number who deny the effects of other compounds such as CH3, VOCs, Ozone, chloroflourocarbons on which there is 100% consensus and these people are fringe.

[stephenjohnbanker]

“: In her statement Wednesday, Ms. Napolitano defended the report, which says “rightwing extremism” may include groups opposed to abortion and immigration, as merely one among several threat assessments.”

Wrong, Janet......we just hate bull-dykes.

[SandRat]

and when you read his Bio you learn he's a Progressive smarta** urinalist. Out of a Tashkent umm. Tacoma, WA ‘Progressive Ink Rag’ with a degree from the University of Wisconsin at Moscow err.. Madison.

[sergeantdave]

Just love this stuff. This hack shovels out quotes and sources from the Stalinist wing of the goosestepping democrat party. Highlighting the moonbat cultists of your party will do wonders for recruitment. He should hand out straightjackets with his columns.

Whatta dork...

[stephenjohnbanker]

“1. Anyone who has a problem with illegal aliens———Being opposed to illegal immigration IS NOT fringe, but Tancredo and many, many others are opposed to legal immigration and that is fringe.”

Uh, nope. Tancredo is for a cap on legal immigration. FAIL

2. A right to keep and bear arms———That is not fringe, but those that want to open carry are fringe.

Did you see any SEIU thugs at the Phoenix tea party?

Nah, they knew better. LOL

“4. Doesn’t believe in Global warming———obviously there is not technical consensus on CO2’s effect so that is not fringe, but among that group is a very, significant number who deny the effects of other compounds such as CH3, VOCs, Ozone, chloroflourocarbons on which there is 100% consensus and these people are fringe. “

If you bothered to read up on the REAL science endemic to same, you would learn that man made global warming is a joke, as you are ;-)

[antisocial]

The real title to this article should be RINO’s target conservatives.

[Servant of the Cross]

Seems to me any writer who purports to be Conservative, or who claims to be able to divine Conservative intent, might want to keep his pro-homosexual proclivities out of his piece if he wants to be listened to.

You are exactly right on this, but I think you are also too kind to the author/poster who IMhO is a Paulbot Libertarian pretending to be a "conservative". Libertarians are not conservative. They have some positions that are conservative; and they have some that are liberal; and they have some that are extra-terrestial! Either way they have infested FR and they are attempting to highjack the Tea Party Movement and Sarah Palin (Sarah, take back that Rand Paul endorsement; they're using you):

*TRAULL - The Rondamentalist Alien Unamerican Libertarian Losers

[muawiyah]

We thought the Progressive movement was just a fringe group until Obama got elected. Then we are faced with the exact same sort of nonsense they got this country into in the 1920s ~ and that led directly to a newly rearmed Japan attacking Pearl Harbor (and China, and Indonesia, and the Philippines).

Progressives are the sort of "fringe" we can do without.

[Ben Ficklin]

The devil is in the details.

You say he is for a cap. A cap of 50,000, or some other unrealistic number.

You say "if you bothered to read up on the REAL science"

I accumulated 31 hours of college chemistry. How about you?

I had a career in the industrial chemical industry with about half of that time in consumables and about half of that time in capital equipment. How about you?

I first began working(reformulating) on pollution control and abatement over 40 years ago with Rule 66 in CA, which predates the Clean Air Act. I was a manufacturing manager during the first embargo. How about you?

You are an ignorant, no-nothing fringer.

[stephenjohnbanker]

“Running RINO’s will get the GOP slaughtered at the polls.”

Amen, brother!

[fwdude]

You can always tell the RINO's and sell-outs by what they call "fringe."

It is beyond the pale to call someone who judges homosexuality, abortion, and perversion for what it is "fringe."

[stephenjohnbanker]

“The devil is in the details. “

I read the details. Ever hear of water vapor? ;-)

“I accumulated 31 hours of college chemistry. How about you? “

What does that have to do with scientific fraud?

I had a career in the industrial chemical industry with about half of that time in consumables and about half of that time in capital equipment. How about you?”

I co owned a successful international investment banking firm. This has nothing to do with the issues.

“I first began working(reformulating) on pollution control and abatement over 40 years ago with Rule 66 in CA, which predates the Clean Air Act. I was a manufacturing manager during the first embargo. How about you?”

Like wow, man! T. Chong

“You are an ignorant, no-nothing fringer. “

Let us say, that as a wordsmith, you have no equal. As an man of the world, you failed.

[stephenjohnbanker]

“University of Wisconsin at Moscow err.. Madison. “

I think there is a branch in Moscow ;-)

[SandRat]

and UW’s more akin to Moscow CCCP

[stephenjohnbanker]

Maybe we could sell Madison, Berkeley, and Harvard to China? ;-)

[SandRat]

Throw in the University of Detroit and the College of Liberal Art from University of Michigan at Ann Arbor as well. They might go for that offer.

[Ben Ficklin]

I'll give you another piece of advice.

People are going to disagree, but they always find a solution or a compromise.

When these people sit down at the table to compromise, the fringers don't get a seat at the table.

As a fringer, that makes you irrelevant.