Posted on 10/30/2011 8:32:59 AM PDT by rabscuttle385
Is the GOP co-opting the tea party movement, or are tea partiers taking down the establishment and sending the RINOs packing?
A lengthy New York Times magazine article this week quoted several establishment Republicans crowing over what they see as the demise of the two-year-old tea party activism.
Bill Kristol, the neoconservative editor of the Weekly Standard and a Fox News contributor, said the tea party peddles "an infantile form of conservatism."
Veteran Republican strategist Scott Reed took the disdain one step further, saying the GOP is steadily co-opting the grass-roots movement.
"That’s the secret to politics: trying to control a segment of people without those people recognizing that you’re trying to control them," Reed said of the GOP's assimilation strategy.
(Excerpt) Read more at sunshinestatenews.com ...
I avoid large “Tea party” groups because they take money and the strings that come with it from big donors.
The soul of the tea party lives in the hearts of individuals.
They think they are...
Bill Kristol sickens me. He’s a mewling, whimpering little wuss who peddles the thin gruel form of Republicanism. I was an charter subscriber to The Weekly Standard in 1994 and allowed my subscription to lapse because of his gutless and feckless gyrations in protest of strong and bold conservative ideals.
He’s nothing more than a paid mouthpiece for the establishment. They could care less if they win or lose. They just want to maintain control of the party apparatus.
how dare voters hold their congressman accountable
I wonder if they will crow when the RINO shill they run goes down to defeat and Obama makes the GOP irrelevant.
If they can they will.
It's the reason for the Tea Party in the first place.
Palin, boehner, mcconnell , and beck killed off the tea party.
Wrong, Kristol.
The Tea Party has always been with us, and always will.
It’s nothing more than concerned, patriotic citizens, who are appalled by our runaway government. Formerly without a voice or an identity, the”tea party” has coalesced into a national movement with a bit of help from talk radio and Rick Santelli.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with government by grass-root citizens, who rise up when they’re needed, and go back to their private lives when they’re not.
Just as the founders intended.
And for anyone to claim that they “lead” the Tea Party is just plain nuts. Patriots do not need to be guided, they already know what needs to be done.
WE NEED A TEA PARTY MARCH ON GOP HEADQUARTERS
Is the GOP co-opting the tea party movement, or are tea partiers taking down the establishment and sending the RINOs packing?
We’ll know by april.
Tea Party=Political Philosophy. How can you usurp a political philosophy?
Beware....unbelievers, liberals and media...the Tea Party treads softly, meets quietly, watches intently and has this strange habit of appearing in large numbers in November at the only place that counts.....the voting booth. You may not hear them....but they are there just waiting for November.
Right. We saw how well it worked for Bob Bennett in Utah. Assimilated the hell outa them thar tea partiers. Trent Lott was proud.
Right. That's why the 'rats held on to the House in 2010. Boehner's job as Weeper of the House may be hanging by a thread after 2012. So far he has failed to perform. Not that he was ever a tea partier to begin with. McConnell never was either but IDK about his future in the senate leadership. A strong class in 2012 and he may also face a serious challenge.
Show me the last tea party rally that was held. What was the last thing the tea party got done?
The gop rinos played the tea party like a fiddle.
“Show me the last tea party rally that was held. What was the last thing the tea party got done?”
The 2010 election in both cases for me. Next up is the 2012 election. Now you can go back to RINO or Obama headquarters.
“Is the GOP co-opting the tea party movement, or are tea partiers taking down the establishment and sending the RINOs packing?”
I’d say they’d like to do the former, because the country-club GOP establishment is really a bunch of conservative Democrats who find a bunch of non-elite socially conservative proles who want less government to be at the very least distasteful.
Each and every one of the republicans running for reelection, bar none, should be primaried just to make sure that the right tea party canidate is on the ballot.
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