Posted on 01/07/2012 10:12:20 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
I don't know what happened between November of 2010 and January of 2012, but from the looks of things the Tea Party died.
How else do you explain it?
Rewind to November of 2010, race after race, congressional seat after congressional seat, Governorship after Governorship. Only a little more than eighteen months after President Obama had packed the mall in Washington for his historic inaugural, the Tea Party held it's historic event in which nearly the same size audience had attended--according to maps supplied by the USA Today. That event catapulted a state by state tsunami-like momentum where grassroots, low tax, small government, pro-founding principles, pro-life, pro-national security, and pro-God forces aligned and an election victory of historic equivalence shook America in 2010.
The driving force of that agitation then as it is still today was the effect of a poor economy, government intervention, federal overreach, bureaucratic mandates, and punitive taxes on the nation's beleaguered small business community. Entitlements, bail-outs, and criminally reckless spending ensued.
The Tea Party believed that the buffoons authoring the mess should be dealt a blow. And in 2010 they leveled power in the Congress.
The single biggest example of this overreach was for Washington politicians, behind closed doors, with no transparency, to take a health care reform law--deem it as passed--and force upon the American people the worst piece of legislation to be passed since World War II. Little wonder that even the worst Vice President in our history, Joe Biden, used an expletive to describe it.
"Obamacare" as it would soon become monikered was and is at this very moment--in this election cycle--the singular most visible sign that this nation must take a different course.
Some very good people got elected in 2010 to attempt to help lay the groundwork for the complete repeal of Obamacare. Star-On-The-Rise Governor Nikki Haley in South Carolina, and Senator-soon-to-be-the-next-Vice-President Marco Rubio rode the shoulders of these Tea Party votes, and pledged with their victories to return power to the voice of "We The People." The failed candidacies of Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell were also propped up almost entirely by the support of these first amendment patriots who simply wished to keep government in check.
Former Governor Sarah Palin rallied these troops, showed up and helped them raise cash, enthusiasm, and enlistments. The numbers of the Tea Party were tens of thousands of times bigger than the largest Occupy Wall Street gatherings--combined!
Yet only a little over a year later and the goal of the Tea Party to complete it's work and overturn Obamacare is all but dead.
In 2010 even Ann Coulter was making speeches at CPAC warning that if we chose the candidate who had authored Obamacare to become the nominee, then President Obama would be easily re-elected. She was right of course.
But somewhere along the line instead of being bold, defiant, grassroots, and in control, someone started feeding voters the meme that the man who saw to it that $50 state-subsidized abortions were included in his vision of mandated government health care, was the best of poor choices.
Even Ann Coulter 2.0 drank the kool-aid.
Worse yet the choices that are left in the race are establishment folks who ate earmarks for a living in Pennsylvania, embraced government involvement in the biggest hoax of our time--man made Global Warming, and who could forget the man that as Governor of Massachusetts raised taxes on everything from gasoline to "certificates of blindness." (No it's real... Look it up.)
Your humble correspondant has detailed the easy path that Obama's forces will take to not merely defeat a Romney GOP candidacy, but to pummel him into tapioca.
And according to my sources, campaign strategists who consult for the Obama team confirmed, they are getting the GOP candidate they most want.
I need to remind you that the win in Iowa meant strategically nothing. Those delegates will go to whoever the likely nominee is, and won't even be assigned until the convention. New Hampshire has a puny amount of delegate votes--but at least they will be genuine delegates. This year South Carolina is where the battle truly begins. South Carolina has more delegates than Iowa and New Hampshire combined and Tea Party strongholds from Virginia all the way around the coast to Texas are delegate rich battlegrounds.
The two biggest priorities for primary voters are to decide which candidate can make Washington DC as inconsequential to the life of the average American as possible, and who can challenge President Obama directly on the worst legislation of our time--Obamacare.
Mitt Romney has no track record that would point to being able to accomplish either of these. Even a small whiff of a challenge on Obamacare by Romney will be followed up with an Obama "thank you" note for writing it for him.
It is almost impossible to believe and violently sickening to accept that in light of the clear mandate of the Tea Party that the GOP stands on the cusp of returning to "establishmentism." (Imaginary word mine.) But it appears that for all the big talk, tens of thousands of local rallies, and the single largest non-inaugural event to ever occur on our nation's mall, the Tea Party has died.
Which is sad, for me personally, because I addressed those patriots, on that mall, that cloudy Washington DC day.
That first tea party in DC took place exactly three days after President Obama's joint session, where he had instructed his supporters on Obamacare to go "get in people's faces" if they disagreed with the policy. He told his critics that he was calling them out.
I remember bringing that little point to the attention of the close to 1.2 million gathered on the mall that afternoon. The chants of "Here we are, Here we are, Here we are" rang in my ears for days.
Sadly now I wonder, "Where'd we go?"
Part of the problem is the same problem it always is and that is the media manipulatitons and distortions.
I realize that that is part of the battle but it has to wear some people down.
Look how they made the Tea Party out to be a bunch of crazies and extremist.
Meanwhile the OWSers who are camping illegally in public parks and crapping on cop cars make Times Person of the year???
The medias version of good cop bad cop. They portray the left as the good cops and the right as the bad cops. No matter what they do and no matter what the truth is.
THEY elected a President that had NO RECORD of accoplishment.
At the same time Palin’s who had many more accomplishments and was not even running for President but VP..heer retarded child was somehow consideered fair game???
Probably the scariest part of it all is the fact that it has only had a minimal effect on people’s overall assessment.
Why is Obama’s approval rating as high as it is?
Does any reasonalbe person not think the press has manipulated them into thinking marxist radical with no record of accomplishment was a great choice?
No, I don’t think the Tea Party is dead.
Regrouping perhaps?
Are problems are too deep and systemic to be solved by political means.
The bountiful supply of useful idiots who pull the Republican lever every time without thinking will ensure that the GOP stays around for a long, long time.
The Tea Party can only do so much because it doesn’t command the same resources as the establishment. They can funnel money to Romney, force “conservatives” such as Nikki Haley and Ann Coulter to cough up endorsements, and steer media coverage toward their golden boy. They also have the unconditional loyalty of the party-line legion.
What can we do? Write angry letters and try to explain things rationally to an irrational and corrupt audience? It’s nothing by comparison. If we were able to make any kind of a difference, then Crybaby Boehner wouldn’t cave to Obama every other day and Romney would be a blip on the radar.
The fix is in. Willard Romney the open socialist WILL be our candidate because we’re up against an enemy too powerful. I’m trying to cheer myself up with the prospect of flipping the Senate, but it’s a lousy consolation prize to putting a true conservative, or even a mere RINO, in the White House.
The Tea Party was killed by a cabal of the RNC and the DNC. They destroyed it with lies and by breaking its supporters. People believed they were racist yahoos who spit on black people (it never happened) but it wasn’t about truth—it was about power. They broke Sarah Palin, they pulled apart Glen Beck, they limited the movement until it is a hollow shell of itself. But, I fear they were wrong and in the end the Tea Party will spawn a new movement —maybe a 3rd Party or a reform movement within the GOP. The RINO Party won the battle—and will force Mitten down our throat—but they have not won the war.
How can you write an article alike this and not mention Beck? How can there be 100 + comments and not mention Beck ( forgive me if I missed in scanning)? The marginalization of Beck , he believes by Soros, is a major factor. Plus I believe he lost focus, and has been hampered by Huntsman being in the race. I don't even know what he's saying these days. If he comes back on strong in some venue, a lot of Tea party themes will be re-invigorated.
He’s wrong, the TEA Party VOTES, it is not Occupy Wall Street.
Groups in our area are working inside the 9/12 groups and the GOP. This month they are meeting with the new district Congressman Jim Renacci for our area and there is a luncheon with Grover Norquist planned. They are also reading, “The Original Argument, The Federalists’ Case for the Constitution, Adapted for the 21st Century”
It seems they are doing what we had discussed, attempting to take the party back. Sure some expected a huge swing from the efforts, but that was a bit of delusional thinking. It has taken us decades of neglect to get to this point today...it will take more than a few elections to fix it. Unfortunately though there is a whole culture to undo and that is where I am not sure conservatives have the ability and stamina to make the needed changes.
The Progressives/Communists set in motion a 45 point plan and plodded along all these decades to accomplish it. The psyche of conservatives does not lend itself to stopping people from going down this road. Our keep government out of our lives and I'll stay out of yours mentality doesn't lend itself to pursuing a free state without a revolution. And even then we'd be happy to push the communists into one corner of the country to keep our refound freedom, rather than educate them.
I think for a while we will be very seriously one election away from tyranny, but we have a lot more to do than win elections.
Hey, 2DV! Happy New Year, Brother.
The afforementioned puke is dead wrong. The media forgets who the Tea Party is. They are under the impression that the TP is a small, well financed conglomerate of talking heads.
WRONG! We are a large portion of the population whos’ alarm clocks ring at zero-dark thirty, and bust our collective asses to make a dime, and finance the leviathon known as guvmint...we ain’t got the time to march on DC every damned week.
That being said, I hope you and yours are doing well.
Right now, the Tea Partiers are quietly attending local meetings. Right now, they are working in the trenches in preparation for the next national election.
In most of the country, wintertime is NOT the time to stage huge outdoor gatherings just to impress. The intervening holidays of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's are a time for family......and political things are still a little on hold at the moment.
The Tea Party movement is not dead. You can't kill an idea. The temporarily-hibernating TP adherents will be back in open action in a couple of months. I attended a TP rally last fall on a gorgeously-sunny day. Although hardly publicized, the turn-out was amazing. The movement is NOT DEAD!
Obama is at his most dangerous now. He'll be trying to ram through whatever commie/socialist/radical measures he can in the waning days of his term.
The Tea Partiers will galvanize into action to block him by the same means they were largely successful in 2012 midterm.
Leni
I thought it died when the RONULANS took over...
townhall went left, eh?
I wouldn’t expect a lesser posting from 2nd though. Always, always sure to post everything negative about Sarah Palin...
attacking the Tea party isn’t new. It doesn’t take the spotlight off of Obama’s failures, no matter how hard they try.
We remember the $ Trillions and $ Trillions Obama, Pelosi and Reid indebted our offspring, to. And the death panels too.
How else do you explain it?
The Tea Party went underground. After being mischaracterized, meligned, insulted, degraded and villified the tea party’s only effective battle has been at the polls. As a member of the Tea Party, I understand that the most effective power we have is the power that cannot be taken away or villified, the power of the vote. The Tea Party does not need popularity or media coverage, they will flex their muscle with their vote and leave the libs scratching their heads. What they are trying to do is make us feel alone and powerless again. That will never happen , we know there are a lot of us out there and we will show up where is counts, at the polls.
It died because we have no legitimate spokesperson running for president.
It died because anyone who was elected on their principles quickly found out the Old Guard in the GOP quickly put the new puppies in the kennel of “go along to get along.”
The other reason is that the Tea Party did not organize into a single group with a potential for that group to organize into a third political party if no one conservative enough was selected (notice I did not use the word elected) by the presidential nominating committee of the GOP. We already know who is selected.
If the GOP selectee is not compatible with conservatives, the Tea Party will only survive if a conservative third party rises by the name of “Tea Party” or some other name that indicates freedom. If not, the party will simply fade away.
Once again, you are right...a named leader of the Tea Party should be selected and become the focal point of the party.
I just don’t know if anyone would have this kind of courage and guts.
The problem is the Harry Reid-Democrat controlled senate, not the congress. (We definitely need to get rid of Boner though.)
Harry had to pull out all the stops to win against a weak candidate. Don’t tell me they’re not scared.
Most people in the TEA Party had jobs to go back to, mortgages to pay, and families to take care of. I hope they come back this yea. They did excellent work in 2010, but their job hasn’t been completed yet.
Nice analysis CF!
Thanks! : )
If you know any members of the TEA Party, please give them an e-mail or phone call. We need them now even more.
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