The Tea Party Needs Allies (leaders outside their class and kind)

The American Spectator ^ | February 22, 2012 | William Tucker

[Cincinatus' Wife]

......Deference to leaders who do not necessarily share your background or agree with you on everything is in the fiber of representative government. It is enshrined in the Constitution. In fact, there probably never would have been a Constitution if the Americans of 1787 hadn't been willing to defer to the "assembly of demigods" (as Jefferson described them) that convened in Philadelphia, closed the doors to the press, sealed the windows to eavesdroppers, and privately debated the future of the nation.

....What the Tea Party needs to do is look for allies. There are other people in the country who share their concerns, if not their bitterness. Who are some of those natural allies? The most obvious are people who have been successful in the private sector but who have remained true to the system that made them.....

In other words, a natural ally might be Mitt Romney, or someone very like him.

When the alliance of labor unions, urban Catholics, and Southern rednecks combined to take over this country in 1932, they didn't do it by nominating Huey Long or Al Smith for president. They did it by choosing a Hudson River aristocrat who had so much blue blood in his veins that he didn't mind becoming a "traitor to his class" and trashing a few Wall Street plutocrats along the way. They chose someone outside of their class who was willing to speak for them, yet someone prominent and successful enough to become a national hero. And it worked. Cue John F. Kennedy in 1960 for the same result.

Tea Party members seem unwilling to do the same. They don't like Mitt Romney because he is not "one of us." He had a rich father and went to Cranbrook and Harvard Business School.....

[Cincinatus' Wife]

It's quite something to read the whole piece....

[Uncle Ike]

Am I the only one who remembers the run-up to the passage of Obamacare - when some 40% of the voting population self-identified with the T.E.A. party movement, and of that number, almost half were self-identified Independents, with even a smattering of Democrats??

Since those heady days, the Media, with the willing participation of a gaggle of self-appointed ‘Leaders’ and ‘Spokesmen’, has effectively re-defined our Movement to be a minor, ineffective, offshoot of the Republican Party...

I was a member of the T.E.A. Party Movement - I am *not* a ‘tea partier’.....

[Cincinatus' Wife]

This article is a good window on how conservatives who dare stand up to the establishment are viewed by GOP elite. I mean, really!? Someone would actually use their opinion of fly-over country and us provincials to sweet talk us into accepting Romney?

If nothing else, this certainly should make members of the Tea Party realize they have been noticed.

People like the author of this piece, they are the ones who should consider who needs whom.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Freedomfitter2: There are other people in the country who share their concerns, if not their bitterness.

So the author is saying that we should choose leaders from the groups that are causing most of our problems. Maybe the elitists that are involved in crony capitalism should select tea partiers as their leaders.

____________________________________

I brought your comment over here as I think this is the thread that will remain (from the multiple-posts).

[freedomfiter2]

Thanks. I didn’t see this until I had already posted.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Thanks. I didn’t see this until I had already posted.

There were 7 threads! I could only grab yours from the various posts before my "mess" was fixed.

Apologies to any posters who commented to the duplicates.

[nathanbedford]

Tea Party members ... don't like Mitt Romney because he is not "one of us." He had a rich father and went to Cranbrook and Harvard Business School. He lives in Massachusetts and doesn't feel revulsion while visiting an Ivy League campus. He probably even reads the New York Times. How can he possibly represent us? He doesn't share our background, our hatred of the press, our disdain for New York and Washington.

I don't like Mitt Romney and the author has failed to cite a single reason why I reject him. I do not give a damn if his father was rich, what universities he attended, or that he does not feel revulsion upon treading an Ivy League quad. He can read the New York Times from cover to cover everyday. These are but strawmen.

I do not like Romney because he is not an authentic conservative. I do not like Romney because he would suffer unborn babies to die so the can gain political power. I do not think I am naïve when it comes to understanding the pressures upon politicians who wish to gain public office. I understand the need for party discipline and compromise but murder of the unborn is different matter.

I do not like Mitt Romney because no matter how you slice it he sold out on abortion for public office or he is lying to us now about his true feelings about abortion and is actually, inherently pro-abort.

I draw a clear distinction between a politician who lies about where he puts his little wee wee (Newt Gingrich) and a politician, like Barack Obama, who countenances the murder not only of unborn babies but of babies who by a miracle successfully evaded the abortionist's knife.

Mitt Romney fails this fundamental test.

I do not like that Romney because he is interchangeable with George H. W. And George W. Bush.

I support Gingrich even as I recognize that his chances are fading for the very reasons the author recounts when he describes the frustration of the tea party. Our American heritage is literally being stolen from us and it will require a revolution, rather a restoration, to preserve what was mine by birthright and which I therefore should have a right to bequeath to my children.

I do not support Mitt Romney because I do not think he shares my anxiety, my frustration, or my sense of urgency in the need to save the Republic. If he does, he has exhibited remarkably little fervor. In any event, I am not convinced that he is the man who can go to Washington and actually reverse history new matter what his disposition.

I believe that Santorum will be properly motivated but that he will be swamped and ineffectual if he gains office and sidetracked onto social issues which are largely irrelevant to the larger picture confronting us now. He is not the man who can seize the moment, shape the debate, and leave the country in a whole new direction. Anything less simply will not do.

I don't know if Gingrich can do it, but I do know that he is the only man in the race whom we can identify as having the character, the history, and the hunger to do it.

[richardtavor]

There is no TEA Party. There is a movement of ideas, but when you try to identify a Party that needs Romney, think again. The liberals are trying to frame ideas into a concrete organization that does not exist.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Well said.

[Rashputin]

". . . but who perfectly expresses the anger and sense of exclusion that is fundamental to the Tea Party."

The author is either an idiot or someone who has bought into the outer reaches of PC speak. Insisting that principals and values be adhered to isn't anger and not being "inclusive" toward those who do not share the same principals and values isn't exclusion. The author is blind to the reality of the Army of Virginia and sees only a single aspect of the leadership of Gen. Lee (God rest his soul). He skims the surface of the troops in the Army of Virginia the way those see themselves as superior to the unwashed masses they're writing about generally do. He then focuses on only a single aspect of a multifaceted sociological situation that appeals to him about the Army of Virginia in hope of enlisting General Lee (God rest his soul) in his misrepresentation of the reality of the Army of Virginia and it's relationship to Lee.

Those who followed Lee didn't follow along blindly because Lee was from the appropriate class. They knew he had been a hero in the Mexican War and that he was the best of the best among West Point graduates. It was no secret that Lincoln wanted Lee to lead the Federal Army, either.

The Army of Virginia followed someone they knew had the required skills and the determination to see the war through. That he was from a different class and didn't share all their values was not nearly so important to the troops as knowing they had a leader with the experience, skill, and dogged determination to stay the course.

Santorum has neither the skill nor the determination which shows that people following him aren't angry or exclusionary, just people who don't trust those who don't clearly state their beliefs. Wait a week or so and people will wake up and look for someone with the skill and determination to pursue the war that has to be fought rather than someone like Ricky who talks the talk but doesn't walk the walk.

[SMARTY]

I am sure there are many more people sympathetic with the ‘Tea Party’ than admit to it.

The movement is still outside the American political mainstream. That's good and bad, both. The MSM will continue to marginalize Tea Party views and cast aspersions upon its supporters, if for no other reason than that they CAN. That's neither hear nor there.... the movement is alive and well.

People aligned with incipient political movements are typically hesitant to openly express support. Count on it... what you see in surveys and other reports is really the tip of the iceberg.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

.........The liberals are trying to frame ideas into a concrete organization that does not exist.

I believe "Tea Party" Americans, after storming townhalls and experiencing the 2010 election (who are watching Obama ignite class warfare and see Congress frozen like a deer in the headlights), are conservatives who know that they are not alone and are chomping at the bit to vote on Nov 6.

[Rashputin]

Well said.

It's Newt or neutered, and if it isn't Newt there will be far more blood than those who think this is about a minor political surgical procedure and a few regulations imagine even in their wildest revolutionary dreams.

[deoetdoctrinae]

LET'S PUT THIS THING IN OVERDRIVE,
AND BRING THIS FREEPATHON HOME!


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[meadsjn]

Excellent response to that article.

The articles supporting Romney read very much like the articles supporting Obama, now and in 2008. You could interchange the names, and the message would be the same.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

The movement is still outside the American political mainstream. That's good and bad, both. The MSM will continue to marginalize Tea Party views and cast aspersions upon its supporters, if for no other reason than that they CAN. That's neither hear nor there.... the movement is alive and well.

They went home, knowing they are a force. The Left would love to have them come out en masse. Then they could make up stories about racial comments -- plant someone so the MSM and the Democrats could accuse conservatives of being racists. No need to give them that target of opportunity.

The Occupy scum can have the spotlight and the press.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Thanks for the nice post.

[The Working Man]

I’ve thought about why I don’t like Mitt Romney and won’t support his bid for President.

It comes down to the fact that he is genuinely two-faced. He projects one image of himself and then projects a different image of himself that more often than not is the exact opposite of his previous projection. In my mind that says he has no core beliefs that I am comfortable with.

Also it brings to mind the advice I was given almost forty years ago now. If you are uncertain of a person and who they really are look to the people that they surround themselves with, look at their friends and supporters. It is easier to project one image and have that be accepted than it is to have all of your supporters do the same if they don’t truly have the same beliefs as yourself.

Another way of looking at that, (A metaphor), is to think of your supporters being your shadow. A true shadow does exactly as you do... A false one does something entirely different.

[Ratman83]

Got this far

There are other people in the country who share their concerns, if not their bitterness.

and decided the rest was not worth it.

[SMARTY]

Right. Then TOO, most Tea Party types probably have to go to work and can’t spend days and weeks behaving like animals and trashing someone’s square or park ... all in the name of ‘protest’!!!