Posted on 03/09/2014 9:52:17 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Fortunately, the actual voters behind the tea party movement of 2009 did some good before the vultures arrived.
Since that movement's peak in 2010, the sentiment of those original voters — a pretty even split of Republicans, Democrats and independents — has been hijacked by every political circus-barker able to buy a domain name that includes such key words as “freedom,” “liberty,” “warrior,” “conservative” or “tea party.”
These same political operators have no problem making money from frustrated voters by challenging incumbent Republican officeholders with often untested, unsophisticated but deep-pocketed candidates — with mixed results.
People fed up with the government are still around, still energized, still anxious to give voice to their votes. They just wearied of those trying to make a buck with a website, a campaign or a book reflecting an inflexible, often extreme ideology that shares little with the tea party's original purpose.
And they don't like to be politically bullied.
“I can speak from experience, that it is the case here in Pennsylvania,” said Dwight Weidman, a Franklin County Republican. “Most of the folks who came out for the tea party when it began have dissociated themselves from these extreme elements.”
Weidman points to the challengers of U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster in Western Pennsylvania who claim to be true conservatives or tea party patriots opposed to Shuster's “establishment” record. He believes the more strident that Shuster's challengers become and the more they associate with the extreme fringe, the worse they will do with rank-and-file Republicans and regular voters in November.
It is odd for Shuster's conservative bona fides to be challenged, since he holds 100-percent ratings on nearly every conservative-cause scorecard.
The situation is not unique to Pennsylvania.
In last week's Texas Republican primaries involving U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions, “high-profile” tea party challengers garnered far more press credibility than they deserved — largely because they pushed the storyline of a deep divide among Republicans in very conservative Texas.
The results weren't even close, and never were going to be.
Yet, in the lead-up to Sessions' landslide victory over upstart challenger Katrina Pierson, you would have thought the 10-term congressman from Dallas was within a hair's breadth of losing.
Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks PAC, one of those money-making “tea party” groups, was quoted as calling Pierson “one of the best activists in Texas who has been working overtime, trying to help Pete Sessions find his way back home.” He confidently predicted she would win.
Ted Cruz, the freshman U.S. senator from Texas, called her an “utterly fearless, principled conservative” without once mentioning Sessions.
And reports in conservative media that Pierson was “surging” in the closing weeks of a “bitter battle” were wildly over-hyped, either because those reporting this “news” were fed bad information or made the fatal mistake of reporting what they wanted rather than what really was happening.
Sometimes movements end. In fact, every political movement in this country has ended or at least faded into one of the traditional political parties, from the Anti-Mason and Free Soil factions to the Wets, Drys, Progressives and so on.
Cornyn's crushing victory of more than 50 percentage points over “tea party” challenger Rep. Steve Stockman, and Sessions' two-to-one defeat of Pierson, are glimpses of how voters who just four years ago were part of the tea party movement have now settled back into their true conservative base — the Republican Party.
That doesn't mean they won't revolt again; Ross Perot's impact on the American electorate didn't occur all that long ago.
The dime-a-dozen outside groups that oversold their influence in Texas and in other states will continue to absorb great gobs of money in more races across the country, by accusing the “Washington establishment” and others of conspiring against them and provoking their losses.
They certainly will never admit that their own poor campaign skills or their untested, unvetted candidates might be the real problem.
This cycle will end only when voters realize that these are not groups filled with ideological purists willing to do battle because they are true believers. They're just good-old-fashioned political swindlers.
And swindlers only close their doors when the cash stops coming in.
They wish!
BULL !
“Most of the folks who came out for the tea party when it began have dissociated themselves from these extreme elements.”
Extremists as defined by the left, in the media, on the internet, and everywhere the uninformed look.
Theres plenty of truth in it. Scoundrels will wear a cape of any color. Just because someone says a few right sounding words does not make them a good politician. Not certain anywhere near the numbers that left will return which is great. We have a more vibrant and much larger independent class. More skepticism. These are great outcomes along with what i see at any rate as the seed for a true third party.
Too many expected no growing pains in this process. It was never going to be some clean break with all new leaders. The system just won’t allow it.
Wishful thinking. Uppity field hands need to report to the big house for orders.
She can read my response.
I am responding to the headline, meant to demoralize.
Skimming this, I can add that Stockman was certainly not a good candidate.
All of the candidates in Texas who got an endorsement from Cruz won, or are headed to runoff. If he had endorsed anyone over cornyn, the results would have been the same as for those he endorsed.
How, Ms. Selena, is Stockman a tea party candidate, if Ted Cruz said nothing about him?
Sometimes the devil one knows is better, as, most likely, in this case.
Cornyn, an incumbent, with serious funding, radio ads, well produced, radio ads, running constantly, wins 62 percent, without his opponents, multiple opponents, getting any endorsements from Cruz?
That he had multiple opponents, none endorsed, and this was not mentioned by this journalist, leads me to a second, response to propaganda:
Blech Blech.
I think you can always make the case that some 501C3 is collecting donations and not doing what they said with the money, but that is a matter you need to show proof to support, not just infer it.
Secondly, tea party support groups are not always going to be in agreement with other tea party groups any more than republicans agree on all or even some issues...(like herding cats)
Some are going to work through the party,even hire lobby people, and others are going to take it on the road..or to the State Houses..
IMO.....I agree with the basic principle that “All Politics is Local” (Rostenkowsky I think) So if I had a tea party group, I would concentrate my efforts in the local elections from the city councils to the State house, because this is where you get your State wide and subsequently the National candidates from.
No...I don't think the tea party, which is not a party under one roof, but many individual roofs, is going back to anyplace...They are still there and growing but don't carry a ID card or announce themselves at political balls and functions.
They are everywhere.....and if a issue resonates with them they will be mobilized, but they all have different interests. Mostly with the debt and spending. Some with other issues as well like gun control and amnesty.
If that is fringe or radical, then something is wrong with your perceptions of just what the tea party is...These issues may well be radical in the beltway, but not out here in flyover land..
Easier said than done as I work in Hellywood. I’ll probably leave if JimRob and FR leave Fresno, CA first..
There has been exactly one state primary and bloggers are lining up to try to dispirit the tea party and convince candidates to go all mellow-jello instead of standing on principle.
The tea partiers I know have gone off the political grid to avoid scrutiny by the thugocracy. They looked at those long, invasive membership forms with total incredulity. They go to the meetings and send money to their favorite tea party candidates.
How are the professional tea party critics going to measure tea party participation now? I’d better shut up, or Obama will find a way to do it.
You can’t kill a grassroots movement. We are everywhere.
So what?
I spent years and years as a PhD in the arena of information analysis and it is obvious Zita self-selected results to fit a prescribed narrative. Nothing scientific at all here; nothing comprehensive.
Stockman had about zero money and put in about as much effort. But the Texas state level results show the Tea Party won big. 5 of 5 of Ted Cruz' endorsed horses trounced the establishment incumbents. Cornyn only got 60% without a serious challenger. I don't think he is feeling so cocky. Cornyn is a toadie and will get on his knees to whoever controls his cashflow. In other words Cornyn will be dancing at the Tea Party victory celebrations when the Tea Party gains control of the Rove party.
Just reading through many of the posts above reveals to the astute observer that the facts are with the Tea Party on the ground. A comprehensive analysis shows the various Tea Party groups winning the ground game. One look at Drudge's recent poll of hundreds of thousands and his readership of Beltway elites is enough to make Karl Rove lose even more donor backing than he already has.
The opinion of this Zita person is garbage not worthy of intellectual discourse; not fit for serious analysis. That Zita got it published in PTR is not surprising. They need to fill gaps in their rag with rubbish analysis of Tea Party demise. And how many times have it been said the Tea Party is dead? And yet it comes back with a vengeance.
>> Nothing scientific at all here; nothing comprehensive.
Science is political. It is what we define it to be.
And I think it’s Zito like in bandito.
!
> “Science is political. It is what we define it to be.”
Uh...no.
1. Science is ‘politicized’; not political. Science is most frequently politicized in the actual arena of politics rather than the domain of science.
2. It is what ‘some spin’ it to be; not what it is defined to be.
Science is an attempt to ascertain the spectrum of observations and events and rank them in terms of influence and relevance to a question of interest. It involves data gathering according to a sampling plan that selects data based on a design that ideally minimizes selection bias. It then involves assembling or aggregating data and measuring the data according to an acceptable objective measurement device or method where the device is adjusted to the proper scale of influence and relevance.
The resulting measurements are then tested for trends or emergent patterns against random distributions. If the measurements deviate in a statistically significant way from the random cases, then it is said the data have signal.
None of this was presented in Zita’s presentation. It’s a big fat F for failure in the serious world of analysis. It’s why serious people don’t read the PTR but they are happy to take in garbage when it fits the way they’ve been programmed. Readers of such rags as the PTR are lazy readers. They don’t want science, they want relief from boredom whether from the comics or from page 1. And such readers of liberal media fiefdoms as the PTR are in decline by most objective measurements.
I could write a schlocky article for PTR that ranted on about Ted Cruz and it would get accepted. I could write a first rate analysis of how gun control laws don’t work and it would be routed inside the PTR to the circular file.
Statistics is like a scalpel. The outcome of the surgery is nearly entirely dependent on how talented the surgeon is handling the scalpel. Statistics don’t lie; liars lie and liars use statistics to lie. Same with guns; guns don’t kill people; people kill people and people use guns to kill people.
Zita used selected facts to denigrate the Tea Party. The facts selected were chosen to denigrate. Other facts supporting the Tea Party were left out. This is what makes the analysis a garbage analysis.
Alinsky isn’t just for the rabid left.
And even with that Cornyn only got 59% of the vote, not a big victory by any means.
What the author is ignoring is the fact that the TeaParty did quite well on the State level.
Science is indeed what we humans define it to be. It is the shameless chameleon that exploits the one and only true system of thought clearly set apart from it.
There are abut dozen subjective (to the observer/implementer) variables in your first paragraph outlining the “non-political” nature of science.
Nonetheless, I’ll defer to your scientific analysis of the article. It make sense.
And I still believe it’s Zito as in bandito.
>> There are abut dozen subjective
There are about a dozen... (I ain’t Canadian.)
Yeah, she’s an awesome political prognosticator. Check out some previous articles compared to the map of 2012 election results.....Four swings and four misses.
http://townhall.com/columnists/salenazito/
http://www.politico.com/2012-election/map/#/President/2012/
You got it!
Salina Ziti basically wrote a press release for RINO Inc. Nothing else. Cherry picks a couple of tea party losses and declares the movement over. Lol.
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