“If the UKIP can be successful in the UK, then we should stop playing novice and form the Tea Party into a real political party.”
Hitchen’s key point -that the establishment of either major party (both here and in Britain) is concerned only in maintaining power and individual perks - is spot on.
The key difference between us and the Brits is that they have a parliamentary system, in which it’s much easier to establish a third party. In the Brit system, a third party (like UKIP) can start out small and still have some legislative clout.
Not so here. Our real problem is that voting third party (whether it’s the current Libertarians or a future Tea Party) generally tends only to play into the hands of the Democrats.
My personal philosophy has always been to do what I can to make sure the Democrat doesn’t get into office. Many - perhaps most - Republicans are bad, but there are at least some who are reliable conservatives. But every single last Democrat is a scum enabler of an organized criminal enterprise.
After Cochran and Mississippi, my inclination to cut marginal Republicans some slack is sorely strained. I still hate to do anything to make it easier for donkeys to solidify their power, which they surely will do using the Chicago model. But I’m at a loss to see how we institutionalize traditional conservative principals without voting for squish Republicans or throwing away votes on non-viable third party candidates so as to throw elections to hopelessly corrupt Democrats.
If anybody’s got a workable strategy, I’m all ears.
The first step is to never ever give one cent to Rove or any of his cohorts or to anyone that is going to help Rove.
Give directly to the candidate of your choice.
In Canada when the Reform Party emerged in the 1990’s it was a bloodbath for the old “Progressive Conservative Party”. It was destroyed and marginalized, it never got more than a few seats ever again while the conservative third party got 40-60 seats consistently.
THIS MEANT THE LIBERALS RAN CANADA FOR OVER TEN YEARS, BUT CANADA DIDN’T DIE FROM IT.
In the end the big elites sued for peace and merged into the old third party and a new Conservative Party of Canada was formed.
Now that party has had power with Stephen Harper as PM for most of ten years.
Fear of the Democrats and portraying them as the reincarnation of Hitler or Stalin (Hitchens pointed out that’s what the Tories do to Labor in the UK) keeps grassroots conservatives at the teat of corruption. The cancer must be removed if we are to move forward.