Posted on 02/06/2012 6:55:14 PM PST by Slings and Arrows
DENVER (AP) — Long skeptical of Mitt Romney, tea party activists are either warming up to the GOP presidential front-runner or reluctantly backing him after abandoning hope of finding a nominee they like better.
Whatever the reason, the former Massachusetts governor who is coming off of back-to-back victories in Florida and Nevada now is picking up larger shares of the tea party vote than he did when the Republican nomination fight began. And that fact alone illuminates the struggles of the nearly three-year-old movement to greatly influence its first presidential race.
"We haven't gone away," insisted Amy Kremer, chairwoman of the national Tea Party Express. But, in the same breath, she acknowledged lower expectations and a shift in focus to Senate races over the White House campaign. She also pleaded for patience, saying: "Anybody that thinks we are going to change things in one cycle or two cycles is fooling themselves."
Tea party activists across the country entered their first presidential contest this year expecting to hold major sway over the Republican race following a 2010 congressional election year in which their favored candidates successfully knocked off a string of insiders in GOP primaries in Colorado and elsewhere.
The movement influenced the presidential race early on, with candidates from Romney on down parroting the movement's language and promoting its agenda of restrained spending to curry favor with its adherents.
But the coalition was greatly fractured and plagued by infighting. It also watched as one favored candidate after another lost standing or quit the race, among them Georgia businessman Herman Cain and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann. The remaining candidates — Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul — have attributes that tea party backers like but they face huge hurdles in knocking Romney off his stride.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Advocacy masquerading as journalism.
Pure BS, no one I know in the Tea Party wants the Kerry Clone that is Romney.
This crap by the MSM continues to get worse, with no end in sight!
I will NEVER support Romney.
NEVER.
I am with you. NO Romney! he is the type of rino the Tea Party folks worked hard to kick out of DC! he is buying the election and Faux News is helping him.
Total b/s.
The MSM and the country-club GOP are in a de-facto collaboration to foist Mittens on us. I only hope that they go so over-the-top that it backfires on them; e.g., the Paul Wellstone funer-rally.
Willie Mitty... who is coming off of back-to-back victories in Florida and Nevada now is picking up larger shares of the tea party vote than he did when the Republican nomination fight began.
_____________________________________
No hes not...
Mormons polled after they voted in their Nevada caucuses said
Yes they voted for Romney
Yes they were Conservatives...
Yes they were members of the TEA Party
The fact they voted for liberal big govt Romney rules them out as Conservatives and/or TEA Party...
But HEY !!!
Dont let facts stop ya...
If they “warm up to” Mittens, the Tea Party will effectively cease to exist and with it, any relevance they once had.
Doesn't mean we need any facts ~ if you want some second hand stories you've got me to depend on if you need them, and there are others of course.
Right now I see some serious softening at the Washington Post. They allowed cross referencing to the Newsweek stories about Obama's Billion Dollar Campaign War Chest ~ which is new ~ right there on Ezra Klein's blog in fact. He's the guy who invented JOURNOLIST ~ and when he goes soft, they all go soft.
I have my doubts, Romney is going right along with a Democrat set point for the ‘rich’ $200,000. He may improve the economy some over Obama, but Romney misses the underlying problem the TEA Party solves in 3 points, low tax rates for all, follow the Constitution, and smaller government.
http://mittromney.com/blogs/mitts-view/2011/09/believe-america-mitt-romneys-plan-jobs-and-economic-growth
As president,Romney will seek to eliminate taxation on capital gains, dividends, and interest or any taxpayer with an adjusted gross income of under $200,000,
Countryclubbers simply provide structure to the party. You have to worry if the Young Republicans start jumping for Romney. So far there’s no sign at all that such a thing is happening.
I cannot believe I am saying this. I am staying home if Romney is the nominee and I used to say I would crawl over broken glass to vote for my mail man against Obama. The GOP needs to learn to only nominate conservatives or we need a third party. It will get ugly and the nation may break apart, but let’s get the fight over with.
This self proclaimed Tea Party Patriot will be caucusing in Colorado tomorrow night. And I can guarantee you that neither JoSixChip nor JaneSixChip will be voting for mitt. We’ll be for Newt and plan to persuade others to our way of thinking.
If anyone warms to Romney it’ll be disaster and the conservative movement will be basically dead. The fact is that since 1996, the GOP has nominated a moderate each time. 9/11 cast Bush as a conservative for a time, but his moderate tendencies bubbled up.
Remember that although defeat came in 1964, the conservative movement transformed the GOP and in a little more than a decade ensured a moderate Republican was defeated (Ford in 1976), clearing the path for a true conservative to be elected (Reagan in 1980).
If we simply surrender the field to not only a moderate, but a true Liberal in Romney, we surrender the GOP to moderate/liberals from this day forward.
Even if he is the nominee, it will be worth going to the polls to vote the down-ticket candidates and issues.
(I won't be voting for Romney either.)
I respectfully disagree - we need a second party.
In a de facto two-party system, third parties can only be spoilers. However, there’s no requirement that the two parties always have to be the same two parties - seen many Whigs lately? IMO, we need to either rebuild or replace the GOP.
BS.....
I will NOT vote for Romney, period.
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