Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

[Red Cloud]

Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

If you believe the TP, as it is currently constituted, would be out there screaming with a Republican in charge, you are utterly mistaken. They have core ideas of fiscal reform but they are galvanized by the same matrix of political issues that has motivated rural white conservatives for the last 20 years. Gun rights, abortion, defense of marriage, law and order, and military pride are right up there with the tax revolt.

You are incredible in your magnanimity here. I salute your paranoia, sir. I especially love your Gorillas in the Mist type "study," here. It underscores just how far off base you are. I truly hope you and your types hold fast to this caricature you've created in your minds through November and beyond.

Don't forget to check under your bed for Tea Partiers before you go to sleep.

Remember, don't take it from a Tea Partier on what they're really about. Listen to the people who are wetting themselves instead.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

Sorry, it's just too convenient that there is a tea party now that a Democrat was elected. Especially when the same runaway spending and the taking of people's rights was going on the 8 years BEFORE the evil Democrat got elected.

 

[WeWantMore]

Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

I've been to TP events in VA, RC, and I debate with TPers every day; friends who I work with. I'm speaking from direct daily personal experience, albeit not your objective omniscience. If you want to play the echo chamber card you are definitely talking to the wrong guy.

If you believe the TP, as it is currently constituted, would be out there screaming with a Republican in charge, you are utterly mistaken. They have core ideas of fiscal reform but they are galvanized by the same matrix of political issues that has motivated rural white conservatives for the last 20 years. Gun rights, abortion, defense of marriage, law and order, and military pride are right up there with the tax revolt.

But by all means resume your dismissive rhetoric and employ ad-hominum attack terms like "clueless," "fantasies," "obsession," "laughable," and "lunatic." That sort of tactic always indicates a well-reasoned and self-assured argument.

If the tea party is galvanized by gun rights, abortion, defense of marriage, and so on, why have their two biggest victories so far been in Utah and Kentucky, where they rejected politicians who are in favor of gun rights, are anti- abortion, believe in defense of marriage, and so on?

 

[WeWantMore]

Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

Sorry, it's just too convenient that there is a tea party now that a Democrat was elected. Especially when the same runaway spending and the taking of people's rights was going on the 8 years BEFORE the evil Democrat got elected.

That's fair enough I suppose, and some of the people who have hitched their wagon to the movement like Hannity and company are pretty hypocritical.
Still, I do believe a decent portion of the tea party are people who didn't really care about politics before, and this is their first time getting involved.
Now, did a liberal president spur them to that conclusion? Perhaps, but the movement is much bigger than some anti-liberal circle jerk.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

If the tea party is galvanized by gun rights, abortion, defense of marriage, and so on, why have their two biggest victories so far been in Utah and Kentucky, where they rejected politicians who are in favor of gun rights, are anti- abortion, believe in defense of marriage, and so on?

The Tea Party movement is inherently anti-compromise. Funny thing is the only way law gets made is through compromise. That's the system.

Any incumbent with a voting record (all of them) going against a solid Tea Party candidate is going to have issues this election cycle. That's clear.

 

[Red Cloud]

Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

That's fair enough I suppose, and some of the people who have hitched their wagon to the movement like Hannity and company are pretty hypocritical.
Still, I do believe a decent portion of the tea party are people who didn't really care about politics before, and this is their first time getting involved.
Now, did a liberal president spur them to that conclusion? Perhaps, but the movement is much bigger than some anti-liberal circle jerk.

It's an easy answer. The unsubstantiated claim is that tea partiers didn't care about out of control spending and bigger government when Republicans were in power. There's this myth that fiscal conservatives were giant Bush fans. Bush's approval ratings during his second term make it pretty darn clear that a great number of fiscal conservatives WEREN'T Bush fans.

When Bush pushed TARP and when his successor ramped up the spending and government growth, anger and opposition ramped up just as fast. It's not rocket science.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

The Tea Party movement is inherently anti-compromise. Funny thing is the only way law gets made is through compromise. That's the system.

Any incumbent with a voting record (all of them) going against a solid Tea Party candidate is going to have issues this election cycle. That's clear.

All insurgency parties start out purist. As they attain responsibility at any level, they have to accommodate compromise to accomplish anything. The radicals accuse them of "selling out" and leave in a huff. The pragmatists remain and gradually evolve into the very thing they were protesting against. Show me a party that always stands on principle and I'll show you a party that is a failure at putting ideas into action.

Politics is like China. It absorbs all invaders and assimilates them. Which is extremely frustrating but also damps out temporary frenzies and fads and gives great stability. Jesus, that really is like China.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

You're missing the point again. It doesn't matter if they were fans or not. The Tea Party is big right now because the big media righties are pushing it. Hannity, O'Reilly, Palin, Rush, etc.

If a Republican was in office right now there would be no "big movement" because all of those folks would be supporting the President.

It's not rocket science.

 

[Red Cloud]

Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

You're missing the point again. It doesn't matter if they were fans or not. The Tea Party is big right now because the big media righties are pushing it. Hannity, O'Reilly, Palin, Rush, etc.

Rush is pushing tea parties? Really?

I guess I'm not listening for the subliminal messages like you must be. Either that or you don't listen to Rush at all.

Love this completely hypothetical argument though, as if it makes what the movement is saying wrong because there's an almighty Democrat in power.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

I especially love your Gorillas in the Mist type "study," here.

Your ideas intrigue me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter, but, I didn't get this reference?

 

[Rover]

Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

Lots to cover here:

Biggest story of the night is Dem win in Murtha seat. That race was tied going into the night, and western PA is the kind of rural, rust belt, so called conservative seat that the GOP has to take in November to win back Congress. There just aren't enough vulnerable Dem seats in Alabama or Tennessee to do that. This isn't a game changer, but it definitely blunts some of the "Speaker of the House John Boner" talk that we've been hearing lately.

Beyond that:

From a political standpoint, I love the Rand Paul win in KY. That becomes the marquee race of the election season now, as the question of do voters in a poor state dependent on federal dollars vote their emotions or their wallets?

Specter/Sestak I was indifferent about. In a nominally Democratic state, its probably a good idea to run somebody who's always been a Democrat to drive out base voters. Specter should have gone the Lieberman route apparently. This is the race #2 for Teabaggers, as Toomey is also a True Believers albeit with a lower profile than Paul.

Lastly, regarding the tea party, they are a vestige of the end of campaign McCain-Palin rallies that started to look like Klan rallies leading up to election day. A lot of bitter, angry, older, white voters upset at the world passing them by. The reason why they're more prominent now is the rest of the voting public is disinterested in politics 6 months before the mid terms. Kudos for them for making their influence felt in KY, FL, etc - but more people tuning in may change that equation.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

Rush is pushing tea parties? Really?

RC is right on this one. Fox owns and operates the TP, but Rush is AFAIK not involved in any way.

The TP is part real, part astroturf; part libertarian anti-tax protest and part Palin anti-anybody-above-a-third-grade-education Nuremberg Rally. Right now it's over the water of a Dem administration so the wind gains strength. When it makes landfall on a GOP administration nothing will change but it will lose its power source.

To the rank and file it's a cause, to the leaders it's just another vehicle. That's how these things go.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

RC is right on this one. Fox owns and operates the TP, but Rush is AFAIK not involved in any way.

I didn't say he was involved. You don't have to be involved to push the movement.

 

[walrus]

Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

You're missing the point again. It doesn't matter if they were fans or not. The Tea Party is big right now because the big media righties are pushing it. Hannity, O'Reilly, Palin, Rush, etc.

If a Republican was in office right now there would be no "big movement" because all of those folks would be supporting the President.

It's not rocket science.

Glenn Beck is the one pushing the Tea Party and I disagree their would be no movement if a republican was in office. People are fed up

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

Glenn Beck is the one pushing the Tea Party and I disagree their would be no movement if a republican was in office. People are fed up

He's the etc.

Again, it's just too convenient. Sorry.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

I didn't say he was involved. You don't have to be involved to push the movement.

Insofar as the TP makes people irritable that helps Rush's ratings. Or, less cynically, the TP is the current phenomenon and it is regarded very positively by Rush's audience, so he tells them what they like to hear.

But if you want to see people actually orchestrating the TP look at Beck and his ilk. They are in fact a different ilk than Rush and his ilk, even though they tend to employ the same demagogic devices.

 

[huskyfan]

Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

Rush got all the ratings help he needed when Obama was elected.

 

[walrus]

Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

Again, it's just too convenient. Sorry.

It started during the first bailout

 

[Red Cloud]

Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

It started during the first bailout

Too convenient.

In other words, Scooby doesn't care about what they say, he's all about timing. Besides, everyone knows they're just a bunch of racists, just ask Kepler. HE WENT TO A TEA PARTY IN VIRGINIA AND IS AN EXPERT.

 

[Rover]

Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

It started during the first bailout

I just don't remember the mass protests when the bailout was being voted on. If there's a link to a story I wouldn't mind having my memory refreshed but this seemed to be more of a post inauguration thing.