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Subject: GOP vs Tea Party
PPR    9/7/2010 8:19:20 PM
GOP insiders seem increasingly willing to choose spoiler tactics against the Tea Party candidates. It started with Charlie Crist, who switched to an independent candidacy after it became clear he could not win the GOP nomination over Marco Rubio. Then came Tom Tancredo in Colorado, who is running in the Constitution Party for Governor. The latest is Lisa Murkowski, who is considering an independent run after narrowly losing the her senate seat to a Tea Party nominee. GOP insiders seem content to divide Republican votes and let democrats win with an eye toward outlasting the emotions of the Tea Party and returning to power in a later election. What they don't seem to understand is this: it is this sort of double-dealing and lack of conviction that spawned the Tea Party in the first place--the notion that the GOP would rather allow liberals to win than tolerate a win by conservatives.
 
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warpig       9/7/2010 10:35:06 PM
I admit some confusion here.  Crist is certainly an example of a liberal Republican loser who couldn't stand up to the grassroots pressure applied by people like TEA Partiers, and in a case of believing his own propaganda, doesn't want to give up without a fight.  If Murkowski does run as an independent, she would be another case like Crist.  I agree that Crist and potentially Murkowski are examples of many liberal Republicans who actually would rather see a liberal Democrat win than see a conservative Republican win.  A similar event occured in upstate NY in the last election where the liberal Republican incumbant congresswoman ousted in the Republican primary declared her support for the liberal Democrat challenger.
What I don't understand is the connection between the first two and Tancredo (who clearly is pretty conservative, unlike Crist and Murkowski).  I haven't read any details about Tancredo's campaign for governor, but I have difficulty believing this example is similar to the other two.  Is there some Republican challenger to Tancredo for congress who actually beat him out in the Republican primary?  If anything, it sounds more like a case of Tancredo trying to go around the establishment GOP insiders himself in order to force the race for governor to address the same sort of issues that TEA Partiers want addressed, too.  The Constitution Party is completely congruent with the core principles of the TEA Party movement.  Unless the TEA Partiers and other conservatives have succeeded in nominating some conservative candidate for governor for the Republican Party and now Tancredo is potentially diverting support away from him, I don't see how this can be like the other two examples at all--and I would be amazed if this is the case.
 
 
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PlatypusMaximus       9/9/2010 8:55:42 PM
Add to that Christine O'Donnel, running for Senator from Delaware against GOP veteran Mike(voted for cap&trade)Castle.
 
You
Go
Girl
 
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PlatypusMaximus       9/11/2010 11:23:05 AM

Delaware GOP Files FEC Complaint Against O'Donnell

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The Republican Party of Delaware has filed a formal complaint with the Federal Election Commission, accusing one of its own Senate candidates of illegally collaborating with the Tea Party Express.
 
 
(dot       blogs.cqpolitics.com/eyeon2010/2010/09/delaware-gop-charges-illegal-c.html   )
 
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PPR    Insider vs outsider   9/14/2010 8:21:27 PM
Washington insiders tend to protect one another.  This goes across party and ideology.  For example, after Ted Stevens was convicted of corruption and voted out of office, the charges against him were inexplicably dropped.  If Republican insiders can't win, they can at least keep the outsiders from winning.  I had forgotten about that NY case, but it is yet another example of these spoiler tactics.
 
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buzzard       9/15/2010 8:38:20 AM
You are correct about Tancredo WP. He's certainly no RINO, if anything he's more conservative than most Tea Partiers. He's also no bastion of the GOP establishment. Now that Maes is falling apart here, I starting to hope Tancredo can pull something out here in CO.
 
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timon_phocas       9/15/2010 6:37:37 PM
In a way, the reaction of the Republican "establishment" to the Tea Party activists reminds me of the education establishment. They both say they want public involvement. What they really want, however, is for the public to sit down, shut up, applaud on queue and open our wallets. What they don't seem to realize, is that involvement tends to foster a sense of ownership, and  with that ownership comes a desire for control. And that, dear friends, is something they are totally unprepared for.
 
Schools don't have to tolerate this kind of tomfoolery. After all, they get their money from the tax rolls, and they can afford to ignore pesky volunteers. The Republican party, however, depends on its volunteers to man phone banks, walk precincts, write letters and press the flesh.
 
I've seen this happen before. There was something of a "culture war" when religious conservatives started flooding into local Republican organizations back in the 1980's. It's happening again. 
 
Another aspect of this is that traditional American ideals are inherently corrosive to power elites. If the people's voice is the ultimate power in the land,  and activists are those people , then the comfortably powerful are due for some unpleasant change.s. Tea Party activists believe those simple axioms. This is not comforting to power elites.
 
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reefdiver       9/17/2010 4:11:42 PM

I haven't read any details about Tancredo's campaign for governor, but I have difficulty believing this example is similar to the other two.  Is there some Republican challenger to Tancredo for congress who actually beat him out in the Republican primary?  If anything, it sounds more like a case of Tancredo trying to go around the establishment GOP insiders himself in order to force the race for governor to address the same sort of issues that TEA Partiers want addressed, too.   

Tancredo claims he chose to run after seeing a GOP candidate chosen who supports amnesty for illegals and even sanctuary cities. For quite a number of years, the now self retired Congressman Tancredo was undoubtly the strongest and perhaps the most controversial voice for controlling the border and  illegal (repeat: illegal) immigration.  I found that once you spend time around him you quickly discover he's not the person of liberal media selected soundbites that seek to discredit him. He's an extremely intelligent rational man with a rational message.  Agree or disagree, the cost of illegal immigration is a significant  issue for Colorado that Tancredo is very passionate about. He's a strong fiscal and constitutional conservative. And no, I don't live in Colorado nor am I involved with Tancredo's campaign, but when I did I had the pleasure of getting to know him a bit.

 
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warpig       9/17/2010 11:41:35 PM
Tancredo claims he chose to run after seeing a GOP candidate chosen who supports amnesty for illegals and even sanctuary cities. For quite a number of years, the now self retired Congressman Tancredo was undoubtly the strongest and perhaps the most controversial voice for controlling the border and  illegal (repeat: illegal) immigration.  I found that once you spend time around him you quickly discover he's not the person of liberal media selected soundbites that seek to discredit him. He's an extremely intelligent rational man with a rational message.  Agree or disagree, the cost of illegal immigration is a significant  issue for Colorado that Tancredo is very passionate about. He's a strong fiscal and constitutional conservative. And no, I don't live in Colorado nor am I involved with Tancredo's campaign, but when I did I had the pleasure of getting to know him a bit.





 
Thanks, reefdiver, that makes perfect sense and is right along the lines of what I would have assumed was the case.

 
 
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CJH       9/20/2010 7:04:40 PM

GOP insiders seem increasingly willing to choose spoiler tactics against the Tea Party candidates. It started with Charlie Crist, who switched to an independent candidacy after it became clear he could not win the GOP nomination over Marco Rubio. Then came Tom Tancredo in Colorado, who is running in the Constitution Party for Governor. The latest is Lisa Murkowski, who is considering an independent run after narrowly losing the her senate seat to a Tea Party nominee.
GOP insiders seem content to divide Republican votes and let democrats win with an eye toward outlasting the emotions of the Tea Party and returning to power in a later election.

What they don't seem to understand is this: it is this sort of double-dealing and lack of conviction that spawned the Tea Party in the first place--the notion that the GOP would rather allow liberals to win than tolerate a win by conservatives.

IIRC Carl Rove recently said he thought Marco Rubio was, I think, a GOP centrist or Republican insider or something like that. He thought Crist was well to the left of center I believe.
I think this was to dispute the idea that Rubio was more Tea Party than GOP centrist.
 
I have believed that there is a strain of Republicans who seem to thrive most when Democrats are in the majority.
 
But then I also believe the GOP would be lost without liberal Democrats. There seems to be a kind of symbiotic relationship between the two parties. This applies more when Republicans who push fiscal issues driven agendas rather than social issues driven agendas.
 
 
 
 
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Nanheyangrouchuan       9/22/2010 6:25:14 PM
The Tea Party represents a real threat to the long standing relationship between the dems and republicans.   What helps the Tea Party is that they are a faction inside of the Repubs instead of a separate party, like the Libertarians or Greens, so the TP can live in a parasitic fashion off of the Republican infrastructure and money flow.  The Blue Dogs are the closest to a similar situation in the Dems but the far right tends to be a bit more virulent and more likely to take direct action than even the far left.

And Palin has gained too much credibility and power to back down, compromise or be bought off.
 
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