#185749 - 04/16/10 06:29 AM
Tea Party names its heroes and targets
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ævory
Member
Registered: 04/04/05
Posts: 9657
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By Alexander Mooney, CNN Political Unit
April 15, 2010 -- Updated 1745 GMT (0145 HKT)
Tea Party activists hold an anti-tax rally Thursday morning at Freedom Plaza in Washington.
Activists focus on candidates who can win, consultant says
Among Tea Party "heroes" are candidates who lag far behind front-runners
Among "targets" are Sens. Reid, Boxer, Specter, Lincoln, Rep. Barney Frank
Conservative group insists it's not affiliated with any other party
Ann Coulter talks to CNN's Larry King about Sarah Palin, President Obama and the Tea Party Express. Watch "Larry King Live" at 9 p.m. ET Thursday on CNN.
Washington (CNN) -- Leaders of the Tea Party Express marked Tax Day on Thursday by celebrating their efforts over the last year and unveiling a list of "heroes" and targets" ahead of the upcoming midterm elections.
In a lengthy news conference that partially amounted to a pat on the back for their efforts at affecting a handful of key races in the last several months, the group said it is supporting only candidates it feels have a viable shot at winning next November.
"In politics, you always have to be careful to promise what to do," said Sal Russo, a GOP consultant who is aiding the Tea Party in its efforts. "We try to keep our focus on the doable. We have a lot of wonderful candidates that simply can't win. So our focus is on the candidates that can win so we can really focus on taking America back."
But among the list of supported candidates is Sharron Angle, a former Republican member of the Nevada Assembly who is an anti-tax champion vying to take on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. A recent poll indicates Angle lags far behind the two other Republicans seeking the party's Senate nomination: college basketball star Danny Tarkanian and former state GOP Chairman Sue Lowden. The Mason-Dixon survey for the Las Vegas Review-Journal showed Angle at 5 percent, while Lowden registered 45 percent and Tarkanian polled at 27 percent.
Angle, who has aggressively touted her connection to the Tea Party, addressed the gathering Thursday, calling the movement "a tsunami of conservatism across this country."
The group is also supporting California State Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, who is vying with former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina and former Rep. Tom Campbell to take on longtime Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer. DeVore also lags his opponents by nearly 20 points, according to a recent Los Angeles Times USC poll.
Former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, who is facing off against Gov. Charlie Crist for the GOP nomination and has often tip-toed around his connection to the movement, also won a rousing endorsement from the group Thursday. So did Pat Toomey, the former head of the Club for Growth who will take on Sen. Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania, should Specter win his own primary. Specter, a longtime Republican, switched his affiliation to the Democratic Party last year in part to avoid a primary challenge from Toomey.
Rand Paul, the son of Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who is running for Senate in Kentucky, and Todd Tiahrt, a congressman running for Senate in Kansas, also won Tea Party Express endorsements Thursday.
On the House side, the group is also backing one Democrat: Walt Minnick of Idaho, who is part of the "Blue Dog" coalition of centrist Democrats. He has long railed against pork-barrel spending and voted against the recent health care bill.
The heroes list also includes several members of Congress with bona fide conservative credentials, most of whom do not appear to face difficult re-election bids: Reps. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Joe Wilson of South Carolina, Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, Mike Pence of Indiana, Tom Price of Georgia and Tom McClintock of California.
In addition to Sens. Reid, Boxer and Specter, the group said it will aggressively target Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, the struggling Democrat who faces a difficult primary challenge and a tough general election battle should she make it that far.
On the House side, Tea Party activists said they are taking aim at Democratic Reps. Betsey Markey of Colorado, Alan Grayson of Florida, Baron Hill of Indiana, Barney Frank of Massachusetts, Dina Titus of Nevada, John Spratt of South Carolina, Tom Perriello of Virginia, Gerry Connolly of Virginia and Alan Mollohan of West Virginia.
The Washington event Thursday ends the Tea Party Express' three-week bus tour that began in Searchlight, Nevada, which is Reid's hometown. The tour hit several key districts throughout the Midwest and Northeast, and culminated in an event in Boston, Massachusetts, on Wednesday that featured former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
While the vast majority of the group's endorsements went to Republicans, group leader Mark Williams said the movement is not partisan.
"Please don't tell me I'm a Republican tool," he said.
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#185750 - 04/16/10 06:44 AM
Re: Tea Party names its heroes and targets *DELETED*
[Re: ævory]
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Greg
Member
Registered: 08/20/05
Posts: 10000
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Edited by Greg (04/16/10 09:13 AM)
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#185752 - 04/16/10 06:48 AM
Re: Tea Party names its heroes and targets
[Re: Greg]
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ævory
Member
Registered: 04/04/05
Posts: 9657
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I don't get the whole Tea party rational. The typical tea partier takes advantage of the same programs they bitch about.
When personally challenged on current programs and entitlements they are taking advantage of and label as socialist they have no response.
They are just plain wrong on current levels of taxation.
Until they start proposing realistic alternatives they are just a bunch of Sarah Palin/Fox sheep.
Good morning, Paradude.
Just quoting you because I see whole threads of which you deleted yourself from. It made everyone else look like idiots.
lol
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#185755 - 04/16/10 08:03 AM
Re: Tea Party names its heroes and targets *DELETED*
[Re: Greg]
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Skylark
Member
Registered: 08/15/00
Posts: 17531
Loc: SoCal
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lets all go camping 
Hey "Dennis" - !
I would LOVE to go camping!
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#185768 - 04/16/10 06:39 PM
Re: Tea Party names its heroes and targets *DELETED*
[Re: Skylark]
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Paulwa_dup1
Member
Registered: 02/12/05
Posts: 4951
Loc: Washington
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*DELETED*
I ain't s'posed to be here anyway...Hi Ronda!:-)
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#185772 - 04/16/10 11:49 PM
Re: Tea Party names its heroes and targets *DELETED*
[Re: Paulwa_dup1]
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ghoti
Member
Registered: 04/06/02
Posts: 8469
Loc: Ishpeming, MI 75.128.229.255
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The farther to the right the tea party drives the republicans the more centrist the democrats will appear, and that's a good thing in attracting the votes of independents.
_________________________
Feisty survivors populate this site. Avoid controversies unless you have a very thick skin.
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#185774 - 04/17/10 05:18 AM
Re: Tea Party names its heroes and targets *DELETED*
[Re: Paulwa_dup1]
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ævory
Member
Registered: 04/04/05
Posts: 9657
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*DELETED*
I ain't s'posed to be here anyway...Hi Ronda!:-)
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#185775 - 04/17/10 06:34 AM
Re: Tea Party names its heroes and targets *DELETED*
[Re: ævory]
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ævory
Member
Registered: 04/04/05
Posts: 9657
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http://www.redstate.com/erick/2010/04/14/tea-party-movement-20/
Tea Party Movement 2.0
Move beyond protesting to fighting in primaries, ballot boxes, and becoming more effective activists.
Posted by Erick Erickson
Wednesday, April 14th
“[T]o change the paradigms, to … blow them up, we must get involved in the existing processes of politics and government, not create something new to compete.”
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer admits the tea party movement is getting members of Congress to thing about retiring.
Most excellent.
And that is what the movement should be about, more or less, but there is much more too. And judging by the reaction from yesterday, a lot of people got the point I was making, but a vocal minority not only did not get it, but were highly offended and thought I was attacking them.
Of course I was not attacking them. I would have to be attacking myself. I have said repeatedly that I consider myself part of the tea party movement. But their reaction and that of others suggests to me too many have become so fixated on being a part of this thing called the tea party movement that there is a reluctance to move forward into something else.
A friend suggested I should have referred to it as Tea Party 2.0, which actually gets to the gist of what I am talking about, but I am more and more convinced we must leave behind the moniker of the tea party.
Let me see if I can break this down again without causing more wailing and gnashing of teeth.
The Good
The tea party movement has gotten a lot of people off the sidelines and into the political arena. The reason the tea party movement is so shocking to so many is because you never see those types of people protesting. Tea party activists are worried about making ends meet, taking care of their families, and doing their jobs. They are not typical protestors. When they take to the street people notice.
Look at what Hoyer said.
The tea party movement also brought together a lot of likeminded citizens who thought they were alone in the world. They realized that not only were they not alone, but there were millions of others just as concerned.
Both Democrats and Republicans have become fearful. In fact, I know that just the other day a group of Congressional Republicans were sitting around a table ridiculing “teabaggers.” And some of these are Republicans that the tea party movement has embraced as their own.
They hate us because of our success.
The Bad
With the success of the tea party movement came the charlatans who could turn a silver phrase and dazzle the masses. And the money changers came in too. Read, if you will, this article this morning.
This happens in every successful group, but many of us have found it off-putting. My rule of thumb has been and remains to work with local tea party activists, not the national groups. That’s not to ding the national groups, but I find it more productive to work with local groups. And that won’t change.
There is, however, something more troublesome that I am seeing more and more of after yesterday’s post. A lot of people in the tea party movement have gotten a bunker mentality. My suggestion to move beyond the tea party movement was seen as an attack on it. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I’ve been derided as selling out for CNN, using my post to promote “competitors,” etc. There will always be crackpots convinced of something that is not so, but those people are not the majority of the tea party activists. But it gets me back to my overarching point.
In fact, already this morning I’m getting emails related to this article that this is just another media attack against the tea party movement. No it isn’t. And I think some in the movement need greater discernment.
The issues and advocacy within the tea party movement are issues that resonate with the majority of Americans. By continuing to be a “tea party protestor” I and others willingly pull ourselves out of the class of people known as “Americans” and become just one of those “tea party guys.”
Couple that with all these national groups that want to keep us as tea party guys and it becomes increasingly harder to reach the next step — to get to Tea Party 2.0.
I would submit that the people who want to get involved have gotten involved. And now to keep them involved, we need to move on lest they get bored. There is only so much protesting we can do.
And (and I realize this wasn’t clear enough originally) this requires the existence of local tea party groups. It just requires them to step up their game and be willing to let go.
What Tea Party 2.0 Looks Like
First of all, I think tea party 2.0 requires we stop calling ourselves tea party activists. We are citizens, taxpayers, voters, and Americans. Saying we are part of some designated group makes it too easy for malicious souls to dismiss us. We are Americans dammit!
I have cringed in the past 24 hours when I have seen people say I was attacking the tea party movement. That’s just it! The attacks sustained by us within the tea party movement by the media and the left have been attacks against our country’s ideals. They aren’t tea party attacks. They are attacks on the America as we know it. And I’m not the one attacking.
Throwing the tea party movement under the bus would be me throwing myself under the bus.
But for a while now I’ve thought that there has to be something more. The national groups doing tea party organization have been nibbling at the edges, but I don’t think are doing enough — putting a little tabasco into the existing sauce really isn’t changing it up to have a greater impact. If anything, the tea party movement appears to be pulling itself out of the existing political process trying to reinvent the wheel. We should be pushing ourselves into the process.
My personal and internal private motto on Redstate lately is “blow s**t up.” It is the existing paradigms that need to go. That is one reason I am insistent on supporting outsiders as candidates these days. But to change the paradigms, to metaphorically blow them up, we must get involved in the existing processes of politics and government, not create something new to compete. The deck is stacked against us from the outside.
That is why I am supportive of things like American Majority’s Post Party Summits and the Defending the Dream Summit and Right Online among others including but not limited to Freedom Works and Smart Girl Politics. I have no affiliation with these groups, but I gladly give up my time, vacation, and family time to go to these events and speak in groups, one on one, and in workshops about greater activism, commitment, and education.
I have to laugh at the accusation that I’m out to undermine the tea party movement because of my affiliation with American Majority. American Majority just happens to be doing exactly what I think needs to be done: training existing tea party activists to get them to the next level of political involvement.
Another reason I like these groups is because they are very clearly separate from the tea party movement, but involved as facilitators. They’ll help local groups, train local groups, and get them to where I think we need to go.
The Nutshell
So where do we need to go?
In a nutshell: back to the classroom then into our town halls, state legislatures, Congress, and online. Some are already doing that. Good. I encourage that.
But I go to tea party events all over the country and hear people say “Get involved,” only to have actual tea party activists go home, email me, and ask the “how” that the person on stage never bothered to get to.
We must move beyond the protests and get to the fight. We are effective now. We should not settle. How much more effective can we be? I submit we can be more effective by throwing off the tea party label that has become, way too often, a clique, and embracing this as a very American cause — the first amendment right to protest, petition, and speak up.
This post is already too long, so let me get to bullet points:
Learn how to be a better online activist.
Start paying attention to your local government.
Learn how to run for office and be a campaign strategist, whether or not you want to run or want to be a strategist. You will find the skills extremely useful.
Write letters to the editor of your paper.
Call in to local radio shows — not national, local.
Find candidates you like and support them, blog about them, promote them and fund them.
Stay connected to like minded souls in your community to know you are not alone — why I still like and support local tea party groups.
Become active in the political party of your choice. Change it from the inside, not the outside.
Learn to discern.
Above all else: remember that when the left attacks the tea party activists, they are attacking the foundation of America. Stop responding as an aggrieved tea party activist and start asking what part of the American way of life they have a problem with.
All of the groups I mentioned above and others can help.
Conclusion
We have moved beyond the tea party movement. It served its role well and ably. It got people off the sidelines. But we need to move on. We need to become more involved in our local communities, politics, and above all else we must get into the existing political process.
You want to keep protesting, that’s fine by me. I support it. What I don’t support though is staying in the mindset that has developed. We must move on. The tea parties have served an honorable and good purpose. But we have to grow to Tea Party 2.0, which involves embracing the tea party legacy while moving beyond it.
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