Thousands of Tea Party activists will gather Monday at rallies across the nation to mark Tax Day, April 15--and to re-ignite a movement that had been written off as dormant by the media and the political classes.
After propelling the Republican Party to the majority in the House of Representatives in 2010--and likely for the next decade thereafter--the Tea Party seemed to retreat. It failed in its political aim of defeating President Barack Obama in 2012, largely because of its earlier failure to find an alternative nominee to Gov. Mitt Romney. It was tarnished unfairly as racist, extremist, and--especially after the Tuscon shooting of Jan.2011--violent, and was blamed even by some Republicans for the debt ceiling impasse in mid-2011.
Yet the Tea Party also succeeded in stopping the rapid growth of federal spending and taxation. The Tea Party ensured that there would be no bailouts for profligate states and no large-scale tax increases. Though it had to swallow the tax increases of the "fiscal cliff" deal in the early hours of 2013, it essentially preserved 98% of the Bush-era tax cuts. And by shifting the national debate in favor of deficit reduction, the Tea Party laid the foundation for the budget sequester--a set of across-the-board spending cuts that the American public has largely tolerated, even in the face of President Obama's attempts to create panic and outrage.
More @ Breitbart
The Powers That Be would like everyone to forget just how Team Romney and the RNC conspired together to force through rules changes that screwed both independent, Tea Party and Ron Paul candidates going forward on a scripted 'voice vote' (and other ways). No one seems to be talking about the fact that there were about 3 million Republican votes "missing" in the last election--but my sidewalk polling suggests that the vast majority of them were Tea Party and Ron Paul voters who stayed home in disgust (or voted for Gary Johnson, pushing him to the first ever 1 million + Libertarian Party votes in a national election).
ReplyDeleteOh, and don't forget...these voters weren't courted by Romney or Ryan; it was Paul Ryan (with a disgusted attitude) who told us to 'hold our noses' and vote for the nominee, who we all pretty much despised. That's a classic example (one of many in Romney's campaign) of how to LOOSE an election.
No one seems to be talking about the fact that there were about 3 million Republican votes "missing" in the last election--but my sidewalk polling suggests that the vast majority of them were Tea Party and Ron Paul voters who stayed home in disgust (or voted for Gary Johnson, pushing him to the first ever 1 million + Libertarian Party votes in a national election).
DeletePrecisely and there were polls that showed Ron Paul ahead of Obama and if he had run you can bet there would have been a big turnout. Such a shame.