Here's James Edwards' take on recent developments within the Tea Party.
<h2>
Tea Party movement dead in the water</h2>
Category: <a href="http://www.thepoliticalcesspool.org/jamesedwards/category/conservatism-is-dead/" target="_blank">Conservatism
Is Dead</a>,
Palin,
Republicans|GOP,
Ron Paul
The Tea Party movement has become nothing but a wholly owned
subsidiary of the Republican party. Their favorite person, Sarah Palin,
just got paid $100,000 to give a speech at the Tea Party Convention.
It was nothing but a boring "Go GOP!"Â sermon. It meant so little to
Palin that even though she'd had months to prepare for it, she had to
write notes on her hand reminding herself to talk about energy and
taxes. Not only can she not remember to talk about lower taxes to an
anti-big government convention without a crib note, she's completely
unaware of what's actually going on.
In her speech, she talked about newly elected Senator Scott Brown
being part of the Tea Party "revolution"Â; never mind that Brown <a href="http://www.thepoliticalcesspool.org/jamesedwards/2010/02/03/scott-brown-turns-his-back-on-tea-party-supporters/" target="_blank">has
already turned his back on the Tea Party movement</a>, saying that it
had little to do with his victory, and <a href="http://hotair.com/archives/2010/01/21/scott-brown-my-model-for-governing-is-john-mccain/" target="_blank">he
wants to be the kind of Senator John McCain is.</a> He doesn't even
want anything to do with Palin herself. Palin called him to
congratulate him the night of his election victory, <a href="http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/02/02/did-scott-brown-speak-to-sarah-palin-on-election-night/" target="_blank">but
a few days before her big speech Brown denied he's ever spoken to her</a>.
She's brilliant, I tell ya. The other day she denounced Rahm Emanuel
for calling some Democrats "retarded"Â, saying Obama should demand his
resignation because the word "retarded"Â is extremely offensive. (She
has a kid with Down Syndrome.) But a few days later, when Rush Limbaugh
mocked people like Palin herself by saying that because of politically
correct types we can "no longer call a retard a retard"Â, <a href="http://rawstory.com/2010/02/colbert-palin-retard/" target="_blank">Palin said that
was fine, because Limbaugh was using "satire."Â </a> In other words, she
has no principles at all, and will praise a Republican for doing the
exact same thing she denounces Democrats for. She quit her job as
governor of Alaska in order to get rich, and she has no intention of
letting facts or principles stand in her way.
And it appears the average Tea Party supporter is no smarter than
Palin. If there's any single person who's responsible for the rise of
the Tea Party movement, it's Congressman Ron Paul. This is an election
year, and Rep. Paul normally doesn't have any challengers in the GOP
primary. But this year he's got
three. <a href="http://rawstory.com/2010/02/tea-partiers-fighting-against-ron-paul/" target="_blank">And
all three of them are self proclaimed Tea Party types</a>. They're
angry with Paul because he not only wants lower taxes, he actually
thinks if you want low taxes you have to restrain spending, and he
refuses to bring home the bacon for his district. He also doesn't think
fighting two unwinnable wars for Israel in countries that are no threat
to us at all, and that are costing us trillions of dollars, qualifies
as small government or fiscal restraint. In other words, Tea Party
supporters don't really want smaller government; they like big
government fine but just don't want to pay for it. <a href="http://rawstory.com/2010/02/paul-cautions-neocon-influence-infiltrating-tea-parties/" target="_blank">Ron
Paul says</a> that the GOP and neocons have hijacked the Tea Party
movement away from its founding principles to benefit themselves, and
he's right.
And if you're still optimistic, and holding out hope that the Tea
Party movement can really bring about change in this country, then keep
reading. <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/32692.html" target="_blank">This
should disabuse you of that notion</a>:
<blockquote>
The South Carolina Republican Party announced Monday
that it's uniting with tea party groups in the state to share resources,
coordinate messaging and push the GOP in a more conservative direction.
The points of contact between the state party establishment and the
grass-roots will be the Greenville County Republican Party â€" one of the
most conservative wings of the state party â€" and the Upstate Coalition
of Conservative Organizations, an umbrella structure of state tea party
groups.
The agreement, as announced by South Carolina Republicans, is
designed to serve four goals: increase precinct involvement, improve
communication between the state party and grass-roots groups, create
liaisons between the state party and the various tea party organizations
and to work "closely to make the Republican Party more conservative."Â
State Republican Party Chairwoman Karen Floyd told POLITICO that the
arrangement came at the suggestion of a local activist who works with
both the state party and local tea party groups.</blockquote>