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The start of 2009 saw the Republican Party in a state of self pity.
We had lost the White House to a friend of crooks, terrorists and radicals. The Democrats had overwhelming numbers in the House and Senate. The GOP in-house Democrat, Arlen Specter, finally outed himself as a Democrat.
Then around April 15, 2009 Democrats, Republicans, Independents and those who totally dropped out of the political system roared like lions--and the Tea Party movement was started. By summer, no Democrat was self from the truth at their Town Hall meetings.
The tide turned.
Reminds me of 1979-80. Rev. Falwell had the Moral Majority--and that was supposed to destroy the Republican Party. Instead, it helped elect Reagan as President and turned the Senate Republican.
Then in 1988 Pat Robertson ran for President. The fringe media, like the Times and Post declared the GOP dead. Instead, the Robertson effort helped elect Bush as President.
Progressives love to tell the Republican to steer clear of those who are not rich, work hard and support the Constitution.
This is the true value of the Tea Party to the GOP: "The Republicans for the last two decades have been a party whose litmus tests have been cultural issues, especially abortion. The tea partiers have helped to change their focus to issues of government overreach and spending. That may be a helpful pivot, given the emergence of a Millennial generation uncomfortable with crusading cultural conservatism.
It's not clear whether the tea partiers' influence on Republicans will last as long as the antiwar cohort's imprint on Democrats. But their concern -- the fact that government spending is on a trajectory to increase far beyond revenues -- seems likely to persist. In which case a spontaneous movement that no one predicted and that no one person led could end up, again, reshaping one of our great political parties."
More...
We had lost the White House to a friend of crooks, terrorists and radicals. The Democrats had overwhelming numbers in the House and Senate. The GOP in-house Democrat, Arlen Specter, finally outed himself as a Democrat.
Then around April 15, 2009 Democrats, Republicans, Independents and those who totally dropped out of the political system roared like lions--and the Tea Party movement was started. By summer, no Democrat was self from the truth at their Town Hall meetings.
The tide turned.
Reminds me of 1979-80. Rev. Falwell had the Moral Majority--and that was supposed to destroy the Republican Party. Instead, it helped elect Reagan as President and turned the Senate Republican.
Then in 1988 Pat Robertson ran for President. The fringe media, like the Times and Post declared the GOP dead. Instead, the Robertson effort helped elect Bush as President.
Progressives love to tell the Republican to steer clear of those who are not rich, work hard and support the Constitution.
This is the true value of the Tea Party to the GOP: "The Republicans for the last two decades have been a party whose litmus tests have been cultural issues, especially abortion. The tea partiers have helped to change their focus to issues of government overreach and spending. That may be a helpful pivot, given the emergence of a Millennial generation uncomfortable with crusading cultural conservatism.
It's not clear whether the tea partiers' influence on Republicans will last as long as the antiwar cohort's imprint on Democrats. But their concern -- the fact that government spending is on a trajectory to increase far beyond revenues -- seems likely to persist. In which case a spontaneous movement that no one predicted and that no one person led could end up, again, reshaping one of our great political parties."
More...