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The results of New York’s special election in the 23rd district congressional race might have effects nation-wide, even here in Illinois. The Tea Party movement successfully derailed the campaign of Dede Scozzafava, a moderate GOP candidate in the race in favor of Doug Hoffman, a much more conservative republican. Politico reports that their success could embolden their efforts to push out more moderate GOP candidates in favor of hard right conservatives.
A recent poll found that top Senate hopefuls Alexi Giannoulias (D) and Mark Kirk (R) are running neck and neck, with 41% support each in a phone survey. One might believe this would garner more support for Mark Kirk (pictured right) in the upcoming race from the GOP’s base, but the Illinois Tea Party movement would rather burn the village to save it. Said one organizer in a Politico interview, “We’re going to work hard as hell to make sure Mark Kirk doesn’t win. Mark Kirk is about as liberal as Arlen Specter was.”
While not yet the majority of the GOP, Tea Partiers certainly are the most vocal and outspoken. If their words begin to carry weight with more mainstream republicans, the entire party could shift even further right. Just how far might be debatable, but when some conservative talking heads who called Bush and Cheney "too liberal" are now in the forefront of the movement, you can bet even Reagan’s ghost might say “loosen up.”
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One of the things i find amusing about the baggers is that this Tea Party's "Sam Adams" is a Chicago derivatives trader screaming indignation at the potential loss of bonuses for traders n brokers n bankers. When the rabble ain't too bright, you really don't have to work very hard to get em together. When the leader of the opposition is black, you pretty much don't have to do anything, just point and shout. Yeehaw!
It was my pleasure to attend the Tea Party rally on April 15th.
While there, I met plenty of normal, average people who simply disagree with the fiscal policy of the Democrats. No hate. No vitriol. Just people expressing themselves.
And by using the tea-bagging joke, you discredit the rest of your comment.
you gotta be kidding.
And where were these fine people during Medicare Part D?
Or funding two wars while cutting taxes?
Yeah, that's what I thought.
Funny thing about the schedule to become a fiscal conservative.
I have to admit, its nice to sit back and watch the GOP sabotage their own party. The lunatic fringes have been most vocal and made it clear to moderates that they are not welcome. Sooner rather than later the GOP will find itself irrelevant, relegated to a small regional entity only accepting of those with hardcore fundamental religious beliefs.
"And by using the tea-bagging joke, you discredit the rest of your comment."
...This seems a bit sensitive coming from the folks using an Adolf mustache to get a rise out of the press.
Yeah, the left is really sensitive. A pro-life protester was killed in Michigan a while ago, another pro-life protestor was assaulted in Flagstaff, Lou Dobbs house was shot at, and a leftist shot up the Holocaust museum in DC a while ago. The left is having quite a year.
Masked,
No side has the monopoly on violence. A "Right winger" killed an abortion doctor this year. "Right wingers" are bring guns to protests, which is intimidation and in some eyes a threat of violence. The "right wingers" are toting racist signs at protests.
And that shooting at the Holocaust Museum - that was not a leftist. Von Brunn was an anti-semite and a white supremacist, who was once imprisoned for attempting to kidnap a member of the federal reserve board.
And by using the snarky "you discredit the rest of your comment" comment, you discredit the rest of your comment.
Way to rise above the fray, Ward Up.
There is nothing "moderate" about Scozzafava. She is a liberal Republican and was to the left of the Democrat candidate on the ticket. The Daily Kos endorsed her, if that tells you anything. I just love it when liberals try to tell Republicans how they should run the party. They want the Republicans to embrace candidates who think like them, when in the end they won't vote for them anyway because they are Republicans.
McCain was from the "moderate" camp and he was trounced because he stood for nothing.
And as for Kirk, why do you think he should be ahead? Illinois is a deep blue Democrat state. I think Kirk is looking pretty good in his race right now. If Obama continues on his current course and his popularity continues to plummet, Kirk could be in a good spot in 2010.
Its funny to read stoies like this coming from liberals, who kicked "moderate" Joe Liebermann out of their party as fast as they could.
Still waiting on that budget proposal.....
Nice work, morons. The 23rd elected a Dem. I don't think that's ever happened.
thats one for the books. the heaviest hitters on the right led by Palin/Limbaugh/Beck couldn't retain a small upstate district seat held by Republicans for over 100 years. All or nothing? How bout nothing.
No shit! The lazy MSM are overselling the GOP wins in NJ and VA (Corzine was dead in the water, Deeds was a weak candidate) as some sort of coup against Obama (which exit polls in both states proved false), while the bigger story is the fact that the chickens are coming home to roost for the Republicans, as evidenced by the whopper of a development in NY 23.
Most governor races have to do with local issues. Still, Dems should be worried--it seems indies have titled right, at least in these elections. But you are right about the lazy talking heads in the MSM.
Still, Dems should be worried
Maybe, but not by these two elections. Let me illustrate:
2009:
President is a Democrat
NJ elects a Republican (Christie)
VA elects a Republican (McDonnell)
2005:
President is a Republican
NJ elects a Democrat (Corzine)
VA elects a Democrat (Kaine)
2001:
President is a Republican
NJ elects a Democrat (McGreevey)
VA elects a Democrat (Warner)
1997:
President is a Democrat
NJ re-elects a Republican (Whitman)
VA elects a Republican (Gilmore)
1993:
President is a Democrat
NJ elects a Republican (Whitman)
VA elects a Republican (Allen)
1989:
President is a Republican
NJ elects a Democrat (Florio)
VA elects a Democrat (Wilder)
See a pattern? There's nothing particularly newsworthy about these two states voting the opposite party for the governorship in this cycle.
OK. Fair enough.
But the right winger nutters are probably more motivated for 2010 than anyone else is at this point. Beware of that.
They had it --it would have been Scazzafoovia --but it would have been Republican. The guy they went with wasn't even from the district. Maybe they should have run Alan Keyes.
Besides NOT being from the district, Oh-So-Pure Hoffman has a flimsy grasp of local issues when he went through interviews with editorial boards of local newspapers, as is traditional in local races.
Let me repeat: The fucking moron didn't even know local issues. A smaller version of Palin, perhaps?
Nice choice, right-wingers. Your wisdom is fucking amazing.
OK, enough of discrediting each others comments.
As for the Hitler mustache on the sign, that was one person out of 2,000. The rest of the signs were appropriate.
Appropriate? the state of the country on April 15, 2009 was not in any way, shape, or form the fault of the 3 month old administration. The entire premise of the rallys was and is bullshit. Paranoia fueled and spread by the cynical and ignorant.
*snap
I think what's interesting is how far right some people have moved in general. Remember the halcyon days of Reagan, when we didn't torture people? We torture people now and find justifications for it. That makes Reagan pretty liberal in some people's eyes.
McCain moderate? Hardly. His positions on abortion, the PATRIOT ACT, drugs, affirmative action and gay rights. He was just a little less venomous about it.
What the tea party movement seems to demand (and the same could be said for various movements on the left) is complete lock-step allegiance with every aspect of the extreme right. Anything that differs is immediately labeled as "moderate" and best and potentially "socialist."
As far as Hitler mustaches go, there have been plenty of folks on the right side of the divide that have used that. Plenty of people on the left did the same with Bush. Calling someone a nazi these days really doesn't mean anything, since at this point words like fascist, communist and socialist have all become interchangeable.
The one major difference I've seen between tea party demonstrations Bush opposition demos is that I never saw someone bring a gun to a demo until the tea parties.
"...the state of the country on April 15, 2009 was not in any way, shape, or form the fault of the 3 month old administration...."
You are right about that. Bush is to blame for some of the mess. However, the point of the tea parties is what we should do now and in the future.
The tea partiers sure don't have signs saying that Bush was great. In fact, tea partiers are also disappointed with the Republican Party's failure to adhere to fiscally conservative policy.
I respectfully disagree. The overwhelming majority of griping at these parties was with Obama, whether -care, -nomics, -birth certificates, -ism. As is the case with the Republican party in total, no constructive suggestions about what to do are offered up, just a lot of bitching, moaning, and whining from white people. The party line is to concede Bush's abominable tenure in office as "disappointing". At its core, its a bunch of sore losers who won't accept the outcome of the election and don't know how civil discourse works. They started this tea party BS in February for christs sake!
"In fact, tea partiers are also disappointed with the Republican Party's failure to adhere to fiscally conservative policy."
...so what were all those pro-Reagan signs doing there?
Bailouts!!! Nanny State!!! Government oppression!!! Yet not a peep from these patriots before the election, as Bush funneled money to banks and expanded domestic wiretapping. The Tea Party dopes are just the newest iteration of anti-intellectualism and peasant mentality to run through the Right. That they were gathering in parking lots screaming about the above and anything else that fell out of their lords mouth (birth certificate!!! No government healthcare!!!) months after the election cements the labels "reactionary" and "knee-jerk".
If there's a bright spot at all in this farce it's that the Tea Party morons might actually achieve something thought impossible in this particular democratic experiment, that is if the election in NY is any evidence. The creation of a third party. They seem quite willing to apply a purity test to congressional races, win or lose, simply to make their ignorant case. Unfortunately the resulting third party would just be a hard Right party, to compliment the Right Republicans and the Centrist Democrats.
Spot on.
And it's amusing, if predictable, how the right wing has become positively Stalinist in its quest for some utopian purity. Patterns always repeat, it seems.
Calling it Stalinist is a bit over the top, but I will agree (without apology) that Tea Partiers want "purity."
As a Tea Partier, I would say that we want Republicans to be very conservative with taxing and spending.
Oh, and the views of the Tea Partiers has nothing to do with Obama's race. And Tea Party participants are not like rabid dogs. They are decent people.
Perhaps that is over the top--my apologies--but it is a misguided quest for purity that, I think, is going to cost the GOP more than it will gain.
As well, I would advise the right wing to quit looking for the second coming of Reagan. Whatever Reagan was and was not, that was 30 years ago, and the GOP needs a modern candidate/savior/whatever. Looking toward the past is hardly a winning strategy (for instance, Reagan was a product of the Cold War. Whatever conflicts we are now engaged it, it is not the Cold War. We have different threats and different needs.)
"Oh, and the views of the Tea Partiers has nothing to do with Obama's race. "
I am positive at least some--say, for shits and giggles, at least 20%--have to do with demographic anxieties among some white people, and discomfort at the fact that a non white with a funny name is President. Let's not be naive about this, Ward. That said, I don't assume the Tea Party thing is motivated primarily by race considerations, or that the people are evil or anything like that. I just think the Tea Party thing, as a whole, is vague and emotional and somewhat hypocritical (again, where were you guys during Bush's spending sprees?).
Oh, and the views of the Tea Partiers has nothing to do with Obama's race. And Tea Party participants are not like rabid dogs. They are decent people.
I don't question any of this. But I think the problem most people who DO question this is, where was all of this outrage prior to Obama's election, when protests and outrage might have prevented it from reaching this point? The problem for a lot of people is the very suspicious timing.
I remember one sign right off the bat, with the guy standing right in front of the The Calder sculpture downtown: "Taxpayers are the Jews for Obama's ovens".
Now let me ask, why is it that among all these tea party folk that this guy feels perfectly comfortable displaying such an outrageous sign? Could it be because he feels he's among like minded friends? Yes it is, and yes he was. Clearly nobody had a problem with it or the many other racist/fucked up signs all around the country.
A little refresher on tea party signs:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/16/10-most-offensive-tea-par_n_187554.html
http://washingtonindependent.com/38877/scenes-from-the-dc-tea-party-more-photos
http://images.google.com/images?client=safari&rls=en&q=tea%20party%20racist%20signs&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi
http://www.flickr.com/photos/andrewaliferis/sets/72157622361386078/
I think it is an overstatement to say that the views of tea parties have NOTHING to do with race. I am not suggesting that all Tea Partiers are racists, but i can link to countless pictures of blatantly racists signs at Tea Party events - obama dressed up a witch doctor, obama called a lying african. I can post pictures of even more signs that are just really vile and offensive in general, like saying that Obama is funding Hamas or that american tax payers are the jews for obama's ovens.
So few of the signs genuinely address the issues you are discussing. And the issues you are discussing are not new issues unique to Obama. Why now are people so concerned about the budget or stimulus packages. George Bush started to bail out the banks before Obama was even elected. Where were all of these folks then? Why does it seem like all of the signs and slogans are directed at Obama and not also at the Republicans in Congress who have been on spending sprees themselves? On some level, some of the emotions on display at some of these events are a visceral reaction to Obama.
So many comments from Glenn Beck and others about "preserving white culture" and signs about Obama and white slavery. How is that about spending and budget concerns?
Now liberal activists have used inflammatory signs in protests against the war and what not. I am not saying the right has cornered the market on this. But generally those folks on both sides have been considered the fringe. It seems like a decent sized portion of the right (fueled by Palin, Beck, and Limbaugh) is trying to promote the fringe as the mainstream.
First, Masked Marauder, where's my links? Go Google it. Grown ups are talking.
I know some Tea Partiers and I can respect the basic positions - eliminate government waste and reign in the taxes. But in most cases these folks also we largely pro Iraq war, which is still costing us billions - billions of borrowed money, which will passed on to later generations. Its tough to sympathize with them when political party alignment and core values blur for the sake of the moment's argument - and that goes for both sides. Largely, the Congress at large (for the past 15 years) and Presidents have collectively been bought and paid for, in my opinion.
Long term politicians are the root cause for cronyism and waste - listen to your Alderman or a Congressman blathering on and its clear that they're sending us up the river. They're all dirty, in my opinion. I know there's been pro vs. con arguments regarding terms limits, but I do not believe career politicians are doing us any good.
How many times are you going to use the "grown ups are talking" line? Why don't you get some new material?
These comments are quite telling and typical of liberals. You people think you are moderate, your points of view are reasonable, and that everyone should think like you. Anyone who dares oppose health care or suggest that govt cut spending is a rabid, right-winger full of racial hatred. You give Republicans advice on how they should build their party and the candidates they should run. Your advice to them consists of recruiting candidates who think just like all of you. You wouldn't vote for them anyway, but they should recruit liberal, I mean "moderate", candidates so they can be more like the Democrats.
To listen to you people, you would think that the Democrat Party is still popular, that a majority of the country likes Obama's policies, that Independants aren't flocking away from O-Dumbo, and that you didn't just lose elections in Va and NJ. Obama was supposed to have built a coalition. He was supposed to unify. He was turning Virginia blue. What a joke. I'm grateful that people are waking up and seeing Obama for the disgrace that he is.
How about a decision on Afghanistan now, Barry? The elections are over, so that won't get in the way. You can stop playing politics with the lives of the troops.
hey, how about getting some new material yourself. You used to be good for a laugh, now its just boring. You're the flaming bag of shit that keeps getting tossed at the door... again and again. People have to stop stomping on it.. its not worth the effort.
Hey MM, where's the links you said you had, chief? "Oh, you liberals...."
Piss off. Where are they? YOu can't back up anything you say. Liar.
MM is fat. I can say that because I use the same logic that MM uses - "It may not be true, but I can say it like it is". Ward Up is 100 times more credible than you. Piss off.
By the way, Masked Marauder is fat. Very, very fat.
“We’re going to work hard as hell to make sure Mark Kirk doesn’t win. Mark Kirk is about as liberal as Arlen Specter was.”
I love how they talk about Arlen Specter like he's dead.