February 03, 2011 07:38 PM UTC

The Tea Party Should Compromise. Maybe. Or Not. Perhaps.

• 0 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

Republican Sen. Rand Paul, one of the Tea Party’s biggest success stories from the 2010 election, gave his first speech on the Senate floor yesterday. But as Slate reports (h/t to “The Fix”), the message was a bit mixed.

Paul began by comparing the Tea Party movement to — no, really — abolitionism:

Paul delivered a caveat — nothing in our current politics could compare, morally, to the debate over slavery. But wasn’t it odd that our current political debate called for people like him to compromise? “Should we compromise by raising taxes as the deficit commission proposes?” he asked. No: We have a “spending problem,” not a revenue problem.

After making such a strong comparison and arguing against compromise, Paul concluded his speech…by saying that the Tea Party should compromise:

“Can the Tea Party work with others to find a solution?” he asked. “The compromise must come in where we cut spending. The compromise that we as conservatives must acknowledge is that we can cut some money from the military. The compromise that Democrats must acknowledge is that they can cut domestic spending.”

We’ve said it time and time again, folks. The Tea Party movement of the 2010 election cycle is going to be devastating for Republicans because GOP politicians cannot possibly live up to the hard-line messages and standards that they set during the campaign. It was obvious before this speech that Republicans were trying hard to distance themselves from many Tea Party promises, and this is another great example of that shift.