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.
UPDATE: Commenting on Tea Party attacks on fellow Mesa Commissioner Craig Meis, former Lt. Governor and GOP County Commissioner Janet Rowland told The Grand Junction Sentinel this:
Rowland on Monday questioned GJResult's credibility and representations of tea party ideologies, alleging the group consists of "three to five men sitting around a table smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee, deciding who they want to endorse."
"I don't put a lot of stock in allegations they make ... they don't hold up," Rowland said.
There's just no love to be had anywhere, is there?
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We wrote last week about Tea Party concerns that Republicans would abandon them now that the election is over. Those concerns seem to have been justified, as a couple of recent stories from our friends at the Washington Post's "The Fix" indicates.
First, there was this story about Tea Party darling Rep. Michelle Bachman on Friday:
Republican establishment 1, tea party 0.
That's the post-midterm score after tea party darling Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.) dropped her candidacy for a spot in the House Republican leadership roughly one week after announcing it...
...Bachmann's quick exit from the leadership race signals that while the tea party may have seized control from the GOP establishment outside Washington, the powers that be still have, well, power in the halls of Congress.
And with Hensarling's victory now assured, there won't be a single challenge to any member of the Republican leadership team - a sign that tea party might not have changed things within the party as much as people thought they had. [Pols emphasis]
Tea Party folks have been freaked out lately over concerns that newly-elected Republican members of congress are going to ignore them and disavow their, um, Tea Party-ness once they get to Washington D.C. As the conservative blog Redstate reports, Tea Party leaders are trying to convince newly-elected Republicans to avoid any freshman orientation sessions that are not being overseen by the Tea Party. You know, because the Tea Party people know everything there is to know about Congress:
This handwringing about "Washington Insiders" is verging on paranoid.
One tea party group is giving out the private cell phone numbers of freshmen congressmen to pressure them to avoid competing orientation programs, etc.
Certainly there are legitimate concerns and there must be caution, but Good Lord people, by the time all the cards are on the table we're going to have all the tea party groups labeling their competitors as Washington Insiders.
This is nuts.
As we've written before, Republicans who used any help from the Tea Party during the 2010 election cycle are in a really tough position now. Tea Party supporters are going to demand that they remain completely true to the "cause," but all of those things that some GOP candidates said on the stump -- like Scott Tipton'spledge to cut government in half -- aren't actually doable.
Can Republicans keep the support of the Tea Party while not completely turning off every other group of voters in the process? That's not a tightrope we'd want to be standing on. Good luck with all that, John Boehner.
The always-interesting Hasan family adds even more intrigue to this year's election, if that's even possible--as the Pueblo Chieftain'sPatrick Malonereports:
Dr. Malik Hasan has filed a campaign-finance complaint with the Colorado Secretary of State's Office against the Southern Colorado Tea Party based in Pueblo.
The complaint accuses the Tea Party of failing to register with the secretary of state as a political committee, accepting anonymous donations and failing to report its contributions to candidates and causes...
Among the candidates the party has made donations of $200 or more to are Republican gubernatorial nominee Dan Maes and Republican treasurer candidate J.J. Ament.
Although the contributions appear on the candidates' campaign-finance reports to the secretary of state, the Southern Colorado Tea Party has not reported those donations to the secretary of state, according to the complaint...
Hasan's son, Ali Hasan, was a Republican candidate for state treasurer, but lacked the support at the state assembly in May to reach the ballot. At the assembly, held in Loveland, Hasan said members of the Southern Colorado Tea Party campaigned against his son by employing thinly veiled racism.
To be fair, the Chieftain goes on to quote Malik Hasan that the complaint is not the result of the Southern Colorado Tea Party whisper-campaigning against Ali Hasan at the assembly. And on the surface, the violations this group is accused of here seem pretty clear cut: the Hasans certainly aren't the first to note the laissez-faire way that the "Tea Party" gets behind chosen candidates, seemingly without the slightest concern for applicable law.
But come on, folks. The Hasans aren't neophytes. They would be funneling money through these groups right beside everybody else, just as they have done for the famously unaccountable "Dr. Evil initiatives," or as they delivered Scott McInnis' checks for his water essays to whatever account he wanted no-questions-asked, were it not for one overarching problem.
That would be the "thinly veiled racism."
But Hasan is absolutely right about one thing:
"The irony of it all is that if these guys are so concerned about the Constitution - enforcing it and following it - then they should start with themselves. You can't go around yelling and screaming that you want the Constitution respected when you don't respect it yourself."
Remember this day, folks, because in the coming years politicos, reporters, bloggers and everyone with an interest in Colorado politics will point back to this day to mark the moment when the Colorado Republican Party changed completely, and perhaps irrevocably. Whether or not this change will be remembered as something positive or negative may not be known until well after Election Day in November, and maybe not until Winter 2011, when Republicans across the state elect new local and statewide leadership. But make no mistake -- nothing can ever be the same in the Colorado GOP after weeks of events that culminated on Friday.
Because on Friday, Sept. 3, 2010, the State Republican Party told every Republican voter that the caucus and the primary only matter so long as you choose the candidate they want you to choose. Otherwise, your vote means nothing. Incredibly, and inexplicably, the Colorado Republican Party officially declared that a small handful of people will make decisions for you, no matter what the election results say.
In fact, two major changes have occurred: 1) The Republican Party decided that a small committee of people can choose whether or not to support a candidate that Republican voters elected, and 2) Top Republicans have splintered their support in the governor's race in three different directions. Party unity? There's no going back from here.
The Colorado Statesman has an excellent story from Jody Strogoff and Ernest Luning about the events surrounding the Republican efforts to get Gubernatorial nominee Dan Maes off of their ballot. You really need to read the whole thing, but we'll break down a couple of key sections to illustrate our point after the jump.
Colorado gubernatorial nominee Dan Maes has already overcome a significant cash dearth to win once this election cycle, but now Republican leaders are warning that without a fast injection of cash, his campaign might be doomed.
In a recent e-mail to grassroots Republicans forwarded to POLITICO, the president of Denver's Coalition for a Conservative Majority said Maes's campaign was teetering on the brink due to anemic cash flow.
"Dick Wadhams informed us that the Maes campaign is on the verge of collapse due to lack of campaign funding. If you are a Dan Maes supporter, be aware that his campaign desperately needs donations even more than it needs volunteers to work," wrote coalition president Jack Ott, referencing comments made by state party chair Dick Wadhams at recent meeting.
In a separate e-mail to a conservative listserv, Colorado 9-12 Project leader Lu Busse wrote that Maes "in particular needs money," and suggested that a big cash infusion from grassroots members could help spur rank-and-file establishment Republicans and "big money" players to get off the sidelines.
Busse went on to say that statewide Republican candidates like Maes would likely need a million votes to win, more than double the number of Republicans who turned out to vote in the primary. "Persuading 2.5 times that many to vote for the candidates will not be possible in the next 10 weeks without money for direct mail and other advertising . . . This is not being negative, this is accepting reality and changing our tactics/actions based upon the situation," Busse wrote. [Pols emphasis]
We love that last quote from 9-12 Project Leader Lu Busse that they might want to "change their tactics" to include more fundraising. Whatever gave you that idea? Who gave up the secret that you can't win elections with just "Don't Tread on Me" flags and message boards?
Through the July 28 cutoff period for the last fundraising reports, GOP gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes had less than $24,000 in the bank. We've always said that this is one of the main problems with Republicans kowtowing to the Tea Party and 9-12 groups of the world; sure, they're loud and they show up at events, but taken as a whole, they are more of a hindrance than a help. Republicans like Senate nominee Ken Buck have had to move as far to the right as possible in order to win their support in a Primary, but once the General Election comes, they become a humongous albatross. They insist that Buck and Maes take positions that won't help them much with swing voters, but they don't do squat to help them raise money to appeal to anyone other than the Tea Party. You can see this muddled line of thinking in the quote above, as though it just now became clear that raising money might be helpful.
Of course, even if the Tea Party folks could help raise money, there's no guarantee that Maes would know what to do with it, as a former staffer tells Politico:
"There were just red flags all over the place. It was real clear to me he didn't have any personal money. His wife was running the campaign money," said Ross, who left the campaign in March. "He doesn't know how to manage $5. He won't be able to raise money. He can't raise money because people are finding out what a joke he is."
This video was just released showing U.S. Senate candidate Jane Norton praising the Tea Party, 9/12 and Glenn Beck faithful. The video is supposedly from a Norton meeting with Morgan County Republicans on Nov. 2, which shows that Norton's campaign was aware of the need to placate the Tea Party even before they were showing their anger towards her campaign. The video also shows that there apparently aren't a lot of Morgan County Republicans, but we digress...
(Apparently they didn't get the message that the GOP/McInnis platform is meant for them. - promoted by Colorado Pols)
POLS UPDATE #3: Be there or be square--Tea Party, uh, party against McInnis coming soon. Details after the jump.
POLS UPDATE #2:Michelle Malkin is most displeased.
POLS UPDATE: Here's the clip, forwarded to us--chutzpah like only Fox News can deliver.
Original post follows.
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Northern Colorado's two largest Tea Party groups have laid into presumptive Republican gubernatorial nominee Scott McInnis over what they see as his false claims of Tea Party support.
What really got the Tea Party folks riled up was McInnis appearance on Neil Cavuto's show on Fox News Wednesday. As McInnis was introduced, an on-screen graphic read, ""Tea Party Backed Candidate Leading in CO Governor's Race."
As anyone who's spent more than a couple of minutes watching Colorado politics knows, the idea that McInnis has the backing of Tea Party activists is ludicrous. Cavuto comes across as pretty ignorant about Colorado politics, I thought.
Representatives of the Tea Party of Northern Colorado and the Loveland 9-12 Project were incensed at the suggestion that their movement was backing McInnis. Leaders of both groups blasted out e-mails to their membership following the Cavuto appearance.
"We are being played like pawns. And we can't put up with it," said Lesley Hollywood of the Tea Party of Northern Colorado.
