Tea Party Confuses and Confounds Political Predictions
Chris Cummins Staff Writer 9/15/10 The Tea Party made its presence in the midterms felt once again in Delaware, as the recalcitrant tide which begin a little more than a year ago continues to defy expectations. No midterm embodies this trend more than the above mentioned race. Caroline O’ Donnell, one time abstinence advocate and telemarketer, has seemingly eschewed the game of party politics, mobilizing the Tea Party faithful even in a liberal state like Delaware, and toppling an establishment candidate, Mike Castle, whom many strategists cast as a certainty for the Republicans in the general election. The reason such surprising results are not merely written off…
Media scrutiny roughs up the Right
by Blake Seitz In the early and mid-2000s, liberals and liberal organizations like MoveOn and Code Pink rallied against the Bush administration. They called Bush a war criminal and a fascist. In extreme cases (and on numerous occasions), they compared him to Adolf Hitler and expressed solidarity with, among other things, the Iraqi resistance (i.e. terrorist cells like Al-Qaeda) and domestic insurrectionists. They publically wished for failure abroad and revolt at home. And they were championed for it. The mainstream media showed few of the really inflammatory posters, and interviewed few of the really inflammatory protestors—those who wanted to ‘Smash the Jewish state’; who wanted to ‘Fight the rich, not their war’; and who claimed…
Black TEA, white TEA
by Blake Seitz Many on the Left have tried hard to marginalize and villify the TEA Party, and to distort its aims and goals. They claim Tea Partiers are backwoods hicks or else whitewashed suburbanites; they claim Tea Partiers are uneducated, bigoted, and angry. For a while, I believed this. I saw a few signs and a few screaming, ruddy-faced activists. I wrote the movement off as populism at its worst, and even conceded that racism might be a motivating factor behind its actions. No more. As coverage–and debate–has intensified around the Tea Party, it has become clear to me that the movement’s motives are pure. The Tea Party is fusionism at its finest: libertarians…
Dems, GOP take sides after health care pass
The Democrat’s pride and joy, an overarching reform of the health care system, passed the Senate yesterday on a 56 to 43 vote. The bill had passed the House earlier in the week, 220 to 207. Three Democrats–Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska), Mark Pryor (D-Arkansas) and Blanche Lincoln (D-Arkansas)–opposed passage in the Senate, all three from the South or Midwest, traditional bastions of conservatism. The Democratic side has used the last few days to uncork the champagne and pat each other on the back, but their celebrating has been tempered by the unsettling threats of physical violence aimed at some of its members. These threats have been denounced by both major parties, as well as by top Tea Party administrators. Democrats allege that the threats…