The Tea Party Has Not Yet Begun to Fight



by Joel B. Pollak26 Dec 2012, 10:57 AM PDT

If the Tea Party has been weakened by the November election, why are the mainstream media expending so much effort attacking it?

The latest attempt is today’s front-page article by the New York Times, which alleges that the Tea Party is turning to “narrower” issues and suggests, none too subtly, that Congress should stop paying attention to it.

As proof, the Times offers the fact that Republican leaders “have embraced raising tax revenues in budget negotiations, repudiating a central tenet of the Tea Party.” It ignores the fact that Republican leaders could not muster the votes in the House to pass those proposals.

To the great frustration of the mainstream media and the GOP establishment alike, the Tea Party continues to hold the line against tax hikes and new bailouts. It also won a significant victory with the recent passage of right-to-work legislation in Michigan.

These are not “narrower” issues: they are the most fundamental issues concerning the nation’s fiscal health and economic future. It is the Times and the liberal gentry that it serves who cling to narrow, often contrived issues such as the co-called “war on women” to maintain their political clout. The ailing, indebted Times hates the Tea Party precisely because it is serious about economic realities the left would prefer to deny.

The one kernel of truth in recent mainstream reporting on the Tea Party--a truth that Tea Party leaders themselves admit--is that the movement is discouraged by Obama’s win in November.

Mitt Romney was never the Tea Party’s first choice, and some Tea Party supporters may have stayed home on Election Day in protest, but once he secured the Republican Party’s nomination most Tea Party activists worked hard to help him win.

Michael Patrick Leahy of Breitbart News has argued that if not for independent efforts by Tea Party activists, who eschewed Project Orca-like gimmicks for more traditional shoe-leather canvassing, Romney may have done even worse. Tea Party volunteers turned out the vote for Romney in places like Roanoke, VA--where they had driven from as far away as Tennessee--while Orca crashed, leaving Romney volunteers stranded.

Disappointment at Romney’s defeat was compounded by Tea Party losses in other races. The loss of Rep. Alan West was a heavy blow, and Richard Mourdock failed to capture the Senate seat in Indiana after defeating 36-year incumbent Richard Lugar in the primary.

But establishment and moderate candidates suffered as well. The election was not a Tea Party defeat but a Democratic victory, on Obama’s expansive coattails.

The present Tea Party dilemma did not begin in November 2012 but in January 2011, when the new Republican leadership in the House of Representatives excluded Tea Party members from the highest leadership positions. The Tea Party, used to opposing but not to governing, acquiesced in a faulty arrangement that allowed the Republican establishment to lead the legislative agenda, and to blame the Tea Party when it failed.

That is exactly what happened in the summer of 2011, when Speaker of the House John Boehner quashed efforts by Rep. Jim Jordan to rally support around the Tea Party’s preferred “Cut, Cap and Balance” proposal in the debt ceiling debate. Boehner then signed onto an ill-fated deal that led to the present “fiscal cliff” impasse--while the Tea Party, slandered by the mainstream media as “terrorists,” bore the burden of blame.

In the Republican primary, the Tea Party struggled to find a candidate it could support. Many of its preferred candidates stayed out of the race, while those who did enter struggled to compete with Romney’s fundraising machine or withered under the scrutiny of the mainstream media. Many Tea Party activists were encouraged by Romney’s choice of Paul Ryan as his running mate, but he played a subdued role on the trail.

Read more:

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/...-Begun-to-Fight

True story from just today that some may find amusing.

I do volunteer work at a local hospital. So today I go in and am halted in the lobby as an alarm has sounded and when that occurs everyone is supposed to stay in place. So, ok, but while I'm waiting another volunteer, someone I have never seen before, spies the current Time magazine which has a baby on its cover.

He looks at me and says, Is that Obama, Man of the Year?, even though the pic shows a baby who is white.

Then he says, No, it must be Boehner. I just don't like that guy.

Me: Why not?

Other guy (retired rocket scientist?): Because he's too much under the control of the Tea Party.

No, I did not pursue it. I could have looked at him sweetly and said, Ok, what's wrong with the Tea Party; or, Interesting. Did you know I am an active member of the local Tea Party?; or, Boehner is under the control of the Tea Party? Are you nuts?

But I chose to do none of those things as it might have led to an argument and it just wasn't an appropriate forum. Besides I surmised the guy was pretty much a complete dolt mentally submersed in negative propaganda, so why bother?

Seriously, this just happened today not more than a few hours ago.

The Tea Party consist of the last remaining adults in the country that have a brain that functions and a bonus of good common sense.

Over half the country is dependent on the government, most of them illerate and needy. If you add in another twenty percent of ultra left liberals you can see why Obama gets another four years.

Quote: Cincinnatus wrote in post #2

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True story from just today that some may find amusing.

I do volunteer work at a local hospital. So today I go in and am halted in the lobby as an alarm has sounded and when that occurs everyone is supposed to stay in place. So, ok, but while I'm waiting another volunteer, someone I have never seen before, spies the current Time magazine which has a baby on its cover.

He looks at me and says, Is that Obama, Man of the Year?, even though the pic shows a baby who is white.

Then he says, No, it must be Boehner. I just don't like that guy.

Me: Why not?

Other guy (retired rocket scientist?): Because he's too much under the control of the Tea Party.

No, I did not pursue it. I could have looked at him sweetly and said, Ok, what's wrong with the Tea Party; or, Interesting. Did you know I am an active member of the local Tea Party?; or, Boehner is under the control of the Tea Party? Are you nuts?

But I chose to do none of those things as it might have led to an argument and it just wasn't an appropriate forum. Besides I surmised the guy was pretty much a complete dolt mentally submersed in negative propaganda, so why bother?

Seriously, this just happened today not more than a few hours ago.

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Quote: Cincinnatus wrote in post #2

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Other guy (retired rocket scientist?): Because he's too much under the control of the Tea Party.

No, I did not pursue it. I could have looked at him sweetly and said, Ok, what's wrong with the Tea Party; or, Interesting. Did you know I am an active member of the local Tea Party?; or, Boehner is under the control of the Tea Party? Are you nuts?

But I chose to do none of those things as it might have led to an argument and it just wasn't an appropriate forum. Besides I surmised the guy was pretty much a complete dolt mentally submersed in negative propaganda, so why bother?

Seriously, this just happened today not more than a few hours ago.

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