Will someone please explain something to me - re tea party

[matt819]

In my view, the tea party is a significantly different animal than the republican party. It may have started out as an offshoot, but it is now something very different, very apart, very extreme. I mean, picture Barry Goldwater in a discussion of conservative values with Barry Goldwater or Richard Nixon or even St. Ronnie.

Why are the teapartiers not being required to run as a separate party. Yes, I know that a third party splits the vote, but you just know that so-called mainstream republicans have to want to take a shower after being the same room as the teapartiers. And if they choose to vote teaparty in November they are doing so while holding their nose. And some, maybe more than some, will vote D. After all, the Obama dems today are little more than the republicans of the 1950s (yeah, yeah, I know - broad and maybe faulty generalization). Maybe they're really that craven, and voting R is critical even if they can't stand the stench, maybe in the hopes that things will change for the party in the coming years.

But I digress. At what point are the teapartiers sufficiently different to warrant their own party? Maybe I'm missing something here, but I've not seen this discussed.

Edited to add this: I suppose the same can be said of the Libertarians. If Ron Paul and his ilk really believe in their positions, then they should have the strength of their convictions to run on their own.

[cbayer]

1. The Repubs wanted them, a decision I think many now regret.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

7. They were eager to stoke them up in 2009 as their path back to power

however, now, yeah, I think that they are doing a double-take. Unfortunately, the Tea Party has its hooks in the party and it may be next to impossible for them to break free from them.

[cbayer]

8. Agree. It was a fatal miscalculation on their part, as evidenced by the VP pick.

[Warpy]

2. The disparate elements of the GOP are overdue for a split

The religious crazies know they've been taken for a ride, the teabaggers seem determined to out crazy each other, and the rich guys who pull all the strings in that party aren't bothering to hide their cruel and destructive agenda any more. The cracks are deep enough to be showing really badly, even to an outside observer like me.

The last time a group of rich men controlled a party and let their agenda show like this was when the Federalist Party blew apart and history does tend to repeat itself. Hamiltonian parties become unstable when they make too many deals with too many devils and the wealthy who control them start thinking they don't have to hide their agenda behind high minded Newspeak any longer.

[rfranklin]

3. They can run as Republicans by winning the primaries...no law against that...

They are just a segment of the party like Blue Dog Democrats.

[matt819]

23. I think that's what they were originally

But they have "evolved" (devolved, I suppose) into something very different, even if they themselves don't know what.

I think it was former WH chief of staff Bruce Bartlett who described them as anarchists and nihilists. They have no policies. They just want to destroy. In the same way that Ayn Randianism is something one experiments with as a high school student, this sort of nihilism is something that is supposed to play itself out in high school. I can remember more than one person running on the platform of disbanding the student council. How kooky is that!? See what I mean. You're supposed to be over that by the time you're in your 20s. These teabaggers are not.

As for being a faction? You might not support blue dog democrats, but they are not batshit crazy. The TP is something different.

[Skink]

4. Big tent

Tea Party folks are RW libertarians. Not organized enough to form their own party. They have the Kotch bros. backing and that is why Ryan is on the ticket.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

5. I would like to know exactly what the Tea Party actually stands for

They have little or no real consistency and/or clear agenda. If somebody asked me what they believe, I wouldn't be able to tell people other than they don't like President Obama, Democrats, liberals, or anybody on the left.

[cbayer]

9. Libertarians - no government interference except if it protects what is MINE.

[bongbong]

11. Teabaggers stand for ....

Totally
Enraged
About
Black
And
Gays
Getting
Equal
Rights

[AlinPA]

17. That sounds like the mainstream GOP to me. Tea Party is just another name for GOP, IMO.

[Bonhomme Richard]

6. Thank God there wasn't a Tea Party during the Revolution. Oh Wait! There was...

They were called Tories then.
My bad.

[RKP5637]

10. The GOP really should split. The old time republicans one could work with, but in

their desperation to increase their strength they took in the teabaggers. IMO the GOP would do better if they dumped the teabaggers. Frankly, IMO, the same can be said of libertarians.

[AlinPA]

16. Teabaggers run the GOP now. The Senate is being cleared of "old time republicans" like Snow and

Lugar. They control the house now.

[RKP5637]

18. That's a very good point, it is morphing to GOP = Teabagger. That is what has happened

in this state. Moderate republicans are being eliminated. The GOP is now teabagger-centric.

[AlinPA]

21. If Smith beats Casey, PA will have two Teabagger senators. Just heard that Romney will spend

$10 million+ in PA and that will help bring in more Teabaggers to statewide legislature and US House.

[badgolfer]

12. Tea Party

The tea party individuals are really the old KKK without the white sheets!!!

[julian09]

13. Tea Party likes it where they are, they are 33% of Repug caucaus and

they don't answer to majority leader Reed or minority leader Boehner, they can obstruct all they want.
If they don't like the way the moderate repugs vote they threaten to primary them.

[HopeHoops]

14. The word you are looking for is "clueless".

[AlinPA]

15. Teabaggers are nearly all republicans. The GOP and "Tea Party" are one and the same, and IMO,

they are just more stupid and more intolerant than the GOP of the past.

[progressivebydesign]

19. Republicans want the Koch Bros $$$. Pure and simple. If the Koch Bros go.. the money goes. n/t

[HooptieWagon]

20. Teabaggers are republicans.

Basically, their philosophy is this:
Deficits by a white republican president-good.
Deficits by a black democratic president-bad.
Despite tax rates being the lowest in 80+ years, corporations and billionaires still pay too much taxes.
Welfare for corporations, christians, and whites -good.
Welfare for workers, non-whites, and non-christians-bad.
There should be no government regulation of business.
There should be total government regulation of individuals (except them).

I think thats it in a nutshell... emphisis on "nut".

[Carroll]

22. no, the parties need them with frayed umbilical cord

No point in seeing them set up as a third party: they would fade away after electoral failure. A political system dominated by political parties and constitutionally sitting on the nation's wealth to use as capital when bartering legislation for re-election funding, et. al., does not want people to focus on the hand strangling the public's throat. What better way to divert attention from the pirated ship of state than to encourage nuts to spout off and watch as the other side furiously clamors for the truth? Split the nation into ideological groups and arm them with bricks--laugh all the way to tenure and the bank.