Back before the elections in November, I was a regular attendee at the local Tea Party meetings twice monthly. My wife even went out campaigning for Mitt Romney door-to-door before the election day. I write my representatives regularly to let them know my opinions. We were both very engaged and working to make a difference.
There has been a lot of misinformation used to try and discredit the Tea Party as some right-wing bunch of kooks that are trying to wreak havoc or overthrow the government or something extreme like that. That, of course, has nothing to do with the Tea Party. To understand what they're all about, you have to go back to original Boston Tea Party that was an event that led up to the Revolutionary war. Of course, that event was done as a protest against the British government's oppressive tax policies that were strangling the colonists in America. A bunch of tea that was taxed to raise money for government spending (does that sound familiar) was thrown overboard into Boston harbor. The message was clearly that the people would rather go without the tea that they loved than pay the associated taxes.
The new Tea Party came out of a grass roots opposition to government spending that is out of control, and more specifically to government waste and entitlement spending. There is an undertone of protection of our freedoms and the constitution in the Tea Party message as well. Every Tea Party meeting I've attended includes an NRA representative in attendance, and second amendment freedoms are clearly supported at these meetings. The Tea Party seems to be more closely aligned with libertarian ideals than just straight conservative or Republican themes. The Tea Party is quite active in local and state political issues as well, and they encourage engagement with elected representatives at all levels of government.
Before the election day, every meeting had one or more candidates speaking to the group. That was very interesting, getting to hear them speak on their points of view. Unbelievably, there were multiple candidates that visited who had views that were diametrically opposed to Tea Party principles. Sometimes it seemed that the candidate at the meeting had no idea what the Tea Party is all about. The first time this happened in my presence, I was watching and wondering what was going to happen. Would anybody say anything? Then, attendees raised their hands and peppered the candidate with tough questions. (Wouldn't it be cool if a real journalist would do that?) In one case, a Tea Party member told the candidate "if that's your position on this issue, I won't just vote against you, but I will campaign against you." I thought that was great on both sides. #1, you had a candidate that was willing to state his true position rather than try to hide it. #2, he was challenged and the voters made clear what their position was.
I find this all very enlightening, but the presidential election still went for the radical, liberal, socialist Barack Hussein Obama. That didn't accomplish the goals of the Tea Party at all. What can the Tea Party do to accomplish something? Well, the Republicans do still have control of the House. That doesn't really give them the ability to pass anything on their own, and in fact, they can't even override a presidential veto, assuming they could get something through the Senate. Heck, it would be a major accomplishment to just get the Senate to vote on a bill, much less pass one. So that leaves the House to play defense. They can block any bill that they don't want to pass. They could limit spending to put a stranglehold on bills that were passed in Obama's first two years; that is the most powerful thing they have going for them. The House can pass legislation that will do the right thing -- cut spending meaningfully, clean up the tax code, pass bills to limit government over-reach, etc. Even if these bills aren't brought up in the Senate, the Republicans need to hammer the media every chance they get and mention that the Senate isn't doing the job they were elected to do.
The Republicans definitely don't have the same message control that the Democrats do. The Democrats apparently meet and go over the talking points and responses to every issue at hand. They all sound like they're reading from the same teleprompter when a microphone is in front of them. Why can't the Republicans do the same? Is this a problem with the Republican leadership? Or maybe the problem is that the press loves to never ask the Democrats a tough question and spin everything a Republican says to make them out to be rich, white, greedy, uncaring, ignorant, gun-loving, racist hicks.
I think the Tea Party needs to mount a campaign that hammers the elected politicians into creating the right, consistent message. They also can use their funds to raise awareness of the issues and the positions of the individual politicians on those issues, regardless of party. They should use twitter, Facebook, or any other form of media to reach the people at minimal cost--especially young and minority voters. The voters need to fully understand the ramifications of voting the wrong way or of just staying home on election day. The Tea Party needs to get out the vote just like Obama's team did as well.
The people that swung the election for Obama are the ones that historically didn't vote and probably weren't even registered to vote. Many folks today refer to them as the "low information" voters. They can be easily swayed to vote one way, because they don't understand the issue. They won't question a politician or political operative that says a candidate or the candidate's stance is good for them. Obama got that group to turn out and vote for Democrats, and that swayed the election his way. The Tea Party and Republican party must use these same techniques to get their message out. That will bypass the media that is unfriendly to the conservative or libertarian point of view.
What the Tea Party needs to stop doing is criticizing so many conservatives. The Republicans are working with their hands tied most of the time. Sometimes they are forced to make concessions in one area to get some of what they want in another area. I don't like to see them cave in even once, but that's the way of politics. The people have nothing to complain about; after all, they elected the bums and got us into the MessAPolitico in the first place. I wish the Tea Party would spend a lot more time criticizing Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Diane Feinstein, Chuck Schumer, and Sherrod Brown. Going after Mitch McConnell or John Boehner won't accomplish anything. What if Mitch McConnell's mid-pack conservative voting record amongst Republicans raises the ire of the Tea Party, and he is beaten by Ashley Judd or some other left-wing Democrat in the next election? Wow, that will sure help make a point, won't it?
Right now the conservatives, the libertarians, and the Tea Party are three separate groups, while the Democrats are one single-minded organization. There is a whole lot of overlap between conservatism, libertarianism, and the Tea Party; they certainly have a lot more in common than they have differences. If we split up and either vote for a third party candidate or an independent or just stay home on election day, the Democrats will continue to rule the day. That stops all the Tea Party goals from being accomplished. It's time to learn how to play winning politics to get as much of what you want as possible.
Our next chance to put a stop to this serious MessAPolitico is in the mid-term elections. We must take control of the Senate in 2014. Then the Senate Democrats will be forced to step up and vote and reveal their true stripes. At that point, the president will be the only impediment to progress. The congressional power of the purse strings will be able to limit the effectiveness of Obama. It's got to be done.
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