Dan Joling of the AP has this story today. I’m humbled by the tea party people in Alaska and all over the country who are reordering their lives, priorities, taking time from their families, studies, businesses to do the work on the ground to put Constitutional conservatives in offices held by not only Dems, but RINO incumbants.
Thank you Alaska.
JadedByPolitics has a great post at Redstate about the “splitting the vote” issue. Its catchy title “How to make the TEA Party irrelevant in one election cycle…” is spot on. I confess I struggle with wanting the emotional victory of mounting opposition to a RINO vs. the practical understanding that someone who will vote 85% correctly is better than someone who hands victory to the libs.
From the article:
Whether TEA Party candidates are placing that title on the ballot or running as Independents to “show them” they are by design electing the Democrat. I cannot believe the shortsightedness of the TEA Party, as they act as if 2 years from now they will not then have a BETTER shot at that seat and will send the RINO home. I cannot believe how small minded the TEA Party has become in what is going to be a decade long fight at least to send ALL THE BUMS HOME. To “accept” the winner of the Republican primary is NOT to sell your convictions down the river, oh no, it is to accept that person will vote with the Conservative caucus in the House and Senate at least 50% of the time (the Democrat will vote with the Alinskys 100% of the time. In 2012 that person can be primaried with a TEA Party candidate (Conservative) and held to account for those other 50% of the votes that he/she stood with the Socialists on.
It is easy for us to see how Tom Tancredo is really screwing things up in Colorado. It’s harder to swallow a 2 year delay in ousting one of those political elites in our own backyard. I think this is an area where the tea party may make some mistakes in its infancy. The things the tea party/liberty group movement is getting right are astounding for the brief amount of time we’ve been actively engaged in impacting elections and legislation. I’m hopeful a few missteps in the splitting the vote issue which definitely will occur will be not too harmful, and lessons learned quickly.
It is definitely an area for prayer that individuals and organizations who have been embattled with disappointments and betrayals can die to self and focus on big picture victory. And that those individuals whose race would lead to vote splitting would do what is best for our country and wait for the next primary instead.
I struggle with this conviction myself. Let’s hear your comments.
A short while ago I wrote a letter to the editor in SHJ expressing my outrage that SCGOP Chair Karen Floyd and the SCGOP leadership chose to protect Jake Knotts after his racist comments rather than bring up a vote to expel him from the party.
and then … Holy Long Reaching Newspaper Batman! … Glenn McCall over in York County responded to my letter.
Exactly what happened in the closed door meeting in Columbia on June 26 … only those in the room know. I think one of the points to be made is that there WAS a closed door meeting … this was dealt with out of sight of the voters who were there, and the media. The end result lacked the dignity owned to South Carolina voters who, while they may not reside in Knotts’ district, are subject to the legislation he votes on, and are shamed by him representing our state. And it’s just too reminiscent of all the closed door meetings that Reid/Pelosi held to make deals and retain power in DC.
Several times during the June 26 meeting both Floyd and McCall called for “UNITY! UNITY!” Chairwoman Floyd even commenting during the public part of the meeting that I was in attendance for that there was “an elephant in the room” but that we should “get the November elections over, and get these good Republican candidates into office and we can deal with these issues after the elections.” Really. So more of the same Vote Republican for the sake of Unity! while ignoring the caliber of those candidates, their voting records, and their adherence to the GOP platform. Just an “R” behind their name ought to satisfy us.
Are you satisfied with that recommendation from the SCGOP leadership?
> A Republican majority in the SC Congress did not manage to get Voter ID passed.
> A Republican majority in the SC Congress did not manage to get State Government Reform passed (having major political positions all from one party, or by appointment)
> A Republican majority allowed passage of a cigarette tax, which violated some members’ “No New Tax Pledge”
> A Republican majority voted for receiving Stimulus funds
It seems to me we may have a RINO problem here in SC. What good does uniting behind the SCGOP or even candidates here in Spartanburg with an “R” if these candidates are unable to deliver to constituents these basic conservative principles of representative governing, the transparency we are demanding, and a decrease, not increase, in our taxes and state government spending? Are we satisfied in acceding to the SCGOP leadership’s plea for unity, in electing/re-electing candidates with an “R” rating and trusting their promise to “deal with the elephant in the room” after the elections? I say we’ll have lost our leverage to hold the SCGOP leadership and the RINOs accountable, to move them to the right, to pressure them to listen to our voices by November.
In the months leading up to the November elections we have the opportunity to decide whether an “R” rating is good enough, or whether there are any options in the upcoming elections to draw SCGOP leadership’s attention to our discontent in how the GOP majority in Congress failed us this past session, and how shielding one powerful GOP Senator who has shamed our state has really pissed us off.
