The original teabagger when it wasn't cool, Ron Paul, summed up what's happened to the scatterbrained Tea Party movement: "Everybody likes to join what looks like a popular movement, then they want to come in and influence that movement."
In other words, a bunch of natural Republicans got all excited about being "activists," so they glommed onto this astroturfed movement started by FreedomWorks, Dick Armey, and the billionaire Koch brothers, which then became something like a real grassroots movement when it added thousands of natural Republicans, but in doing so became just an outlet for white Republican anger. Now it's nothing new. It's just re-branding.
Want proof? Here's the teabaggers' big effort coming down the freedom pipeline: the Contract From America. Gee, sounds kinda familiar, doesn't it?
Their issue areas support Ron Paul's assertion that the Tea Party has been infiltrated by neoconservative ideology: there is not one reform initiative related to National Defense, although defense makes up 20 percent, or $738 billion, of the FY 2011 federal budget, and would seem to be a prime target for spending cuts.
Here's my analysis: the Tea Party movement is Palin's bargaining chip for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination; she'll threaten to run as a third party candidate and split the conservative vote if she doesn't get the GOP's backing.
Ron Paul: 'Neocon influence' is infiltrating tea parties
By Stephen C. Webster
February 9, 2010 Raw Story
URL: http://rawstory.com/2010/02/paul-cautions-neocon-influence-infiltrating-tea-parties/
No comments:
Post a Comment