TEA Party - co-opting by The Republican Establishment - or by those seeking its coattails? - Granite Grok

TEA Party – co-opting by The Republican Establishment – or by those seeking its coattails?

"In this, we do not compromise."
 
Gadsden Flag

Fights aplenty this political year – and not just between the Republicans and Democrats.  Simply put, this is shaping up between the Political Class (those that are in high positions within Party or Governmental structures) and those that are governed.  Waking up this morning, this was not a pleasant reminder that there are those that put the Constitution first, and then there are those that put themselves and their position/power first

Any possible shred of doubt remaining in anybody’s mind about former Senate GOP leader Trent Lott’s true allegiance have now been definitively removed: Lott is a paid tool of the Washington Establishment who hates the Tea Party and all other insurgents who have had it with politics-as-usual.

"We don’t need a lot of Jim DeMint disciples. As soon as they get here, we need to co-opt them," Lott told The Washington Post in an incredibly revealing story.

Well, he certainly is confident, isn’t he?  Honest, too – I’ll give him that  He knows that he’s basically unelectable in the future but is making his $$ as a lobbyist.  Like many, he’s taken the attitude of "hey, the TEA Party is just a fad…and we’ll be here afterwards".  Certainly,like many, I thought he got a bum’s rush by the hyper-Politically Castraters (even as they protected their own KKK leader, the newly departed Robert Byrd) when he tried to say nice things about Strom Thurmond on his birthday.  However, given the above, I’m over it.  Good and over it.  It rather shows that he and his type are betting that their perches are on solid ground – but is there an incipient earthquake already starting to tremble under their feet?

Sen. Jim DeMint, of course, is the South Carolina conservative Republican who last year formed the Senate Conservatives Fund to back precisely the kind of insurgent conservative Senate candidates most feared by the Lotts of the world.

Lott’s quote points to the all-too-familiar GOP-losers mentality that GOP officials can just go on as they did in the years before they lost their congressional majorities in the Senate and House, talking the talk of limited government but not doing anything concrete or permanent to make it a reality.

They live in denial – they believe that they can outrun what may be heading towards them, which is EXACTLY what polls are saying – they want limited government, limited spending, limited taxation, and limited intrusions into their business and personal lives. Yet, Lott and his ilk are laughing at it.

History may prove them right – Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely – and most succumb to its lure.  That’s one reason why the ‘Grok has been as careful as it can in picking its endorsements – they may not be perfect, they may not be as conservative as the ‘Grok, and they may not be the conventional wisdom winners. Warts maybe present (and some more than others) – there’s no getting around it.  But there is one thing for sure – we have gone for political philosophy.  We are ABSOLUTELY in league with other Conservatives that have said "NOT THIS TIME". 

While part of our calculus has been with an eye to practicality (they have to have at least a shot at actually winning), we have chosen with an emphasis on "We are NOT going to support someone that talks Conservative / TEA Party / 912er, wants to be seen as being a Conservative / TEA Party / 912er, but past history shows otherwise.  We have chosen, wisely we pray, for those that will not just carry a bedrock Conservative / Constitutional and (h/t to Tim) with libertarian leanings (heh! – don’t get too excited there, Tim – the ‘Grok’s Rational Libertarian!) into and just past their inauguration but maintain their center, their equilibrium, all the way through their office.  In this, we do not compromise. 

Are there others that could fit into this category that have not been chosen?  Certainly, I can tick off at least three in a blink of an eye.

Charlie Bass is one that fails in thisSteve and Tom (example posts) have done good work in categorizing his failings.  And yet, he has been caught trying to ride the coattails.  At least I can hand him that (the political version of "Mene, Mene, Tekel u-Pharsin") – the river is definitely flowing in one direction.

However, he is NOT the only one that is trying to ride coattails….

Thus, the Lotts of the GOP world, according to the Post, "see plenty of good in the tea party, but they also see reasons to worry." It’s the same old story that such GOPers want the votes of "the base" but they don’t want to do what the Tea Partiers and a clear majority of their fellow Americans, want them to do.

 

If they weren’t so worried, why are some trying to hide so hard in the coattails?

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