No Mitt, you are not part of TEA Party (even if you spoke at a TEA Party event) - Granite Grok

No Mitt, you are not part of TEA Party (even if you spoke at a TEA Party event)

Michelle had this little beauty (emphasis mine):

Mitt Romney said today he’s “the ideal candidate” for the Tea Party movement because his stance on issues lines up “pretty darn well” with the movement he says will soon realize that GOP frontrunner Newt Gingrich isn’t their best option for president.

“I recognize that the speaker has a big lead here,” Romney said of Gingrich in a press conference in South Carolina. “But I think as people take a closer and closer look, they’ll recognize that I reflect more effectively the positions which they hold on key issues.

Um, okay. Everybody has a different definition of “ideal,” I suppose.

Romney was probably basing that on having recently received S.C. Governor Nikki Haley’s endorsement, but the Tea Partiers I know are saying that’s not proof Romney has climbed aboard the Tea Party platform, but rather evidence Haley has stepped off it — maybe because she feels that’s what it will take to move onward and upward at some point.

This is nothing more than a really bad job of pandering for a vote for which he is not entitled – nor can he really earn.  Even if he spoke at a TEA Party Express event (which, rumor had it from a VERY good source of mine, was a payoff to CNN for being able to co-sponsor their debate together).  It really was well staged politically – while there were a lot of folks there to watch the event, it was rather amusing to watch the Romney supporters all grouped to the side waiting for exactly the right moment to rush the candidate.

Charlie Bass tried to ride the coattails and I whacked him then.  Romney may get the TEA Party vote in the end, but the only reason would be because TEA Partiers will do anything to make Obama a one-termer.  Yes, TEA Partiers would not be looking at Romney as “the lesser of two evils” but simply as a tool to be used to achieve their ends.

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