{"id":15092,"date":"2009-10-16T14:59:18","date_gmt":"2009-10-16T19:59:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=15092"},"modified":"2009-10-16T15:39:47","modified_gmt":"2009-10-16T20:39:47","slug":"tea-partiers-endanger-gop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=15092","title":{"rendered":"Tea Partiers endanger GOP?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Wall Street Journal runs a typically elitist article today entitled “Tea-Party Activists Complicate Republican Comeback Strategy<\/a> ” in which the party bosses complain that the members of the party think the party rank-and-file know more about the type of candidates we want than the establishment.<\/p>\n

In upstate New York, Dede Scozzafava, 49 years old, is the choice of local party leaders to defend a Republican seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, an abortion-rights candidate who could appeal to independents. Doug Hoffman, 59, is a local accountant backed by tea-party activists who has jumped into the race declaring himself the real conservative.<\/p>\n

Mr. Hoffman has siphoned so much support from Ms. Scozzafava that their Democratic rival has vaulted into the lead, according to a poll released Thursday. The election is Nov. 3.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Imagine that – the people don’t want to be told who their candidate will be in the next election. <\/p>\n

The party’s strategy for attracting moderate voters risks alienating activists who are demanding ideological purity, who may then gravitate to other candidates or stay at home. It’s a classic dilemma faced by parties in the minority — tension between those who want a return to the party’s ideological roots and those who want candidates most likely to win in their districts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The whole problem with Republicans is that they don’t understand that we can’t run candidates for whom we think Democrats will vote. Every time Republicans have run as conservatives, they’ve won. Every time they try to make Democrats happy, we lose. <\/p>\n

To prove his point, Naftali Bendavid, the article’s author, uses Florida Senator Charlie Crist as an example. he’s facing a primary challenge from Marco Rubio, a grass roots candidate;<\/p>\n

He has adopted policies such as an aggressive approach to global warming that appeal even to Democrats. Those very policies infuriated conservatives, as did Mr. Crist’s decision to campaign with President Barack Obama on behalf of the president’s $787 billion stimulus package.<\/p>\n

“He was Judas to the Republican Party in the state of Florida and across the country,” says Robin Stublen, 53, of Punta Gorda, co-state coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots, a loose national coalition. “He sold us out for 13 pieces of gold.”<\/p>\n

A spokesman for Mr. Crist said the governor made sure stimulus dollars went to items important to Florida voters.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To me that proves that neither Crist nor Bendavid don’t understand the whole stimulus issue. We don’t want to be bought off – we want to be left alone. A freakin’ Republican campaigning for the stimulus, f’Pete’s sake.<\/p>\n

Brian Walsh, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, a group that coordinates GOP Senate campaigns, says the party has chosen strong candidates. “It’s healthy to have debates about the future direction of the party,” says Mr. Walsh. But he adds, “We want to make sure we have candidates on the ballot in the best position to defeat the Democrat candidate.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Enjoy the next few decades of being out of the majority, Brian.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Wall Street Journal runs a typically elitist article today entitled “Tea-Party Activists Complicate Republican Comeback … Tea Partiers endanger GOP?<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[478],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-none"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15092\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}