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Will Tea Party Politics Change Party Politics?

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Rand Paul’s supporters weren’t alone in celebrating his big win. The AP headline read: “Democrats relish Paul’s GOP win in Ky. Senate race.” Sen. Robert Menendez, Chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, chortled over the “stark contrast between Rand and his opponent, state Attorney General Jack Conway.” He thinks Paul’s easier to beat come November than the establishment opponent Paul clobbered.

That used to be the rule. The more radical a candidate, the more likely to be trounced by the status-quo alternative.

But something’s different this time, right?

Not long ago Rand’s father Ron Paul was regularly ridiculed for being too extreme and “nutty.”

Now it’s the centrists who look nutty. Or, as Rand put it, “The tea party message is not . . . an extreme message. What is extreme is a $2 trillion deficit.”

Across the country in Washington State, a state representative is being challenged by Tim Sutinen, who is running explicitly under the “Tea Party” banner. A local paper quoted Sutinen as advising the legislature to declare a fiscal emergency and renegotiate state employee contracts.

The Democratic incumbent showed less glee than his Kentucky colleagues: “Those folks that represent the tea party are obviously good folks who have a view of government and they are frustrated. A lot of people are frustrated about the economy.”

My reading? It’s not just the economy. Continued dishonesty and self-dealing by politicians even in the midst of the crisis — that’s what’s frustrating.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

11 replies on “Will Tea Party Politics Change Party Politics?”

With all due respect to Senator Menendez, talk is cheap. Rand Paul will win the Senate race in November. Liberty is on the rise. The establishment is on the run.

Let’s see:
Preserve and protect the Constitution.
Don’t spend more than you make.

In what universe did this become radical right politics?

Methinks that some of the pundits and politicians are late for their Thorazine shot.

The extremists are both the Republican and Democratic Parties, both of which are firmly controlled by internationalist neo-conservatives, who split themselves into slightly varying ideologies only for the goal of keeping the masses divided against each other. The real moderates most certainly are the centrists, the independents, the libertarians, even the moderate progressives — those who believe that man is not the property of the state and society.

The change is even larger than anyone is yet noticing however. America’s power-base is moving not just back to the center, but back to the States. A Miss America contestant the other night said boldly that she was a big supporter of State’s rights — and she was cheered. A decade ago, the people at such an event wouldn’t have even known what she was talking about. Now that’s progress.

Ron Paul may not have won the 2008 election, but it is becoming increasingly clear he very much did start a revolution — one that was long overdue and one that we are winning. Our big worry should be, when is the other side going to cast the rules aside are we ready to deal with the inevitability of that. They have too much to lose to simply step aside because the masses voted for change. It naive for us not to expect a reaction at some point.

My greatest hope was that Rand Paul would carefully analyze the immigration issue and realize the incongruity of the growing anti immigration stance. Sadly, for many it is NOT just illegal, it is all immigration they wish to curtail. The current position of the “conservatives” and many of the Tea Party people is filled with rhetoric right out of groups like FAIR, CIS, WAR, and the formerly prestigious Heritage Fnd.
Their position is anti market, collectivist, anti individualist, un Constitutional, illogical and based on false statistics. I would request that you would urge people to carefully study, instead, groups such as fff.org, fee.org, reason.org, cato.org, theindependentinstitute.org and other libertarian public policy research organizations to get accurate and well reasoned information on immigration. Please urge your conservative friends to do likewise. Also of value is an in depth reading of the history of the immigration laws and the current state of “disrepair” of the procedure.
Lynn

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