What has happened to the Tea Party?

Last Friday was the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party.  American colonists, fed up with egregious taxes and little say in their own governing, dumped 3 boatloads of tea into Boston Harbor, an open act of protest against the tyrannical British government.  23

More recently, Americans concerned with the direction of government got together and started a movement to get America back on the right track.  Sentiments like "no taxation without representation" found voice in large rallies and angry tweets around the country.  Heroes like Sarah Palin and Jim Demint stood before angry mobs and directed peoples focus to the 2010 midterm elections. The Tea Party Patriots website describes their focus and purpose in the "about" section of their website:

"The Tea Party movement spontaneously formed in 2009 from the reaction of the American people to fiscally irresponsible actions of the federal government, misguided “stimulus” spending, bailouts and takeovers of private industry. Within the first few weeks of the movement, Tea Party Patriots formed to support the millions of Americans seeking to improve our great nation through renewed support for fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government, and free market economic policies."


To reiterate those 3 important mission points (also on the left): free marks, fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government.  Remember those three important things, they'll come up again.

I moved to Washington DC last fall and happened to ride into the district on the same airport shuttle as a group of "tea party patriots" that were in town for an event the next day.  I didn't know what the event was but my skullcandy headphones weren't strong enough to drown out the loud and boisterous debate between one patriot passenger and our Nigerian shuttle-driver.  That yelling served as a foreshadow of what was to come.  The next day I woke up and a few friends and I decided to explore the area near our foggy-bottom apartments.  We came up from behind the lincoln memorial, along the potomac, too fresh in DC to think anything of the crowds moving towards the front of that majestic monument.  We had heard that there was a rally, and we knew that Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin had something to do with it.  We did not expect to get around the front and find ourselves facing half a million people on the monument and all around the reflecting pool. Many were dressed in colonial attire holding flags and signs and matching t-shirts from their various local tea party organizations.  They were organized.  I watched and listened as Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Tony Larussa, Martin Luther King Jr's niece Alveda, and a host of other guests spoke about restoring honor in America, which then took the form of restoring honor in our government.

You know what happened next: the republicans took back the house and gained seats back in the senate.  Look at this map.  OVERWHELMINGLY red.  That was a message to the white house- American's weren't happy.  They weren't happy that the President and his majority in congress contributed to a much greater deficit and higher unemployment numbers. They weren't happy with the costly new socialized healthcare plan, and a large laundry list of other things.  The tea-party was largely responsible for the changing of the tide.  My favorite thing about the tea party was the efficiency of their message.  They weren't worried about religion, social issues, rhetoric or partisan politics.  They were the (pardon my french) "cut the crap" movement.  Their focus on those THREE THINGS (free market, fiscal responsibility, limited government) is what made them both appealing and effective.

238 years after the original tea party, and 2 years after the inception of the modern-day tea party, Nikki Haley, Governor of South Carolina, endorsed Mitt Romney for President. (WHOA)  Her fellows in the tea party showed immediate displeasure, calling her a RINO, a traitor to the tea party movement, and a sell out.  How dare she? Well she defined EXACTLY how she dared.  Tom Thomson and Christine O'Donnell, also tea party favorites have endorsed Romney as well, but not many others. Clearly, the tea party has changed.  In this election the tea party has become it's own electorate, without unified support for any candidate, but plenty of negatives to say about Mitt Romney.  Recently in a "Tea Party Patriot" straw pull, Newt Gingrich won handily. REALLY?  Is this what the tea party has come to?  NEWT GINGRICH?!  I've already written pretty extensively about why Newt is a disaster of a candidate, so I'll just mention three important things: he personally profited from the "stimulus spending" because he recieved 1.6 million dollars from Freddie Mac.  Freddie Mac received MAJOR money during the bailout frenzy.  He says it wasn't lobbying, but his former employer says something different.

"Former Freddie Mac officials familiar with the consulting work Gingrich was hired to perform for the company in 2006 tell a different story. They say the former House speaker was asked to build bridges to Capitol Hill Republicans and develop an argument on behalf of the company’s public-private structure that would resonate with conservatives seeking to dismantle it." (read full article here) 

Does this matter to anyone?! It should.  Newt has railed against Freddie Mac in debates, and it turns out he recieved 1.6 MILLION DOLLARS worth of bailout money!  THEORETICALLY that should be strike 1 with the tea party, and a HUGE strike.  I don't need to go on about Gingrich's big government record or his record on environment. The Newt vs. Obama polls say everything that needs to be said about Newts viability as a Presidential candidate.

The case that I want to make is that according to the principles that the tea party was founded on, there is one candidate that should appeal to the tea party overwhelmingly.  A candidate that stands as the poster boy of free market economics, the hero of shrinking the government, the tax code, and regulation, and the man with the most comprehensive, feasible and detailed plan to responsibly save the economy. (I dare you to say something about individual mandates creating bigger government-- 1) he made that deal with an 85% democratic legislature to address a problem afflicting 8 percent of a population, it's a 10th amendment issue, the heritage foundation, holy grail of conservative ideology was all for it, it DIDN'T INCREASE TAXES, for further explanation see my LONG explanation)

His ENTIRE campaign and message is about fixing the economy and creating jobs.  Isn't that what the tea party was supposed to be all about?  You can call him a RINO, you can go after his history on abortion, but in the end, his platform and ideas accomplish exactly what the tea party was created for.  


1) CUTTING GOVERNMENT SPENDING AND DEBT
2) FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY
3) CREATING AN ENVIRONMENT THAT ALLOWS THE FREE MARKET ECONOMY TO GROW.


We have a MORAL RESPONSIBILITY.

In conclusion, the tea party's best way to accomplish their purpose is to beat President Obama, who is guilty of the three tea party sins.  He has spent us into greater debt and economic ruin, he has pushed for and passed legislation that hurts our future and our ability to grow, and he has held onto and added stifling regulations that keep our economy from growing and hurt our economic competitiveness.  People love to talk about Gingrich and Obama in a debate, but polls show that doesn't matter.  If the tea party wants to maintain any relevance in the political arena, it will stick to it's original principles, not it's self serving current ideological mess.  Those principles and ideals point to Mitt Romney. There are other candidates that stand for these three things too, like Michelle Bachmann. But she does not have the expertise in these three things that Mitt Romney does.  


The tea party core is the Mitt Romney specialty.  The sooner they realize that, the better our chance will be to take back the White House.  If you want a figurehead for your 3-cornered hat movement, pick someone else.  If you want to accomplish your goals, support Mitt.

What Mitt Believes In (complete with fun parables) part 1. Taxes and regulation.

If taxes and regulatory policy seem unbearably boring to you, skip straight to the "explanation for a 9 year old." It's a little more fun. This (like the others) turned into a LONG post. oops.

I've been talking a lot about Newt lately, for good reason.  Our party is turning into a giant hypocritical joke by even giving the guy a second chance.  But I want to give that a rest, and focus on something else.  In debates and on talk shows, Mitt has gotten heat from people that say they "don't know what he stands for." I wanted to make that all a little bit more accessible to people that don't necessarily understand politics.    I want to preface this by saying that I am talking about the most important and pertinent positions, namely those regarding the economy and job creation.  These are taken from Mitt's Believe in America: Mitt Romney's Plan for Jobs and Economic Growth. 


He has divided his economic plan into 7 main parts.  This post will explain just the first 2 of the 7, which I think are the most basic principles of job creation and catalyzing the economy.  This is a paragraph taken from Mitt's plan's introduction.

There’s much that needs to be done and done quickly to put America back 

on the right path. I have formulated a comprehensive and integrated plan that 

focuses on seven areas where reform is urgently needed: taxes, regulation, 

trade, energy, labor, human capital, and fiscal policy. Change in any one of these 

seven areas would be important and helpful by itself. Taken together, they hold 

the potential to revitalize our economy and to reignite the job-creating engine 

of the United States

Taxes- Maintain tax rates, but reduce tax rates on savings and investment.  Eliminate "the death tax" which is the tax on the possessions/estate that are passed on when a person dies. The long term goal is to pursue a flatter, fairer, simpler structure.  Several of the candidates, namely Cain, Huntsman and Perry have talked about the need to "simplify the tax code." These particular ideas will work towards that goal, but he is realistic in not stating outright that a "flat tax" like that in Cain's late "9-9-9" which other candidates and economists revealed to have the potential to do more harm than good. Mitt plans to affect corporate taxes by lowering the corporation income tax to 25.  It currently has a top marginal rate of 35 percent, with even the lowest rate being 15 percent.  The largest corporations and businesses have to give back over a THIRD of their income to the government.  If that doesn't discourage business, I don't know what will. The tax foundation describes that the corporate tax system puts us at a considerable disadvantage to other countries, and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development explains that the best way to create a business friendly environment for investment is to lower corporate income taxes. Mitt took a lot of heat for saying "corporations are people," but the people needed to invest in corporations and business around the country ARE people, and they are the hope for reigniting the fire of the American economy.  While other countries have decreased corporate income taxes in order to keep investment competitive, we have stayed close to the same since the late 80s. And as Obama had made it a personal mission to attack big business and corporation, it is no wonder that these tax rates have remained the same.  His inaction on this has crippled our competitiveness in the global economy.

Explanation for a 9 year old
In an episode of "The Office," accountant Oscar must explain to manager Michael Scott what a surplus is.  After explaining it in official terms, Michael says "explain it to me like I was a ten year old." Oscar explains it using an analogy of children and a lemonade stand.  I will explain Mitts tax ideas similarly.  "Imagine you are opening a lemonade stand.  You need some money to buy supplies, so your friends all get together, gather their pennies, and come up with 5 dollars to buy lemons, sugar, and paper to make signs.  You set up your stand, and make ten dollars.  Ten WHOLE DOLLARS!  Your little sister set up an identical stand down the street, and she made 4 dollars.  As you were cleaning up, a man that lives on the street where you ran your lemonade stand approaches and says that you have to give him some of the money you made.  Since you made so much, you have to give him 3.50 cents.  (35 percent corporate income tax) Your little sister had to give him 1 dollar (25%) Obviously you are still excited about the money you've made, but when you go back to your friends to give them their share, everyone is a little bit disappointed at the 3.50 they lost from you and the dollar they lost from your sister.  The next time you want to play "lemonade stand" they decide they would rather take their pennies and make a lemonade stand on a different street where there isn't a man that will take so much of your income.  Bummer, you lose business, no more lemonade stand.  America is like you and your street.  You are not competitive with other streets that have more relaxed corporate income taxes, and people are not willing to invest in a place where the return is so small.    That affects jobs, (if you got to keep all ten dollars, and your sister all 4, maybe another one of your friends would have opened ANOTHER lemonade stand down the street and the three franchises combined would make BIG money the next time a hot day came around) Instead, your friends have found streets where they only have to pay residents 25% of everything they earn.  You would have been able to keep a whole dollar more on one of those other streets!   Mitt's plan would take our corporate income tax rate down to 25, the average that our competitors are at according to the aforementioned OECD.  This will massively aid domestic corporate investment, and foreign investment, both of which are crucial to the economy of a world power.

regulation- The regulations imposed by the Obama administration through Dodd-Frank and "Obamacare" impose what Mitt calls "stealth expenses" and they act as a "brake on the economy at large." The total price tag of government regulation was put at 1.75 trillion dollars annually, and small manufacturing plants carry a burden of $28,000 per employee. This takes the cost of everything up, and in the end it makes sense for investors in manufacturing and companies that require a great deal of manufacturing to take their businesses overseas, where work is done for much cheaper because of lighter regulations.  In a Steve Jobs biography set to come out soon, Jobs is quoted telling President Obama that he will be a one term President because government regulation and unions made it difficult to build factories in America when places like China were so much cheaper.  The Obama administration has effectively made "made in America" obsolete.  Mitt's plan is to roll back these regulations, starting with Dodd-Frank and Obamacare.  He will then initiate a review and elimination of all Obama-era regulations that unduly burden the economy.  Environmental regulations must be properly account for regulatory costs, and gives new companies lead times before they are required to comply with environmental regulations.  A regulatory cap of 0 dollars will be imposed on all federal agencies. All major regulation will require congressional approval and the process by which regulations are made must be amended.  Mitt understands that regulations that protect the environment, the American people, and the free-market economy are important, but he also understands that there is such thing as too many regulations, and that hurts the economy and the ability for businesses to grow and develop.  President Obama's regulations have had a tremendously negative effect on job creation and economic recovery.

explanation for a 9 year old: lets go back to that lemonade stand analogy.  What if, in addition to the amount you had to pay to the man for taxes, you also had to pay the city for letting you work on their cement, you had to pay for extra clean water, you had to pay to make sure the table and the pitcher you used were sturdy and safe, and about twenty other things.  You watch as the 6.50 you were left with drops even lower, and you see your profit almost disappear.   Guess what.  Any friends that still wanted to build lemonade stands on your street are definitely gone now.  Sad day.  No jobs, no friends, no moneys.

Why Newt took so long to become the frontrunner-

My Facebook/twitter/news pages have been blowing up lately with Anti-Newt articles and posts, and it's got me thinking about the timing of it all.  So I have brought it all together in a once again amateur but thorough attempt to make it all make sense.

There are plenty of reasons why Newt Gingrich is just NOW surging in the polls, after a roller coaster primary season in which pan-handlers in San Francisco actually raised more money than Newt and his staff left the campaign in droves.  To be honest, I actually enjoyed his debate performances and the way he constantly scolded the moderators, the left wing media and even the other candidates for going after each other like democrats.  But nobody took him seriously.  I thought SNL did a pretty good of portraying him from an early debate.  The moderator said "Newt Gingrich.  I'm calling your bluff.  Do you really want to be president?" Newt paused, then sheepishly shook his head no. The moderator responds "Would you like to leave now and beat the rush out of the parking lot?" Newt says thanks and leaves.  Watch the video here. (the Newt questioning is about 5 minutes in)


There are plenty of reasons law-makers aren't rushing to endorse Newt.


And there are plenty of reasons why Obama doesn't seem to care about Newt while he is obsessed with Mitt. I wish I could find an article to say that Obama doesn't care about Newt, but Obama doesn't care about Newt SO MUCH that it's not even IN the news! And it's harder to prove that someone is obsessed than to prove that someone doesn't care.  But perhaps the absence of anything at all is itself evidence that proves my point. But the DNC has pretty loudly ignored Newt, which is pretty telling as well.  Dick Morris thinks Obama would vote for Newt if he could, and Ann Coulter think that Newt is anything but ideal.  And they're pretty conservative right? (Coulters column is particularly thorough)


Please indulge me in an almost Inception or Memento esque thought.  Is Newt Gingrich the Mitt Romney of the Anti-Mitt Romney pool?  Could it be that Newt is the last front runner because the non-Mitt people wanted to exhaust every other option first, in hopes there could be a better anti-Mitt than Gingrich?  

Before I get into the reasons why Newt isn't more popular, I will just say that I think we are all grateful by now for the primary process.  Especially a debate-heavy primary process.  Candidates have been paraded as front-runners and then been exposed as insolent after just a few hours on the debate stage.  As a matter of fact the term "front-runners" has lost all meaning because of how often it follows either the word "former" or some sort of political disaster.  (oops , Libyan uprising, how do you say delicious in Cuban?, and who can forget Michelle Bachman's "HPV causes retardation" mess) Every candidate has been exposed to some sort of weakness or flaw as a presidential candidate that has dropped them from the 20s and down to the 5 or below category to keep Jon Huntsman and Rick Santorum company (two candidates that never reached "front-runner" or even the level of "second tier" candidate).


The truth is that Newt is just not a good candidate.  Politically, he is even more of a flip-flopper/inconsistent than Mitt. He shares in equal part  Mitt's health care issue that seems to follow him everywhere he goes. His tenure as Speaker of the House of Representatives (which many remember as heroic) was actually quite turbulent, which is why he only has 6 congressional endorsements, and Mitt has over 40. He has appeared in a video with Nancy Pelosi to raise awareness about climate change which he later apologized for.  He does look pretty cozy with Princess Nancy though. And who can forget what he said about Paul Ryan's plan to overhaul medicare. He famously called it "Right Wing Social Engineering."To which Paul Ryan responded "with allies like that, who needs the left."  Paul Ryan is Chairman of the house committee on the Budget and has been called one of the most influential voices on the economy. In a congress that can't get anything done in fixing the economy, do we REALLY need to be going after our own? Does a REPUBLICAN former Speaker of the House really need to make a point of cutting the legs out from under a current REPUBLICAN house committee chair?  By discrediting Ryan, Newt gave ammunition to the obstructionist Senate, the Minority leadership, and the Obama administration ammunition against a Republican house that has enough trouble getting things done as it is.  Needless to say, Newt took heat for it. Reagan called it the eleventh commandment, as Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer quoted, "thou shalt not attack fellow republicans."  Krauthammer then said he will not recover.


The final nail in the coffin, and the one that you would THINK would make the biggest difference for the party that lauds it's family values is that Newt is a serial adulterer.  The Huffington Post published an entire (graphic) timeline of his affairs and failed marriages, and they are bad.  Ironically much of it happened while he was leading the charge in the Clinton impeachment case and condemning Clinton for doing exactly what he was doing at the same time.  Say what you will about forgiveness and moving forward, but it shows inability to commit, a lack of moral fiber or even a moral compass, and a pattern that could very well continue into the White House if he were to be elected.  I personally wasn't too convinced by his "My country made me do it" defense or his convenient conversion to Catholicism right as he began working towards his presidential bid.  In that same interview he talked about how "the biggest threat to Judeo-Christian Society" 


"On one front, you have a secular, atheist, elitism. And on the other front, you have radical Islamists. And both groups would like to eliminate our civilization if they could. For different reasons, but with equal passion."


Really Newt?  The biggest threat to Judeo-Christian society is Atheism and elitism and radical Islam?  While those are certainly threats to our livelihood, I think a majority of Christians would agree that the biggest threat to Judeo-Christian society and the fabric of it is the assault on morality. When family values and morality go out the door, so does Judeo-Christian society.  A party that is host to evangelicals, family interest groups, and social conservatism CANNOT support a man with the immoral stature of Newt Gingrich.  I understand that he claims it was all in the past, that he's moved on and hopes his voters will as well.  But I will be shocked if evangelical and other religious leaders that shiver at the very thought of gay marriage get behind a candidate that has made such a mockery of the institution of marriage itself.  Lets hope that we, as a party, can avoid that hypocritical mire.  


For some foaming hypocrisy out of Newts own mouth though, watch this ridiculous interview. (Warning: Newt refers to himself in the first person in this interview, which may cause sudden vomiting) He says he talks about Mitt's inconsistencies and says that voters wonder which position he will take next on an issue. The most public and latest hypocrisy is the 1.6 million he took from Fannie May and co. to act as some sort of "historian" or something along those lines.  He has been accused of lobbying for health care and other things, and the evidence is pretty damning.  This is ALL hypocritical because the way he has spoken about Fannie and Freddie AND lobbyists in the debates. For a more comprehensive list of the Former Speakers serial hypocrisy, see Ron Paul's latest campaign ad. 


In conclusion, some keywords

• health care
• poor leadership history
• climate change with Princess Nancy
• "with allies like that who needs the left"
• serial adultery
• Fanny May
• Lobbying
• Amnesty (something I didn't mention because this got SO long)

Ignore the polls and ignore anything that says Newt is far ahead of Mitt. Intrade has Mitt at 16 ahead of Newt, and has Obama at a 50.1 percent chance of being reelected.  I like that.