Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment, Or, Is the Tea Party Dead?
Peter Robinson ·
October 26, 2012 at 6:16pm
E. J. Dionne of the Washinton Post, writing earlier this week in a column headlined "Tea Party Movement Is Dead":
The right wing has lost the election of 2012.
The evidence for this is overwhelming, yet it is the year's best-kept secret. Mitt Romney would not be throwing virtually all of his past positions overboard if he thought the nation were ready to endorse the full-throated conservatism he embraced to win the Republican nomination.
If conservatism were winning, does anyone doubt that Romney would be running as a conservative? Yet unlike Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater, Romney is offering an echo, not a choice. His strategy at the end is to try to sneak into the White House on a chorus of me-too's.
Discuss.
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Comments:
Apr '11
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment, Or, Is the Tea Party Dead?
Discuss?
Discuss? !!!!!
I'll be right back. Gotta get a few more layers of duct tape around my cranium.
Jul '11
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment, Or, Is the Tea Party Dead?
The movement has passed but the concerto is at a crescendo!
Oct '10
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment, Or, Is the Tea Party Dead?
If not discussed, dissed.
Mar '11
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment, Or, Is the Tea Party Dead?
Apparently this is E.J.'s first ever Presidential Campaign. Republicans always run right in the primary and to the center in the general. Just like Democrats run left in the primary and to the center in the general election. Run to the Base in primary, Run to the center to win the election. This is what Obama did in 2008.
"Conservatism is Dead" because this election is just like every other election.
Jun '10
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment, Or, Is the Tea Party Dead?
Let us first consider whether Dionne has ever had a clue about anyone to the left of John Kerry. Answer: No.
This is a crude attempt to get conservatives to stay home. It won't work because none of us will ever listen to Dionne.
Mar '11
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment, Or, Is the Tea Party Dead?
Writing as someone who once attended a Tea Party rally, and who didn't vote for Mr Romney in the Primary, I can say that the Tea Party is not dead - it is backing Mr Romney (quietly). We'll see on Nov 6 the result.
As for the smug Mr Dionne, it's his tree-based medium that is dead.
Oct '12
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment, Or, Is the Tea Party Dead?
Wishful thinking on his part, at best.
Jun '12
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment, Or, Is the Tea Party Dead?
This article made me laugh out loud. My response was, "Oh honey, we're just getting warmed up."
Mar '11
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment, Or, Is the Tea Party Dead?
Or one could view Mitt Romney's campaign as the normal state of affairs.
The Framers designed the branches of government with the intention that the legislature, especially the House, would channel the grassroots sentiments of America more or less directly. The President, in contrast, would be less beholden to any one ideological group and more in tune with the center of public opinion.
The Tea Party is a populist movement tailor-made to influence congressional elections on a district-by-district basis. The presidential election is not its natural bailiwick.
In other words, the election process is actually doing what it was designed to do.
Apr '12
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment, Or, Is the Tea Party Dead?
EJ will write a column in 2 years about the too conservative supreme court justice President Romney will appoint, the harmful effects of tax cuts and deduction limit, and the draconian decrease in the rate of increase of the size of the federal entitlement apparatus.
Oct '10
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment, Or, Is the Tea Party Dead?
I think Dionne must not have received the latest talking points memo from the White House. He's supposed to be writing about how Romney is extreme and a far right-winger.
Conservatism is so dead that twice as many people identify with it rather than liberalism. The stimulus bill and Obamacare are also very unpopular precisely because no one believes in conservative principles.
Good grief!
Nov '11
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment, Or, Is the Tea Party Dead?
He'll also be writing about how the robust economic recovery is hardest on women and African Americans.
Edited on October 26, 2012 at 6:36pmMay '12
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment, Or, Is the Tea Party Dead?
E.J. Dionne? Who is he? Is he some kind of Scribbler? Where do his Scribblings appear? In the Washington Post? What's that? A newspaper? What's a newspaper?
Jul '11
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment, Or, Is the Tea Party Dead?
E. J. Dionne is still alive?
Nov '10
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment, Or, Is the Tea Party Dead?
The Tea Party is working. However, it has a candidate about whom it does not easily rouse the flames of polical passion. Romney is "good enough for now", not an easy line to marshall the forces with. Fortunately, the general Republican base is fairly well fired up.
As for "dead" -- I think the Tea Party is changing in its activities. I personally think they should continue to have less frequent rallies in larger venues, but it's good to be out in the trenches as they are now.
At its height the Tea Tarty had about 50% support among the electorate, according to PJTV's Tea Party Tracking Poll (among blacks, over 30%). I forget the exact number but it was between 20 and 30 percent who said that, further, they were a part of the Tea Party, which means they had attended a rally or were similarly directly engaged.
Thats -- at minimum -- 60 million Americans. You cannot convince me that 2 years later, the majority of those 60 million Americans no longer identify with the movement. Many are weary of the relentless ridicule, and may have shrunk back. But with enthusiastic leadership and some issues to battle over ...
Mar '11
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment, Or, Is the Tea Party Dead?
Yeah, boy, that 20 debate primary season was really a long unanimous march in one unstoppable direction. The long succession of Not Romney's really goes to show there are no divisions on the Right and that the Tea Party has no role in our politics.
Strange. In May we were being told that the Republican party was slavishly in thrall to the Tea Party and was the most radical Republican party in the history of radical Republican parties. Now, in October, when the election is swinging against the President, suddenly the Tea Party is dead.
Jul '10
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment, Or, Is the Tea Party Dead?
I guess I'm unclear on exactly what Romney is not embracing. Though the third debate was punctuated by agreement on a number of foreign policy points, there remains a big difference in strategy: one candidate actually has one. Saying Romney "praised" the Obama foreign policy is stretching it.
What has happened, almost by default, is that Mitt Romney now occupies both the right and the middle and it isn't because he courted the middle, it's because Obama went left. In 2008, candidate Obama essentially ran on moderate post-partisan platitudes. After winning, he moved left and put to rest any notion that his administration was in any way "post-partisan."
In this election, Obama is a class warrior. Why change the winning strategy? Who knows?!
Perhaps Mr. Dionne mistakes acting civil to one's opponents as "running to center." I haven't thought about Romney's campaign in terms of "center" or "right," probably because it's the only campaign in this race that makes any kind of sense. He's purposely avoided using the term "budget cuts," but if you listened to the five-point plan, you have to know those are on the way.
Jun '12
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment, Or, Is the Tea Party Dead?
The George Orwell Memorial Ministry of Truth has had their Memory Holes working overtime.
Aug '12
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment, Or, Is the Tea Party Dead?
E.J. Dionne....says something utterly vapid and lacking a basis in real observation of real political events. What a non-surprise. Does he still show up on The News Hour?
Feb '12
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment, Or, Is the Tea Party Dead?
Obama: keep healthcare law
Romney: me too?
O: raise taxes
R: me too?
O: additional funding for planned parenthood
R: me too?
O: creepy ads about vote-sex
R: me too?