Category: Tea Party

Report shows professionals cashing in on tea party push

Posted by dcrim – October 3, 2011

A look at some of todays stories while wondering how the Cardinals overcame a 4-0 deficit against Cliff Lee:

If you’ve got fundraising muscle, it pays to be tea party. That’s the takeaway from recently released financial reports for five of the biggest conservative groups that latched onto the small government movement, according to Politico. The groups – Americans for Prosperity, FreedomWorks, Club for Growth, Leadership Institute and Tea Party Express – raised $79 million last year. That’s a 61-percent increase from their haul in 2009, when the tea party first started gaining traction, and an 88 percent increase over their tally in 2008, according to a POLITICO review of campaign reports and newly released tax filings.

Writes Kenneth P. Vogel:

It’s an entirely different story for the rag-tag local groups that form the heart of the tea party, which struggle to raise cash.

The imbalance is worrisome to some grassroots tea party activists, who warn that the movement is at risk of becoming dependent on the type of centralized, top-down political structure that contributed to tea partiers’ distaste for both political parties, as well as Washington’s conservative establishment.

Former NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Fran Tarkenton excoriated teachers unions in a Monday Wall Street Journal editorial that envisions what would happen if some of America’s education policies were applied to the football field.

America’s favorite curmudgeon delivered his final rant on Sunday’s ‘60 Minutes’ after 62 years at CBS News. From grumbling over Bill Gates to moaning about his eyebrows and bellyaching over mixed nuts, see Andy Rooney’s best essays.

Assessing the winners and losers of debt deal

Posted by dcrim – August 3, 2011

Now that Congress has signed off on the debt deal, Daniel Stone looks at the political fallout—from President Barack Obama’s reelection prospects to the Tea Party’s power in the U.S. House.

Profiles in sleaze and courage: The Los Angeles Times opines on the differences between Arizona Democrat Gabrielle Giffords, who staged a triumphant return this week, and Oregon Democrat David Wu, who slunk away for home after yet another sex scandal.

Art of compromise lost during cantankerous debt limit debate

Posted by dcrim – August 2, 2011

The Senate is expected to approve emergency bipartisan legislation later today to allow the government to borrow more. Speechwriter and author Michael Cohen, writing for Politico, laments that the months-long debate for raising the debt ceiling — once a formality — provides a glimpse of the death of effective politics.

What we have seen over the past few weeks is the continuing erosion of the notion that political compromise, the linchpin of our democratic system, is the key to effective legislating and policymaking. Hostage-taking has replaced deal making in Washington with potentially devastating consequences for the political system.

Click here for the entire analysis.

And the 2012 Republican presidential nominee will be …

Posted by dcrim – April 23, 2011

Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer takes a stab at handicapping the 2012 Republican presidential field.

Columnist Doyle McManus of the Los Angeles Times writes that the Republican Party can do better than Donald Trump — and it will — at choosing a 2012 presidential nominee.

Meanwhile, Townhall and HotAir are conducting a poll to gauge whom conservatives are currently leaning toward.

Obama, tea party seen less favorably by Americans in latest polls

Posted by dcrim – March 30, 2011

Let’s go polling:

A Gallup poll shows that Americans have grown increasingly less likely to view President Obama as a strong and decisive leader since he took office. Roughly half now believe this aptly describes, him compared with 60 percent a year ago and 73 percent in April 2009.

Obama’s approval rating and prospects for reelection have plunged to all-time lows in a Quinnipiac University poll.

The approval rating for the 2-year-old tea party movement fell to 32 percent in a CNN/Opinion Research corporation poll, the lowest it’s been since CNN first polled on the tea party in January 2010.

Freewheeling debates reveal new way of doing business in House

Posted by dcrim – February 20, 2011

John Bresnahan and Jonathan Allen of Politico report that the sometimes chaotic debates last week in the U.S House were an example of Speaker John Boehner living up to his promise to decentralize power in that chamber, to shift it from the speaker’s office and leadership after decades of creeping control of the chamber in fewer hands. Click here for the story.

Unlike his predecessors, Democrat and Republican alike, Boehner has vowed not to run the House with a tight fist. Bresnahan and Allen note that even some veteran Democrats praised what was the most open and sprawling floor fight the House had seen in years. James Madison, after all, envisioned the House being a chamber “of the people,” elected directly by the people of the United States and representing public opinion.

Illinoisans don’t have to look far to see what happens when so much power is concentrated in the hands of so few.

On Sheen, Reagan, Bachmann, Challenger and trading Pujols

Posted by dcrim – January 29, 2011

Saturday morning shorts while trying to digest the stunning news that Charlie Sheen has reportedly checked himself into a rehab facility after suffering a hernia during an all-night party with five porn stars:

• On the eve of the 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth, the Washington Examiner offers a retrospective on the nation’s 40th president.

• Politico reports third-term Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann has developed a fan base like 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s: Energized, fiercely loyal and capable of making a critic’s life miserable with threats of political retribution. Meanwhile, Gail Collins of the New York Times writes: Is Michele Bachmann the new Sarah Palin? And do we really need a new Sarah Palin? Shouldn’t the first one be made to go away before we start considering replacements?

• Twenty-five years have passed since the Challenger space shuttle exploded 73 seconds into its flight. From the Associated Press: “ … images of the exploding space shuttle still signify all that can go wrong with technology and the sharpest minds. The accident … remains NASA’s most visible failure. … It was the world’s first high-tech catastrophe to unfold on live television.

• As the clock continues to count down on the Cardinals’ contract negotiations with Albert Pujols, ESPN’s Buster Olney reports the slugger will veto any trade proposals should that strategy emerge.

One presidential term or two? What will Obama decide?

Posted by dcrim – December 2, 2010

Political consultant Ben Goddard, writing for The Hill, wonders if body language indicates that Barack Obama will decide to be a one-term president. The last president who didn’t inherit the office to not seek a second term: Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880. Not that a second term generally turns out to be successful.

This seems to prove the W.C. Fields’ theory that there’s a sucker (willing to write a check) born every minute.

This should be riveting reading. Please keep the crayons inside the lines.

How would Hillary have done? Can Obama pull off a Truman?

Posted by dcrim – November 9, 2010

In the wake of last week’s election debacle, Dana Milbank of the Washington Post asks the question: Would we be better off  under a President Hillary Clinton?

Would unemployment have been lower under a President Hillary? Would the Democrats have lost fewer seats on Tuesday? It’s impossible to know. But what can be said with confidence is that Clinton’s toolkit is a better match for the current set of national woes than they were for 2008, when her support for the Iraq war dominated the campaign.

Back then, Clinton’s populist appeal to low-income white voters, union members and workers of the Rust Belt was not enough to overcome Obama’s energized youth vote. But Clinton’s working-class whites were the very ones who switched to the Republicans on Tuesday.

Frank Rich of the New York Times reasons that no one can win an election without a coherent message. He suggests that President Obama, despite his administration’s genuine achievements, didn’t have one. On the other hand, Republicans don’t have one either, and that could make things interesting if Obama decides to apply a little Harry Truman.

Obama has a huge opening here — should he take it. He could call the Republicans’ bluff by forcing them to fill in their own blanks. He could start by offering them what they want, the full Bush tax cuts, in exchange for a single caveat: G.O.P. leaders would be required to stand before a big Glenn Beck-style chalkboard — on C-Span, or, for that matter, Fox News — and list, with dollar amounts, exactly which budget cuts would pay for them. Once they hit the first trillion — or even $100 billion — step back and let the “adult conversation” begin!

Better still, the president should open this bargaining session to the full spectrum of his opposition. As he said at his forlorn news conference on Wednesday, he is ready to consider policy ideas “whoever proposes them.” So why not cut to the chase and invite Congressional Tea Party heavyweights like Jim DeMint, Rand Paul and Michele Bachmann (seen at left) to the White House along with the official G.O.P. leadership? They will offer the specifics that Boehner and McConnell are too shy to divulge.

DeMint published a book last year detailing his view that Social Security be privatized to slow America’s descent into socialism. Paul can elaborate on his ideas for reducing defense spending and cutting back on drug law enforcement. Bachmann will explain her plans for weaning Americans off Medicare.

Milbank: Don’t expect things to get any better after Tuesday

Posted by dcrim – November 1, 2010

There have been a lot of comparisons between this election and the one in 1994, when Republicans swept into office and took control of the Congress midway through Bill Clinton’s first term as president. Dana Milbank of the Washington Post writes that there is one major difference: The GOP had adults in the room back then.

When Republicans gained control of Congress 16 years ago, the revolutionaries were eventually convinced by their leaders to cut deals with President Bill Clinton, leading to milestone achievements on the budget and welfare reform.

But there is no Bob Dole in the Republican leadership today; there isn’t even a Newt Gingrich. There is nobody with the clout to tell Tea Party-inspired backbenchers when it’s time to put down the grenades and negotiate. Rather, there are weak leaders who, frightened by the Tea Party radicals, have become unquestioning followers of a radical approach.

Ronald Reagan, head of a revolution that bears his name and which continues to be invoked today, was able to work with House Speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill (pictured above) as president to accomplish things for the greater good. Milbank doesn’t see history repeating itself.

The difference now is that, particularly on the Republican side, there are no authority figures to say “no” to the angry, the rude and the violent. With a House leader determined not to compromise, and a Senate leader whose top national priority is the defeat of the president, things won’t get any better after Tuesday.

Frank Rich of the New York Times sees the influence of the tea party a little differently.

What the Tea Party ostensibly wants most — less government spending and smaller federal deficits — is not remotely happening on the country club G.O.P.’s watch. The elites have no serious plans to cut anything except taxes and regulation of their favored industries. The party’s principal 2010 campaign document, its “Pledge to America,” doesn’t vow to cut even earmarks — which barely amount to a rounding error in the federal budget anyway. …

For sure, the Republican elites found the Tea Party invaluable on the way to this Election Day.  … What made the Tea Party most useful was that its loud populist message gave the G.O.P. just the cover it needed both to camouflage its corporate patrons and to rebrand itself as a party miraculously antithetical to the despised G.O.P. that gave us George W. Bush and record deficits only yesterday.