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    Santorum Victories Disprove Tea Party Myth

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    COMMENTARY | Rick Santorum's sweeping victories in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri do more than buoy the former Pennsylvania senator's chances of winning the Republican presidential nomination or hand front-runner Mitt Romney a severe setback. Santorum's triple win also disproves the popular myth that the tea party is somehow a new phenomenon in conservative politics rather than the same old gang of extremists made up mostly of the Christian Right.

    That the tea party was somehow separate from the Christian Right was always rather obvious, even though the mainstream media embraced the myth, making distinctions that never existed in practice. Many prominent tea party figures such as former GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann and former Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell, sprang from an enjoy large support from conservative evangelical circles, and opinion studies have shown the tea party looks a lot like the old conservative movement.

    Polling shows little enthusiasm for supposed Romney and that many in Florida voted for him only because they thought he was the candidate with the best chance to beat Barrack Obama in November. Romney failed to carry a majority in Florida, won Nevada by a smaller margin than in 2008 and movement conservatives continue to lurch around looking for an alternative to Romney, the Republican Party's anointed.

    Yet who did the supposed new model, anti-socialist, economic libertarians of the tea party choose in large numbers in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri? Not the ardent libertarian Ron Paul or more secular Newt Gingrich, but Catholic conservative Santorum, who is more renowned for his anti-gay and anti-abortion stances than his economic views.

    Unlike Iowa, Tuesday's results cannot be dismissed as a mere aberration in a Christian Right-friendly state. Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri represent a very broad geographical cross-section of America, as well as a diverse sampling of the Republican rank and file. If the tea party was ever distinct from the old conservative movement, it certainly is not today.

     

    6 comments

    • Jack  •  Austin, Texas  •  3 mths ago
      The Tea Party was hijacked by neocons who saw it as a politically expedient way of getting elected. Most of the people claiming to be Tea Party are just the same old big government big spending insider politicians that have ruined this country.
      The ideas of limited government and personal liberty were the base of the tea Party. Santorum is a supporter of neither. He is a big spending insider and supporter of the Patriot Act and NDAA two of the most unconstitutional pieces of legislation we have.
    • Sub Missive  •  3 mths ago
      Roll on, Santorum! The media has been pushing Romney down our throats for way too long. It's great to see that everyone isn't falling and line and doing what they are told!
      • A Yahoo! User 3 mths ago
        Right - roll on and kill our fellow Republicans because with your views, you will never become President, The few that will vote for you are not enough win the Presidency. It will take a NEWT to beat Obammer, not someome who is a flip flopper, and not someone with strange brew (views) or who cherry picks from the Bible. Me and my family and extended family have voted Republican for the past 45 years, But we believe in live and let live and will NEVER vote for another crazzy because they will eventually destroy our party.
      • Parker 3 mths ago
        Right on - you have seen the light. Thanks for using your own brain to think.
      • GEORGE 3 mths ago
        You republicans wake up & see the light The Tea Party is going to take you down the wrong road. Don't be stupid & vote republican like the last election. You see where you got us, & it's not Obama's fault.
    • Me  •  3 mths ago
      It's no myth, Teatards are real
      • Brad 3 mths ago
        Idiot.
      • mark 3 mths ago
        Brad you the idiot teatards are the real threats
    • say yes to tacos  •  Wilmington, North Carolina  •  3 mths ago
      The Tea Party served its purpose for the the most vocal of the sore losers of the 2008 election when, with the corporate backing of Fox News and its nutjob du jour Glenn Beck, it gave the majority back to the Repubs in the 2010 mid terms. it's simply too radical to have sustained a longer shelf life then beyond the mid terms. It's figure heads, Bachmann and Palin, have both had their political #$%$ handed to them by their own parties in the last six months.
    • fedup52  •  Tampa, Florida  •  3 mths ago
      Long term power sources do not want to distribute that power. The Republican leadership is considering rules that you must have been a club member for 3 years prior to nomination for leadership in just the county RPOF. That's enough said
    • William Smith  •  Birmingham, Alabama  •  3 mths ago
      Hmmm. who is Rich Thomas? In his own words, "A Kentuckian and longtime resident of Washington, DC with an MA in international affairs." In other words, a Beltway insider, educated by Orwellian professors of international affairs somewhere to be a Clintonian policy wonk. The Tea Party is much, much more than traditional right wing Christian conservatives. It is a much broader coalition of constitutionalists, more in tune with the decentralized federalism of the Founders than anything his Marxist profs and fellow travellers in the Lamestream media can imagine.

      More succinctly, the Tea Party philosophy is the ONLY way to reestablish this Republic to last another 200 years and not become a footnote in history.
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