The GOP and some other Right Wing Extreme organizations decided to coopt a legitimate Tea Party movement. They spent dollars to curve, mislead, and direct them into areas that will ultimately come back to bite them. Now many GOP politicians will likely be in trouble when it is time for their reelection in 2012.
The Republicans have no intentions of balancing the budget given their tax cut stance. Their only option then would be draconian cuts to programs people like.
If you cut good programs that people like then they will vote you out. Our wealth/income gap necessitates a proactive safety net.
If you do not cut the budget the Tea Party will vote out viable Republicans.
If raise tax as one should on the wealthy that have effectively pilfered the middleclass for the last thirty years, you get a very small base that is upset but has no electoral mass. How difficult is it to be a responsible populist?
My Book: As I See It: Class Warfare The Only Resort To Right Wing Doom
Book’s Webpage: http://books.egbertowillies.com – Twitter: http://twitter.com/egbertowillies
Orrin Hatch Haunted By Ghosts Of Defeat & Could See Tea Party Threat In 2012
The 2010 midterm elections may have only just occurred, but that hasn’t stopped speculation from swirling about the vulnerability of Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch, who will fight to keep his seat for a seventh term in 2012.
According to a Salt Lake Tribune/Mason-Dixon survey released this week, 48 percent of voters in the state say they would replace the longtime senator if he were up for reelection today, while 40 percent indicate they would support him retaining his post. Perhaps a more striking finding from the poll is that just 19 percent of Utah GOP delegates favor reelecting the incumbent lawmaker. 71 percent signal it’s time to replace him with a fresh conservative face.
A brief look at the Utah Republican party’s unusual nominating process — along with the ousting of the state’s other GOP senator, Bob Bennett, earlier this year — lends context to buzz brewing on the potential for a Hatch defeat in the next election cycle.
For an incumbent to secure a place on the state’s primary ballot outright, he or she must lock-up 60 percent voter support from thousands of party delegates. If a lawmaker cannot achieve that threshold, then the two candidates who earn the most votes at the state party convention get their names on the ticket. In Bennett’s case, the process resulted in him becoming the first incumbent Utah senator to lose renomination in six decades. Just before he was kicked-off the ballot, Time magazine reported on conservative efforts underway at the time to take down the longtime senator:
Tea Party leaders and anti-Bennett groups have cast the senator’s plight as a harbinger for Republicans who fail to court newly energized conservative voters and heed the anti-incumbent winds buffeting Washington’s elite. But other analysts say that is giving the Tea Party movement too much credit. They view Bennett’s potential demise as the product of the blood-red state’s unique nomination system, in which a few thousand delegates have the clout to choose a U.S. Senator for a few million residents.
The ghost of Bennett’s defeat now seems to be looming over Hatch’s 2012 reelection hopes. Given the wavering posture the GOP senator has exhibited towards the Tea Party, it seems that he may sense a tangible threat.
As early as February of this year, Hatch cautioned members of his party that the rise of the Tea Party movement could prove to be a detrimental force to the GOP. "If we fractionalize the Republican Party, we are going to see more liberals elected," he explained at a town hall event, provoking backlash from conservative members of the crowd.
At the time of Bennett’s loss, Hatch reiterated a similar message, but also went a step further to criticize "these Tea Party people" as activists who "don’t have an open mind" and "won’t listen." He suggested he could empathize with their anger, but that he thinks "anybody would find fault with" the parochial attitude.
Orrin Hatch Haunted By Ghosts Of Defeat & Could See Tea Party Threat In 2012