Schumer Declares War on the Tea Party
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), the Democrats’ chief political messenger, is up to old tricks. In a memo to his Democratic colleagues, Schumer lays out his preferred strategy of blaming “Tea Party Republicans” for the sorry state of the economy. In this case, Schumer argues, Democrats should blame the “extreme” GOP opposition to the President Obama’s jobs bill (defeated last night in the Senate) for putting the economy at risk. As the debate over jobs moves forward, he writes, “the Tea Party’s growing unpopularity has the potential to be the GOP’s Achilles’ Heel.” |
Recent polling appears to confirm Schumer’s claim that the Tea Party’s popularity is waning. A CNN poll in late September found just 28 percent of respondents had a favorable opinion of the Tea Party movement, while 53 percent had an unfavorable view, signaling a steady decline over the past year. Schumer is hoping to capitalized on this perceived weakness. |
“With the economy at a crossroads, the GOP’s current political strategy — block anything that could improve the economy, lest it boost the President’s standing — has the potential to backfire,” Schumer writes. “By linking the GOP to its extreme Tea Party fringe, Democrats can bolster the prospects for the President’s jobs ideas, or at least make clear who is responsible for the stalling of the recovery.” |
He goes on to coin a number of new terms that you can expect to hear parroted ad nauseam by Democrats and other liberal talking heads in the coming weeks and months: “Democrats can make this link by branding the school of thought that resists against any job-creation measures as ‘Tea Party economics.’ The opponents of the President’s jobs proposals should be invoked as ‘Tea Party Republicans.’ If their obstruction continues, it will risk a ‘Tea Party recession.’” |
Tea party talking sense, to which Democrats won’t listen
One lie worth addressing is that the tea party is responsible for the downgrade in the nation’s credit rating. Two-thirds of our government is controlled by Democrats. They were well aware that they had to cut $4 trillion in the budget or the downgrade was going to happen. They chose to block “Cut, Cap, & Balance,” which was the first legislation proposed by the House. |
Hence, House Speaker John Boehner was forced to work with an irresponsible president and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to come up with a halfhearted bill that does not cut more than two days worth of federal spending. |
Rawding can continue to spew mistruths about the tea party representatives, but they are the only sane voice in an otherwise worthless Congress. The truth is we do not deserve a AAA rating when 42 cents of every dollar is borrowed. We spend a billion dollars a day in borrowed money on a non-war in Libya. |
The tea party has the rope to pull the country back from the cliff. Grab hold and come to the table with the truth. |
Ugly to compare tea party with terrorists
The cycle of incitement continued this week as Democrats frustrated with the debt-ceiling deal equated the tea party with terrorists, just weeks before the 10th anniversary of 9/11. |
It is an ugly and unacceptable comparison, especially coming — as it did — on the heels of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ triumphant return to Congress after being shot in Tucson in January. |
The instinct to raise funds off fear-mongering was also deployed in record time, as GOP presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann — no stranger herself to the politics of incitement — fired off an e-mail which read: “The Democrats have stooped to a new low. This afternoon, Vice President Joe Biden reportedly led a congressional meeting where tea party members were labeled as ‘terrorists.’ “ |
Tea party won’t take down Allen West, but Democrats might
Talk of a tea party challenge to Rep. Allen West
(R-Fla.) is overblown. But that doesn’t mean he’ll be in the House come 2013. |
The announcement last week that tea party groups were targeting West for supporting the debt ceiling plan proposed by House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) — a plan that could not get enough Republican support to pass the House — was taken as a sign that the movement had started to eat its own. In 2012, West was propelled into office by tea party activists; he’s a fixture on the tea party circuit. If he can’t survive one controversial vote with his reputation intact, no one can. |
West has continued to stand behind GOP leadership, saying over the weekend that the compromise deal scheduled for a House vote Monday night was a “good one.” Should he be worried? |
Defining the Tea Party Democrat
Republicans are fond of pointing out that the tea party includes not just Republicans, but also independents and Democrats. |
In announcing her presidential bid earlier this month, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann described the tea party this way: “It’s made up of disaffected Democrats. It’s made up of independents. It’s made up of people who have never been political a day in their life.” |
But, political rhetoric aside, is there really such thing as a Tea Party Democrat? |
The answer is yes, Tea Party Democrats do exist. But there’s also little reason to believe they have had a major role in the movement or in American politics. |
Democrats and the T.E.A. Party
After more than two years of vilification and excoriation have Progressive Democrats found the lever to destroy the T.E.A. Party? |
I read a short article on Newsmax.com last Tuesday that was entitled “Democrats Launching Their Own Tea Party”. And I thought to myself; “Yeah, like that’ll work.” For those gentle readers here at IC that still aren’t familiar with the T.E.A. Party (and you must have been living under a rock somewhere); please allow me to attempt to summarize this grass roots political movement. |
Most reasonable people, of which the T.E.A. Party is overwhelmingly populated with, peg the birth of this movement to February 19th 2009 when, during a broadcast from the floor of the Mercantile Exchange in Chicago CNBC Business Editor Rick Santelli had his own personal ‘I’m-mad-as-hell-and-I’m-not-going-to-take-it-anymore’ moment. He brutally criticized the administration plan to refinance mortgages saying these plans were promoting bad behavior by subsidizing losers’ mortgages. His suggestion was that traders gather to dump derivatives in the Chicago River as a protest. Traders on the floor of the exchange cheered his proposal, video of his on-air rant went viral, and thanks to the internet, a movement was born. |
House votes to restrict unions
House lawmakers voted overwhelmingly last night to strip police officers, teachers, and other municipal employees of most of their rights to bargain over health care, saying the change would save millions of dollars for financially strapped cities and towns. |
The 111-to-42 vote followed tougher measures to broadly eliminate collective bargaining rights for public employees in Ohio, Wisconsin, and other states. But unlike those efforts, the push in Massachusetts was led by Democrats who have traditionally stood with labor to oppose any reduction in workers’ rights. |
Unions fought hard to stop the bill, launching a radio ad that assailed the plan and warning legislators that if they voted for the measure, they could lose their union backing in the next election. After the vote, labor leaders accused House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo and other Democrats of turning their backs on public employees. |
“It’s pretty stunning,’’ saidRobert J. Haynes, president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO. “These are the same Democrats that all these labor unions elected. The same Democrats who we contributed to in their campaigns. The same Democrats who tell us over and over again that they’re with us, that they believe in collective bargaining, that they believe in unions… . It’s a done deal for our relationship with the people inside that chamber.’’ |
Tea Party, a win for Republicans
We’re coming up fast on the deadline by which Congress needs to agree on government funding or the Feds has to turn the lights off. The negotiations remain fluid, but here’s what seems pretty clear: The House Republican leadership will win, the Tea Party will be disappointed and the Democrats will lose. But really, it’ll be the Tea Party that won, the House Republican leadership who learned a valuable lesson and the Democrats who lost. Confused? Let me explain. |
Back in February, Paul Ryan unveiled what was supposed to be the opening bid from the House Republicans: $32 billion in cuts for the rest of 2011. But the Tea Party demanded more and House leadership quickly caved, doubling their proposed cuts to more than $60 billion — or almost $100 billion less than barack Obama’s 2011 budget request (quick note: different news stories present these numbers differently, as it depends on whether you use Obama’s budget request or 2010’s funding as a baseline. I’m using the difference from 2010 funding, which makes for lower sums). Now Democrats are offering as a compromise measure $30 billion in total cuts, or exactly what Ryan’s original proposal had called for. Pretty neat, huh? |
Some Democrats and their supporters are treating the assassination attempt on Congressman Gabrielle Giffords as Barack Obama’s “Oklahoma City moment”
Dems look to crash tea party
| Carolyn Schaeffer thinks Democrats have plenty of reasons to be enthusiastic this year. |
Schaeffer, chairwoman of the Yates County Democratic Committee, would like to think voters would remember and appreciate all that.
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But a different narrative seems to be driving this election. And that narrative says Democrats will lose — possibly in droves — having lost the enthusiasm that propelled them into office in 2008, along with the support of independent voters.
The tea party has the energy this time, conventional wisdom says, and the Democrats will also suffer from a left wing dissatisfied with President Barack Obama’s performance and ready to sit out the election. If some tea party members see him as a socialist, some Democrats see him as too centrist.
That’s the story.
But local Democrats aren’t necessarily reading from the same book, even if they stop short of predicting landslide victories tomorrow night.
Read more at www.fltimes.com |
