Enter Tea Party Sarah, Ron Paul Spoiler
The republican establishment is frightened to death of the prospect of a Ron Paul win in Iowa and New Hampshire. They will do just about anything to make him go away. |
“Conservatives and Republican elites in the state are divided over who to support for the GOP nomination, but they almost uniformly express concern over the prospect that Ron Paul and his army of activist supporters may capture the state’s 2012 nominating contest — an outcome many fear would do irreparable harm to the future role of the first-in-the-nation caucuses,” writes Politico today. |
Prior to Iowa governor Terry Branstad saying that if Paul wins the caucus it should be ignored, Chris Wallace of Fox News said that if Paul wins it does not count. Establishment pundits and operatives seem to think that if you ignore Ron Paul he will disappear. |
Less than two weeks before the Iowa caucus, Sarah Palin – who declared in October she would not run – arrives on the scene to shake things up. “It’s not too late for folks to jump in,” Palin told Fox News on Monday. “Who knows what will happen in the future.” |
Establishment Tea Party Activist Supports Romney Presidential Bid
A prominent activist for the hijacked Tea Party in New Hampshire has declared he will support Mitt Romney’s bid for president. Tom Thompson is the son of the late Meldrim Thomson, former governor of New Hampshire and an anti-tax activist. Tom Thompson is the chairman of New Hampshire’s Americans for Prosperity. |
“I was a Tea Party activist before it was cool,” Thomson told the Union Leader. “And as a Tea Party person, I believe the best avenue to the White House is through Mitt Romney.” |
The Tea Party was created by libertarians as part of Tax Day protests. In 2007, supporters of Ron Paul used the anniversary of the original Tea Party in Boston as a fund raising event for the 2008 primaries. They advocated an end to fiat money and the Federal Reserve System, ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and supporting states’ rights. |
GOP leaders oust tea party-backed New Hampshire chairman
A tea party-backed chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party — under fire for lackluster fundraising, election losses and inexperience on the job — resigned just minutes before fed-up GOP leaders could remove him. |
Jack Kimball — who became chairman just seven months ago as part of the much-heralded “tea party revolution” in New Hampshire — stepped down, telling supporters “I am not going to become an obstacle for this party.” |
His forced resignation is widely viewed as another sign of the tea party’s declining fortunes and a move by Republican leaders who are trying to take back control of the party from the tea party. |
Ron Paul Crushes the Field in New Hampshire Straw Poll
“Ron Paul’s message of traditional conservatism — fiscal restraint, limited government, and strong national defense — is clearly the future of the Republican Party,” said state Sen. Jim Forsythe, Paul’s New Hampshire chairman who spoke at the event. “The other candidates know that and sound more like him every day. But there are convenient copies, and there’s the real thing. |
“It takes more than a sound bite and a flip-flop to fool New Hampshire voters,” added Forsythe. “That’s why there’s real momentum here for Ron Paul.” |
Despite his lead in almost every poll of New Hampshire, Romney ignored the event. So did Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia and former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. Their campaigns did not send representatives to the event and they did not set up tables. Read more at www.sunshinestatenews.com |
NH tea party group goes after Perry
Gov. Rick Perry has enjoyed support from many in the Texas tea party movement, but he recently received a chillier reception in New Hampshire, home of the nation’s first presidential primary. |
The New Hampshire Tea Party Coalition, an organization of 47 like-minded groups, has published a blog post that criticizes Perry over a number of issues, including his support for the DREAM Act of 2001, which let certain illegal immigrants pay cheaper in-state tuition to attend Texas universities. |
The lengthy post includes links to coverage of Perry’s now-abandoned Trans Texas Corridor toll road plan and his short-lived 2007 executive order requiring that Texas schoolgirls be vaccinated against the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus. |
The site also notes that Perry, before joining the Republican Party, was Democrat Al Gore’s Texas campaign chairman in 1988 and endorsed “liberal cross dresser and gun grabber” Rudy Giuliani in the 2008 GOP presidential race. Read more at www.statesman.com |
The Sununus and the tea party
Asked about the relevance of tea party-backed U.S. senators earlier this year, John E. Sununu he told CNN: “This is not only a story that’s overblown, but it’s 180 degrees from the truth … This is like the most establishment insider class of senators that you’ve had, I bet, in 35 years.” |
They have a point: many tea party activists in this politically active state have history with a Republican Party in he state that has long opposed the idea of a ever-expanding federal government. |
They point to last year’s Senate primary, when GOP recruit Kelly Ayotte nearly lost to tea party-backed Ovide Lamontagne. Then there was the chairmanship race in January, when tea party candidate Jack Kimball, an outspoken businessman beat the elder Sununu’s preferred candidate, a longtime party volunteer. |
Tim Pawlenty joins Tea Party movement
Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty will join the Tea Party movement in New Hampshire during an upcoming event. |
Mr. Pawlenty will headline a Tea Party rally in New Hamsphire next month alongside former Pennsylvania U.S. Senator Rick Santorum. |
The “taxpayer Tea Party rally,” sponsored by Americans for Prosperity-New Hampshire, will take place at the state house in Concord on April 15. |
They have begun to fight; have liberals?
Let’s face it: Conservative Republicans and Tea Party adherents in a number of states are feeling it after victories in the November elections, topped off by a Republican takeover of the U.S. House. And they are wasting little time attacking government spending and much more.
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But the most outrageous from a liberal — or, we hope moderate viewpoint — in-your-face proposal might be rolling out in nearby New Hampshire. The legislature there has shifted to Republican/Tea Party control, and out have come some hard right — as in a punch in the nose — initiatives. One would inhibit enrollment and voting by college students.
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Less there be any doubt about the reasoning behind this proposal, The Washington Post reported that New Hampshire’s new Republican state House Speaker, William O’Brien, recently outlined his views at a Tea Party group gathering. And of course he was taped and ended up on YouTube.
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Former Tea Party activist leads GOP
Jack Kimball, a former Tea Party activist, will take over as New Hampshire’s Republican Party Chairman on Saturday following his victory over Juliana Bergeron on Jan. 22, The New York Times reported. Kimball, described by his peers as a staunch fiscal and social conservative, will lead the state’s Republican Party during New Hampshire’s presidential primary, which will be a decisive factor in the 2012 elections. |
Representatives of both parties have expressed mixed opinions about whether Kimball’s conservative credentials and participation in the Tea Party movement will have a significant effect on the New Hampshire presidential primary, according to The Times. New Hampshire’s primary — tentatively scheduled for Feb. 14, 2012 — is historically the first in the nation and serves as an indicator of candidates’ success nationwide. |
“His election completed the Tea Party take down of the New Hampshire Republican Party,” Kirstein said. “And what’s even more troubling is the people who were backing him. O’Brien said that he needed Kimball because he needed reinforcement in the legislative war he is fighting in Concord. Both continue to frame their agenda in dangerous, war-like terms.” |
Tea Party Activist Wins NH GOP Chair
 A New Hampshire Tea Party activist was chosen chairman of the Republican State Committee Saturday in a state party election that drew the attention of major news media from around the country looking for clues to what impact the choice might have on the first-in-the-nation presidential primary there next year.
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“The race was watched as a sign of how much influence Tea Party groups will exert here in the lead-up to New Hampshire’s presidential primary,” the New York Times reported after Jack Kimball, called a “founding father” of the New Hampshire Tea Party Coalition, won the vote of committee members on Saturday in Derry. Kimball, a relative newcomer to New Hampshire politics, outpolled veteran party organizer and Cheshire County Republican Chairman Juliana Bergeron 222 to 199. Kimball advertised his Tea Party roots in last year’s Republican gubernatorial primary, where he finished a distant second to former Health and Human Services Commissioner John Stephen. But in what many saw as a battle between the party’s old guard and its new grassroots activists, outgoing chairman and former Governor John H. Sununu and four of the state’s five-member Executive Council backed Bergeron, while newly elected Speaker of the New Hampshire House of Representatives William O’Brien and House Majority Leader D. J. Bettencourt were among the Kimball backers. |
