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The U.S. House Tea Party Caucus was unveiled this week. 40 of the House's most radical right-wingers have signed up. The usual suspects are all there including Michele Bachmann, who once called Obama anti-American; Joe "You Lie" Wilson; and BP apologist Joe Barton.
We know the GOP candidates in New Hampshire's 1st District—Frank Guinta, Rich Ashooh and Sean Mahoney—are all big fans.
But we haven't heard from Charlie Bass who, we can imagine, would like to coast through the primary without publicly embracing the tea party so he can then emerge as "Mr. Moderate."
But take a look at who is contributing to his campaign:
Joe L. Barton (R-Texas) $7,000
Pete Sessions (R-Texas) $5,000
Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) $1,000
Lamar Smith (R-Texas) $1,000
Ralph Hall (R-Texas) $500
Five of the Tea Party Caucus members have given Bass money. Do they know something we don't know?
Postscript: I've updated the list of Bass 2010 PAC contributions with data from the second quarter. "PAC Man" Bass bagged another $67,000 in PAC money.
The Republican candidates for Congress in New Hampshire's 1st District have eagerly embraced the House's new Tea Party Caucus, as veteran Republican lawmakers warily weigh the risks.
Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives Administration Committee approved a request by Rep. Michele Bachmann to form the Tea Party Caucus.
Tea party enthusiast Bachmann claims the caucus "would do nothing more than promote the timeless principles of our founding, principles that all Members of Congress have sworn to uphold." Others aren't so sure.
By creating the caucus, Bachmann is forcing House members to choose whether or not to officially join the movement. It's a decision that Politico says is causing heartburn for lawmakers.
On June 26, 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 219-212 in favor of HR 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES). Only eight Republicans - we'll call them the "Enlightened Eight" - voted "aye." These Republicans were Mary Bono-Mack (CA-45), Mike Castle (DE-AL), John McHugh (NY-23), Frank LoBiondo (NJ-2), Leonard Lance (NJ-7), Mark Kirk (IL-10), Dave Reichert (WA-8), and Christopher Smith (NJ-4).
Republicans voting for cap and trade in the year of the Tea Party? You'd think that they'd be dumped in the harbor by now. Instead, they're all doing fine. In fact, to date, not a single one of these Republicans has been successfully primaried by the "tea party" (or otherwise). Instead, we have two - Castle and Kirk - running for U.S. Senate, one (McHugh) who was appointed Secretary of the Army by President Obama, and five others - Bono-Mack, LoBiondo, Lance, Reichert, Smith - running for reelection.
Rep. Lance actually was challenged by not one, not two, but three "Tea Party" candidates. One of Lance's opponents, David Larsen, even produced this nifty video, helpfully explaining that "Leonard Lance Loves Cap & Trade Taxes." So, did this work? Did the Tea Partiers overthrow the tyrannical, crypto-liberal Lance? Uh, no. Instead, in the end, Lance received 56% of the vote, easily moving on to November.
Meanwhile, 100 miles or so south on the Jersey Turnpike, Rep. LoBiondo faced two "Tea Party" candidates - Donna Ward and Linda Biamonte - who also attacked on the cap-and-trade issue. According to Biamonte, cap and trade "is insidious and another tax policy... a funneling of money to Goldman Sachs and Al Gore through derivatives creating a carbon bubble like the housing bubble." You'd think that Republican primary voters in the year of the Tea Party would agree with this line of attack. Yet LoBiondo won with 75% of the vote.
Last but not least in New Jersey, Christopher Smith easily turned back a Tea Party challenger - Alan Bateman - by a more than 2:1 margin. Bateman had argued that "Obama knows he can count on Smith to support the United Nations' agenda to redistribute American wealth to foreign countries through international Cap & Trade agreements and other programs that threaten our sovereignty." Apparently, Republican voters in NJ-4 didn't buy that argument.
Across the country in California's 45th District, Mary Bono-Mack won 71% of the vote over Tea Party candidate Clayton Thibodeau on June 8. This, despite Thibodeau attacking Bono-Mack as "the only Republican west of the Mississippi to vote for Cap and Trade." Thibodeau also called cap and trade "frightening," claiming that government could force you to renovate your home or meet requirements before you purchase a home. Thibodeau's scare tactics on cap-and-trade clearly didn't play in CA-45.
Finally, in Washington's 8th Congressional District, incumbent Rep. Dave Reichert has drawn a Tea Party challenger named Ernest Huber, who writes that Cap and Trade "is widely viewed as an attempt at Soviet-style dictatorship using the environmental scam of global warming/climate change... written by the communist Apollo Alliance, which was led by the communist Van Jones, Obama's green jobs czar." We'll see how this argument plays with voters in Washington's 8th Congressional District, but something tells us it's not going to go over any better than in the New Jersey or California primaries.
In sum, it appears that it's quite possible for Republicans to vote for comprehensive, clean energy and climate legislation and live (politically) to tell about it. The proof is in the primaries.
...Kelly Ayotte is likely to win the Republican primary in New Hampshire. Currently the state's attorney general, she is a mainstream conservative: for lower taxes, against abortion. This is exactly the kind of candidate Republicans ought to nominate...
...But this good news for the mainstream GOP is balanced by the grim tally for Tea Party candidates.
Kelly Ayotte on Kelly Ayotte:
Was glad to see my friend Tom Thomson at today's Upper Valley Tea Party in Enfield.
Those who are regular visitors to this space know that I post stories across the country, and to do that I have to follow stories from a number of states.
Because I post at Kentucky's Hillbilly Report, I've been paying particular attention to the Rand Paul campaign, and the news from the Bluegrass State (via "The Rush Limbaugh Show") is that Paul's planning to write his own balanced budget proposal for the Federal Government.
But there's a catch.
He doesn't plan on doing it until after the election.
Well, now, why in the world would a guy who's running for office based on his really good ideas want to hold back the best one?
That's not a bad question, and if we make the effort we can probably figure out the most likely answers.
Marc Ambinder writes perceptively about "the slow mainstreaming of wacky ideas. Call it the victory of the heckler's vetoers or attribute it to the dynamics of the way groups are formed, but more and more outre ideas are finding their way into politics these days."
His wacky idea du jour is the tea party-backed call to repeal the 17th Amendment which provides for the direct election of U.S. senators in lieu of having them selected by state legislatures. Supporters of repeal blame the amendment for creating excessive federal control by removing checks and balances previously available to the states to control Congress.
In a debate last week, the Republican CD-1 candidates were asked if they supported repeal. To their credit, each stated opposition to repeal -- "for now". But in follow-up interviews with Granite Grok, they stumbled all over themselves to lend credence to the idea of repeal and its supporters.
Frank Guinta: "There are pros and cons. We need to weigh this one very carefully." Rich Ashooh: "I'm not sure exactly what the answer is, whether it is full out repeal (or) a different kind of amendment..." Bob Bestani: "There needs to be a discussion about it."
As the campaign heats up and competition for the tea party votes intensifies, watch for more tea party dog whistles. And let's hear what Charlie "Their Agenda is Exactly the Same as Mine" Bass has to say about this one.
We don't have a lot of time for a big discussion today, but I wanted to take a second and talk about basic Federal Government economics as they apply to Rand Paul.
It is his stated vision to reduce the size of Government...and it is an undeniable reality that the vast majority of the Federal Budget is focused on only a few areas of spending.
Today, we'll quickly run through that economic reality, and we'll challenge Dr. Paul to tell us where he stands.
This letter to the editor in today's Portsmouth Herald shows the kind of "thinking" that's out there. And I mean out there:
Remember in November About Goldman Sachs
May 11, 2010
To the Editor:
Last week we were treated to another congressional display of the utter contempt our elected representatives have for the citizens of our country.
I am talking about the hearings conducted by Sen. Carl Levin and his committee supposedly looking into Goldman Sachs' financial dealings. Instead of attempting to learn something about how financial firms conduct business to offer up constructive recommendations, all we got was intimidation, accusation, humiliation and harassment from the committee.
They sat on high and looked down disparagingly on citizens of our country who provide the mechanisms for capital flow that makes our country strong and our leadership unparalleled in the world. What a despicable display of sanctimonious arrogance. These people have obviously been in office too long.
Remember in November. Vote, vote, vote.
John Sangenario
Hampton
"As far as the tea party movement is concerned I love 'em. God bless every single one of them. Do you know what their agenda is? Exactly the same as mine.
Does the Tea Party love Charlie Bass?
Americans for Prosperity (AFP) announced today the results of the Straw Poll conducted during the Manchester "Tea Party" rally conducted last Thursday. Citizens from around the state had the opportunity meet with candidates running for Governor, the U.S. Senate, and Congress and then cast ballots. 226 total ballots were cast in this first straw poll of the season in New Hampshire.
...
Second Congressional District
Charlie Bass - 25
Bob Guida - 59
Jennifer Horn - 87
The Tea Party held a tax day rally in Portsmouth. I went to the rally to see what the fuss is about and check it out for myself. I was surprised more by what it was not, than by what it was. For better and worse, the New Hampshire seacoast chapter of the Tea Party doesn't live up to it's reputation.
There were plenty of signs on display. I didn't see signs with egregious spelling and grammar errors and the messages were relatively tame. Nothing racist. No Nazis. Nothing that seemed overly hysterical. No Fox News references.
I expected the general mood to be one of anger and defiance. But it wasn't really. Cranky, yes. But the partiers seemed to be mostly just enjoying the opportunity to curse big government, complain about onerous taxes and root for freedom.
I didn't see any guns. I thought implied violence might be a theme. But it wasn't really. At one point the MC was explaining a mock tea party bit where costumed reenactors were going to dump "the things we don't like" into the river. When someone yelled out "But Obama's not here!" the MC responded with a jokey agreement. He quickly followed up. "You know that's the one line they'll use in the papers." Big laugh.
Another thing the rally wasn't is large. The newspaper estimated the crowd at 250 which seems about right. Prescott Park has certainly seen bigger events. The annual Chowder Fest, for example, draws crowds more than 15 times that size. And they have delicious chowder.
Here's a link to more video than you need on the Tea Party in Portsmouth yesterday: http://www.youtube.com/view_pl... But it was actually interesting.
You can see that Guinta is generic and uninteresting. More important, you can see how aggressive Sean Mahoney is going to be, if you had any doubt. He may not announce until Monday, but he looks fully into it now - full on attack on Carol.
The rally showed the essential truth of the NYT/CBS poll. Attendees in the general audience include Wayne Semprini, former chair of the NH Republican party, and plenty of people I recognized as upper middle class from the area. These are mainstream conservative Republicans pulled to the right in response to their losses in the last two elections and by the energy of the far right.
A couple of things were striking. While the left talks about policy, governing, etc., even (mostly) when Bush is president, the Tea Party talks exclusively about the enemy. Anger at Obama, liberals, etc. The enemy is much more the central animation of the movement than it is on the left - or even was on the right some years ago.
Also, the parallel to Whitewater and the Clinton presidency is striking: These guys are the troops, and are self-propelled to a large extent, but the amplifying force behind them - Palin, Armey, Beck, Fox, Limbaugh, Republican Congressional leadership - is trying to prevent Obama from governing just as the hard right tried to do to Clinton. We tend to say "Bush got elected - he's bad but he won." They refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of the president or Democratic members of congress and refuse to engage in the normal political back and forth toward a policy outcome.
And you can see the underpinnings of all that here.
(An interesting report on the New Silent Majority. - promoted by Dean Barker)
The Portsmouth Herald reported yesterday on the "pistol-toting protester" who crashed a local Coffee Party meet-up last weekend:
Steve Bourne, an organizer of the "Coffee Party" meeting, said the one of about 30 people who gathered to discuss alternative political action arrived bearing a sign and calling Coffee Party members communists. Bourne said those in attendance immediately noticed the sign, but did not see the gun until some time later.
I attended the Saturday morning meeting, and can confirm that the sign was hard to miss ("COFFEE: Communists Organizing For Free Everything Everywhere," hand-lettered on neon pink poster board). And while the gun-toter in question was not aggressively outspoken - indeed, he contributed little to the lively group discussion - his presence at the meeting was obviously calculated to offend and disrupt, and his reaction to several requests to stow away the objectionable sign (which he kept repositioning for maximum visibility) resulted in a minor hands-on scuffle with a couple of participants who attempted to confiscate it.
That's when people noticed the gun. The police were called, and the caller was informed that as long as the sidearm wasn't concealed, the quiet young man with the handgun was in full compliance with the law.
It must be said that the way the Coffee Party is rolling out invites this sort of provocation. Created as a megaphone for the moderate, modulated voices its founders perceive as absent from the national debate, the grassroots arm of the budding Coffee Party movement is meant to function as a factory for DIY deliberative democracy, with the goal of mobilizing the centrist majority to promote "positive solutions" for "the common good." First impressions suggest that many of the people who attended the Portsmouth meeting feel disenfranchised and/or betrayed by ugliness and/or futility of mainstream party politics, and are searching for a more congenial home for their own political voice. If disaffected independents and Ron Paul supporters are the prime examples of the "big tent" political base the Coffee Party hopes to activate, it looks like things are off to an excellent start in the Seacoast region.
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - In New Hampshire, the Tea Party is a loose affiliation among more than two dozen groups ranging from the Christian Home Educators of New Hampshire to the Granite State Taxpayers.
...Granite State Patriots founder Jack Kimball says the coalition came together a year ago when leaders of the individual groups helped organize a large tax-day protest in Manchester.
That would be the protest that included these signs:
(And if we don't find two informed voters for every uninformed one by November, shame on us. - promoted by Dean Barker)
(Ed. Note: Diarist's title edited, because the Tea Party people object to the earlier term used to describe them. I personally call them "Tea people" since in NH, iirc, they have not formed a separate political party. End Ed. Note.)
Words escape me, which is rare.
Money quote from a letter to the Foster's editor, 4-2-10, titled Here Comes Obamacare.:
There is not a woman I have ever heard of that could get dressed (say, following an examination) in only seven minutes, to say nothing of being able to do that in the fraction of seven minutes left following an examination, etc. The women in my life have all taken at least a half-hour to get dressed - just to go to Burger King. What this will mean is that a lot of these women will be ushered out of the doctor's office without getting dressed. A steady stream of half-dressed and wholly naked patients will be thrown out on the streets. What will the local cops do under such circumstances? The spectacle is mind-boggling - and is all the fault of "Obamacare."
I knew that this plan had a lot of Republican ideas in it, but who would have guessed that this gem would have made it too!
Not a whole lot of separate text I need to put here. A right-winger has posted to their Twitter account an explicit call for the assassination of President Obama.
http://jezebel.com/5498461/con...
Yeah. This is the mindset of the right these days.
Turns out, it wasn't the Tea Party. The small rally was organized by the Massachusetts-based white supremacist group North East White Pride.
"The Citizens Alliance seems like they were in error," said former Democratic Party chairwoman Kathleen Sullivan, who had called on local Tea Party-affiliated candidates to denounce the rally.
END UPDATE.
Shouting down the health care reform vote that will benefit working class families and small businesses all across the country isn't the only teabagger activity of choice today. Here in New Hampshire, people passing by the State House earlier today were treated to the "Don't Tread on Me Flag" flag flying proudly beside a "White Pride" banner.
While I won't bother to link to this racist material here, I did a quick search and it is, indeed, White Pride Day. Given the activities in DC over the weekend, how fitting that members of the group in New Hampshire should expose some of the real basis for their opposition to our country's leadership.
Staffers from NH Citizens Alliance caught this story today when they looked out their office window and saw the signs on display. Director Sarah Chaisson Warner issued an immediate rebuke, calling the behavior "disturbing" and "unpatriotic". She also stated:
"The elected officials and candidates in New Hampshire who have frequently spoken at Tea Party events and curried favor with them should quickly condemn this growing and disrespectful behavior before more damage is done."
It seems like everywhere you look these days, someone's trying to spread...The Fear.
All around us...in every town...on every corner...a massive Army Of Fear is standing by, according to the Messengers, ready at a moment's notice to obey the dictates of some unappointed Czar or another.
Just ask Glenn Beck: concentration camps for the white people, jackbooted stormtroopers ready to snatch the guns from your cold dead fingers...Socialist Government-Controlled Healthcare That Threatens Your Not Socialist Medicare...it's all coming, my friends-and unless we organize, as a community, to return to the values of the Founding Fathers, The Government, meaning that awful Obama and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and George Soros and all the other Evil Community Organizers, will win.
There's no government, we're told, like no government.
You know who would find all of this fear of self-government just entirely bizarre?
The Founding Fathers.
In today's conversation we'll consider the fundamentals of American patriotism, we'll ask one of those Founding Fathers how he saw the role of Government-and we'll toss in a few words from Abraham Lincoln, just for good measure.
LANGUAGE WARNING: Today's story is uncharacteristically blunt, and from this moment forward we will be using lots of inappropriate language in making our points.
Gentle Reader, you have been officially...warned.
With that in mind, if you take offense when confronted with language strong enough to knock a fuckin' buzzard off a shitwagon, please stop reading now.
It is by now fairly well known that Rahm Emanuel, President Obama's White House Chief of Staff, had a bit of a blow-up with liberals who were ready to start running ads against "blue dog" Democrats who were working very hard to shut down the health care reform effort.
Now we're not gonna get in the middle of that argument today; instead, since we're finally getting a chance to talk, I figured me and Rahm could get a few other things out of the way that have been on everyone's mind for the past year or so.
Monitor calls on "Tea Party Charlie" to tell the voters whether he truly supports the Tea Party's extremist agenda
Concord -- During his campaign announcement Charlie Bass praised the Tea Party saying he "loves 'em" and that their agenda is "exactly the same as mine."
Oh really?
The Tea Party has an extremist agenda that is out of touch with New Hampshire values. And today the Concord Monitor took "Tea Party Charlie" to task, calling on him to "let the voters know who they will be getting if they vote for him: Is it the Charlie Bass of the Main Street Republicans or Tea Party Charlie?"
The editorial posed a number of important questions including:
* "Does Bass believe, as some Tea Party members do, that global warming is a myth, or worse, a plot?
* "Does Bass really still believe that privatizing Social Security is a good idea?
* "Does he really believe... that the Obama administration is "coddling terrorists"?
Read the full editorial below.
Is Bass truly steeped in Tea Party agenda?
One of the basic rules of Republican politics is "run to the right" in the primary and "move to the middle" for the general election. But Charlie Bass, our Charlie Bass, a tea-partier? You gotta be kidding.
In announcing his run for Congress this month, Bass summed up the Tea Party members like this: "I love them. God bless every single one of them. Their agenda is exactly the same as mine."
It's impossible to characterize Tea Party members accurately, since the ad hoc party has no real platform, at least one all its incarnations agree with. Many of its members appear to believe, however, that the country is going to Hell in a handbasket and some sort of revolution is called for. Does Charlie? Who knows?
Bass was once a moderate Republican in the Walter Peterson, Susan McLane mold, but what is Charlie now? Like Bass, plenty of people in both parties are interested in eliminating wasteful spending and reducing deficits. But does Bass believe, as some Tea Party members do, that global warming is a myth, or worse, a plot? Does he really believe, as he claims on his website, that the Obama administration is "coddling terrorists"? Or, as he claimed in his announcement speech, that the stimulus program - which has helped keep New Hampshire and lots of other states afloat - was a failure?
Does Bass, a onetime head of the moderate Main Street Republicans in Congress - a group that later backed the bailout of Wall Street and big banks - truly believe that cutting taxes is the right response to a deficit caused in good measure by cutting taxes? And after the stock market halved the retirement funds of seniors who panicked and took their money out at or near the bottom, does Bass really still believe that privatizing Social Security is a good idea?
It can't be easy for Bass to move to the right of his primary opponents, radio talk show host Jennifer Horn and former state representative Bob Guida. Both have talked a more conservative game. But that appears to be his plan. If he succeeds, it will take such a long way back to the middle that he'd better pack a lunch.
Bass needs to let voters know who they will be getting if they vote for him: Is it the Charlie Bass of the Main Street Republicans or Tea Party Charlie?
(http://www.concordmonitor.com)
(Posted by Harrell Kirstein, deputy press secretary for the New Hampshire Democratic Party)
Today's Concord Monitor takes Charlie to task for acting like a real Republican, who they say will "run to the right" in the primary and "move to the middle" for the general election.
http://www.concordmonitor.com/...
"But Charlie Bass, our Charlie Bass, a tea-partier? You gotta be kidding."
The Bassmaster's naked cynicism and lack of respect for voters intelligence is incredible, no less so the fact that he thinks anybody will buy it.
It can't be easy for Bass to move to the right of his primary opponents, radio talk show host Jennifer Horn and former state representative Bob Guida. Both have talked a more conservative game. But that appears to be his plan. If he succeeds, it will take such a long way back to the middle that he'd better pack a lunch.
