The Republican party HAS the capacity & mechanism to "off-load" the teabag people

[SoCalDem]

All that has to happen is for the GOP officials to declare that teabag people will no longer be able to claim the "R" when they choose to run.. They CALL themselves "Tea Party", so make them BE a party...

They already, effectively, run AGAINST fellow-republicans..

These "wackobirds" are not acquiescent team players like the religious right, or the anti-abortion folks, or even the xenophobic right.

These people are "bomb-throwers", who loathe government, even while they campaign their hearts out to BE government. They are saboteurs, eager and able to hobble even the republican aspirations of their fellow congresspeople/senators.

The GOP has been shrinking for decades, and a split would surely hurt their chances of winning nationally for a while, but that's happening already, and it only makes the radical, reactionary teabag people MORE dangerous.

If republicans EVER want to have ANY redemption, they MUST jettison these wackobirds, and make them run as what they truly are... They are hired guns, lobby-puppets, and are just "in it" for self-aggrandizement, future lobby jobs, fox news shows, and to hobble government at the expense of fellow citizens.

They are unworthy of "belonging" to any establishment party.


The GOP is already a regional/fringe party to some degree, and the invasion of the teabag people is only making them more toxic.

[SummerSnow]

1. Remember when Dr. Frankenstein...

CREATED the monster. Then when the monster got out of control and started destroying everything in its path , he wanted to destroy it but couldn't. Then the monster turned on him. So he just left it alone and pretended he had no connection to it.



This is the GOP and the TeaParty

[Kablooie]

2. It's a strange world when Democrats give advice on how to save the Republican Party.

Unless they start saying this themselves the advice won't go anywhere.
They are still trying to appease the teapeople because without them they don't have enough votes to do anything.

[SoCalDem]

6. It actually helps either way, BUT

what would happen soon after this would be the media losing interest in the tea party , and some normalcy returning to politics..

As long as they are the "exciting" part of the ordeal, they only grow in interest.

They need to become like any other fringe party..

I DO think they should be allowed to have a "voice", and be included in debates, so their ideas can be heard, BUT their ouster would mean than the true republican party (which would shrink even more dramatically at first) could then go back to being a party of politicians who actually prefer to legislate/compromise & govern, instead of just rant for the cameras.

The interim period could also be a golden age for democrats, whose relative cohesion would be there for all to see as mature and sensible, as opposed to the rest..

[Kablooie]

7. I agree they should be allowed at the party of politicians.

but they should be locked in the bathroom until it's time to go home.

[randome]

3. If someone was calling the shots for the GOP, that might happen.

But there isn't. So it won't.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Treat your body like a machine. Your mind like a castle.[/center][/font][hr]

[Jim Lane]

4. Primaries. The bosses don't run the parties with an iron fist any more.

You write, "All that has to happen is for the GOP officials to declare that teabag people will no longer be able to claim the 'R' when they choose to run."

If a Ted Cruz wannabe registers as a Republican, runs in the Republican primary, and wins, then he or she is the Republican nominee, regardless of what any "officials" declare.

The Tea Party figured this out and worked within the existing system. Some of their counterparts on the left decided instead to stomp off in disgust, run as Greens, whine about IRV -- and be totally ineffective politically.

[CANDO]

5. The Tea Partiers....

have always been part of the Republican base. Its not like they've come in from the political netherworld. They've become radicalized to the nth degree by the likes of the conservative multi-media circle jerk. (Rush, Hannity, Levin, Beck, etc.)