What if underground Liberals created the "Tea Party" ?

[KurtNYC]

It is after all a created entity, astro-turf, supported by mainstream, some say 'liberal media.' The success of Ross Perot in getting Bill Clinton elected should be repeated this year in a different form. In 1992, Ross Perot financed his own campaign and effectively split the anti-Clinton vote which provided Clinton with a narrow victory. Now with an anonymous 7-figure donation going to the TP just in time to make trouble, some are asking 'did liberals create the Tea Party in order to splinter what's left of the GOP?'

The speculation cites evidence that Tea Party extremism is splintering the GOP with some of the more mainstream self-identifying Republicans walking away from the process altogether. The RW cites generic ballot polls now because they don't want to have to discuss the polls which show voters are turned off by the actual candidates running on the Right. How would GOP strategists explain to their minions that they have once again been outmaneuvered in the battle for the middle. They must drag the Tea Party rhetoric into November like a giant anchor while they are well aware that voters prefer centrist candidates.

Who could have created such an effective splintering of the GOP in a year when they were expected to pick up seats?

[baldguy]

1. The FBI would investigate them & the leaders would be arrested & tossed in jail.

[YOY]

2. Well at least it would know how to use an encyclopedia...

If I hear one more declaration of center-right policies as "socialist" I'm gonna puke.

[Turbineguy]

3. I don't think Ross Perot was intent on electing Clinton.

But it would be a delicious mindfuck if it turned out to be true. Something concocted by the CIA perhaps.

[kenny blankenship]

4. Dick Armey and Koch brothers are very reminiscent of underground creatures

and are perhaps best kept underground; but Liberals they are not.

[NoNothing]

5. I don't know,

What if conservatives were behind the Green Party? Would that automatically invalidate Green Party policy planks?

[RaleighNCDUer]

7. It's just politics.

Liberals aren't 'behind' the tea party - but plenty of us are cheering their splitting the Repubs. At the same time, conservatives are not 'behind' the Greens, but some are certainly funding the Greens to split the Dems, despite the fact that Green policies are an anathema to them.

It's what happens in a two-party system.

[KurtNYC]

9. the astro turf Tea Party is basically a 'bait and switch' campaign

they bait the hook with racism, revolution and angry rhetoric then they will try to steer the lemmings to vote for more of the same, Bush era pro-corporate policy making, crush "Hope" and un-do "Change."

So it seems it doesn't matter too much what their platform supposedly is. The goal is to get Obama haters to the polls in November and they will say anything to try and make that happen.

[meegbear]

6. Our signs would be spelt properly

[Ozymanithrax]

8. The argument that Republicans were not Conservative enough ...

goes back to the 2006 election. It became louder in 2008, and exploded, with the financing of of the Koch brothers. This argument is part of the rational behind several groups that, before 2006, were running ultra Conservatives against what they perceived as more moderate opponents in the Republican Party. This is nothing more than the drive for party purity out of the belief that all Americans are Conservatives and it is the violation of conservative values that led to their losses in 2006 and 2008, when they all thought that a permanent Conservative Majority was the wave of the future.

Perot, in fact, was a populist early version of this, highly nationalist, deeply fiscal conservative, and anti-immigrant. His real impetus was G.H.W. Bush's "read my lips" pledge. He led a precursor of the Teaparty to purify Bush's taxing ways.

[pipi_k]

10. I don't think they did, but...

if they did, it would probably be something straight from the playbook of the Rove strategy.

I think this sort of thing is probably more effective than people ranting and raving at strangers trying to change their minds by being obnoxious.


Yep...Democrats definitely need to start using better methods to undermine (and fight back against) Republican crazies.


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