Is GOP Absorbing the Tea Party, or Is the Establishment Toppling?

[pampango]

Bill Kristol, the neoconservative editor of the Weekly Standard and a Fox News contributor, said the tea party peddles "an infantile form of conservatism." Veteran Republican strategist Scott Reed took the disdain one step further, saying the GOP is steadily co-opting the grass-roots movement. "That’s the secret to politics: trying to control a segment of people without those people recognizing that you’re trying to control them," Reed said of the GOP's assimilation strategy.

...tea partiers in Florida and nationally say the establishment types have it exactly backward. Angry with RINOs who seek accommodation and compromise with Democrats, tea partiers recall their breaking points with the party establishment. For some, it was the nomination and subsequent defeat of "maverick" John McCain. For others, it is hot-button issues like immigration that are finessed or flat-out ignored by pandering party bigwigs.

"We decided to give the GOP some spine, and run the risk of alienating the public to do the right thing. Now the establishment GOP has a real choice -- accept the grass-roots tea party as is, or co-opt the movement, kill our energy and watch the Occupy Wall Street crowd re-elect Barack Obama," says Henry Kelley, head of the Fort Walton Beach Tea Party.

Kelley said the "most telling example of the Republican establishment trying to dictate affairs, only to be rejected by the real grass-roots, is Rick Perry." "Governor Perry burst on the scene and received massive media attention and immediate endorsements by some of Florida’s political elite. Yet my emails, from grass roots around the state of Florida, told a wildly different story and a startling distrust of his policies.

http://www.sunshinestatenews.com/story/gop-absorbing-tea-party-or-establishment-toppling

My money is on the GOP winning the "absorbing" vs. "toppling" contest. :)

[Vincardog]

1. OWS would rather elect FDR than BO

[Avalux]

2. The Tea Party is part of the GOP; not its own entity and certainly not grassroots.

The GOP are now starting to realize that the extreme views they've put out there via the Tea Party are becoming a detriment, so they'll try to reign it in and normalize the party. A shift back towards the middle.

They didn't consider that once they openend Pandora's box, wouldn't be able to control it.

[benld74]

3. I NEVER believed there was a true tea party to begin with,,,,

just a WELL FUNDED bunch of people who thought they were doing something. Only thing they were doing was getting blamed by the mainstreamers for mucking up everything in D.C. Boener always said he had to pass muster with ALL his side of the aisle. AND never could, thereby placing the blame on the TPers! HOW convienient for the GOP to sacrifice the unamed to make sure their true intentions are met. STOP OBAMA!!!!!

[CTyankee]

9. I think you are absolutely right! This was a put up deal ffrom the outset.

I think the media pumped it up because, lazily, they didn't do their job and do some investigative reporting on the 2010 election. The TEa Party was just a convenient handle.

[yellowcanine]

4. The Tea Party and the GOP engaged in the political equivalent of the one night stand and now they

are both suffering buyer's remorse.

[BadGimp]

5. The imates are running the asylum..

[Atman]

6. I drew this back in 2004. Prescient.

[Old and In the Way]

7. Sounds like determined co-option by the RNC.

We all know that the Tea-Partiers were always a subset of voting Republicans. They're just driven harder by their biggoted, homophobic, racist, anti-education, anti-women anti-socialist agenda. The GOP loved them their Tea Partiers in 2010 - but the American people may be waking up to what these jokers are trying to do to this country...basically, attempting to turn it into their authoritarian vision of a theocracy where they replace our Constitution with their version of biblical law. Maybe RNC is beginning to realize that the short term gains of 2010 will create the conditions for a long term slide.

[MFrohike]

8. GOP not absorbing

They made the conscious decision to suck up to the far right in the late 80s/early 90s. They went out and sought old Birchers, militia sympathizers, and every tax protester wackjob they could find. It's 20 years too late to cry about their bullshit, Bill. You knew what you people were buying.

[jmowreader]

10. Would someone just butt-stroke Henry Kelley?

THERE IS NOTHING 'GRASS-ROOTS' ABOUT THE FUCKING TEA PARTY! The tea party wasn't nor will it ever be "co-opted" by anyone, it was started by lobbyists and deep-pocketed GOP activists. The communists called people like the teabaggers "useful idiots," and teabaggers are more idiotic than most.