So, how many of you are TEA Party members?

[Sapper740]

membership includes a few IRS audit.

No, it doesn't. At least not yet.

 

[TXARGUY]

where do you sign up to be a TEA Party member?

I don't think you do. I think it's more of a mentality thing.

I get enough campaign mail asking for donations as it is. I don't need to be on some political group's membership role to know what's going on. Believe me; they'll find you. Let them come to you either directly through personal introduction or mailings or indirectly through the grapevine in forums like this.

I have tea party values, but I am not a member. Too many of the candidates are whack jobs.

^^^This exactly.

The establishment republicans want nothing to do with true tea party candidates.

Some of the more outspoken (microphone addicted asswipes whose over-inflated egos make them really believe that we care about their opinions) establishment Republicans want nothing to do with TEA Party candidates. There are many others who quietly welcome the help growing a backbone.

I think it is the republican RINOs who split the vote. They need to stop.

I always love it when a RINO cry baby throws a temper tantrum and goes on a mud-slinging split the vote rant of a campaign. Their true colors come out in full sunlight. Sometimes their constituents fall for their shit and other times, which is becoming more and more frequent, they don't.

And when their constituents don't fall for their shit they flip sides and join the Democrats where they should have been all along.

I think that when a politician of any affiliation flips sides on the voters who elected them to office they should be automatically and instantly removed from that office and the local/District/State legislative body appoint a very temporary replacement until a Special Election can be held.

Flipping political sides on the voters should be treated the same as a resignation.

And, I believe said Special Election should be held within a fairly short amount of time (90 days should be more than sufficient) so that the un-elected, temporarily appointed guy doesn't get the chance to dig in too deep before the voters get the chance to have their voice.

Politicians should be like race car drivers...that is they should have to wear a jacket or clothing showing all their supporters listed on it. That said, I'm not a card-carrying Tea Party member but I somewhat lean in that direction. I'm somewhat conservative and somewhat libertarian.

 

[Sapper740]

So tell me, where is this "Third Party" that apparently I've been voting for? I think some of you have been listening to Karl Rove or John McCain again. One of the TEA Party's main aims is to use primaries to ensure that we get good, solid Conservatives as our Republican candidates. Hence we have Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and Trey Gowdy...and a whole lot more good, conservative congressmen and women. See here: List of politicians affiliated with the Tea Party movement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Sapper740]

where do you sign up to be a TEA Party member?

Here: Join Us - The Tea Party

 

[Sapper740]

I have tea party values, but I am not a member. Too many of the candidates are whack jobs.

Which ones? Ted Cruz? Trey Gowdy? Allen West? Herman Cain? Nikki Haley? Louie Gohmert? Pete Sessions?.............................

 

[TXARGUY]

Which ones? Ted Cruz? Trey Gowdy? Allen West? Herman Cain? Nikki Haley? Louie Gohmert? Pete Sessions?.............................

Louie Gohmert was a Tea Party candidate? I had no idea they existed back in 2005.

Pete Sessions? Really? The Tea Party goes all the way back to 2003? Who knew.

Didn't Allen West end up swinging his Florida District voters back to the Democrat side as evidenced by his 2012 loss to Patrick Murphy? Not that I'm talking shit about him, I like Allen West personally but wasn't his defeat in Florida one of the ones the MSM used to declare the death of the Tea Party?

You mean that Herman Cain was a Tea Partier in 1993 when he helped to defeat the Clinton Healthcare Plan? Or when he got crushed in the Presidential Primaries in 2000 then endorsed Steve Forbes over George Bush? Of when he lost his Congressional bid in 2004? Or when he ran for President again in 2012 only to suspend his campaign over allegations of sexual harassment and adultery? Herman sure likes to talk a lot and a lot of people hang on his every word. He attends and takes the stage at every Tea Party rally he hears about and does a whole lot of talking but he sure ain't good at winning elections.

I think Renegade was referring to the many other Tea Party candidates defeated by their own weaknesses nationally and I will let him speak for himself but I thank you for that list.

Who else you got?

EDIT: Wasn't Scott Brown a big Tea Party win In Mass then RINO'd when he got to Washington and ended up handing his seat to the Democrat (and royal bitch) Elizabeth Warren the very next election? What the Hell was that all about?

 

[Army 1911]

I went to a Tea Party the other day.
Hosted by my 6 yr old granddaughter.
We had pretend tea and pretend homemade cookies.
Best cookies ever.

 

[Savage805]

Politicians should be like race car drivers...that is they should have to wear a jacket or clothing showing all their supporters listed on it. That said, I'm not a card-carrying Tea Party member but I somewhat lean in that direction. I'm somewhat conservative and somewhat libertarian.

Now that's the best idea I've heard in a long time. +1000

 

[Sapper740]

Louie Gohmert was a Tea Party candidate? I had no idea they existed back in 2005.

Pete Sessions? Really? The Tea Party goes all the way back to 2003? Who knew.

Didn't Allen West end up swinging his Florida District voters back to the Democrat side as evidenced by his 2012 loss to Patrick Murphy? Not that I'm talking shit about him, I like Allen West personally but wasn't his defeat in Florida one of the ones the MSM used to declare the death of the Tea Party?

You mean that Herman Cain was a Tea Partier in 1993 when he helped to defeat the Clinton Healthcare Plan? Or when he got crushed in the Presidential Primaries in 2000 then endorsed Steve Forbes over George Bush? Of when he lost his Congressional bid in 2004? Or when he ran for President again in 2012 only to suspend his campaign over allegations of sexual harassment and adultery? Herman sure likes to talk a lot and a lot of people hang on his every word. He attends and takes the stage at every Tea Party rally he hears about and does a whole lot of talking but he sure ain't good at winning elections.

I think Renegade was referring to the many other Tea Party candidates defeated by their own weaknesses nationally and I will let him speak for himself but I thank you for that list.

Who else you got?

EDIT: Wasn't Scott Brown a big Tea Party win In Mass then RINO'd when he got to Washington and ended up handing his seat to the Democrat (and royal bitch) Elizabeth Warren the very next election? What the Hell was that all about?

They are all TEA party candidates now. (see here: List of politicians affiliated with the Tea Party movement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ) Frankly, I'm a little confused at the antagonism shown by many here towards the TEA Party, much of it is out of ignorance of the facts I assume. Yes, some of our TEA Party candidates have disappointed us, that's to be expected with any group but the true shining stars in Congress today....the ones who give me hope about America's future are all affiliated or members of the TEA Party. Can anyone say the same thing about any of the other parties?

 

[Sapper740]

I went to a Tea Party the other day.
Hosted by my 6 yr old granddaughter.
We had pretend tea and pretend homemade cookies.
Best cookies ever.

Thank you for your thoughtful contribution to this discussion.

 

[Sapper740]

It's interesting how people's true political affiliations come out when the subject of the TEA Party is raised.

 

[Jeffrey]

Ummm, Just to clarify, Alan West was the victim of some very dirty political maneuvering. It came out after the election, but the lame stream media quashed the story, if memory serves.

 

[TXARGUY]

They are all TEA party candidates now. (see here: List of politicians affiliated with the Tea Party movement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ) Frankly, I'm a little confused at the antagonism shown by many here towards the TEA Party, much of it is out of ignorance of the facts I assume. Yes, some of our TEA Party candidates have disappointed us, that's to be expected with any group but the true shining stars in Congress today....the ones who give me hope about America's future are all affiliated or members of the TEA Party. Can anyone say the same thing about any of the other parties?

Frankly, I'm a little confused at the antagonism shown by many here towards the TEA Party, much of it is out of ignorance of the facts I assume.

Really? This from a guy who uses Wikipedia as a reference source?

I think you are getting your words confused. I also think you don't really have a grasp of what the Tea Party movement is. It is not a lock step one issue one candidate movement. The Tea Party is made up of similarly minded individuals who have become fed up with the quid pro quo, out of control government spending, expansion and over-reach so common in politics today.

You're going to find that these individuals are not always going to agree with you. For you to call them ignorant without taking the time to address a single one of the issues or facts they presented and instead paste the same Wikipedia link you had already pasted in your post #23 not two hours ago is, in a word, ignorant.

Hey, you went there. I didn't.

Yes, some of our TEA Party candidates have disappointed us, that's to be expected with any group but the true shining stars in Congress today....the ones who give me hope about America's future are all affiliated or members of the TEA Party.

I think we all agree that we've put a few shining stars into office and I'm sure they give us all hope for the future of America. I'm pretty sure that's why we voted for them in the first place.

I hope you got that. Even though we may disagree occasionally we all, excepting maybe Jakesh, voted for the shining stars right there with you.

It is the disappointments that are being brought up and frankly the disappointments brought up in this thread so far barely even scratch the surface.

Can anyone say the same thing about any of the other parties?

I'm very sure, positive in fact, that there are people of every party who are proud of who they elected and see them as shining stars that give them hope for America.

Their hope or vision for America may be very different from yours or mine but they voted for the candidate they felt best represented their views, hopes and vision.

After all, someone keeps voting for Nancy Pelosi. Someone out there loves the hell out of some Harry Reid.

It's interesting how people's true political affiliations come out when the subject of the TEA Party is raised.

And what would those political affiliations be since you can now see them so clearly?

Are we just a bunch of uninformed, under educated, secret Democrat loving inbred hicks banging out dem big words on da internets?

What exactly are you calling us? What exactly what are our political affiliations?

I'm just an ignorant asshat so I sure would appreciate some of your insight.

 

[Renegade]

Which ones? Ted Cruz? Trey Gowdy? Allen West? Herman Cain? Nikki Haley? Louie Gohmert? Pete Sessions?.............................

As pointed out, many of those are not Tea Party.

I am referring to Todd "Legitimate Rape" Akin, Richard "God intended it to happen" Mourdock, Sharon "they look Asian to me" Angle, and the all-time favorite, Christine "I am not a Witch" McDonnell.

Many more besides them, but what difference does it make at this point?

The fact is the TEA Party seems to have a lot of loons in it, many of whom are not focusing on TEA Party values but on their own wingnut agenda.

 

[Renegade]

And the backing of Ratcliffe over Ralph Hall shows the TEA party would rather align with a guy with no record then a guy with a proven TEA record.

 

[TXARGUY]

Ummm, Just to clarify, Alan West was the victim of some very dirty political maneuvering. It came out after the election, but the lame stream media quashed the story, if memory serves.

Very true but it was the way he handled it that became an issue.

You can expect very dirty political maneuvering to occur in just about any campaign for just about any office, hell, I've seen some pretty dirty shit happen between people running for my local 1A school board. As the stage grows so does the microphone and so does the magnifying glass of the Media.

Anyone running for a political office should know this and have a proactive plan for not only dealing with it but turning it to their favor.

Alan West didn't come out pounding and adamantly denying the allegations against him. He sat silent for several days while speculation grew then announced that he was suspending his campaign with little to no explanation.

It came out AFTER the election. Exactly the problem.

Future candidates can use pages from Dan Patrick's play book on how to deal with mud slinging scandal attempts from now on. I'm pretty sure Dewhurst tried every dirty trick up his sleeve. He would have just loved it if Dan Patrick had suspended his campaign.

 

[smschulz]

What I gathered from that is that

1) you consider yourself a TEA party member
2) it's the other guy's fault because middle ground was tried, failed, so it's their turn.

1) I stated my position on the Tea Party in an earlier post.
2) "Trying middle ground" is no sound objective. Turns, I don't understand that philosophy.
I blame no clear cut philosophy message.
You either stand for something or you don't, it is not as popular nor easy to communicate but a half-ass non-committal plan will always lose.

 

[shortround]

The "Tea Party" is not a political party, but a grassroots movement to encourage both Republicans and Democrats to move more to the center.

Less TAXES!

That can be done with less Social Spending. And strict scrutiny over defense programs such as the F-3

 

[TXARGUY]

Ive been thinking about this thread a lot today and it just hit me. This thread is a pretty good snapshot of the problems the Tea Party faces. Right now it's a split of a split with multiple fractures.

There's one segment that are sign carrying, face painting, chanting, flag waving, rally attending chest thumpers who believe that if someone doesn't align exactly with their political opinions they must be politically retarded secret Democrats,

and another segment that distances themselves from the first segment because they make the movement look like a bunch of clowns.

There's a completely uninformed but vocal segment of followers and another segment of very informed but less vocal leaders.

There are some who try to make it a single issue platform

"They ain't takin' my damn guns!"

or

"I can't even beat tha sinnin' folks over the head with my Good Book no more"

and others who try to make it about so many issues that no one person can ever be exactly the right fit for a candidate;

"I like ole Harvey GunBible, he is right with me on school prayer, guns, taxes, limited government, nutrition, states rights, battery lead-acid content, domestic drilling, baseball, the gay stuff, Federal land, drinkin' water, votin' ID, Mexicans, food stamps, school vouchers, shoes, light bulbs and Fords but I just can't bring myself to vote for him. He eats his Whataburger with mayo instead of mustard. I just can't trust a guy like that so I'm just stayin' home come votin'day."

There is no cohesion. Either you're too Tea Party or you're not Tea Party enough.

There's little to no organization which allows the nuttier more vocal unshaved, misspelled sign carrying crowd be the national face of the Party.

It's a mess and it's not going to get any better until all these groups can sit down, form a solid platform that addresses MOST of the concerns (No JimBob, bringing back snuff dipping in school probably isn't going to make the cut), and present the platform in a way that appeals to the fence voters, young voters and whether you like it or not, the Hispanic voters its pretty much going to be the same ole same ole that it is now.

And pre-vet the damn candidates! Geez.

 

[franzas]

Actual group, no. That might change soon, though.
Conservative ideology, yes.