Speaking of the Tea Party protesters (no, I'm not going to call them the "baggers" word), I'm interested in seeing what they're going to do in the midterms. If I was a Republican strategist, I'd see them as a double-edged sword.
On the plus side, they're obviously fired up and willing to act. On the minus side, they're unreliable from a mainstream Republican perspective.
I say that based on conversations with a number of people who have attended Teabag Protests. A lot that I talk to seem just as mistrustful of the Republicans as the Democrats. They're more likely to back Ron Paul than Michael Steele.
In the lead-up to the 2008 presidential race, I speculated if Ron Paul might be for the Republicans what Ralph Nader was for the Democrats in 2000.
Obviously Nader and Paul have their differences. But both represented a more extreme, impractical fantasy for their respective supporters in contrast to the stodgy practicalities of the mainstream Democrats and Republicans.
Yeah, of course they'll never get elected, but ... what if?
The difference is that left-wingers dropped Nader like a radioactive turd once he apparently cost Al Gore the presidential race. But this movement of conservatives who don't fit neatly anywhere in the mainstream Republican Party seems to be growing since Obama's presidential victory.
My impression is that a lot of them are former mainstream Republicans who still don't like the Democrats, but became so disillusioned with the George W. Bush presidency that now they don't fully trust either party.
and some of us are democrats who don't care to see our country turned into a European style socialist craphole!
True. Not all of the Tea Party and/or Ron Paul supporters are former Republicans. In fact, that's one thing that struck me as interesting in the run-up to the 2008 presidential race. I encountered some Ron Paul supporters with NRA bumper stickers on their pickups, and some with pot leaf medallions hanging around their necks. (I'm not saying that all of his supporters fit into those two camps. I'm just trying to give some idea of the broad cross-section of people I'm talking about.)
At some point you have to realize that the spectrum doesn't run from Democrat to Republican or Liberal to Conservative.
The spectrum runs from Tyranny to Anarchy. One the one side you have an all-powerful government, and on the other you have no government. Today's "Republicans" and "Democrats" both stand further toward Tyranny, as both sides are expanding government in their own ways. Generally speaking, Democrats want to expand government at home while Republicans want to expand government abroad.
The beauty of the movement that Ron Paul helped to create was that now people are starting to see the Republicans and Democrats as equally dangerous to personal freedom. The goal now is to bring our government back toward the Constitution, which in habits a place on that political spectrum where the people control their government, not vice-versa!
At some point you have to realize that the spectrum doesn't run from Democrat to Republican or Liberal to Conservative.
The spectrum runs from Tyranny to Anarchy. On the one side you have an all-powerful government, and on the other you have no government. Today's "Republicans" and "Democrats" both stand further toward Tyranny, as both sides are expanding government in their own ways. Generally speaking, Democrats want to expand government at home while Republicans want to expand government abroad.
The beauty of the movement that Ron Paul helped to create was that now people are starting to see the Republicans and Democrats as equally dangerous to personal freedom. The goal now is to bring our government back toward the Constitution, which in habits a place on that political spectrum where the people control their government, not vice-versa!
Not all teabaggers like Ron Paul, especially when it comes to the free trade vs fair trade in view of libertarian capitalism.
Ron Paul is not specifically a nationalist as much as a free marketer.
Teabaggers are more nationalist.
That's true. It's hard to get a handle on them. It may seem like a weird analogy, but in some ways they remind me of those flash-mobs of anti-globalization protestors that show up in cities where International Monetary Fund officials meet. You look at a big crowd out there protesting, and you tend to think of a unified cause. But when you start talking to individual people, you get a wide array of beliefs and agendas.
The question is whether that will work for or against the Republicans in the midterms.