Month: September 2011

How Quickly Tea Partiers Forget

Trish

It becomes plain quite quickly that history serves these people as religion does — not a complicated interaction of complicated people, but as a glossary of shibboleths, of fundamentalist code words…

They are deaf to the ironies of even their own personal histories. Rick Perry was in the Air Force. Herman Cain did ballistics analysis for the Navy. Jon Huntsman has worked government jobs for 20 years, and Mitt Romney’s father was governor of Michigan. Rick Scott proudly admits he grew up in public housing, and Paul Ryan got through high school and college on Social Security survivor’s benefits. And this is how they all came to become small-government conservatives who didn’t need a hand-out.

— Charles P. Pierce, in his Esquire column, addressing the tea party’s fondness for cherry picking quotes and intentions from the founders

Ask Dr. Democrat — Can We Have a Viable Third Party?

Dr. Democrat

doctordemocratDear Dr. Democrat:

The Republican Tea Party scares me. I worry that the Democrats won’t be energized enough to re-elect Obama. Could there be a third way? I’ve heard of this group, Americans Elect, that’s trying to nominate a centrist candidate over the Internet. Do you think that’s possible?

— Worried in Weehawken

Dear Worried:

Movements like Americans Elect are just sad. These people have to know that our system has calcified in a way that prevents the birth of “third parties” — even the fact that we call them “third parties” out of habit is an indicator of this. A healthy political system could sustain multiple parties, not just two or three.

There are only two known ways a new national party can form and become powerful enough to win the presidency: 1) Replace an existing party, as happened in the 1850s when the Republicans replaced the Whigs, or 2) rise up like a brush fire out in the districts, a real grass-roots movement (to mix metaphors, sort of) that starts in local elections, rises up through the state legislatures, governorships and then into Congress. That’s a generational project that has never actually happened before.

Americans Elect and their ilk are seeking a messiah, a post-partisan George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Jesus all rolled into one who is capable of leading us into a promised land of world peace bipartisanship, where the parties govern without all this rancor and bickering. (This has also never actually happened before.)

[…]

Obama: Elect a Republican President at Your Children’s Peril

Buck Banks

The alternative I think is an approach to government that would fundamentally cripple America in meeting the challenges of the 21st Century and that’s not the kind of society that I want to bequeath to Malia and Sasha, and your children and your grandchildren.

— President Obama, quoted by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, saying that electing a Republican president in 2012 “would deeply hurt the country.”

Tea Party Giving Romney Another Look

Buck Banks

Romney has an opportunity to rehabilitate himself… What Tea Partiers are looking for is someone that stands for something, but also someone that shows the political skills to win. It’s not enough to be right and lose. The goal here is to win the presidency.

— Matt Kibbe, chairman and CEO of the national Tea Party group FreedomWorks, which has begun to soften its earlier opposition to Mitt Romney as Rick Perry has faltered in recent debates, reports the Huffington Post.

Another Tired Tea Party Teleprompter Joke Delivered Via Teleprompter

Trish
ScottTprompt
Scott and his two friends, Tele, left, and Prompter, right, at Presidency 5

Florida Gov. Rick Scott (Tea/GOP) misplaced his sense of irony at a recent appearance, according to TPM. Speaking to those gathered in Orlando for Presidency 5 (I don’t know why it’s called that but those at the event — who selected Herman Cain as their straw poll winner — inexplicably think the meeting important), Scott gazed deeply into his teleprompters so he wouldn’t flub the punch line on this joke about the president. Obama, like all presidents and other major public speakers since Herbert Hoover, often uses a teleprompter.

Good afternoon, and welcome to Presidency 5!

“I have to admit, I was a little nervous when I looked out here. I saw all the TV cameras and a teleprompter. I figured President Obama must be here – giving another speech about raising taxes!“[emphasis in the original]

Seriously, though, it’s great to see you all today.

Is that funny or what? Man, he had me at Pres. Obama being there, but then to go on to mention raising taxes – whooey, that is good stuff! I’m just glad he used the teleprompter so he could deliver it verbatim, word for word, just as the mad jokester who wrote it intended, and not lose a single shred of the funny.

It could have been worse, I guess. At least the governor didn’t read off any jokes about Obama’s birth certificate or the first lady’s fight against childhood obesity or any of the other hot button issues surrounding the Obamas of concern to tea partiers today.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott Reads Ad Lib about Obama and Teleprompters from a Teleprompter

Jon Ponder

I have to admit, I was a little nervous when I looked out here. I saw all the TV cameras and a teleprompter. I figured President Obama must be here — giving another speech about raising taxes!

– Florida Gov. Rick Scott (GOPT), who actually read this lame quip from a teleprompter, according to a reporter in the room. The punchline was underlined to remind the governor to play it for laughs.