Another Conservative Who Can’t Count
By Art Gallagher
NJ.com blogger Paul Mulshine has a piece today criticising the Tea Party movement for not waging primaries against “safe” Republican state legislators. Add Mulshine to the list of so called conservatives who can’t count.
After the general election last year I was alarmed by the “RINO hunting” rhetoric I was hearing from activists I had come to know as volunteers for the Little campaign. Locally and nationally, the Tea Party efforts were focused on defeating Democrats with conservative Republicans. Why would we now focus our energy on defeating Republicans? Waging Republican primaries to compete for seats held by Democrats made sense last year. Putting “safe” Republican seats at risk doesn’t make sense. Not when we’re the minority party.
We live in a state dominated by a Democratic legislature. Defeating well known and well liked “safe” incumbents in primaries would those “safe seats” in play. Democrats would dedicate resources to winning those seats if they were “vacant.” Rather than “RINO hunting” the Tea Party activists would be wise to continue their efforts to defeating Democrats. Leave the RINO hunting until after we’ve won a majority.
That’s the advise I gave the Tea Party leaders who would listen to me back in November. I’m grateful that many heard the message, whether they heard it from me or somebody else.
Mulshine is making light of the Tea Parties having a convention and training sessions this weekend because without primaries the training won’t weaken the Republicans chances to pick up seats in November.
Some Tea Parties are making noise about waging third party campaigns. If that is the agenda and result of the convention than the organizers are crazier than Mulshine. Third party conservative campaigns in “safe” Republican districts will increase the Democrats chances of expanding their majority.
If the point of the Tea Party Convention is to make inroads into Democratic districts, then their efforts will be well spent.
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Best Weiner Headline Award Goes to Paul Mulshine:
I could be miss-steakin’ Art, but aren’t most of the Tea Party people living in what are generally considered to be “Republican” towns and for that matter, as I’ve said numerous times before, registered Republicans?
For example, I don’t have an idea of just how many truly active Tea Party people there might be in the Long Branch area — do contact me if you are one — but I personally haven’t run into them in masses here in town, at least not Tea Party people who live in town that is. Same seems to hold true in Asbury and Neptune and other “Democrat” heavy towns – hard to find the Tea Party people there, right?
Again, I could be wrong, it really does happen, but I just feel like many people in the Tea Party groups are just mad at the direction local, state and federal governments have gone, and they should be, but instead of being mad at Sheila Oliver and Steve Sweeney along with the Ds who control the state legislature and are blocking Christie’s court appointment and hindering his efforts at real reforms, they are mad at their local Republicans… because they have no local Democrats…. just a hunch. or maybe I need a “not intended to be a factual statement” applies here.
James, I haven’t checked their addresses or voter registrations, but you are probably right about that.
However, that would not keep them from working to impact elections in districts other than where they live.
I seem to recall a Long Branch Republican working on the Neptune Township election last year.
I would have liked to see Tea party people pick one Republican to knock off in a primary. Just to make a point.
However the uncertainty as to districts made that impractical
TR, they could always make a point by getting a Republican, or a Tea Party Independent, elected in an unlikely town where there probably aren’t many TP folks, or Republicans, and where Republicans can’t seem to beat the Democrats despite (giving the appearance of) really trying… some place like Neptune.
But if I may borrow the line… the TP folks won’t even try to break into a place like Neptune, even to prove some point, because they are kittens, kittens, kittens. Yeah, I went there.
Art, most of the Republicans that serve in the New Jersey Legislature are not all that much different from the Democrats running against them.
Take Jennifer Beck, for example. Beck is a pro-abortion liberal. (She voted to support legislation that would punish pharmacists that refused, on moral grounds, to fill prescriptions for drugs that induce abortion.) Beck has voted to restrict my Second Amendment rights. Beck has supported increasing all sorts of spending by the state. Moreover, she’s even advocated some tax increases.
http://www.votesmart.org/npat.php?can_id=58104
I’ve given up voting for the lesser of two evils. I am certainly not going to vote for any more liberal RINOs while waiting for some sort of Republican majority to emerge in this liberal swamp that is New Jersey.
Democrats should be labeled as “Democrats”. Fortunately for the safe “Republicans”, there will not be any serious primary challenges this year. However, being electable does not mean that they deserve their titles.
If 95% of the legislature is Democratic, we would have a better chance of fixing NJ if they were properly labeled.
I’m going with Paul.
Tea Party ain’t no “political party.”
It’s a political philosophy.
It is not an extension of the Republican Party and has ZERO obligation to safeguard its “safe seats” for the RINOs.
If the Tea Party ever became a “party” the revolution would be over, and I’d be the first to leave.