This article was written by the current Gloucester County Republican State Committeeman. Be careful when you vote in the primary. I have never in my three years of active TEA PARTY association heard so much slander other than from Democrats. If this person shows up on the Primary Slate you should watch who you vote for. But by all means vote in the primary.
Why the tea party is bad for conservatives: A Republican speaks out
A tea-party supporter protest outside the US Supreme Court on the third day of oral arguements over the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on March 28 in Washington, DC.Faced with a tough primary re-election battle with a fellow incumbent Democrat, U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-8th Dist.) has reached into his election bag of tricks and pulled out the one he hopes will turn it all around — the tea party.
No, the congressman isn’t running with the tea party; he’s running against it. And that could make the difference for him. Gone are the days when the tea party hoped to be a bridge between the parties of those fed up with "politics as usual." Nowadays, the tea party is viewed by many voters — especially swing voters — as angry, divisive, partisan and, in some instances, racist.
It’s not hard to see why. Tea party websites post representations of President Obama as a ghetto pimp. E-mails compare the first lady to a chimpanzee. Until recently, one website had a whole section devoted to "racial issues." And while most tea party members steer clear of this, some of the biggest mouths in the movement promote it.
Then there’s the problem of Facebook — that ubiquitous gateway for those whose mouths (or fingers) are not connected to their brains. One tea party leader recently "facebooked" about an altercation she had with a mother and daughter that ended with the mother being called "an ugly lib." The proud tea party posted it and won support from those who don’t understand what that kind of thing is doing to their movement.
Go on the Facebook pages of some of these tea party groups and you’ll find references to "shooting lefties." One group posted a photo of its Obama punching bag. Really, a punching bag? There’s an image to win over swing voters: Middle-aged tea partiers punching and kicking the president’s picture. I bet the Taliban has one just like it in one of their caves on the Afghan-Pakistan border.
View full sizeTea Party members rally to protest President Barack Obama's proposed "Buffett rule" tax plan on April 16 in Chicago, Illinois.It didn’t start out this way. There was a time when the tea party represented a hope for conservatives and for America. The tea party started out as a grassroots reaction to the liberalism of the new administration in Washington and its overreaching programs. The new movement focused on the bailout, cap-and-trade and Obamacare. Across the country, there was a kind of awakening among those who had been disconnected from the political process.
Unfortunately, there were so many new volunteers, they burst the old pathways of activism, spreading in all directions. Existing conservative groups simply couldn’t organize them quickly enough and, without a leadership to provide focus, dozens of local warlords — each with his or her view of the world — began to call the shots.
In place of the old Reagan coalition, we now have many tribes. The chiefs of these tribes do not have much political experience. Many didn’t even bother to vote before 2009 and most will tell you that they "woke up" only after the election of President Obama. They don’t understand that democracy — especially representative democracy — requires patience and compromise. That’s the way a republic works.
Conspiracy theories abound. Neophytes nurture distrust toward anyone active before 2009. Veteran conservatives are attacked simply because they were fighting for conservative principles back when many in the tea party couldn’t be bothered to vote.
It is too early to tell how this will turn out. The tea party could incorporate itself into the larger conservative movement, adding new strength, or it could go down its own road — making eccentric demands of candidates that destroy their prospects for election. Oddly enough, we faced this before. Back then, Ronald Reagan and Bill Buckley drove out the conspiracy theorists and racists — and the modern conservative movement was born.
Rob Eichmann is a Republican state committeeman from Gloucester County.
