It is important to insist that the Tea Party Movement (TPM) is a movement, not a party. Most attempts to savage the movement by identifying its “leaders” and denigrating them have failed. A like but more brutal attempt to end the patriot insurrection in Boston and elsewhere by associating it with leaders and, say, hanging them on Boston Commons would have failed to terminate the movement afoot in the colonies to sever the ties that bound colonists with their mother country. You can’t stop an idea by cutting off the heads that contain the idea.
This is the way of all movements: Ghostly at first, they take on flesh and later become an active political opposition.
Democrats have been trying their best to associate the TPM with a number of politicians loathed by the left in an attempt to discredit the movement.
So far, no luck. No George Washington yet has been found within the TPM. There is no one in the movement conspicuously leading the troops to do battle with the reigning power. But just because the movement has no head, it does not follow that it is without ideas or purpose.
We have little “scientific” knowledge about the TPM because political analysts -- the sort of folk whose work is cited authoritatively in New York Times’ editorials – have been asleep at their desks, and what we think we know of the TPM is largely anecdotal. Seen from the editorial desks of the Mainstream Media (MSM), Tea Party Patriots are a rabble given to rabble rousing – nothing more. Connecticut journalists who might with a little digging turn up a few factual truffles are content hugging their own left of center prejudices.
On the last day of September, a good many people who still read the hardcopy media woke up, took a gander at their morning newspaper and gasped.
“It’s A Dead Heat,” headlines proclaimed. The reference was not to the U.S. senatorial race between Linda McMahon and Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, narrowed by Mrs. McMahon over a long period of time from 40 percentage points to a statistical dead heat. Democrat Dan Malloy’s sizable poll lead over Republican Tom Foley had been whittled down from 9 percentage points in mid-September to 3 points by the end of the month, yet another dead heat.
This was not supposed to happen in the gubernatorial race in which, a few weeks ago, the Democratic dominated legislature passed a bill greatly benefiting former Mayor Dan Malloy, Stamford’s wunderkind who, while light on campaign cash, was supposed to roll over Republican Tom Foley. The two were equally rich in campaign funds at about $3 million each when the legislature decided to stuff Malloy’s pockets with an additional $3 million in taxpayer funding -- this at a time when the state is burdened with a $4 billion debt. The tax boon would make Malloy about twice as rich as Foley, who thinks the $3 million price tag for a gubernatorial office is obscene enough.
Independents, according to the pollsters, are drifting away from the Democratic bastion. And who are these Independents?
We don’t know, and those who think they know should review Will Rogers’ sage advice: It’s not what you don’t know that hurts you; it’s what you think you know – and don’t.
Are the Independent drifters 1) people who have never joined a political party, 2) refuges from the Democratic Party, or 3) refugees from the Republican Party? Has the drift been caused by affections and emotions or an aversion to ideas. If polls are showing a movement of Independents either towards the Republican program or away from the Democratic program, does the direction of the flow indicate that Independents may be party averse conservatives or libertarians, otherwise known as Tea Party Patriots?
Or have all these people come down with a bad case of political indigestion? Are they the equivalent of political misanthropes?
No one knows.
And yet – astoundingly – Independents have been with us for decades. The Independent movement has been growing in proportion to the diminishment of parties for many years, certainly long enough for polling analysts to take several telling snapshots of them.
Will the “rabble” form a new party?
Probably not any time soon. For the time being, the Republican Party appears to be the catch basin for a new and, some think, transformative discontent. New parties in America, few of them long lasting, usually were shaped during prolonged periods of economic distress caused either by the rapid expansion or depression of markets. Prolonged wars sometimes have given rise to the formation of new parties. Occasionally, new parties are mothered by new ideas, which is to say, rediscovered ideas, new wine poured into old wine skins that explode, sometimes with a politically disturbing effervescence.
This is the way of all movements: Ghostly at first, they take on flesh and later become an active political opposition.
Democrats have been trying their best to associate the TPM with a number of politicians loathed by the left in an attempt to discredit the movement.
So far, no luck. No George Washington yet has been found within the TPM. There is no one in the movement conspicuously leading the troops to do battle with the reigning power. But just because the movement has no head, it does not follow that it is without ideas or purpose.
We have little “scientific” knowledge about the TPM because political analysts -- the sort of folk whose work is cited authoritatively in New York Times’ editorials – have been asleep at their desks, and what we think we know of the TPM is largely anecdotal. Seen from the editorial desks of the Mainstream Media (MSM), Tea Party Patriots are a rabble given to rabble rousing – nothing more. Connecticut journalists who might with a little digging turn up a few factual truffles are content hugging their own left of center prejudices.
On the last day of September, a good many people who still read the hardcopy media woke up, took a gander at their morning newspaper and gasped.
“It’s A Dead Heat,” headlines proclaimed. The reference was not to the U.S. senatorial race between Linda McMahon and Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, narrowed by Mrs. McMahon over a long period of time from 40 percentage points to a statistical dead heat. Democrat Dan Malloy’s sizable poll lead over Republican Tom Foley had been whittled down from 9 percentage points in mid-September to 3 points by the end of the month, yet another dead heat.
This was not supposed to happen in the gubernatorial race in which, a few weeks ago, the Democratic dominated legislature passed a bill greatly benefiting former Mayor Dan Malloy, Stamford’s wunderkind who, while light on campaign cash, was supposed to roll over Republican Tom Foley. The two were equally rich in campaign funds at about $3 million each when the legislature decided to stuff Malloy’s pockets with an additional $3 million in taxpayer funding -- this at a time when the state is burdened with a $4 billion debt. The tax boon would make Malloy about twice as rich as Foley, who thinks the $3 million price tag for a gubernatorial office is obscene enough.
Independents, according to the pollsters, are drifting away from the Democratic bastion. And who are these Independents?
We don’t know, and those who think they know should review Will Rogers’ sage advice: It’s not what you don’t know that hurts you; it’s what you think you know – and don’t.
Are the Independent drifters 1) people who have never joined a political party, 2) refuges from the Democratic Party, or 3) refugees from the Republican Party? Has the drift been caused by affections and emotions or an aversion to ideas. If polls are showing a movement of Independents either towards the Republican program or away from the Democratic program, does the direction of the flow indicate that Independents may be party averse conservatives or libertarians, otherwise known as Tea Party Patriots?
Or have all these people come down with a bad case of political indigestion? Are they the equivalent of political misanthropes?
No one knows.
And yet – astoundingly – Independents have been with us for decades. The Independent movement has been growing in proportion to the diminishment of parties for many years, certainly long enough for polling analysts to take several telling snapshots of them.
Will the “rabble” form a new party?
Probably not any time soon. For the time being, the Republican Party appears to be the catch basin for a new and, some think, transformative discontent. New parties in America, few of them long lasting, usually were shaped during prolonged periods of economic distress caused either by the rapid expansion or depression of markets. Prolonged wars sometimes have given rise to the formation of new parties. Occasionally, new parties are mothered by new ideas, which is to say, rediscovered ideas, new wine poured into old wine skins that explode, sometimes with a politically disturbing effervescence.
Comments
I doubt the TPM itself had much to do with the change in poll numbers in the 2 races you spotlighted as they would tend to vote against the Democratic candidate anyway.The Democrats real problem is the discontent from people who believe that their children and grandchildren will not live as well financially as they have,that government is too big and not efficient,and that the economy hasnt sufficiently changed in a positive direction where people are back to work.There is an anger expressed by the TPM about the aforesaid issues,but it is the issues themselves that are driving the train here,not the TPM.
This mood of anger and uncertainty affects independants too.Like everyone else they are in process of shifting their anger to incumbants,who in this state are mostly Democrats.The Democrats must plead their case within 33 days that the Obama reforms and what President Obama and the Democrats plan for the future will correct the economy and move the future of the citizens in a positive direction.That will be a tough job to do, but not impossible.
The future of the TPM is uncertain, in part due to the split dichotomy of their aforesaid behavior.In addition if those on the outter fringes advance within the TPM then it will hurt their electoral cause and shift more independants to the cause of the Democrats.Time will tell if the TPM is a long term player, but to date they have re-structured the GOP to a large degree nationally but not within the state of Connecticut,yet.