Tea Partiers have been raging for years now about how they are against entitlements, government healthcare, etc. But the thing I have found so strikingly inconsistent is that they are against government entitlements except their entitlements. Wither it is Social Security, Medicare or government pensions, Tea Partiers are against all government entitlements except theirs. For some reason they feel entitled to them. They have always earned their entitlement. It is always the other guy who has not earned his/her entitlement. And that is the entitlement they are against. It seems the chicken has come home to roost based on the election results yesterday in New York. That reddest of districts, New York 26, has gone Blue...largely because of opposition to the Republican passed House bill that guts Medicare. So are Tea Partiers now waking up? New York 26 combined with the fact that right wing radio (e.g. limbaugh, hannity) has lost about a third of their listeners in the last six months may be an indication that Tea Partiers are waking up to reality. Can Fox News save the day for the Koch brothers?
You need to read Matt Taibbi's piece on the teabaggers from last fall, if you haven't. It's pretty lol. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/matt-taibbi-on-the-tea-party-20100928
Meh, that's typical of overheated rhetoric. They're in that for the emotional appeal of making simple, categorical, strong arguments, not for actual policy. It's the same way with the "do not raise taxes" rhetoric - they say that, and then turn around and attack "loopholes and deductions," which is just another way of saying "raise taxes." But "retain existing basic rate structure, and grab new revenue by eliminating home mortgage interest deductions" doesn't have the same impact or simplicity. It also has the liability of being politically radioactive for anyone who'd openly suggest it - plenty of homeowners who will vote you the fuck out of office if you threaten to make their homes unaffordable instead of asking billionaires to cough up a few extra bucks.
A more detailed look at NY 26: Democratic candidate Kathy Hochul won with 47 percent of the vote, GOP candidate Jane Corwin got 43 percent, and “Tea Party” candidate Jack Davis came in with 9 percent. Clearly, Davis’s attacks on Hochul split the Republican vote, which would have been 52 percent if you add Davis and Corwin’s together. This is less than other statewide Republican candidates have won recently, but it would have been enough to defeat Hochul, and it would have been a majority of voters, which, let’s remember, Hochul did not garner. http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs...ts-spinning-new-york-special-election-results So the "Republican/Tea Party" got 52% of the vote, but because the NY Republican establishment again nominated someone the grass roots couldn't stomach, the tea party ran a third party candidate which split the Republican vote.
You are rounding up. The Republican/Tea Party total would in reality be something like 50-51 percent. But given the fact that the Tea Party candidate was a former Democrat it is hard to believe that all of the Tea Party votes would have gone to Republicans had a Tea Party candidate not been on the ballot. http://articles.cnn.com/2011-05-26/...-ryan-special-election-medicare?_s=PM:OPINION And it is important to remember this is a staunchly Republican district that has very rarely gone Democrat. Even if the Democrats did not win this election (which they did), it would be news worthy that they were even competitive in this district. Republicans can make excuses for this loss and I expect they will. But serious Republican candidates will take a long hard look at what happened in New York 26 this week. The question now is, can the considerable Republican spin machine put a pretty face on it and successfully misrepresent their positions on Medicare to American voter?
