Tea Party Plans to Abandon GOP Stars

I have to confess that it gives me some deep pleasure to see the Frankenstein monster that the Republican establishment created - i,e., the Christofascist/Tea Party take over of the party grassroots - lurch increasingly out of control and threaten to utterly destroy the GOP long term.  When I resigned from my GOP City Committee seat some years back, I predicted that the party leadership would rue the day that it put short term expediency ahead of long term goals and in the process rejected logic, reason and intellect.  A piece in the Virginian Pilot looks at the Tea Party's plan to go rouge on some of the supposed GOP stars.  Note how the Tea Party wants to inflect local political offices with its insanity.  Here are excerpts:

This wasn't the revolution the tea party had in mind.   Four years ago, the movement and its potent mix of anger and populism persuaded thousands of costumed and sign-waving conservatives to protest the ballooning deficit and President Obama's health care law. It swept a crop of no-compromise lawmakers into Congress and governor's offices and transformed political up-and-comers, including Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, into household names.

But as many tea party stars seek re-election next year and Rubio considers a 2016 presidential run, conservative activists are finding themselves at a crossroads. Many of their standard-bearers have embraced more moderate positions on bedrock issues such as immigration and health care, broadening their appeal in swing states but dampening grass-roots passion.

"They keep sticking their finger in the eyes of the guys who got them elected," said Ralph King, a co-founder of the Cleveland Tea Party Patriots. "A lot of people are feeling betrayed."

[M]any more say they plan to sit out high-profile races in some important swing states next year, a move that GOP leaders fear could imperil the re-election prospects of former tea party luminaries, including the governors of Florida and Ohio. 

Local activists say they have focused largely on their own communities since Obama's re-election and the ideological drift of some tea party-backed politicians. Many are running for school boards, county commissions and city councils, focusing on issues such as unfunded pension liabilities and sewer system repairs.

"The positions that people are filling at the local levels are more important for the future of the movement and the future of the country," said Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, a national umbrella organization. "It's creating a farm team for the future."

The Republican establishment, however, is concerned about 2014. Party leaders worry about the GOP's most passionate advocates walking away, particularly those supporters angered by the Senate's immigration bill.

 

The lesson to the GOP should be that when you allow the insane and irrational to infiltrate your party, bad things are bound to happen.