Florida lawyer makes it official:
A conservative Florida lawyer “has registered an official ‘Tea Party’ with the office of the Secretary of State, and is promising to run candidates against Republicans and Democrats in state and national races,” reports Ben Smith.
Said Frederic O’Neal, the party chairman: “The current system has become mired in the sludge of special interest money that seeks to control the leadership of both parties. It’s time for real change.”
Thoughts?
Pfff. Lame.
These idiots wouldn’t know what the tea party was about if it hit them in head. The east India trading company was getting special terms that excluded them from tea tax that has just been imposed on all the colonist. A giant multi-national corporation having special rules to follow, doesn’t sound like anything we might encounter today…durrrrr.
I personally think they are making a huge mistake registering themselves as a national party. By staying relatively independent, they are free to give their support for any candidates of any party that most closely represent their positions. While third parties do have a role in U.S. politics, they are generally relegated to advancing issues and rarely are able to elect their own candidates. The reason for this is simple. Once the key positions of a third party’s platform become popular enough to give their candidate a chance at winning an election, one of the two major parties will usually adopt that popular stance, thus stealing their thunder. As such, third parties are a great way to advance issues, but are generally not so good at getting people elected.
As the Tea Party continues to grow in strength and influence, I believe we will see more and more Republican candidates moving to support their platform. If the recent election in NY has shown the Republicans anything, it’s that the Tea Party certainly does seem to have enough clout with the people to at least upset an election, “idiots” or not.
Marshall – I don’t think anyone’s FOR corporatism… Except maybe for the politicians that we have in office now and in the recent past. That seems to be all they want.