Palin: "Tea Partiers have to pick a party."

CBS News ^ | 17 Feb 2010 | Scott Conroy

[TADSLOS]

No we don’t need to pick a party. We need to support and vote as many non-incumbent conservatives in who will actually keep their oath to support and defend the Constitution though. If enough of these conservatives are elected into office that claim themselves republicans for identity sake, then so be it, with the secondary effect of making GOP to right itself through grassroots action. Principled conservatism over party apparatchik bullshit any day.

[Republic of Texas]

I think she meant “take over a party”.

[Antoninus]

Here's the deal, Sarah.

If the GOP picks a business-as-usual creep like Romney, there will be a revolt.

The only way the GOP will reap the benefit of the Tea Party enthusiasm is if they get back to their conservative roots. Anything short of that is simply *begging* for a significant third party run.

[Nickname]

Same for tea party Dems. They need to wrest control back from the commies’ grip as much as we need to regain control from the RINOs.

[af_vet_rr]

No we don’t need to pick a party. We need to support and vote as many non-incumbent conservatives in who will actually keep their oath to support and defend the Constitution though. If enough of these conservatives are elected into office that claim themselves republicans for identity sake, then so be it, with the secondary effect of making GOP to right itself through grassroots action. Principled conservatism over party apparatchik bullshit any day.

Amen to that.

The way I see it, for far many years the GOP has been a spoiled little child. The independents in the Tea Party movement, not the Tea Party Express people, but the true independents of the Tea Party movement, and people like me, you and other Conservatives who are tired of it, we are the parent who is going to send them to their room. We let them act like spoiled little brats long enough. Yes, we should have done it years ago, but we are doing it now. The spoiled little brat thinks we are the "bad" parent.

The Sarah Palins of the world on the other hand, they are the parent that is willing to let the kid keep on acting like a spoiled little brat. They are the "good" parent. They've caught the kid acting like a spoiled little brat time and time again and yet they keep on trusting the kid and keep on telling the other parent "let's just give him one more chance. Yes, he keeps doing it but one of these days he'll stop doing it."

There are people here who have good intentions but they are far too soft. They think we just need to give the GOP another chance, give them 10 or 20 years. My argument is that after the crap done under a Republican President such as George W. Bush and now President Hussein Obama, we can't afford to wait and see if the GOP will try to act conservative for once. If the GOP does to us again what it's done to us over the last 10 years, the next time we have this argument about what to do, it will be too late.

[supercat]

Mainline Republicans have to destroy the Tea Party?

A substantial portion of the GOP leadership would be willing to destroy the GOP if that's what was necessary to prevent the takeover of the party by Constitutional conservatives. They know that if real conservatism was successful, their "good cop/bad cop" routine would become ineffective, and they'd lose their raîson d'être. One of the reasons vote fraud is such a problem in some places is that the "GOP" leaders there benefit from it more than do the Democrats.

While it would certainly be better for Constitutional conservatives to take over a functional GOP than start a new party, I can't say for sure that the GOP leadership would let them have a party that was worth the effort required to capture it.

[gimme1ibertee]

I agree with what you say...but just what,exactly,is going to be done,if not revamping & revitalizing the Republican Party?
Do you really think a fragmented approach to winning back congressional seats or the Oval Office is the best approach? Reagan knew it wasn’t. Cohesiveness,and the strong injection of a conservative base into the Republican Party is what’s going to get us back in power.Voting third-party will do little more than ensure Democratic rule for another cycle. Where will we be then? We need to keep hammering away at RINOs like Steele and McCain and continue to hold a hard line against them. We need to make a HUGE noise-as big,if not bigger,than the 9/12 Tea Party in DC.
Our elected leaders need to know-every single day,without fail-that we will hold their feet to the fire and we will absolutely not yield one inch of ground. We do that,as a whole,as an invigorated and revitalized party,and we will win in Nov and in 2012.

[af_vet_rr]

I agree with what you say...but just what,exactly,is going to be done,if not revamping & revitalizing the Republican Party?

The first thing is to show them that we know we have some power and aren't afraid to exercise it. That power being our vote. Until we hold it back from the RINOs and moderates, they will continue to ignore us. It's like telling a kid that a stove is hot. The RINOs and the moderates are going to ignore us until we withhold our vote and they realize the stove is very hot indeed.

Do you really think a fragmented approach to winning back congressional seats or the Oval Office is the best approach?

If you are trying to revamp an organization like the GOP, why on earth would you leave in RINOs and moderates who are going to be working against you? As long as they are within the GOP, you are not going to make any headway. It's like trying to put out a house fire and ignoring people who are running around trying to restart it.

Voting third-party will do little more than ensure Democratic rule for another cycle. Where will we be then?

There is no difference between a RINO or moderate and a Democrat. I take that back, there is one - the letter next to their name. A RINO or a moderate with an (R) next to their name might as well have a (D) next to their name. All three are looking to screw us over, it's just a matter of how hard.

We need to keep hammering away at RINOs like Steele and McCain and continue to hold a hard line against them.

Taking a hard line means not stopping when the primaries are over. If you oppose McCain through his primary and then support McCain after he wins his primary, at that moment you stop holding a hard line and are instead supporting a liberal.

There is no longer any wiggle room. We have got to stop telling ourselves that RINOs and moderates are better than Democrats, because they aren't. They are all trying to move us towards socialism, it's just the RINOs and moderates are slightly slower.

[gimme1ibertee]

Thanks for splitting up my reply in order to answer each individual point with the exact same points I made.
You said exactly what I said, but worded it differently.
If you go back and read my response to you,and yours to me,you'll see that.
So,in essence,we agree.Something must be done to weed the RINOs out,but splintering off into a third party is not the answer.I never suggested that RINOs and moderates should be left in the party.
They are what's wrong with the party.That was my main point!
The soup can only be thickened if you add more thickener...water it down and it's broth.We need to be less of a slurry and more of a stew.

[af_vet_rr]

If you go back and read my response to you,and yours to me,you'll see that. So,in essence,we agree.Something must be done to weed the RINOs out,but splintering off into a third party is not the answer.I never suggested that RINOs and moderates should be left in the party.

You're right, we agree on most everything, however are you willing to vote Conservative all the way up through the general, even if that means a third party?

We both have the same desire - rid the party of RINOs and moderates, however I think that if a RINO or moderate comes out on top in the primaries, you can't support them with your vote, because a vote for a liberal with an (R) next to their name is still a vote for a liberal.

We don't have to splinter into a third party, but we have to stop supporting RINOs and moderates, especially incumbent RINOs and moderates. That means we run the risk of losing seats in the short term, but nobody ever said this would be easy. If we wimp out and support RINOs and moderates in the general election, then we are shooting ourselves in the foot.