Extremism from either the left or the right does not support
good governance; it imperils it, as well as the party that adopts its tactics.
Read Earl Ofari Hutchinson’s take on how the extremist Tea Party element has
become a GOP liability:
The resignation of South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint from
the Senate followed close on the heels of the desertion from the Tea Party of
Freedom Works head Dick Armey took some by surprise. DeMint and Armey were the
two biggest and most identifiable fish in the Tea Party affiliated pond. DeMint
could be relied on to broker his name ID and prodigious fund raising prowess to
every Tea Party backed Senatorial candidate--and loser.
Armey was a tireless advocate at big, stagey Tea Party rallies and confabs
for the Tea Party's anti-big government hard line message. Now both are out. If
that wasn't bad news enough for the Tea Party, GOP conservative House leaders
turned on it and ousted Representatives Tim Huelskamp of Kansas and Justin
Amash of Michigan two of the loudest Tea Party position advocates from the
House Budget Committee. They were kicked to the curb almost certainly because
GOP House leaders know they have to make a deal with President Obama on the
budget or risk being further dragged through the public and media mud as being
the cause for shoving the nation over the fiscal cliff. The Tea Party's
brand of patented loose cannon obstructionism is too threatening to a GOP still
reeling from the election flop. The ouster of the Tea Party hardliners
and desertions by GOP bigwigs from the movement was hardly the first rumbling
that the lights are dimming for the Tea Party.
A year earlier, polls showed that far more Americans had an unfavorable view
of the Tea Party than when it roared on the scene a couple of years earlier.
The disaffection cut across all lines and that included many conservatives.
The reason for the plunge in Tea Party backing in Red State districts
support wasn't hard to find. When Tea Party affiliated candidates scored big
victories and even upsets of GOP incumbents in some races in 2010 they had one
mantra and that was to shrink government, and shrink it fast. Millions of
Americans cheered their war call, and voted for the candidates that yelped it
the loudest. But it's one thing to scream about big government, bloated federal
spending, and whopping federal debts, and it's quite another to actually hold
Congress, and by extension, the nation hostage in an uncompromising, shrill
battle to chop down government.
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