There is nothing new about the Tea Party giving their own response to President Obama’s State of the Union speech. Rep. Michele Bachmann gave the Tea Party answer in 2011 and Herman Cain spoke after last year’s SOTU. Both speakers followed the “official” GOP response, differing more in tone and style than in substance.
But things are just a tiny bit different this year.
Tea party leaders are turning to Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, to deliver their message following President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address, a speech that will compete with the official Republican response.
Paul will make his remarks soon after Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, wraps up the GOP response Tuesday night, a Paul spokeswoman confirms to CNN.
“We are giving a voice to the tea party movement when the mainstream media and the Republican establishment wants to write us off as dead,” said Amy Kremer, chairman of the Tea Party Express. This is the third year in a row that Kremer’s organization has sponsored the tea party response.
The dueling GOP speeches come at a time when a very public rift is developing between the Republican establishment and conservative activists over the direction of the party. Some grassroots activists are specifically angry at Karl Rove and other Republicans for stating that they will choose sides in upcoming Republican primaries and only financially help candidates who have a chance of winning in the general election.
In Paul, tea party leaders have chosen a nationally known senator, who is identified more for his embrace of a libertarian ideology than aligning himself with his own political party’s leaders.
The back-to-back addresses Tuesday night also features two young stars in the GOP, each of whom are expected to seriously consider running for the White House in 2016.
Paul will deliver his remarks before an audience at the National Press Club, which is located just a stones throw away from the White House.
“We expect many of our supporters and many of Rand Paul’s supporters, freedom loving, liberty loving Americans to be there because this is our time to be heard,” Kremer said. “We are proud that Marco Rubio is giving the official Republican Party response because he is a tea party conservative and one of our own. But the Republican Party doesn’t necessarily speak for all conservatives and the tea party movement has its own voice and this is our chance to be heard.”
It is doubtful that Rubio will refer directly to the Rove controversy. There may be soothing words about “unity” and peace from the Florida Senator, but no specifics. Republicans are not eager to hang their dirty laundry out for voters to see.
But we should expect Senator Paul to have a few well chosen words where he alludes to the effort by GOP money men to intervene directly in Republican primaries. That’s why he has been tapped to make the speech in the first place. Paul has never been reluctant to criticize the establishment, and along with some bombs thrown in the president’s direction, it is likely he will toss a few grenades into the establishment’s bunker as well.
The Red-on-Red war will be too irresistible for the media to ignore, which means Senator Paul’s speech will receive maximum, even loving exposure by a press eager to build up the GOP Civil War narrative, fanning the flames of controversy as best they can. It’s fairly clear at this point that many in the Tea Party don’t care. This is a fight that they embrace eagerly and if it ruins the party’s chances for victory in 2014, well, there’s always 2016.
Meanwhile, President Obama and the Democrats are popping popcorn and sitting back in their easy chairs, watching and giggling as the Republicans self-destruct. While an entertaining spectacle, the GOP smash-up could bring about what both sides claim would be catastrophic to the republic; the president holding a majority in both Houses of Congress with two full years to continue his “transformation” of America, unimpeded by an organized and effective opposition.
But that’s small potatoes when compared to sticking it to the establishment, or teaching the Tea Party a lesson. This is what’s really important to the country. Everything else — all that stuff about the survival of America as we know it and all that other garbage — window dressing only.
So by all means, let’s continue with the bloodletting. With both sides claiming the other wants to “destroy” them, what’s the worst that could happen? Obama triumphant with his foot on the neck of Republicans who were too stupid to see past their own parochial self interest and unite in the national interest. Rove, the Tea Party, libertarians, evangelicals — any common ground that’s possible won’t be achieved as long as the factions see each other as an enemy as dangerous as liberals and the Democrats.
That would make a marvelous epithet on a headstone for the GOP.
This is extremely naive. Unity is made possible by agreement on principles, confirmed by specific positions and actions taken. You cannot unite two sides that are divided on principles, or who view one another’s specific positions and actions as indicative of insincerity.
What principles does the “establishment” of the GOP espouse? Are GOP establishmentarians firm about the absolutism of the guarantees in the Bill of Rights? How about its indivisibility? Or what about the Constitutionally enumerated powers of Congress and the Constitutionally narrow powers allowed to the president?
You’ll find substantial conformance to those principles among constitutionalist conservatives and libertarians. Of course, quite a lot of self-nominated libertarians hold that abortion is “a woman’s right to choose,” which will alienate traditional conservatives, Catholics and evangelical Christians, so there’s another high barrier to unity.
What about principles of justice in taxation? GOP establishmentarians have never drawn a line in the sand about private citizens’ rights to their earnings and their homes. What’s the moral limit to property taxes, and why? Is progressive taxation licit at all? If so, how high should rates be allowed to rise, and why? “No higher than they are today” is not a principled position. Libertarians, constitutionalist conservatives, and TEA Party allegiants are unsatisfied with such hedging.
Then we have the antisocial “social programs:” Social Security and MediCare. GOP establishmentarians claim to want to “save” them, whereas libertarians, constitutionalist conservatives, and many TEA Party allegiants want them to vanish. How can there be unity between those two sides — and who could reasonably have expected Mitt Romney to win any great degree of support from pro-freedom types by talking about saving the parts of ObamaCare he likes?
Where are the grounds for unity when there are such deep divisions among potential Republican allegiants on principles?
Not to mention with good ole’ GOPe’s elected and put in place by Mr. Rove and his bunch, Obama and his crowd do not need other Democrats in Congress when Boehner and those who are supposed to be representing our side “rant and rave” about we will cut taxes and hold “Bimbo’s” feet to the fire this time and end up caving and going along for the “good of the country” to avert one more huge crisis after another. Shoot, we don’t even need two different parties. Hard to tell the difference between them anymore. My mama used to say, “put them in a bag and shake them up, they’d all hit the ground at the same time.” Might hear one big thump when Mr. Rove’s big head hit the ground.
Or we could just let Karl Rove and co. select moderate, electable candidates for us. I’m sure President Romney will be glad to talk about how well that worked out.
organized and effective opposition?!? From whom?!? Certainly not from Boehner and Co.! If he and his merry band of RINOs would rather stay in with the “in” crowd at the Georgetown coctail parties than manning up and showing some backbone, it would be better for ’16 if the Dems owned the whole disaster themselves, rather than having the go along to get along, reach across the isle types put a veneer of bipartisanship upon the destruction!
The problem is that the GOP Establishment refuses to acknowledge that they are part of the problem. If the BSM get a taste of some red-on-red fighting and decides it’s more entertaining to write about than the alleged disappearance of the Tea Party, maybe the Republican wing of the Beltway Party will have to face up to the seriousness of its predicament.
The GOP, which pretends to want smaller government, spends more and grows government when in power. Between 2000 and 2006, the federal budget grew 48.4%, well ahead of inflation (17.1%). Bush and a GOP Congress. Including most of the GOP wonks currently conspiring to sell out the American people by blaming Obama. Oops, too bad about those taxes and your firearms, but well, you know, we have to do what we can. Blah, blah, blah. Maybe we’ll have another committee meeting to discuss Eric Holder. That seems to put people back to sleep, dreaming that we’re doing something. Don’t look behind that curtain and see that no indictments or impeachment documents have been filed!
And we’re supposed to support the party despite its overweening hypocrisy? I say the sooner we rebuild the GOP along true Constitutional principles, the better for America. So what’s the problem here? Only for those who want the status quo of two sides of the same coin: Do you want to slide into feudalist socialism sooner, or a little later?
“what’s the worst that could happen? Obama triumphant with his foot on the neck of Republicans who were too stupid to see past their own parochial self interest and unite in the national interest.”
yes, that is EXACTLY what happened with rovemccainromney in charge.
Time for the Tea Party to kick the losers out of the republican party.
This response is so obvious I’m surprised it took six comments to get to it. Obama is ALREADY triumphant, and Rove’s style of Republicanism is directly responsible.
The Rovian GOP has been effing things up for 13 years now. I give W credit for his national security stuff but he also gave us an enormous Medicare expansion. Rove and his ilk controlled all three branches of the government for six years and what did they do to shrink the federal government? Nothing. What did they do to pursue the conservative agenda? Nothing. Then they gave us two disastrous candidates in a row, handing victories to what should have been an easily defeatible Democrat.
Why should we give a flying f*** about Republicans winning if they’re not going to do anything to serve us? Why should I care who wins if my only choice is between two fans of larger, more intrusive government? No, the answer is to take the party over from his kind and offer America an actual choice. And if that’s going to be hard and take a long time then the sooner we get started the better.
The argument that a divided Republican party will give victory to the Democrats loses much of its sting if you look at the fact that we already have numerous examples of the Institutional Republicans working to elect Democrats rather than the duly nominated TEA Party Republican candidates since 2010. Either the argument goes both ways, or it is moot.
Then there is the matter of what the Institutionals have done since the last election. TEA Party and Conservatives have been purged from all finance and appropriations committees. If that is not an act of open warfare, what is?
The Institutional Republicans are more than happy to split the party, and lose elections, if it marginalizes Conservatives. Goose, gander, sauce.
But let us posit real elections in 2014. Let us even posit the unrealistic event that there is not the new normal unresisted Democrat election fraud. And let us assume that the TEA Party/Conservative/Patriot movement does not contest control of the Republican Party. Given the abject surrender of the Institutional Republicans to the Democrats at every point of contention, not only this session but also for the last decade, the total refusal to even credibly pretend to resist the Left; what is your basis for believing that in such an election that the Institutional Republicans could a) win the Senate, or b) hold the House? Other than a quixotic desire to make sure that Boehner’s public weeping has a continued forum in the House; why would Conservatives bother giving time, money, votes, and their integrity to the Republican party?
Subotai Bahadur
Mr. Rove, white board, and crony-capitalist, We The Elite People of culture of corruption in Washinton DC, “deep throat” insider, suckling at governments teats since Nixon’s Reign, is RNC/GOP’S carney man…just like ones barking for Barnum & Baily Circus. Trouble is, try finding Barnum & Bailey anywhere in these USA…is a historical side note. Just like Mr. Rove’s RNC/GOP. All three going by way of the extinct Do-Do. Pray. Amen. Mr. Rove epitomizes everything that’s wrong with Americas politics and political system…time for sweeping out the old and ushering the New!!! Tea Party, Don’t Tread On Me!!!
The GOP is already dead. Put whatever epitaph on the headstone you wish. I’ll be voting for Rand Paul or a like minded conservative regardless of who in nominated by the RNC.
I hope they get the camera situation rectified. When Bachmann did it, she was looking into the web camera, but the tv cameras shot her from a different angle which produced an odd television image.