A TEA PARTY TAKEOVER of the New Hampshire GOP?

UPDATE: Reader Spec Bowers emails:

The answer is yes! I am a newly elected State Rep and I am a Tea Partier. We have 163 Freshmen Republican Reps (out of 298 Republicans and 102 Democrats) and my impression is that the majority of us are liberty-minded constitutionalist Tea Partiers. That’s not to say that all of have attended Tea Parties but we are sympathetic to the Tea Party fiscal policy: less spending, smaller government, no ObamaCare, etc.

I almost wrote you a couple of days of ago when you had an item about the Tea Parties and Republicans nationwide. Some Democrats no doubt are hoping that the Tea Parties will hurt Republicans by forming a third party. I thought to myself, “No! We’re taking over the Republican Party.” Some of us have been active Republicans for years; some are brand new. In my county, three of the five new State Reps are people I had never previously seen involved in Republican politics.

There have been many solid conservatives/libertarians in the NH GOP but never enough to make a majority. With reinforcements from the Tea Partiers – our new Speaker describes it as “The cavalry has arrived” – we may now be a working majority. So it’s not a hostile takeover, maybe not even a takeover at all. Mostly, I think, it is the grassroots stepping up to make sure that the leadership stays on the right course.

Indeed. (Bumped).