The Chattanooga Tea Party say they won't be endorsing Third District Congressman Chuck Fleischmann (R-Chattanooga) even though they like much of what he has done. They say he isn't adversarial enough for their taste. What's more bizarre is that the Chattanooga Tea Party leadership admitted to the Chattanooga Times-Free Press that they agree with most of Fleischmann's voting record, and didn't cite a vote they vehemently disagreed with. Now, it is primary season, so in a very real sense we can't fault the Tea Party if they have some fault with Fleischmann's voting record and want to endorse another candidate. However, the big problem with Fleischmann and the Tea Party seems to be that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) attended a fundraiser for Chuck Fleischmann.
When we have said in the past that many local Tennessee Tea Party leaders strike us as not knowing the first thing about the game of politics, this is an example of how this writer and others have come to that conclusion. Political parties in any political system anywhere in the world are coalitions which exist in part to gain power over government bodies. Once they have that power, their first and primary goal is to do what it takes to keep that power, and in our political system, that means raising money. A Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives normally wants to raise money for all of his candidates to help them stay in office, and he or she will appear at as many fundraisers as they possibly can for them. Appearance at such a fundraiser is not necessarily indicative that candidate X always sees eye-to-eye with the Speaker, it just means that the Speaker is doing what he has to do politicaly to make sure that a seat stays in his party's hands. If Weston Wamp or Jean Howard-Hill were to win the Republican nomination instead of Fleischmann, it would not be the least bit surprising to see John Boehner at a fundraiser for either of them in the future.
Not adversarial enough? What do you want, a bazooka on the House floor?
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