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Norquist: "No leader in the Republican Party"
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Citizens for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist (promo photo).
Conservative barnstormer and anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist states, "There is not a leader of the Republican Party," and also, "There is not an obvious (Presidential) candidate for 2012." His remarks appeared in an interview with U.S. News and World Report.
Norquist is exactly right--there is no bona fide leader in the Republican Party at present. The President is a Democrat and both former President George W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney are largely silent, though Cheney perks up occasionally on topics relating to national defense.
But there is no clear candidate for President, no leader in the RNC, the Congress or among the current or former Governors that is a clear-cut leader either for the nation as the Party's candidate to be the next President, or in the ranks of the national Party.
In short, the People are not dealing with the subtle, underlying problem of leadership. The Tea Party movement is not about "Rah-Rah Republicanism." It is about reeling in excessive spending and dealing with fiscal and economic issues. But that requires dealing with Republicans that survived the 2006 and 2008 elections as much as voting out enough Democrats in the current majority to retake the majority in the House and Senate.
Norquist commented on the Tea Party movement, but like just about everybody else in the Conservative movement, he completely fails to state that this is not about Republicans! It is not an admission of guilt by the People over turning over control to a Democratic majority.
Now, while I question the actual effectiveness of the Tea Parties due to their disconnected, self-appointed leadership's decisions to not endorse, support or get candidates elected, the fact is well-established--the Tea Parties are as anti-Republican and they are anti-Democrat. They would just assume turn out all incumbents, not just the Democrats.
But when it comes time to actually turn out incumbents, at present the disconnected Tea Parties have opted to support the status quo, largely taking a neutral stance on challengers, thus de facto favoring incumbents by not assisting in getting the name of challengers out before the populace adequately. Reading out a long list of attending candidates at Tea Party rallies does nothing to tell the masses of the opportunity to vote out incumbents.
Norquist stated, "The Tea Party people have changed the focus of the Republican Party." And while this is good, the extent to which that focus has changed is debatable. For an incumbent voted in via a record margin will be less, not more likely, to change his ways. The way to get Republicans to change their focus is to vote a few high-ranking, big-spenders to the curb.
Stating that incumbent Republicans have a "sterling voting record" as Dallas Tea Party organizer Katrina Pierson recently did about bailout supporter U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions undercuts the message these incumbents must hear. To gloss over poor fiscal records predating a Democratic majority dilutes the volume, and thus the effectiveness, of the Tea Party movement's message.
I can only hope the message hasn't already been made irrelevant by simply rubber-stamping incumbents as usual.
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