How Can the GOP Win the Tea Party Vote? Part 1
This is a multi-part examination of the relationship between the Tea Party movement and the Republican party. Part 1 examines the risks and reasons for 3rd party voting and the importance of primaries.
In the past 2 months, I’ve spoken to several Republican organizations, both official party divisions (Township, committee), and unofficial clubs. The invitations arose from the organization’s desire to hear from me, which is a great honor for which I’m genuinely appreciative.
But not everyone in attendance at some of these meetings are happy with the Tea Party movement. A few of the people at these meetings seemed less interested in what I had to say and more interested in telling me what they wanted me to hear.
From some of these people, I heard something like this:
- Tea Partiers are political newcomers who were on the sidelines until very recently
- Tea Partiers do not understand how the world of politics really works
- Tea Partiers have benefited from the hard work of people who have been doing party work for many years
- Tea Partiers have no business supporting 3rd party candidates
- Therefore, Tea Partiers should shut up and obey Republican party leaders
I am not exaggerating. Anyone who came to the Pillar of the Valley a few weeks ago to listen to Thomas Tabback knows exactly what I’m talking about. But I have emails that are even stronger than the comments we heard two weeks ago.
While that attitude it shocking and dangerous to the GOP’s chances of even holding its current numbers in Washington, that attitude is very rare. Most of the party regulars have a much more honest and open attitude: what do we have to do to win your trust, and will you help us?
I believe that in giving honest answers to honest questions, so I will attempt to explain my view. I understand the risk I’m taking: many Tea Partiers hold views of the Republican Party that’s no better than their views of Democrats. My own criticisms of the GOP and many of its leaders demonstrates my dissatisfaction with the party’s performance in the past decade or more. I would ask that those who hate the Republican party to give me a moment, not to defend the party, but to lay out a framework for reforming it and a justification for doing so.
Build or Buy?
The American Ideal demands a vibrant party that exists primarily as bulwark against the natural inclination of some to ignore the rule of law and build collectivist, despotic dictatorships. As outsiders, we have a moral duty to the God who granted us rights as free men and women to choose now: build a new party, or buy (infiltrate and rehabilitate) an existing one.
Every state has an array of laws to thwart the rise of new political parties. These laws were written by party insiders for party insiders. While we can decry this reality and demand it change, it won’t change in time for us to stop the White House communists from turning the USA into an oversexed version of the Soviet Union.
Remember that each of the conservative 3rd parties–Libertarian, Constitution, etc.–has been largely unsuccessful in running candidates in races with larger geographic coverage than municipal elections. Would that change if everyone who calls himself a Tea Partier supported, say, a Libertarian candidate? No. Here’s some math. While the 10,000 people who came to Kiener on April 15 may represent 100 times as many tea-partiers-at-heart, there STILL aren’t enough tea partiers to defeat both major parties in any Congressional or state-wide race.
For example, in 2008, there were 305,071 votes cast. The Libertarian and Constitution Party candidates split about 10,000 votes, the rest went to Caranahan (D) or Sander (R). Now, suppose the 10,000 people at the April Tea Party represent 1,000,000 who felt the same way. If 10 percent, or 100,000, of those people lived in the 3rd District and ALL voted for either the Libertarian or the Constitution Party candidate, and they were all new voters who sat out the 2008 election, Carnahan STILL would have won by almost 100,000 votes. If, however, all 100,000 voted for the Republican Sander and the 10,000 who voted for 3rd parties joined them, Chris Sander would be the U.S. Representative form Missouri’s 3rd district (by 200 votes).
Political scientists will tell you that 10,000 people at a rally represent far more than 1 million people of similar beliefs. Still, a 3rd party candidate winning a U.S. House or Senate election is exceedingly rare. Rarely do 3rd party candidates with name recognition and money win Missouri House seats, where the smaller geographic area makes 3rd parties far more likely to win. You should have no fear of error in saying that the next U.S. Senator and all 9 U.S. Representatives from Missouri will be either Democrat or Republican.
Does that mean you should never vote for a 3rd party under any circumstances? No. If the two parties’ candidates hold morally reprehensible positions or have histories to indicate they will vote for morally reprehensible legislation, you have a moral duty NOT to vote for either of them. The lesser of two evils is still evil. A candidate who supports, say, human slavery against a candidate who supports consensual sex between 45 year old men and 13 year old girls requires the voter to abstain from casting a vote for either. Choose a 3rd party candidate or write one in. In case of New York’s 23rd District, morally conscious voters had no choice but to support Doug Hoffman. Both of the major party candidates promoted evil to one degree or another.
The 3rd party lever is a useful tool for sending a message to the party closest to your ideological position. If you’re a tea partier, that’s most likely the Republican party. But the tea party movement can determine who’s on the general election ballot, thereby circumventing the "less of two evils" scenario.
Primaries
It’s fair to say that most voters have no idea who the primary candidates are. It’s fair to say that, because in 2006 (the most recent off-year election), the entire state of Missouri turned out fewer primary voters than the 3rd District alone turned out for the 2008 general election. So, even if the voters know who the primary candidates are, they certainly don’t care.
The primary election is usually where you’re guaranteed to have at least one non-evil candidate on the ballot. Moreover, you voice is stronger in the primary because so few people vote. In 2008’s general election in Missouri’s 3rd district, your vote competed with over 300,000 others. In the Republican primary next year, that same vote will compete with about 40,000, assuming turnout approaches 2006 levels, the last off-year election. So your primary vote is 7.5 times more powerful in the primary than in the general election.
The primaries determine who has a chance to win the general election. As we saw above, only two people have a reasonable chance to win: one Democrat and one Republican. Third party candidates can defeat the candidate of the party ideologically closest to their own, but they cannot win without extraordinary circumstances–like both major party candidates coming out in favor of al Qaeda.
My Conclusion
Considering the damage that Barack Obama and Democrat Congress could produce between now and January 20, 2013, I think we have no choice but do whatever it takes to win back Congress in 2010. No third party could change state law, raise money, gain media access, recruit and train candidates, and attract a voting majority of citizens in a majority of Congressional districts and all 50 states between now and November 2, 2010. No rational human would challenge this assertion.
Therefore, the more effective use of our organization and passion is to infiltrate and rehabilitate the Republican party where possible and to accelerate that rehabilitation from the outside by driving from the party its weakest links like Michael Steele.
In Part 2, we’ll look what Republican candidates and the party can do to attract Tea Party votes and the limitations of Tea Party "leader" influence over the movement.
15 Responses to “How Can the GOP Win the Tea Party Vote? Part 1”
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Great post Bill! I hope a lot of tea partiers read and understand your thoughts on this. I hope other leaders in tea party organizations across the country get on board with this track of thought also.
Primaries have indeed become more important than general elections. Primary elections are the best chance of actually getting conservatism on the ballot. All too often our two choices are by two individuals using identity politics to build winning coalitions of voters. These candidates are more obsessed with winning & achieving power than bringing conservative principles to congress. In the end, they will grow government with more programs paid for by taxpayers to pander to their voting blocks they cultivated during their campaigns.
The talking points you share from a minority of establishment Republicans is very telling. It reveals that there is truth to accusations floating around that this this battle for our country is not exclusively over policy(left vs right). It’s also a battle between the political class and the people. The elitists in the Republican party represent the other side of the statist coin. Mark Levin refers to them as neo-Statists in his book Liberty & Tyranny.
Neo-Statists(establishment Republicans) believe they know how to do big government better than Democrats. They also will twist the Constitution in ways to promote their own policies. The following paragraph from Levin’s opening chapter says it all:
“The conservative does not despise government. He despises tyranny. This is precisely why the Conservative reveres the Constitution and insists on adherence to it. An “effective” government that operates outside its constitutional limitations is a dangerous government. By abandoning principle for efficiency, the neo-Statist, it seems, is no more bound to the Constitution than is the Statist. He marches more slowly than the Statist, but he marches with him nonetheless. The neo-Statist propounds no discernable standard or practical means to hem in the federal power he helps unleash, and which the Statist would exploit. In many ways, he is as objectionable as the Statist, for he seeks to devour conservatism by clothing himself in its nomenclature.”
These individuals in the Republican party who hold contempt for the tea party movement feel as threatened by us as the Democrats do. In their eyes, if the tea party movement is successful their power within government party will be undermined just like their peers and colleagues on the other side of the aisle.
During the past century many Republican administrations have nurtured our nations drift to the left. If Conservatives are going to turn things around the Republican party must no longer be the party of Teddy Roosevelt, Taft, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, and Bush. The Republican party must become the party of Reagan and manage to stay that way for a long time. Primary elections will become more important than general elections in order for Conservatives to succeed.
“…If Conservatives are going to turn things around the Republican party must no longer be the party of Teddy Roosevelt, Taft, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, and Bush. The Republican party must become the party of Reagan and manage to stay that way for a long time.”
Not to be too picky, but I’d take Coolidge out of your thumbs down list, and slide him right up towards, if not to, the top of the thumbs up list. With apologies to Reagan (who was the first President I voted for), Coolidge was the last President to govern within the Constitution, who sought a laissez-faire economy, and reduced the size of government, because he knew that govt interference in the economy and larger government roles in our lives would take us farther and farther from what was important to who we are:
“We do not need more intellectual power, we need more moral power. We do not need more knowledge, we need more character. We do not need more government, we need more culture. We do not need more law, we need more religion. We do not need more of the things that are seen, we need more of the things that are unseen. . . .If the foundation be firm, the superstructure will stand. ”
And a favorite quote of his on the Declaration of Independence, especially relevant in today’s world of more and more new proregressive McRights,
“If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth and their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction cannot lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. ”
There was a reason why Reagan admired Coolidge and hung his portrait on the wall in his Cabinet Room.
You are correct, and I indicted Coolidge inappropriately. Indeed Coolidge did embody the conservative beliefs of limited government.
Great post and great 1st comment. Helps those that are not really informed about what the Tea Party movement is all about. Wanting to revolt without thinking things through may result in even more disasterous politicians. Just what were the Republicans thinking (or not) when they put DeDe up as their choice?
“Therefore, the more effective use of our organization and passion is to infiltrate and rehabilitate the Republican party where possible and to accelerate that rehabilitation from the outside by driving from the party its weakest links like Michael Steele.”
I agree. What the Republican Party grumblers should take a moment to consider, is that what the Tea Party members are standing up and holding them to account for, are the standards it freely mouths whenever it tries to rally the faithful or get a happy cheer: fiscal responsibility and limited government.
It is not the Tea Party people who are backing a message that strays from Republican principles, but the Republican leadership themselves.
Wherever we can infiltrate, rehabilitate and hold the party to accounts, we must do so, painful or not; but it will not be done in an effort to “transform” the Republican party, but to bring its actions back into alignment with it’s original principles and roots.
Isn’t there a lot of power in deciding who (and what) ends up on the ballot? Vote integrity was never more important!
Sadly, the “I’m from the red tribe! You’re from the blue tribe!” construct is all that many can understand.
An ideology of small government, big liberty–not the inverse–is what is important to me. I hope the Republican Party can be “rehabilitated,” but when Newt Gingrich endorses Dede Scozzafava, who then pulls out and endorses the anti-liberty Democrat candidate, and when Republican Representatives from this state vote for increasing the public debt ceiling, bailouts, Cash for Clunkers, and all other manner of wealth redistribution, I start to have my doubts. There is an intense power struggle underway. I certainly pray that the lovers of Liberty and those who would keep their oath to defend the U.S. Constitution will win out.
Bill,
Sorry to see you drinking the Kool-Aid.
The Republican Party was founded as a party of big government and has remained one at all times when in power, even if it adopts small-government rhetoric when it’s out of power. It’s no accident that the largest government building in Washington, DC is the Ronald Reagan Center.
When Libertarian Party activists in Illinois launched the Tea Party movement, they knew there was a good chance the GOP would try to hijack it. I hope that you’ll wake up in time to help stop that from happening, because that would mark the end of the movement as a force for good. It’s going to take a new party to save the American dream.
Best regards,
Tom Knapp
Chair
St. Louis County Libertarians
That was great Bill. I couldn’t agree more. I had this same discussion with Ned Ryun/American Majority. By the time a third party ever rose top significance it could be as corrupted as the original it sought to replace.
The Dems have restructured their party into the extreme left socialist version that it is today. Not all Dems are down with it. The GOP has been convinced that selling out conservative ideals will placate the moderates and we will win. It is painfully obvious that this has not succeeded.
You are right – the surest way back to conservatism is to wrest the GOP back from the moderates and stand FOR something clear and concise illustrating a clear contrast to the Dems – no more “Dem Lite”.
Dear Tea Partiers, alas, a defining moment! Have you really looked in the mirror and asked yourself – okay now what? Does change come about by hope? Do you truly want “conservatism” in your government? Perhaps the time is now to exercise your desires by simply inquiring about conservatism on your local level. Start with your school board. Check out the leadership. Which board members favor “award-winning” leftists books and/or “smut” books that are being mandated for kids to read. Why not conservative books? Are you aware of such book reading programs? More local level? Have you reviewed your property tax statement? Do you know who your city council members are? Have you ever attended a school board or city council meeting? Start small, look up just one school board member, phone call them and simply tell them who you are and that you would like to know more about the book reading programs. That’s all! Upon the information you receive or do not receive, ask your neighbor to do the same. Now, as we glance back at the mirror, take a deep breath and think of that famous quote – “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Best regards, FreshConservativeMeat
I’m sending this letter to many leaders and Patriots in the St Louis area with the hope that it will open some minds that seem to be closed!
I hear Radio commentators, Tea Party Leaders and regular folks railing about the course government is taking this nation.
They complain about Democrats, Republicans, progressives, socialists and even conservatives! Government is to big, to over reaching and to controlling. They do things that are not Constitutional! The solution everyone seems to agree on is to vote them out! And elect whom? Another Democrat or Republican?
No one I’ve heard in the Tea Party movement or on talk radio has had the guts to seriously back or even discuss a 3rd party option. I have to wonder why, With all the disgust for the Left and the outright failure of the GOP to stand up for “We The People” why do you continually stand behind them? They have let us down for decades! What’s the definition of insanity- To do the same thing over and over and over and expect a different result !
We will hear long time GOP politicians tell us they have had an epiphany and they now realize we need to get back to our Constitutional roots. Really??
Here is the mission statement for The Constitution Party:
“The goal of the Constitution Party is to promote and defend the great American principles of individual liberty and return to constitutional government through education and political activity and through election, at all levels of government, of Constitution Party candidates, who will uphold the principals of the Declaration Of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.”
I haven’t seen another party state this clearly what their Mission Statement is, have you? The two major parties have ingrained in our heads that somehow there are only two political parties and any other way is some how un-American! Well I have news for you, that kind of naive thinking is why we are where we are today.
I’ll end with the last few lines from the Declaration Of Independence-
“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
Thank You
Richard Blowers
Constitution Party of Missouri
Jefferson County Chairman
Third party is a loosing proposition on a national level. If Ross Perot with his billions couldn’t pull it off, it can’t be done on the Presidential level.
There is no reason for a third party on the national level when a primary system allows you to overhaul one or both of the 2 major political parties over time. Just because one guy wins his first congressional seat doesn’t mean he can’t be unseated from within his own party during the next election.
Should a third party ever ascend to the powerful levels of the GOP and the Democrats, why would anyone believe that it would be immune to the same disease that has infected the others. Political parties are made up of people, and a third party label doesn’t shield its members from the same temptations and character flaws of any other human being.
A third party President would be a disaster. Both political parties would gang up on him. He would be a lame duck the moment he took office. There would be no incentive for the other two parties to support him, especially when it comes to cutting down the size of government. Congressmen from both aisles would oppose him at every turn.
Third parties haven’t been able to stop Europe’s slide the the left.
A third major political party is no substitute for an informed and involved electorate keeping a close eye on their elected officials.
I agree that on a national level a 3rd party is a stretch. However on the State and local level they will be very effective. Not only as a viable voting option but as a guide post to keep the ever waffling GOP on the straight and narrow. Remember that the Republican Party WAS a 3rd party so it’s interesting that they argue against 3rd parties with a straight face. As far as possible corruption of a 3rd party in the future, well of course it could happen. But that is the duty of the voters to be watchful for that and get them out at that time. A third party would not be a substitute but another choice. A choice that’s needed because of both parties continual lack of conscience and an unwillingness to adhere to their oath of office.
Sorry, I didn’t realize that the DNC and RNC where the parties setup in the Constitution, and a so called “third” party has no place in present day politics.
Well, the DEMS and REPS have done such a great job until now. Who could ask for more?
Surely the GOP is now poised and ready to really come in and do a great job. No, really they will this time….
Let’s see, they have only been in office since about 1860. Now they are going to push those nasty DEMS out and truely serve the people.
The Tea Party movement and similar organizations along with a large number of political commentators claim no GOP affiliation. They also are highly insulted with the assertions of being shills for the GOP.
Then articles like this are supposed to leave people thinking that they are not political pawns of the GOP?
There are a growing number of us out here that don’t buy the nonsense that the President is running the show, and the poor, innocent legislature is powerless to do the right thing. This strategy allows a false sense of power shift from DNC to RNC and back each election cycle. It’s just like a teter totter and playing the public for fools.
Ladies and gentlemen of the government, how about reading the Constitution you swore by during your oathes of office.
A party like the Constution Party has a solid platform, anyone read the DEMS and REPS recently? These are truely works of art, not saying much, emotion, with no substance.
The Constitution Party is growing, and although not as big as the two presently running things, it is not a broken party.
If you put your efforts behind the GOP, there is a large amount tear-down and rebuild before you can even get moving forward.
Wake up America, keep voting along bi partisan lines, and expect more of the same….