Are Republicans fed up with the Tea Party?

[Lasher]

Mainstream Republicans are steering clear of the Tea Party Caucus in the new Congress. Are the GOP and the Tea Party ultimately incompatible?

Signs of tension between the mainstream GOP and the Tea Party continue to emerge. Last week, Rep. Michele Bachmann declined to let Rep. Paul Ryan's official GOP rebuttal to Obama's State of the Union address speak for all fiscal conservatives, and gave a separate Tea Party response of her own. And Tea Partiers are already gearing up to oppose some Republican incumbents in 2012 — dozens of Tea Party groups have vowed to unite behind a still unnamed candidate to rival longtime Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.). Is a real rift developing between the GOP and Tea Partiers?

Yes, the GOP is distancing itself, and with good reason: It's not just mainstream Republicans who are rejecting the Tea Party, says Patrik Jonsson in The Christian Science Monitor. Even "tea party favorites," including Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) have balked at joining the new Senate Tea Party Caucus, which now has just four members. Clearly "the post-Tucson political winds" have shifted. Mainstream America has soured on the Tea Party's angry, "anti-Obama rhetoric," so Republicans are wise to back away. "Why senators are avoiding the Tea Party Caucus"

Republicans and Tea Partiers still have a common cause: Republicans and Tea Partiers are still on the same team, says Matthew Continetti in The Weekly Standard. "Decades of overspending and overpromising by the federal government" have put us in dire financial straits. Republicans won the November elections because they promised that they would be the "adult party" and impose spending cuts. The "Tea Partying GOP House" has to press on with the hard work of balancing the books. Giving up "would be not only cowardly but politically foolish." "To boldly go where no party has gone before..."

The Tea Party can focus only on spending; the GOP can't: "Having sold itself in 2010 as the uncompromising champion of Tea Party-fueled fiscal austerity," says Frank Rich in The New York Times, the GOP caucus has now discovered "that most Americans prefer compromise to confrontation and favor balanced budgets in name only." The vast majority of Americans don't share Tea Partiers' obsession with deficit reduction, so if Republicans start slashing popular government programs to satisfy the Tea Party, they could quickly "turn Americans against the Republican Congress." "The Tea Party wags the dog"

http://theweek.com/article/briefing_blog/27/tea-party-nation

[WingDinger]

1. The teaparty is coyote ugly. Can hardly wait to see Rethugs start gnawing their arms off.

[Lasher]

3. Double coyote ugly.

They'll chew the other arm off too, because teabaggers will be looking for one armed people.

[JuniperLea]

2. Used tissue...

Is generally tossed... or flushed.

[golddigger]

4. Shit stain on a toilet bowl and the bacteria in the

shit is smarter.

[BobbyBoring]

5. I'm loving every minute of it!

It's more like the Tea Party is tired of the "Country Club" republicans. These bozos are going to eventually expose the party for what it is. Their desire to take the republicans to the very edge of far right might just bring the whole thing down~

[DCKit]

6. "Post-Tucson" my ass. They had buyers remorse before the swearing-in.

Nobody will ever be "the one" the Tea Baggers are waiting for. They'll crucify them all, in turn.

"Selfish" is the only way to describe the TP agenda, and they don't give a damn about any other group or individual. You have to look no farther than their Queen to know it.

[Toon Me Out]

7. Rethugs have an Alter-Ego

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/01/arizona-birther-bill-deny-obama-reelection


I think it's grown more apparent over time that the teabaggers were/are basically a puppet party of the Rethugs, though they definitely have free-will abilities (like some wacked-out Pinocchio). All these loopy teabaggers have been incredibly useful to them because they'll act up in ways which the Rethugs don't wish to (so Rethugs can further their "kind, Christian, upstanding" image they think they've carefully crafted). Of course, it's readily apparent they're just a glut of greedy tin god opportunists.

I'd also compare the Rethugs' approach to a villain who crafts two identities--one handy for the world, and an alter-ego for private crimes.

Except...the Tea Party alter-ego is a public phenomenon, so it has posed uncomfortable problems as it seeks to becomes more independent from Grand Ol' Evil Gepetto. Regardless, I predict that the Rethugs will always let the Teabaggers rampage like b~shirts without any kind of real repercussions, because it suits them just fine. Oh sure, there will be "distancing".

Rethugs will publicly distance themselves at times, but Teabaggers will remain a viable asset of the Rethug campaign to take back the White House.

And they can always say, with a secret glee: "Hey--that wasn't us."