Misreading the tea leaves

Who is King (or Queen) Shit of Tea-Turd Mountain? No one knows. Sarah Palin is the teabaggers’ biggest draw. Rand Paul is its self-proclaimed messenger:

But Billie the Bigmouth Bass has as valid a claim as anyone because this bogus “movement” has no platform other than being pissed off about Democrats and people of color having the temerity to govern. That sentiment is broad enough to draw crowds, sell t-shirts and bumper stickers and bilk suckers for donations.

But does it offer a credible alternative? The usually astute Frank Rich misses a key point in today’s NYT column.

Says Rich:

Unlike Scott Brown, whose Tea Party cred consisted mainly of opposition to the health care bill and a pickup truck, Paul is one of the movement’s card-carrying founding fathers. From the start, he openly defined himself as a Tea Party tribune, and its followers embraced him (and contributed to him) as their uncompromising avatar. Now, after months of debate about what this movement is and isn’t, Paul’s victory provides clear-cut answers.

The Tea Party is not merely an inchoate expression of a political mood, or an amorphous ragtag band of diverse elements, or a bipartisan cry of dissatisfaction with the supposed “government takeover” of health care. The Tea Party is a right-wing populist movement with a specific ideology. It resides in the aging white base of the Republican Party and wants to purge that party of leaders who veer from its dogma. But divisive as the Tea Party may be within the G.O.P., it’s hardly good news for President Obama and the Democrats either.

Paul is articulate and hard-line. When he says he is antigovernment, he means it. Unlike McConnell, he wants to end all earmarks, including agricultural subsidies for a state that thrives on them. (He does vow to preserve Medicare payments, however; they contribute to his income as an ophthalmologist.) He wants to shut down the Department of Education and the Federal Reserve. Though a social conservative who would outlaw all abortions, he believes the federal government should leave drug enforcement to the states.

It’s also in keeping with this ideology that Paul wants the federal government to stop shoveling taxpayers’ money into wars. He was against the war in Iraq and finds the justification for our commitment in Afghanistan “murky.” He believes that America’s national security is “not threatened by Iran having one nuclear weapon.”

Rich is right about the Tea Party being largely an older, white wingnut movement, but he’s wrong to say Paul’s win settled the debate on its specific ideology. Being anti-war (including the federal drug war) and anti-PATRIOT Act may be consistent with Paul’s ideology, but there’s no evidence the teabaggers at large have latched onto those notions.

For all their screeching about deficit spending and bailouts, the teabaggers have been remarkably silent about the biggest line item in the federal budget: military spending. Teabagger faves Hannity, Beck and Palin are constantly wringing their hands about Iran getting a bomb. They dump on the president non-stop for not meddling in world affairs enough.

It sounds like Paul wisely kept the portion of his highly selective libertarianism that doesn’t dovetail with the standard GOP base mindset under wraps during the primary race. Now that he’s on the national stage and some of his fringier (from the GOP’s perspective) libertarian views are being exposed, it’s unlikely an ultra-socially conservative, rabidly pro-military, hippie-hater group is going to unite under his banner.

This isn’t a sea-change—it’s the usual suspects fighting over the dwindling clump of Bush dead-enders. I wish Paul well in his bid to become the face of the teabaggers. Nothing could get the GOP base to stop pretending to be something new any quicker.

Posted by Betty Cracker on 05/23/10 at 11:50 AM • Permalink

Maybe she was jet lagged from racing in and out of Denver to not endorse Jane Norton for Senate after all.  In fact, despite expressing support for her last week, she said absolutely zilch about her yesterday.  Or about Colorado at all for that matter. 

And a little gratuitous suckitude from someone else who sees little starbursts all around Sarah:

“She’s avant-garde. She’s a feminist. She cuts a dashing figure. There aren’t that many leading Republicans that do that,” (Larry) Sabato (a political science professor at the University of Virginia)said.

“Think Mitch McConnell or John Boehner. When you see them coming on, you know it’s nap time.

“Whether you love her or you hate her, you don’t go to sleep when Sarah Palin comes on,” Sabato said.

No.  You either listen with your mouth wide open in horror or you cover your ears to get rid of the screeching noise until you can fumble around to find the mute button on the remote.

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