Birth of a New Political Party?

The fallout from Scott Brown's stunning victory in the Massachusetts Senate race last week was evident in President Obama's State of the Union speech. The speech itself was 1.) too long and 2.) rambling and themeless, but was also to a certain extent a tacit admission that the Obama magic had lost some of its impact.

I got me to wondering if we could be witnessing the birth of a new political party... It's pretty clear that the Republicans of the Bush era were and still are out of favor and frankly out of touch. Many Americans liked the sweet taste of the Barack Obama flavored Democrat Party in the fall of 2008, but have come to find the bitter aftertaste unpalatable. The party just a year into total control are not only out of touch but quite honestly frightening.

What got Scott Brown elected wasn't nostalgia for Bush era Republican ideals (this was Massachusetts for God's sake) but the strength of the so-called Tea Party movement. This is undoutably a new force in American politics. In reality I don't see a "new" political party in name but I can image the takeover of (most likely) the Republican party from without.

The derogatory slanders of the Tea Party phenomenon foisted by the liberals in main stream media newsrooms are quite telling. By calling them tea baggers in reference a gay men's sexual practice the commentators and reporters are trying to delegitimize everything about the movement. What they succeed in is delegitimizing themselves. This is an authentic grassroots movement. The so-called astroturf movements are actually the Soros funded enterprises on the left.

The Tea Party movement started as a disorganized, nearly spontaneous reaction to President Obama's first series of actions. The size and scope of the so-called stimulus package coupled with the bailouts/takeovers of the 2/3's of the domestic auto industry not to mention the billions for Wall Street spurred ordinary people into the streets by April 15th 2009. This was just a few short months after the inauguration. Organized by a loose cadre of bloggers the April 15th (tax day) rallies drew a reported 650,000 participants across the country. I personally attended the rally in St. Paul Minnesota on the capitol grounds. It was actually quite exciting, and contrary to what the liberal contrarians said, it was a disorganized bunch.

That being said it didn't prevent usurpers and establishment types from trying to climb on. Fox News and Newt Gingrich immediately spring to mind. Sensing a backlash against Democrats the right-leaning Fox News and it's commentators advertised and even organized some of the subsequent events. This development could prove detrimental and possibly fatal. The beauty of the movement is the attempt to demand restraint and common sense (and real patriotism) from the business of governing. Fox News doesn't know of restraint. The movement is not a conservative offshoot of the Republican party, it is attracting the disaffected and the disgusted from middle - center/right and center/left.

The President didn't sound humbled at all by the resistance to his policy goals as evidenced by the public reaction to the health care bills passed by both houses and the results of all the big elections since he took office. There was an under current of defiance in his tone on Wednesday night. He doesn't need to worry about the current crop of Republicans in office - as they are leaderless and voiceless right now. However, each of the Republican victors in these aforementioned elections didn't run on a return to Bush era Republican tactics, but rather they ran on Tea Party themes and they won big.

It seems that many current Democrats in office are also disgusted (or scared). A number of long term office holders are opting out in 2010. This too should be a clue to the President. I personally don't think the American people expected all the problems we faced to be solved in one year, but they did expect competence in dealing with them and not a laundry list of frankly socialist prescriptions that have only made things worse. The process of trying to sell the notion that "health care reform" was a solution to the economic and unemployment woes fell on deaf ears.

Independents, fiscal conservatives, blue dog Democrats, Ron Paul supporters and otherwise ordinary people are fed up with what they perceive as an irresponsible Federal takeover of American life. These are the people that make up the Tea Party movement. It could well be the seeds of a new American political party. The last successful formation of a new party dates back to the 1850's in resistance to the expansion of another great evil - slavery. That party was formed from the remnants of several disaffected political movements. The party that coalesced and took the nation to war to end slavery was Abraham Lincoln's Republican Party.

This time the evil is the federalizing of the United States into a single national socialist style government. It didn't start with President Obama, but left to his desires it would end with him.

CW