Tuesday, August 17, 2010

A Hostile Takeover of the GOP

Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe in the Wall Street Journal: A Tea Party Manifesto:
But let us be clear about one thing: The tea party movement is not seeking a junior partnership with the Republican Party, but a hostile takeover of it.

The American values of individual freedom, fiscal responsibility and limited government bind the ranks of our movement. That makes the tea party better than a political party. It is a growing community that can sustain itself after November, ensuring a better means of holding a new generation of elected officials accountable.

3 comments:

freespeak said...

I could not say it any better! How the Tea "Party" and Republican Party relate to each other, has been a constant pain the neck to explain. This says it in the best way I have seen to date.
And go ahead, keep making me drool over Adobe Creative Suite CS5. I have to make money with the older version before I can get the newer one, whch will be older one by the time i get to it.

freespeak said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ruth said...

I find the term "takeover" very interesting. In my experience, terms are very important. The term "takeover," is a threatening term. I often wonder, if sometimes, people want to be more a "threat" than serious about time commitment and effort (big sacrifices) it takes to completely replace (takeover) the leadership of an existing organization. I would encourage new conservative activists to start by simply "getting involved" in the Republican Party before trying to "take it over." Learning the rules is a good first start. Find out about important dates, like when positions are up for election. Learn the functions of various leadership positions and how to "add to" the group and make it more efficient or helpful to conservative candidates. Who knows, maybe instead of a forceful "takeover," one might find him or herself nominated and elected to leadership (a peaceful change in direction).

It's easy to threaten a "takeover." In reality, at the core of the Party are people, who do thankless tasks year after year and go to meetings that might seem like formalities but are essential to holding the Party together in-between elections. Anyone who knows me, knows that I'm not a GOP sycophant, but from my experience, it takes coalition building with current members to do anything—including electing new leadership to Republican committees.

Note: there wasn't any "takeovers" in Missouri during the GOP reorganization meetings last night. As far as I can tell, many Tea Party activists are not aware of the system works yet.