re: #72 ulmsey123

Wasn’t Samuel Adams a radical?
I think those who lean conservative are just speaking with a loud voice right now seeing that things have leaned far to the left of center lately.
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Politics makes strange bedfellows. There are many ideologies out there. Sometimes they gather for a common cause because it is an obvious one.
Who are at these Tea Parties?

The reality is that there are indeed folk who are trying to forward their own agendas through the Tea Parties. But by and large, the attendees are locals who are angry at the system which is broken. (its simplistic to get a few sensationalistic photos and yell “Look at these!”)

Is it possible that the “people” are seeing a two party system that does not work and are supporting a conservative? Sure, people will try to feed off this, take some sort of credit for this, try to explain why its happening and attach it to something else that smells of conspiracy or an evil trend.

“I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!”

The quote for today. And hopefully the new standard for a people who need to hold their leaders feet to the fire.

I don’t need no stinkin’ ideology to know what I believe.

Exactly my point. The conservative base of the Republican party is now radicalized. I offer it only as an observation of the current state of affairs. What it means for the Republican party is unclear at this point, as their base have shown, at least in NY-23, a willingness to back a thrid-party candidate whose beliefs appear to match their own.

Similarly, the Tea Party phenomenon is largely understood by its participants as a populist movement. That there are those seeking to co-opt it for their own purposes does not erase the underlying sentiment at work among those who are in attendance.

The real question is what effect this radicalization of the conservative base will have on national politics as a whole. Recall that the Democratic party had a hard time dealing with its most fervent elements, but eventually managed to co-opt and reincorporate them within their party as a whole. This dampened somewhat the radicalism of their own base, while simultaneously shifting their party more to the left than it had been before.

If the Republican party should follow suit, we’ll have both parties slightly more radicalized than previously. Again, it’s not clear what this will mean, but it might well mean that the Republican Party will be seeing its own versions of Lieberman in the near future.