Tea Party Ho!
I know that these stories have been making all the rounds online, but I would be remiss if I didn't throw my own two cents into the hat on the Tea Party movement victories last evening in the final major primary day of the season. Specifically on what appears to be a common set of beliefs that I find seriously out to lunch.
The race everyone was talking about last night was the Republican Senate primary in Delaware that put long time Congressional Rep. Mike Castle against Tea Party insurgent Christine O'Donnell. However, before I jump into the coup de grace clip about O'Donnell's inane belief that masturbation is not moral, in her own words mind you, I'd like to take a brief moment to look at a couple of other Tea Party candidates and some of the things they have said on the record.
Sharon Angle came from obscurity, and behind, in a competitive Republican primary that she eventually won after one time leader Sue Lowden stumbled terribly after she said, "before we all started having health care, in the olden days our grandparents, they would bring a chicken to the doctor, they would say I'll paint your house", famously panned as 'chickens for checkups'. Angle roared into first place after Lowden stood behind her remarks, but not without her fair share of crazy things to say.
Angle's first shocking remarks came in support of even more shocking remarks by Rep. Joe Barton who proceeded to use his opening comments at the Congressional hearings into the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, to apologizes to then CEO Tony Hayward. Not long after that, she was asked about her pro-life beliefs during a radio interview in which, responding to a question about a 13 year old girl who was raped by her father having a child, she responded, "I think that two wrongs don't make a right. And I have been in the situation of counselling young girls, not 13 but 15, who have had very at risk, difficult pregnancies. And my counsel was to look for some alternatives, which they did. And they found that they had made what was really a lemon situation into lemonade." Yes. She believes that all a young girl has to do is make lemonade out of the lemons life gave her and all will be well.
Next up is Michele Bachmann who is perhaps one of the funniest, and probably craziest of 'original' tea partiers who sort of jumped on board the waggon after it left the station. That doesn't mean she doesn't fit in well with the others like Tom Tancredo who is his own special kind of crazy with his birther beliefs and extreme anti-immigration stance. But the thing about Rep. Bachmann is that she has easily the most outrageous statements imaginable by shear volume about everything from homosexuality and abortion, to Congress itself when she asked the media on Hardball to begin investigations into members of Congress to look for anti-American members (aka liberals).
Obviously there are many more examples of the extreme rhetoric, and in some circumstances actual extreme beliefs, of the Tea Party. But the core of their message seems to be a mix of religious extremism along with an extremist Rand Paulish libertarian view of society where discrimination is just fine and dandy. This is the new right wing for all of those wondering what it looks like and according to Christine O'Donnell, they even want you to stop masturbating for the sake of your eternal soul.
Via TPM video:
The good thing about all of this right wing craziness is that I can't see many areas voting for such extreme candidates in the long run, especially if there is a Tea Party candidate selected to run against President Obama in 2012. Frankly, the simmering anger found practically everywhere is a direct result of the poor economy and more than likely accounts for much of the disillusionment many voters are struggling with. People are looking to support someone from outside of the system as they see it, and the Tea Party fits the bill at the moment. Saying that, we should all take heed that voting for people who say crazy things is not reassuring, and voting for people who believe crazy things makes me want to move to another planet.
The race everyone was talking about last night was the Republican Senate primary in Delaware that put long time Congressional Rep. Mike Castle against Tea Party insurgent Christine O'Donnell. However, before I jump into the coup de grace clip about O'Donnell's inane belief that masturbation is not moral, in her own words mind you, I'd like to take a brief moment to look at a couple of other Tea Party candidates and some of the things they have said on the record.
Sharon Angle came from obscurity, and behind, in a competitive Republican primary that she eventually won after one time leader Sue Lowden stumbled terribly after she said, "before we all started having health care, in the olden days our grandparents, they would bring a chicken to the doctor, they would say I'll paint your house", famously panned as 'chickens for checkups'. Angle roared into first place after Lowden stood behind her remarks, but not without her fair share of crazy things to say.
Angle's first shocking remarks came in support of even more shocking remarks by Rep. Joe Barton who proceeded to use his opening comments at the Congressional hearings into the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, to apologizes to then CEO Tony Hayward. Not long after that, she was asked about her pro-life beliefs during a radio interview in which, responding to a question about a 13 year old girl who was raped by her father having a child, she responded, "I think that two wrongs don't make a right. And I have been in the situation of counselling young girls, not 13 but 15, who have had very at risk, difficult pregnancies. And my counsel was to look for some alternatives, which they did. And they found that they had made what was really a lemon situation into lemonade." Yes. She believes that all a young girl has to do is make lemonade out of the lemons life gave her and all will be well.
Next up is Michele Bachmann who is perhaps one of the funniest, and probably craziest of 'original' tea partiers who sort of jumped on board the waggon after it left the station. That doesn't mean she doesn't fit in well with the others like Tom Tancredo who is his own special kind of crazy with his birther beliefs and extreme anti-immigration stance. But the thing about Rep. Bachmann is that she has easily the most outrageous statements imaginable by shear volume about everything from homosexuality and abortion, to Congress itself when she asked the media on Hardball to begin investigations into members of Congress to look for anti-American members (aka liberals).
Obviously there are many more examples of the extreme rhetoric, and in some circumstances actual extreme beliefs, of the Tea Party. But the core of their message seems to be a mix of religious extremism along with an extremist Rand Paulish libertarian view of society where discrimination is just fine and dandy. This is the new right wing for all of those wondering what it looks like and according to Christine O'Donnell, they even want you to stop masturbating for the sake of your eternal soul.
Via TPM video:
The good thing about all of this right wing craziness is that I can't see many areas voting for such extreme candidates in the long run, especially if there is a Tea Party candidate selected to run against President Obama in 2012. Frankly, the simmering anger found practically everywhere is a direct result of the poor economy and more than likely accounts for much of the disillusionment many voters are struggling with. People are looking to support someone from outside of the system as they see it, and the Tea Party fits the bill at the moment. Saying that, we should all take heed that voting for people who say crazy things is not reassuring, and voting for people who believe crazy things makes me want to move to another planet.
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