Newt’s Victory is Tea Party’s Loss
Sen. Rand Paul has said that Newt Gingrich “goes against everything the tea party stands for.” This might be an understatement.
The tea party originally stood for one simple but important message: Stop spending. For tea partiers, the “Troubled Asset Relief Program” or TARP was the litmus test and any Republican who supported it faced the wrath of the movement. Explained Utah tea party leader David Kirkham in May 2010:
I think it’s a matter of fiscal or financial responsibility … What the tea party people are about and the vote for TARP and the vote for the bailout was, in our opinion, pretty fiscally irresponsible, and that’s what’s raised the ire of most people.
At the time, Kirkham’s group was working to unseat Republican Senator Bob Bennett, who had voted for TARP. Kirkham’s efforts would eventually help elect tea party champion Sen. Mike Lee. When asked if the TARP-supporting incumbent deserved to lose his seat over just one vote, Kirkham replied:
That one vote was pretty toxic. That one vote affected a lot of things, changed the rules of the game. President Bush said that where we have to abandon free market principles to save the free market, and fundamentally, we just don’t agree. There’s just no way.
Tea Party support for Newt Gingrich in South Carolina and elsewhere marks a new point — a low point — for the movement. When John McCain suspended his campaign in 2008 to go to Washington to support TARP, Gingrich said, “This is the greatest single act of responsibility ever taken by a presidential candidate and rivals President Eisenhower saying ‘I will go to Korea.’”
The tea party believed that TARP represented Washington at its most irresponsible. Gingrich believed the exact opposite. In fact, if you were to make a list of every big-government issue most tea partiers stand against — bank bailouts, healthcare mandates, cap-and-trade, you name it — Gingrich has been, or still is, on the opposite side.
Grassroots conservatives want a Republican nominee who will fight President Obama on issues like bailouts and healthcare mandates. Saturday, grassroots conservatives in South Carolina championed a Republican presidential candidate who has agreed with Obama on both of those issues. In the debates, Obama could even say that Newt was for forcing Americans to purchase health insurance before he was against it. And the president will be right.
When Gingrich called McCain’s support for TARP “the greatest single act of responsibility ever taken by a presidential candidate,” this was classic Newt-speak — Gingrich is a great talker and often speaks in bold and indeed “grandiose” terms. Newt sounds good. People like that. They respond to it. It inspires them. Ask Barack Obama.
But the tea party was supposed to be better than this. The tea party was supposed to stand for something more substantive.
Man, Gingrich can get mare done than anybody. Times have changed so fast these past years and there is a difference between has been on opposite side of AND still is on opposite side of. Youre gonna have to get over the past. Trying to reduce Newt in some deceptive way to merely one who can only speek boldly or talk greatly is actually more outrageous of a claim than what Newt saying that about McCain. (It was a sacrifice in a way by Mccain. As far as TARP, that was 2008 and we all have realized so much since then about our nations spending problem of great urgency> For example, what year did you start up this very web site? 2009? 2010? Most all of us are johnny come latelys. hell, the Tea party only started up in 2009 so stop using statements made in 2008 as they were made a few months ago! Dont you think Newt has been mis represented enough, Come on man! Look ron paul is agreat man but he is no leader so get over that too if that is your beef, He aint gonna be president. Life sux. Newt is the only politician in USA that even has a chance of pulling off all the things that Ron Paul even believes we need to get done. May be hard to believe but its the ugly truth! There is a very big picture here! You may need to take a couple steps back, Keep it up though! Just dont be so willing to cast a first stone at Newt! Get off Newts back!
PS I believe Sarah Palin sees exactly what I am saying. If you gotta bad mouth one of them, bad mouth Romney, the plastic one. He has no clue as to what that office means!
Thanks for the comments Robert, however incorrect they may be. To say Newt is somehow the savior of GOP is absolutely insane. And no, we will not “get over the past”. Looking at a candidates history, voting record and character is the only way to decisively tell what he will do in the future – and a quick glance at Newt’s history shows he is not a conservative and not a person to be trusted.
For your information, we’ve writing articles for this website since 2007 when the tea party began during Ron Paul’s 2008 campaign.
You say that we can bad mouth Romney? Don’t worry, we do. But why are you willing to throw Romney under the bus? Romney and Newt are the EXACT SAME on 99% of the issues, to think otherwise is crazy. You’re listening to the mainstream media too much, they seem to think that there is a huge difference between the two as well. Any and all differences between them are simply rhetorical.
Robert, I would like to echo Adam in his remarks both thanking you for your comments and pointing out that Newt and Romney are one in the same. Also I would like to point out, that not only has the Conservative Declaration been around since 2007, so has the modern Tea Party movement. You also said that Ron Paul isn’t a leader, well I would argue on the contrary, see the link below for the history of the Tea Party and who started it and why…
http://www.conservativedeclaration.com/2011/08/who-really-started-the-tea-party-movement/
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