In the months leading up to the midterm congressional elections, the tea party movement managed to tamp down on its internal divisions in pursuit of a shared goal of defeating Democrats. But with the elections over, the movement's fault lines are starting to show, and tensions between the tea party's social conservative and libertarian wings are poised to explode into an all-out civil war.
"It's easier for them to be united around the political agenda of defeating Democrats than it is going to be agreeing on a legislative agenda," observes Peter Montgomery, a senior fellow at the liberal advocacy group People for the American Way.
The most recent example of an emerging schism: Some tea party activists have linked arms with the gay conservative group GOProud to demand that the new GOP congressional leadership stick to the tea party's core fiscal issues and not those of evangelical Christians. They sent a letter to House Speaker-in-waiting John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell imploring them "to resist the urge to run down any social issue rabbit holes in order to appease the special interests."
According to a recent poll, only 18 percent of tea partiers support gay marriage, a figure that puts them well to the right of most voters. About half of all tea partiers also consider themselves part of the Christian conservative movement, whose members aren't fans of GOProud. Earlier this year, several evangelical groups went so far as to boycott the annual Conservative Political Action Conference simply because GOProud was allowed to sponsor a small table in the exhibit hall.
Wow... Starting to feed-on-their-own already... It looks like the Tealigious Teavangelicals are going to try to push their agenda on to the libertarian faction...
Why libs fear the tea party? Liberals exploit the turn-the-other-cheek Christian principle of conservatives. For years, liberals have screamed, yelled and protested their way to successfully furthering their dismantling of our traditions and values agenda with no real opposition from conservatives. Finally, thanks to the Tea Party movement, conservatives are fighting back. Not knowing how to deal with the new brand of conservatives, Liberals are afraid, very afraid and they should be!
Mother Jones? Really? More biased?
But I have to agree, the TEA Party needs to emphasize the fiscal conservatism over the social.
Not that they will be able to do much at all with a Dem Senate & Dem Pres.
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
"Mother Jones" doesn't make it incorrect... And it's certainly just as reliable as the Rightie-sources used to back the rest of the crap on this board.
I have been saying for a long time that conservatives will lose elections if they continue to put the religious right issues in the forfront.
Politicians need not do this because the religious right has no-where else to go. Every left wing freak issue is represented by the democratic party - and they have done a good job of keeping them on the down low - and every homosexual, transexual, abortion loving liberal knows it's the democrats who are more in favor of their side of the issue.
Conservative politicians need to do the same - focus on the primary reasons why we are conservative, limited government, lower taxes and greater individual liberty. Getting government out of our lives.
Conservatives should not be catering to the religious right by putting religious issues at the forfront of their campains. We already have their vote - and if religious are the most important issue they have to talk about - they may not be fiscal conservatives anyway.
A democrat in Denver need not pander to the gay community- democrats already have the gay vote - conservatives need not pander to the ultra religious for the same reason.
As conservatives, lets focus on getting more votes on our side. We need to work on the votes we do not have, not the ones we already have.
Good point bear! :thumbsup: I think we need to fight the liberals on their own playing field, lets play hardball with them, use some of their attacks against them. I think the gloves need to come off, and lets rumble! :woo hoo:
The Tea Party was formed to push for smaller government. Since that seemed like an impossible feat, they were united in tilting at the windmill.
Then the windmill turned out to be a real giant, and they put a chink in the armor.
Now they're wondering what to do next. I think everyone had their own ideas of what came next, but it didn't need to be addressed at that point.
Anyone that knows anything about politics knows it's all about ebb and flow. Now that the Tea party made progress towards showing the government there's a large number of people that want less interference, the specifics are going to splinter the group. There's no surprise there. Other groups will coalesce and gain momentum.
LJ, If you were shooting for showing a weakness in the Tea Party, you missed. What you posted is just the nature of politics.
"Whatever you are, be a good one." ~ Abraham Lincoln
:thumbsup: I think we need to fight the liberals on their own playing field, lets play hardball with them, use some of their attacks against them. I think the gloves need to come off, and lets rumble! :woo hoo: 
