This will not shock anyone who’s been paying attention, but here’s a couple of scholars telling the Washington Post that Romney makes the perfect “stealth tea party candidate“:
Romney’s decisive victory Tuesday in the Florida primary has increased his chances of locking up the GOP nomination for president. If he does, we will read countless media obituaries for the tea party, explaining how the movement that won so much in 2010 fell short in 2012 and is left saddled with an elite, middle-of-the-road candidate it doesn’t want.
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But Romney — Swiss bank accounts, establishment support and all — has maneuvered with ruthless precision and impeccable timing to position himself as a champion of the tea party agenda. During the primary campaign, he’s repeatedly pledged fealty to key tea party priorities: cracking down on illegal immigration, repealing “ObamaCare,” slashing taxes and drastically scaling back government spending. It’s working: Half of the primary voters in Florida who say they support the tea party went for Romney…
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While researching our new book, “The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism,” Vanessa Williamson and I attended local tea party meetings in the Southwest, mid-Atlantic and New England, and interviewed grass-roots tea party activists. We learned more about their views than national surveys alone convey.
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Initially, we assumed that government spending is the chief irritant for the tea party, but we soon realized that anger about illegal immigrants rivals that concern. With many older men and women (including retirees) making up the movement, its members do not usually point to immigration as a threat against U.S. workers; rather, they are upset at the thought of undocumented children overburdening public schools or illegal immigrants crowding emergency rooms.
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After all, tea partyers see themselves as hard-working Americans whose taxes should not fund benefits for “freeloaders.” Along with illegal immigrants, low-income Americans and young people loom large as illegitimate consumers of public benefits and services. In tea party thinking, they are all asking for more than they have earned…
Why bother hiding behind the saving-this-great-nation-for-our-grandchildren figleaf any longer? If the core of your political philosophy is “I got mine, Jack, forget you”, then Willard Romney is an excellent vessel. At least we can hope that nine more months of non-stop toxic exposure will disillusion some of our low-information fellow citizens.
MikeJ
Not to mention the fact that the president is, ahem, near.
Little Boots
Romney is actually the perfect illustration of the fact that the Tea Party stands for nothing but the love of money.
Spaghetti Lee
We have always been
at war with Eastasia!behind Romney 100%!MonkeyBoy
OT: I hope everybody has seen this pic of a group that would be best stranded on a desert island.
Calouste
I wonder what the Tea Party is going to think when Rmoney tacks to the center for the general.
Little Boots
@MonkeyBoy:
that’s the second most annoying Romney picture I’ve ever seen.
JGabriel
Theda Skocpol, WaPo:
New GOP motto: Fuck The Grandchildren.
.
Hill Dweller
Old selfish white people.
Little Boots
does anyone not love this song?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjCw3-YTffo
Mark S.
@MonkeyBoy:
Newt really works as the skipper.
Cacti
@Hill Dweller:
Can’t forget the third leg of the stool.
Old white people lost their shit at the thought that a blah man might be superior to them in some way.
He must have cheated somehow! Hence their embrace of birtherism, ACORN fantasies, etc.
piratedan
@Little Boots: moi…not a big deadhead either, but music is vast enough an ocean to float many boats, so its ymmv as far as I’m concerned.
Little Boots
@piratedan:
fine.
you make me sad.
but fine.
(and of course you’re right.)
Mino
If Mittens wins, it’s gonna be a trifecta. Then we can all move to Greece ’cause she’s gonna look like Paradise compared to what wingers will do to us.
Little Boots
can we at least love adele.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYEDA3JcQqw&ob=av2e
JGabriel
@MonkeyBoy: I’m not really buying Ron Paul as Mrs. Thurston Howell. Nancy Brinker would have been perfect for that part, but it was probably photoshopped before SGK nuked their brand.
Rick Santorum, on the other hand, would have been perfect as Mary Ann. Pity they went with Palin instead.
.
Little Boots
@JGabriel:
heh, that is really too funny.
Villago Delenda Est
@MonkeyBoy:
OK, replacing the very fun and sexy Dawn Wells with Mooselini is, needless to say, very disturbing.
I can totally buy Wrong Pall as Lovey Howell, though.
Frankensteinbeck
What a gigantic, steaming pile of bullshit this article is. Their book is based around the shocking revelation that the Tea Party doesn’t care about the deficit. Now they’ve discovered that GOP primary candidates say what the ultra right wing base wants to hear, and some of them have voted for Romney in the primaries. In ten years, they’ll do extensive historical research and determine that Romney was a poor candidate and the Tea Party, contrary to the accepted wisdom that only they accepted, supported him halfheartedly at best. I look forward to ten years after that when they discover that the GOP became irrational and extreme during Obama’s presidency, and speculate that racial tensions were one of the factors.
Martin
And that the Obama administration has deported more undocumented immigrants than any previous president, by far? And that the deportations under Obama have been vastly more effective at deporting folks with criminal records than any previous president, by even more?
Nope. Only a Republican can effectively tackle immigration, even though Romney has basically no clear1 policy on immigration.
1 Clear, as is recognizable from one day to the next as the same policy.
amk
who wrote this pile of mitt fluffing and teabaggers validating shit ?
Villago Delenda Est
@Frankensteinbeck:
In brief, they’ll discover what we already knew three years ago.
Way to go, very serious people!
Yutsano
@Martin: The Romneybot3000 will soon have an upgrade on the immigration input for proper response dependent upon audience. Obfuscation protocol in effect until that time.
Little Boots
actually, the Romneybot is doomed.
this shit is over.
Little Boots
actually, it ain’t over when it comes to Congress.
bitches, get out there!!!
TenguPhule
I fear an illegal abortion is the only solution.
Martin
Further, prior to Obama, there were about a dozen communities cooperating with ICE to turn over biometric data on arrested individuals. That’s now well over a thousand.
ICE has had a massive backlog of cases, which is part of the reason why this stuff is so fucked – they’re not adequately funded to deal with the number of cases before them. Money was instead directed to building border fences and shit. Under Obama, ICE prioritized cases involving people with criminal records and under the executive order from a few months ago will take those that involve families that still remain in the US and put those aside, so they can keep concentrating on the more urgent cases.
It’s, you know, rational and shit. I’m sure Mittens will instead end this practice, go to war against California once again, and instead dump billions into digging that crocodile moat that he heard about on the campaign trail.
Suffern ACE
@Little Boots:
Well at least one of us has to agree to stop loving her. Otherwise, what would she sing about?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Yutsano:
I’m not sure there’s much to upgrade in the Romneybot3000, since it’s running Windows ME.
gwangung
@Martin:
So….is this why the Obama administration has deported more than any other administration?
hitchhiker
@Calouste:
they’ll say hes only doing it b/c he must in order to beat obama . . . there’s a part of me (extremely small all but insignificant part) that wishes romney would win so they can tear their skin off in frustration when he turns out to be a socially moderate big-bank lovin’ dude.
Little Boots
@Suffern ACE:
heh,
admittedly, true.
Little Boots
but just cause of that, suffern:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOfsPSXqJDc&feature=related
piratedan
@gwangung: hey now, don’t go confuzzling a perfectly good campaign issue with facts now…. that’s not the Amurikan Way.
GregB
So all that Hitler stuff that came to the fore when Obama implemented a national health care program modeled on the Romney health care program will be shoved down the memory hole because the tea-baggers are doing what all Republicans in good standing are doing. Standing and saluting the next in line.
Bravo all you hale and hearty tea-baggers, bravo. You really showed your incredible pull and independence from the Republican Party.
Little Boots
everyone said all the same stupid shit in the 1960s when medicare started, and the 1930s when social security started. and every old fuck in Christendom will be demanding it as their god given right in a few years. this shit is tired, and it will not stop anything.
Little Boots
and the romneys will be first in line demanding every penny that Obama gave them.
FlipYrWhig
I’m sorry, but I just SO look forward to the day when the so-called Tea Party and their selfishness and resentment just die off. Millions of horrible people a-feared of rampaging hordes taking their precious stuff. The death panels can’t come soon enough. Exterminate the brutes.
FlipYrWhig
And Theda Skocpol can’t possibly be this dense. Sure, first we thought the big problem was government spending, but the more we studied it in a scholarly way, the more we realized the problem was that 40% of the country is spiteful, fearful dickfaces. What a revelation.
Martin
@gwangung: They’ve deported more because they’ve primarily focused on the criminal cases. Obama has deported more immigrants with criminal records than all deportations Bush did in either of his terms. Most of the non-criminal deportations have been due to detentions at the border, which you can’t really fault.
The category that Obama isn’t deporting in large numbers as Bush did are families that have histories here. I haven’t read about any raids on employers or such moves under Obama.
Maybe I’m a bad liberal, but I have no problem whatsoever with deporting those with criminal records, or stopping people at the border.
Shalimar
@Little Boots: I think the tea party stands for anger. They are fueled by all the people they hate. Mitt isn’t their dream candidate, but he is working on speaking their language.
It is nice to see young people finally acknowledged to be on the hate list. These aren’t happy grandparents worried about what they leave behind. They may love their own grandchildren, but everyone else’s grandchildren helped elect the evil Obama so they want to pay that generation back by screwing them over.
Xenos
@Little Boots:
I don’t think we can say that. We have passed a singularity or sorts with the Citizens United decision – we really can not predict what sort of advertising craziness we will see, nor what the results will be. While the Newt campaign has been an amusing and counterproductive bit of CU-enabled craziness, I don’t think anyone saw it coming.
Culturally we may see an ‘adbusters’ style hatred of all corporate advertising, including the superpac variety, so that all the GOP campaigning will just sink that brand as surely as the Komen PR efforts so quickly sunk them. Or, the flood of crap will depress turnout and confuse the electorate and we will got Romney as president even though more than 50% of the country hates and distrusts him.
I have no idea how to call this and I don’t think anybody else does, either.
Barry
Willard barely gets 50% against Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul and Santorum!
bob h
Romney’s universal panacea is reducing the size of government. This is the essence of Teabaggerism.
WereBear
@bob h: I don’t know if you can say that; the parts of government they want, like Medicare and tanks, seems to make them happy.
MonkeyBoy
“Gilligan’s Island” was a comedy about class differences and how they would play out if enacted isolated on a deserted island separated from the rest of society.
Much of its appeal came from the fact that Gilligan was the main character and somewhat the hero especially because he was of the lowest class and presumed most stupid. Yet as a “Joe Schlub” character he was usually able to triumph and save the whole group’s society.
This was the main appeal to an audience of the working class or lower middle class. Make fun of rich people, intellectuals, movie stars, and even petty bosses such as The Skipper. The only character that was not made fun of was Mary Anne – the cute perky next door girl because her role was a “Jane Schlub” character who knew her low place and never thought of using her beauty to move up in status. Male fans of the series overwhelmingly tend to prefer Mary Ann to Ginger, not because they identify with Gilligan to the point that they think he and Mary Ann should get married after they are rescued, but because they think they are enough better than Gilligan that a low class cutie might prefer them over Gilligan.
Cris (without an H)
Because we have spent the last four years living on the god damned moon.
There’s that phrase again.
kay
@hitchhiker:
I haven’t seen the slightest indication that Republicans are moderating on anything. I don’t see Romney moving toward the middle in the general either. It look to me like Republicans have made a decision. They’re going to count on the Tea Party base and older voters in the general. If that means pissing off other groups, well, so be it. I don’t know what else anyone can conclude. They’re going full-bore against minority voters.
Romney’s campaign is (supposedly) very data-driven. If you look at it, the only time they screw up is when Romney says something unscripted.
I wonder if they’re counting on an energized Tea Party base because the religious base won’t be fired up for Romney.
Bush would not have won in 2004 w/out devoted religious voters. Romney needs someone or something to add some energy. Where else is he going to get it?
Cacti
@kay:
Bush also took 40% of the hispanic vote. RMoney won’t come within shouting distance of that number.
HRA
I’ve been lurking over in some blogs that support Gingrich and still bemoan Perry dropping out of the race. The Nevada caucus has brought out a lot of negative comments on the Mormon religion. The Romney supporters are bashed as being Mormons. Although religion is not a focus of the MSM, it’s surely there among the voters.
As for the older generation Tea Party members being energized by the issues adopted by the movement, I do not believe it to be true. A good number of them look for some excitement in their lives and it’s not hard to imagine them packing their lawn chairs in the cars to go watch the entertainment at Tea Party events. They have more important issues to worry about in their lives and they will lie about why they are at the events.
Frankensteinbeck
@Xenos:
I saw it coming, and I see more coming. Unlimited campaign contributions are a boon to the power of the wealthy. Shadowy superPACs will reverse much of that damage. Rich people are not united, and as many of them are crazy extremists as regular folks – perhaps more. They’ve always had ways to contribute big, and now many of them have already blown all the money they’re willing to give to politics on candidates who share THEIR views. Others will decide Romney’s PAC doesn’t advertise in the exact way they think will get the message across, and make some other little PAC to give to. They’ll duplicate spending, they’ll release campaign ads that make Romney look like an ass to independents, money will be gouged out of all of the PACs by grifters at an incredible rate. Michael Steele was our best friend and the money is not going to the RNC to be spent by professionals in a unified campaign anymore. Meanwhile, Obama’s campaign will be immaculately organized and focused.
As an added bonus, a lot of these wealthy assholes will pour so much money down a sinkhole and get nothing that they won’t want to spend more for awhile.
Also, look for Romney to spend Super PAC money like his own personal piggy bank. No, he doesn’t have to. When has that ever stopped a greedy, entitled fuck before?
anna
Authors of that article forgot something: TeaParty jihadists want a nominee who will bitch-slap Obama, humiliate him, and ground him in the dirt like the uppity Negro he is. Obviously Romney is too much of a gentleman to mete out such public punishment. Romney may defeat Obama, but he won’t do it like Gingrich would…with humiliation, with white-anger. The Teaparty can taste not just Obama’s defeat, they can taste his being totally crushed, as if being stripped down to the waist and lashed with the whip. Romney wouldn’t do this, so his conservative creds don’t matter. He’s just not mean/evil enough.
Todd Dugdale
According to PPP’s 1/31 poll of FL, Romney had support from only 31% of the Tea Party. None of the candidates got close to 50%. In NV, Romney drew 22% of the Tea party – half of what Gingrich got.
Romney is not getting the Tea Party behind him.
rikryah
tell me something I don’t know.
Todd Dugdale
@kay:
Older voters don’t seem to be that solid of a bet for Republicans at the moment. They’re breaking 49/48 (O +1), and they have been moving toward Democrats gradually.
The white vote also isn’t working for them. In a generic match-up (same poll), the generic Republican draws 54% of whites against Obama. McCain got 55% – and lost.
In a head-to-head with Romney, that drops to 49% of the white vote, with 12% undecided. Even if Romney picks up half of those undecided, he just gets to McCain’s losing level. In reality, the Republicans need to gain about 1% more of the white vote every four years just to tread water, because that demographic is shrinking.
The soft base is a serious issue for Republicans. They are attracting the wrong kind of people and turning off the right kind.
kay
@Todd Dugdale:
Thanks. My problem with demonizing immigrants is, they’ve been trying it since 2006 and (using your numbers) I can’t see that it’s paid off.
So I’m left thinking they just don’t have anything else. If immigrant-bashing isn’t bringing them white voters, what’s the point?
liberal
@Todd Dugdale:
IIRC McCain got 55% of the non-Hispanic white vote.
liberal
@Frankensteinbeck:
There was one really good point the article made: the claim that Presidents govern pretty much the way they campaign (in terms of their agenda).
I agree with that (as an empirical matter). It’s also important because it undercuts the meme the Romney might govern as not-so-crazy because the moderate in Romney will come out after he wins the election.
kay
@Cacti:
My Bush memories of 2004 are Ohio-specific, and I don’t think Bush’s outreach to Hispanics made any difference here, but that’s a very good point, nationally.
I am absolutely convinced that religious voters dragged Bush over the line in Ohio, based on what I saw. They were ALL of the energy here. W/out them, he would have been sunk. He may have gotten “security moms” or whatever, TOO, but I think Republicans did not want to admit how much he relied on religious voters, so they spun the shit out of the 2004 results. Love matters, in elections, and religious voters LOVED him.
The Moar You Know
The brownshirts are all falling into line, JUST LIKE WE ALL KNEW THEY WOULD.
burritoboy
Kay,
I know it’s hard to believe but Bush’s outreach to Hispanics really does seem to have had some real consequences. A major part of that might simply have been that Bush and Rove’s outreach also tended to suppress the GOP’s otherwise very loud white nativist voices, which of course have been broadcasting loud and clear over the past three years since Bush’s departure.