In a way, the country can thank John McCain for the birth of the tea party movement. Follow me- us middle class grunts who otherwise did not follow politics on a regular basis, only during presidential election year, were surprised to see that John McCain became the GOP nominee for 2008. The common thought was “really? is that the best conservative this country could come up with?”. Logically, looking back, we can assume that is why he thought to bring Sarah Palin into his camp. After he lost the election, chaos in our country arose from the concern of the direction of our country now that Obama had the reigns. Here comes the TEA party movement.
I’ve always wondered what McCain truly thought about the tea party. His loss in the election and the fervent passion of the tea party doesn’t add up, in the sense that conservatives agree with him, and he was “supposed” to represent … conservatives. Now we know, from his speech on the Senate floor yesterday:
You can view a longer clip of his speech here. In context, he was reading from a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, but, he was agreeing with it.
Text:
…The idea seems to be that if the House GOP refuses to raise the debt ceiling, a default crisis or gradual government shutdown will ensue, and the public will turn en masse against . . . Barack Obama. The Republican House that failed to raise the debt ceiling would somehow escape all blame. Then Democrats would have no choice but to pass a balanced-budget amendment and reform entitlements, and the tea-party Hobbits could return to Middle Earth having defeated Mordor.
This is the kind of crack political thinking that turned Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell into GOP Senate nominees. The reality is that the debt limit will be raised one way or another, and the only issue now is with how much fiscal reform and what political fallout.
Having been in politics for as long as he has, there’s no way he can “pull an Obama” and retract that by saying “that’s not what I meant…”. It’s clear, he has a problem with the TEA party. He was agreeing with the pre written statement. Sharron Angle responded:
A Statement from a ‘TEA Party Hobbit’
One man in Washington, who chose Sarah Palin to be his VP running-mate and came to Nevada to campaign for me last year in the Senate race against Harry Reid, is now promoting attacks against TEA Party activists, ordinary American citizens, and fiscally conservative members of congress – all of whom are adamantly opposed to continuing the deficit-spending strategies proposed by some congressional members and the President.
Ironically, this man campaigned for TEA Party support in his last re-election, but now throws Christine O’Donnell and I into the harbor with Sarah Palin. As in the fable, it is the hobbits who are the heroes and save the land. This Lord of the TARP actually ought to read to the end of the story and join forces with the TEA Party, not criticize it.
It is regrettable that a man seeking dialogue, action and cooperation for votes on the floor of the United States Senate has only one strategy to achieve that effort: name-calling. Nice.
It is similarly unfortunate that Senator McCain brings no new ideas to the Senate floor. In fact, so unoriginal is Senator McCain’s effort that he is reduced to borrowing words from an editorial – rather than bringing anything constructive to this debate.
While Senator McCain advocates raising the debt ceiling as a solution – world markets and credit rating industries propose to down-grade our credit worthiness, impacting the value of the U.S. dollar and the state of our economy because of our world-famous spending problem.Senator McCain can continue on with his borrowed soliloquies, just as he can continue to vote to raise our nation’s debt ceiling – all in an effort to spend money that we don’t have, to fund programs and policies that don’t work, with a currency that continues to lose its value.
Meanwhile, we look forward to meeting members of Congress and the President at the polls in 2012… when ‘We the People’ choose the names we call to serve us in Washington – and we will keep in mind those who supported increasing our nation’s mountain of debt, what could be called their very own Mount Doom.
Christine O’Donnell responded in a statement:
“…with all due respect, Sen, McCain would be wise to turn his focus on coming up with a real debt solution, not a band-aid and then winning Democrat votes in the Senate rather than attacking his own party and the very grassroots folks who can help drive that real solution. People are tired of “plans” that only help career politicians get re-elected. That’s what got us in this mess in the first place. Sen. McCain, do your job, not Obama’s job… slamming those who will have the power to get him out of the White House!”
“TEA Party Candidate” Joe Walsh, recently elected into Congress as a result of the “TEA Party wave” in 2010, fired back in an interview concerning McCain and the issues, as well:
On a separate note, Representative Walsh has his own controversy surrounding him, which is being discussed on our Facebook discussion group. Why not join us?
It is good to see common sense prevailing in our national dialogue. We must remember that it is a refining fire and things cannot be turned around overnight. It took us years and many election cycles to get into this mess, and it will take a number of election cycles to get us out of his mess. We need to stay active and aware of what is happening!
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