Va. Tea Party: Bad Taste Tsunami
By Mike Signer | September 23, 2011 | One Comment
The Virginia Tea Party Alliance has developed a scheme to defeat the Democratic majority in the State Senate — Virginia’s firewall between responsive, middle class-centered governance and the scorched-earth extremism we’ve seen from too many in the Tea Party. They are targeting Democratic Senators Ralph Northam (D-Norfolk), Roscoe Reynolds (D-Henry), George Barker (D-Fairfax), Mark Herring, (D-Loudoun), Phil Puckett (D-Russell), Bert Dodson (D-Lynchburg), and Shawn Mitchell (D-Ashburn).
Their title for the effort is as awkward as it is direct: “Beyond 21 – Creating a Conservative Tsunami in Virginia.” And their rhetoric is as inflated as their bad-taste borrowing of the tsunami metaphor for political campaign (in keeping with Tea Party favorite Sarah Palin’s use of crosshairs for candidate she didn’t like on her website). On their website, they write:
Our Democratic opponents are backed by the likes of the Sierra Club, SEIU, the VEA Teachers Union and the same radical left wing groups that tried to destroy the Wisconsin capital earlier this year.
It’s odd that the Alliance is claiming that Democrats are trying to destroy a government building, when destruction (of the Affordable Care Act, of Social Security, of infrastructure investment) dominates the Tea Party agenda.
It’s often hard to tell whether the Tea Party is serious or a joke. On the one hand, they can pack a real electoral punch, ejecting moderate Republicans in safe Republican districts. On the other hand, they also can overshoot and fizzle, like when they nominated Christine O’Donnell to a U.S. Senate seat in Delaware, who was soundly defeated.
The Virginia Tea Party’s candidate, Jamie Radtke, doesn’t seem like she’ll be a serious candidate against George Allen, so the Alliance’s effort against the Democratic majority may also fall into the latter category. But you never can tell, especially in a volatile election year when a lot of voters are on edge not about politics, but about whether government can deliver any benefits to them at all.
More from the Washington Post here.
Keep on believing Jaime Radtke won’t be a force to recon with in June. Ol’ Georgie and Timmy wont know what hit them! You consistently overlook that the people of Virginia, let alone the nation, are sick to death of the progressive liberal Democrat attempts to run this state and this country into the ground. You all will perk up and pay attention come election time.