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Don’t count on quelling that conservative revolt

This week pa2010.com reported that the GOP’s plan for an open, inclusive process for selecting a special election candidate in the 12th Congressional District could be enough to ward off any revolt from conservative base.

I wouldn’t be so sure.

These Tea Partying types aren’t your garden variety conservatives. They seem to want to be angry at someone about something at all times. They are always looking for a scapegoat to blame for whatever it is that they are so frustrated about and the Republican Party has not fared much better in escaping their wrath than have Democrats.

Republicans apparently want to co-opt their movement for the electoral benefits they believe it will bring them. But they may have their hands full with these people. I don’t think they’re going to fall for the tired, old “we’re on your side, you’re one of us” lines that GOP candidates have a penchant for throwing out to the groups they then ignore during the down times of the election cycle.

There’s already sniping going on on the part of military veteran Bill Russell, who is pushing the idea that, even with the open process, party officials will simply choose conference representatives who are likely to vote the way they’d like them to. And knowing this area of the state as well as I do, if Republicans are seen to have chosen a wealthy businessman as their candidate over a veteran, especially if that choice is seen as pragmatic—he can fund his own campaign—rather rooted in sincere belief and ideology, that decision will not sit well with the kind of working class voters who tend to make up the crowds at those Tea Party events.

Republicans have gotten themselves into quite the quandary. For decades, they’ve aligned themselves with religious and other social conservatives who finally seem to be figuring out that the rhetorical pabulum they’ve so willingly swallowed for so many years has had little, if any, parallels in legislative action. I don’t think the Tea Partiers are going to be quite so gullible. They’ve already turned on their most recent darling, newly-elected Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown, after a disagreement over one vote. And Sarah Palin, who led the revolt in New York’s 23rd Congressional District against establishment candidate Dede Scozzafava only months ago, finished a disappointing third to Mitt Romney and Ron Paul in the 2012 presidential straw poll held recently at the CPAC event, this after telling her fellow Tea Partying brethren that it was time for them to “pick a party,” meaning Democrats or Republicans.

The GOP will continue to court these people—the temptation is too great not to and they really don’t have any other choice. But they may find themselves in the position of the proverbial fool who called up the devil then discovered he couldn’t be controlled.

February 25, 2010 at 2:22 pm

--Tammy Alonso

Tags: John Murtha, PA-12, Republican Party, Tea Party

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