September 20, 2010--Inheriting the Wing

There is a putsch well underway within the Republican Party. The Tea Party movement is accelerating the takeover by increasingly partisan, ideologically-driven candidates who care more about their version of moral purity and sense of their own well being than actually winning elections. So-called Republican moderates are increasingly unwelcome in the formerly big-tented Grand Old Party. To diverge on any issue is to risk being purged from the party.

I use these totalitarian words advisedly.

The constituency they are pandering to is overwhelmingly white, Christian (mainly Protestant), middle aged, and relatively undereducated.

Some say this is good news for hard-pressed Democrats since these extremists are thought to be too radical and thus unelectable.

I say, we'll see since the public is so angry and the anti-establishment passion is intensest on the right that I would not be surprised to see Tea Party backed candidates do quite well in November.

If they do, here's a glimpse of who the rising stars are likely to be:

In Nevada, in addition to calling for the end of Social Security, Medicare, federal involvement in education, abortions (including for pregnancies caused by rape and incest), Republican/Tea Party senatorial candidate Sharron Angle, running in at worst a dead heat against Harry Reid, is quoted as saying: "What is a little bit disconcerting and concerning is the inability for sporting goods stores to keep ammunition in stock. . . . That tells me the nation is arming. What are they arming for if it isn't that they are so distrustful of their government? They're afraid they'll have to fight for their liberty in more Second Amendment kinds of ways?" and "That's why I look at this as almost an imperative. If we don't win at the ballot box, what will be the next step?"

Obviously, armed revolt.

In Florida, Republican/Tea Party candidate for governor, Rick Scott, was the principle shareholder, president and CEO of Columbia Hospital Corporation when it was convicted of perpetrating the largest fraud in Medicare history. He was forced to resign in 1997, and Columbia agreed to pay $1.7 billion in fines and penalties--the largest fraud settlement in U.S. history. The hospital corporation pleaded guilty to a litany of criminal and civil charges including lying to the government about how sick patients were so they could collect larger fees.

Obviously, from Scott's point of view, it's a good thing that Sharron Angle and his other fellow Tea Partiers didn't get around to eliminating Medicare before he could cash in.

In addition, although he has frequently lambasted President Barack Obama's economic stimulus plan, a telecommunications company Scott has heavily invested in is reaping financial rewards from the program.

During the Republican primary, Scott was criticized for saying he would "fight [against] all of the stimulus money" even though he had a stake of nearly $5 million in a company called XFONE that had received $63 million in stimulus loans and grants to build fiber-optic networks.

"Part of the stimulus money," Scott said, "has a lot of strings attached to it that are going to impact us long-term. We're all going to have to pay for it, and our kids are going to have to pay for it long-term."

What he didn't say was that his kids would not have that problem since their daddy creamed off quite a bit of federal money and will pass much of it on to them.

Still he won the primary.

Then in New York there is Republican/Tea Party nominee for governor, Carl Paladino. He says that if he defeats Andre Cuomo to help him clean up the mess he will bring a baseball bat to Albany to bash a few heads. One of the heads he intends to take a swing at is Sheldon Silver's who is the state Assembly majority leader. Silver is Jewish but this did not deter Paladino from comparing him to Hitler and, if that isn't enough, the Anti-Christ. To entertain his friends and backers, Paladino is in the habit of circulating racist and pornographic emails.

He is rising in the polls.

In Maryland, Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell is best known for doing her Sarah Palin imitation. Not Tina Fey style with tongue in cheek but in a literal hair, makeup, and clothing imitation in a scary attempt to attract voters who may thus think that she is Palin's clone.

But O'Donnell is also know for other aberrant things. After dabbling in witchcraft as a young woman, she founded a group called the Savior's Alliance for Lifting the Truth, which calls for total sexual purity and claims that God created the world in six 24-hour days. She lied about her college record, claiming she graduated from Princeton 17 years ago whereas in truth she graduated from Fairleigh Dickinson just a few weeks ago after running out on her tuition bills more than a decade ago. She has no visible sources of income and yet lives rather well. She did not pay income taxes for years and has been investigated for the questionable use of campaign donations for personal expenses.

I am thinking that part of her appeal, besides the Palinesque wardrobe of the former Alaska governor, is the very fact that she has for years been hiding her actual income and has sought to avoid paying taxes. Isn't this the heart and soul of the Tea Party/Republican right-wing agenda--get rid of government, let me keep all my money, and the hell with everyone else?

It's one thing, and understandable, to be angry with the way things are in Washington and state capitals, but it's another to have these kinds of folks and their media impresarios seizing control of the party of Lincoln.