New Texas gov poll shows Tea Party candidate Debra Medina would defeat Democrat

As The Ticket previously reported, incumbent Gov. Rick Perry is being challenged by GOP Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and by Debra Medina, a businesswoman and Tea Party supporter who's become a wild-card third wheel in what was supposed to be a slugging match between two Establishment heavyweights who've never really liked each other anyway. Last month they had their initial debate for the March 2 primary and everyone avoided any major gaffes, which is a major point of these confrontations. The lesser-known Medina, however, got valuable statewide TV exposure. A previous Rasmussen survey of likely Republican voters found Perry leading Hutchison 44-29 with Medina trailing at 16. Now comes word, via a new Rasmussen Reports Poll, that Medina is gaining some traction and today all three of the Republicans lead the likely Democratic challenger, Houston Mayor Bill White. Hutchison still performs the best, beating White by 13 points, 49-36. Perry is second-best in that hypothetical matchup, defeating White by nine, 48-39. But now, Rasmussen's telephone poll finds, Medina would defeat White 41-38. That's a reversal from last month when White's totals put him ahead of her, 44-38. Medina has gone from 4% in November to 12% in January and now 16%, apparently by cutting into Hutchison's support...read more

Tea Party Convention showdown

Three former allies of the National Tea Party Convention are planning a guerrilla press conference near the convention hall Saturday afternoon to highlight what they contend are the organizers’ efforts to hijack the tea party movement. The three men, Anthony Shreeve, Robert Kilmarx and Mark Herr, are Tennessee tea party activists who were involved in the early stages of planning the convention and say they resigned in protest after disputes with lead convention organizers Judson and Sherry Phillips, who contend that the ex-allies were banned from the group planning the event for incivility or indiscretion. The disputes have since gone public and turned ugly. At their news conference — which they plan to hold in the same sprawling hotel convention center that is hosting the convention — the three “intend to challenge [the convention] on all levels,” Shreeve said...read more

Where is "tea party" heading? Leaves are unclear

The "tea party" activists all agree: Government is too big. Spending is out of control. Individual freedom is at risk. And President Barack Obama's policies are making it all worse. But that's where the consensus ends among the diverse groups of frustrated Americans who count themselves part of this fledgling coalition. "We're afraid and we're fed up and we're angry," says Donna Henton of Blair, Neb. "But where this is going to go, we just don't know." If the people attending the first national "tea party" convention here are uncertain, imagine the difficulties of the Republican and Democratic parties, both of which are trying to leverage this antiestablishment energy for their own gain. How it works out could make a big difference in elections this fall and beyond. Here's what's clear: This is pure people-driven politics facilitated by the Internet. This is an ideological mix of libertarianism and conservatism with the common denominator being lower spending and smaller government. This is a loose collection of citizen groups with no leader but many voices. And this is the product of long-simmering anger. Is it just a blip? Or will it emerge as a lasting political powerhouse shaping elections and government for years to come?...read more

Who is Behind “The Tea Party is Over”?

The Tea Party Is Over is paid for and approved by American Public Policy Committee. According to the records, the top two donors for American Public Policy Committee this year are Patriot Majority and Patriot Majority West. The Patriot Majority has the same street and suite address as the Sandler, Reiff and Young Law Firm. Joseph Sandler was the general counsel to the Democratic National Committee who filed a motion to dismiss Philip Berg’s eligibility lawsuit against Obama and the DNC. Sandler is also former counsel to both MoveOn.org and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim group named an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorist-finance case in U.S. history...read more

Ron Paul on the Tea Party Phenomenon

In 2008, independents frustrated with establishment politics found a hero in Texas Republican Ron Paul. Warning voters about the dangers of an overstretched and overcommitted government, Paul provided today's Tea Partiers with a blueprint for grassroots success. Republicans like Reps. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota and Mike Pence of Indiana, and Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul – Ron's son – have embraced the Tea Party movement. NationalJournal.com talked to Ron Paul last week about the energy of today's grassroots movements and the Republican Party's evolving relationship with the Tea Partiers...

Top 5 Misconceptions About the Tea Party Movement

One year ago, the first Tea Party protest hadn't even been held yet and the phrase remained safely ensconced in American history textbooks. This weekend, the first national Tea Party Convention will be held in Nashville, and the fractious movement has secured a place in the history of the Obama administration. But for all the attention it has earned, misconceptions abound. Here are the top five. 1. Tea Partiers = Independents Independents are the largest and fastest-growing voter segment—a new CNN poll puts independents at 42 percent of the American electorate. Given the Tea Partiers' anger at overspending under Bush as well as Obama, it's been tempting to equate them with independent voters—but there are fundamental differences. Polls of independents' policy positions consistently place them in between Republicans and Democrats—closer to the GOP on economic issues and closer to the Democrats on social issues. But the Tea Partiers tend to be to the right of the Republican Party on both fiscal and social issues. Their opposition to the Obama administration is overheated and absolute. Independents are angry at the polarization of the two parties; Tea Partiers want more polarization between the two parties. Independents tend to be centrists; Tea Partiers attack centrist Republicans as Republicans in Name Only, or RINOs. Tea Partiers are conservative populists...read more

Ayn Rand Popularity Spurs Release of Lost Film

Although Feb. 2 marks her 105th Birthday, novelist Ayn Rand’s surging popularity resembles that of a rising young literary star. Rand, the controversial author of “The Fountainhead,” died in 1982, but her magnum opus, “Atlas Shrugged,” sold a half million copies in 2009, more than at any time in the 52 years since its publication. Why? Simply put, Rand’s 1957 epic chillingly foretells an America taken over by government bureaucrats coercing private industry and implementing draconian wealth redistribution legislation. News media and the Internet have been abuzz over the uncanny parallels between Rand’s fictional tale and today’s news headlines. Hollywood has taken notice. The movie industry has jumped on the bandwagon. Lionsgate Entertainment has announced that the long-delayed movie version of “Atlas Shrugged” has been reincarnated as a TV mini-series to begin shooting later this year. Rumors continue that Ted Turner is considering a remake of the 1949 Gary Cooper film, “The Fountainhead.” Film rights to Rand’s novelette, “Anthem,” have been acquired by Hollywood producer, Kerry O’Quinn. But perhaps the most unusual example of the Rand on-screen phenomenon is the recent DVD release of “We the Living,” the long-thought-lost movie version of her first novel. It was an unauthorized film made during World War II in Italy and, according to the film’s restorer/distributor, Duncan Scott, “It caused such a sensation, and such controversy, government officials ordered it to be burned.”...read more

HT: Publius

...the beginning of a new political party?

Even though the national Tea Party movement is inspired from the famous Boston Tea Party of 1773, this movement is more than just fighting against the unAmerican agendas of Obama and the Democratic Party, it's about keeping the country true to its national and political heritage, and preventing the United States Constitution from being slowly eroded and destroyed by statist and progressive elements within the government and outside as well. The movement could be setting itself to become a new political party of the future, despite the movement's birth pangs so far. Just like the Republican Party went through its birth pangs in 1850s - a coalition of Whigs, Northern Democrats, free soil radicals, abolitionists, free market advocates, and free speech activists, all struggling to form into an opposing political force against the powerful Democratic machine that ruled America. At that time, the country was largely driven by agrarian-based and slave-based economies. How times have changed, at great costs, since then. The way I see from this Tea Party movement as becoming a thorn to the Democrats and a hook to the Republicans. I think the real goal of the national Tea Party movement is to demonstrate before America and the world that neither the Democratic Party nor the Republican Party has a monopoly in the U.S. Congress, the government and the whole country. Frankly, it could become a third political party, as a counterweight to both the Democrats and the Republicans in Congress...read more

Governor Gary Johnson, OUR America Initiative, to release ‘Three Point Plan for Economic Prosperity’

-Gary Johnson, former Governor of New Mexico and Honorary Chairman of the OUR America Initiative, said today during his trip through Southern California that a “Three Point Plan for Economic Prosperity” will be unveiled Tuesday, February 9, 2010, at 6:00 PM at a special press event in Washington, D.C., at the office of the Reason Magazine, 1747 Connecticut Avenue NW. Governor Johnson has been meeting with top national economists from around the country to discuss this plan. “Based on discussions with the people we have been meeting, as well as my own governing experience and significant research with economic experts, we have developed an initial outline of common sense approaches to begin to renew our economy” “We believe we have adopted a plan to bring America’s economy into long-term prosperity,” Johnson stated. “This would include cutting expenditures, cutting taxes and shrinking the Federal involvement in the economy.” Governor Johnson has also been meeting with citizens to discuss public policies and ideas that put people before politics, focusing heavily on getting the economy back on track and creating jobs. “Based on discussions with the people we have been meeting, as well as my own governing experience and significant research with economic experts, we have developed an initial outline of common sense approaches to begin to renew our economy,” Johnson stated. “I look forward to presenting this outline to the public, and to continuing the public dialogue regarding lower taxes and reducing our deficits.”...

Tea Party Convention - Links To 10 Articles

The grass-roots movement that exploded across the nation last year in revolt against President Obama's economic policies and health-care agenda reached a critical milestone Thursday as hundreds of conservative activists converged here for the start of the inaugural National Tea Party Convention. Despite the fractiousness, however, officials said the event is sold out, with 600 "delegates" registered and scores more being turned away. The closing steak-and-lobster banquet, featuring Palin, has sold 1,100 tickets. Unlike the protests and town hall rage that defined the tea party movement in its first year, the convention is designed to show that the effort is "growing up," said convention spokesman Mark Skoda, chairman of the Memphis Tea Party. There will be sessions on leadership, political philosophy and such nuts-and-bolts topics as "how to do voter registration drives," as tea party leaders try to turn grass-roots power into political gain in November's midterm elections...read more Washington Post

Infighting threatens to ice hot 'Tea Party' USA Today

Tea Party meeting a test for its future Detroit News

Fractures emerge as Tea Party convenes CNN

Tea Party convention stirs passion for politics, networking Tennessean

Tancredo speaks at National Tea Party Convention Examiner

New US conservative movement holds first big convention ABC

Tea Party Launches ‘Counter-Revolution’ Fox News

Tea Party Convention Diaries: Palin Already Drawing Crowds Human Events

Has the Tea Party Gone Global? Newsweek

G.O.P. Group to Promote Conservative Ideas

A group of prominent Republicans is forming an organization to develop and market conservative ideas, copying a successful Democratic model and hoping to capitalize on the fund-raising and electioneering possibilities opened up by a recent Supreme Court ruling. The organizers, including former Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota and Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the senior policy adviser to Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign, describe their emerging American Action Network as a center-right version of the Center for American Progress, the six-year-old group for progressive policies that was founded by John Podesta, former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and an informal adviser to President Obama. The formation of what Mr. Coleman calls an “action tank” or “a think-and-do tank” reflects the philosophical ferment in the Republican Party as it seeks to rebuild from political and policy setbacks of the Bush years. Similarly, the center-left Center for American Progress opened in 2003 when the Democrats were in political exile and Republicans controlled both the White House and Congress...read more

The President's Budget: No Fiscal Restraint in Sight

On Monday, February 01, 2010 President Barack Obama unveiled his budget for Fiscal Year 2011. Despite ongoing verbal nods to the need for fiscal restraint, this budget however delivers little of that. The President’s discretionary spending “freeze” proves to be little more than a sleight of hand. A more accurate portrayal than “discretionary spending freeze” was given by Republican staff on the Committee on the Budget, who referred to the “freeze” as a “freeze in non-defense, non-homeland, non-Veterans, non-international affairs, non-Pell Grant, non-emergency discretionary spending.” Indeed, the three-year freeze only applies to 13% of the budget and does not go into effect until 2011. To create the illusion of fiscal responsibility, the budget touts some other gimmicks which will do little to rein in Federal spending but will likely lead us down the path of higher taxes. Among them are: The enforcement of pay-as-you-go, which is nothing more than a fig leaf to provide political cover for tax-and-spend policies, and would in fact set the stage for higher taxes being touted as the only way to avoid across-the-board cuts in entitlement spending...read more

Newsweek On Tea Party: Party Time

For Bill Hennessy, the biggest political upset in recent history began when some of his tea-party compatriots started talking about what they were doing for Christmas. It was late December 2009, and Hennessy, a volunteer organizer from the St. Louis tea-party group, was on what he describes as "an ad-hoc conference call" with activists from the Nationwide Tea Party Coalition, a group that emerged after the first antigovernment protests last February. As the tea-party organizers discussed their holiday plans, Boston-based activist Brad Marston floated the idea that a certain Republican Senate challenger in Massachusetts might be worth some of their attention. "He just kind of threw him out there," says Hennessy, a business-marketing professional from the St. Louis suburbs. "He asked only that we make people aware of the race ... I don't remember his asking for any specific support for Brown." Within days, that conference call catalyzed the kind of chain reaction among plugged-in activists that would replicate itself across the country, ultimately helping to propel Scott Brown into office. By December 28, Hennessy had blogged about the race, and within 24 hours, Brown's campaign manager e-mailed him about more ways to get involved—information that Hennessy then passed on to some 2,800 tea partiers in the St. Louis area, a significant number of whom joined the grassroots army that fundraised, phone-banked, and tweeted the unlikely senator to victory...read more

Illinois Shows Limitations of Tea Party Movement

The Tea Party folks keep getting mad at me for saying that in the end they might prove ineffective in races at levels higher than local because they aren’t organized enough. They puff up their chests proudly proclaiming that they intend to resist being organized and they claim that being organized is precisely what they are fighting against. I understand the feeling, even sympathize quite a lot, but there is a problem with this obstinacy. It means they won’t win on a statewide ballot very often. The Illinois primary just proved me correct, too. Let’s take the race for Senate in Illinois as exhibit “A.” Of course the good old boys in the state party went with Mark Kirk, the center left candidate from a northern suburb of Chicago. He was the he-can-win candidate and the establishment choice. Not one Tea Party group, though, wants Kirk and for good reason — and I heartily concur with them, as it happens. So who was the “Tea Party candidate,” the one meant to beat out Kirk, the one backed by the newly found power of the Tea Party movement? There wasn’t one. There were three...read more

De-Facto Card Check Vote Coming Soon

This week, the United States Senate will be considering President Obama’s nomination to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Craig Becker. Mr. Becker has expressed radical views about the relationship between employers, employees and union representation. Specifically, he shows great disdain for employers’ role in the process of union certification elections, and believes that employers should even be prohibited from exposing criminal conduct by unions during these elections. In fact, it appears Mr. Becker would like to bar employers from most NLRB proceedings saying: “On these latter issues employers should have no right to be heard in either a representation case or an unfair labor practice case, even though Board rulings might indirectly affect their duty to bargain.”...read more

Largest-ever federal payroll to hit 2.15 million

The era of big government has returned with a vengeance, in the form of the largest federal work force in modern history. The Obama administration says the government will grow to 2.15 million employees this year, topping 2 million for the first time since President Clinton declared that "the era of big government is over" and joined forces with a Republican-led Congress in the 1990s to pare back the federal work force. Most of the increases are on the civilian side, which will grow by 153,000 workers, to 1.43 million people, in fiscal 2010. The expansion could provide more ammunition to those arguing that the government is trying to do too much under President Obama. "I'm shocked that the 'tea party' hasn't focused on it yet, and the Obama administration only has a thin sliver of time to deal more directly with it, I believe," said Paul C. Light, who studies the federal bureaucracy as a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a professor at New York University. "When you talk about big government, you're talking about a big employer."...read more

Palin: Why I'm speaking at Tea Party convention

Later this week I'll head to Nashville, where I'll have the honor of speaking with members of the Tea Party movement. I look forward to meeting many Americans who share a commitment to limited government, common sense and personal responsibility. This movement is truly a grassroots, organic effort. It's not a top-down organization; it's a ground-up call to action that already has both political parties rethinking the way they do business. From the town halls last summer to the protests and marches in the fall to the game-changing recent elections, it has been inspiring to see real people — not politicos or inside-the-Beltway professionals — speak out for common-sense conservative policies and values. As with all grassroots efforts, the nature of this movement means that sometimes the debates are loud and the organization is messier than that of a polished, controlled machine. Legitimate disagreements take place about tone and tactics. That's OK, because this movement is about bigger things than politics or organizers. The soul of the Tea Party is the people who belong to it — everyday Americans who grow our food, run our small businesses, teach our children how to read, serve the less fortunate and fight our wars. They're folks in small towns and cities across this nation who saw what was happening to our country and decided to get involved. Thank God for them...read more

Conservative Rubio now leading moderate Crist in Fla. primary

Former state House Speaker Marco Rubio has now jumped to a 12-point lead over Governor Charlie Crist in Florida’s Republican Primary race for the U.S. Senate. A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely GOP Primary voters in the state finds Rubio leading Crist 49% to 37%. Three percent (3%) prefer another candidate, and 11% are undecided. The new numbers mark a stunning turnaround. Crist was the strong favorite when he first announced for the Senate seat, and Rubio was viewed as a long-shot challenger. But Crist’s support fell from 53% in August to 49% in October. By December, the two men were tied at 43% apiece. Rubio leads Crist by 17 points among men and by seven among women. He also carries 52% of the conservative GOP vote, while moderates prefer Crist...read more

Will The Tea Party Movement Fragment?

Along with several other issues, in an Examiner item, Glenn Reynolds points to some recent comments from Joe Scarborough on the Tea Party movement. The actual dynamics of both the original Boston Tea Party and this new movement are terribly misinterpreted by the element of today's American society that fancies itself the mainstream. Last week, Joe Scarborough wrote that the Tea Party movement might "tear itself apart." His evidence of this: Some squabbling over a Tea Party convention in Nashville, Tenn. Well, squabbling is normal in movement politics, particularly when people think they're being shortchanged on money and credit. But what's really striking about the Tea Party movement isn't that there's squabbling -- it's how little squabbling, overall, there has been. Scarborough's column, remember, was occasioned by the Brown victory in Massachusetts. A few Tea Party purists didn't want to support Brown, seeing him as insufficiently pure. But the vast majority made the entirely pragmatic determination that Brown, whatever his flaws, was vastly better than his Democratic opponent Martha Coakley, and just the guy to stop Obamacare in its tracks if elected. For starters, the movement can't fragment, because it is already fragmented. That's a strength, not a weakness. What it most represents is the majority of the American electorate, not some fringe insurgency. That was as true in Boston as it is today...read more

Video: What does the "budget freeze" actually mean?

Income angst? Not for public employees

LAST MONTH, the US economy shed another 85,000 jobs. It marked a miserable end to a calamitous year in which an estimated 4.2 million American jobs were liquidated, and unemployment rose to 10 percent. In addition, more than 920,000 “discouraged workers’’ left the labor force entirely, having given up on finding work and therefore not included in official unemployment data. But not everyone is having a rotten recession. Since December 2007, when the current downturn began, the ranks of federal employees earning $100,000 and up has skyrocketed. According to a recent analysis by USA Today, federal workers making six-figure salaries - not including overtime and bonuses - “jumped from 14 percent to 19 percent of civil servants during the recession’s first 18 months.’’ The surge has been especially pronounced among the highest-paid employees. At the Defense Department, for example, the number of civilian workers making $150,000 or more quintupled from 1,868 to 10,100. At the recession’s start, the Transportation Department was paying only one person a salary of $170,000. Eighteen months later, 1,690 employees were drawing paychecks that size. All the while, the federal government has been adding jobs at a 10,000-a-month clip...read more

Cartoon - Tea Party Dance

Daryle Cagle

Tea Party Movie Gets Ready for Screenings Nationwide

The recent election of Republican Scott Brown to the United States Senate has upset the political establishment in Washington and established the tea party movement as a legitimate grassroots force in American politics. Now, the newly updated film trailer proclaims Tea Party: The Documentary Film is driving momentum as the “story of 2009 and the must see film for 2010”. It is being viewed as a key to understanding the winning message of a movement whose core tenets - Constitutionally limited government, fiscal and personal responsibility and free markets - are transcending partisan divides. The National Tea Party Convention will show the film on Thursday, February 4th at 9PM to a Nashville, Tennessee audience of over 600 convention-goers including keynote speaker Sarah Palin and several Hollywood celebrities. The film will also be shown as a part of the CPAC conference in Washington, DC on Friday, February 19 at 10:00PM. Grassroots activists who are featured in the film are planning to attend. The film will be shown in locations nationwide on Saturday, February 27 on the one year anniversary date of the movement...read more

Wash Post Quotes Bogus Tea Party Leader

The piece, titled "Republicans woo 'tea party' members, but face activists' distrust of GOP," tells of RNC Chairman Michael Steele's attempt to bring this outrage movement into the Big Tent. Sounds like the kind of story that would feature lots of voices from the Tea Party. There's one. The only representative of the Tea Party movement quoted by reporter Philip Rucker is one Dale Robertson, owner of TeaParty.org, who claims to represent 6 million people. Robertson serves as the face of the "distrust" that the Post tries to portray in the piece. Rucker writes, "Robertson said he has reached out repeatedly to Steele but has been rebuffed. 'He hasn't called me back,' Robertson said. 'I find that disconcerting.'" Also disconcerting is that the Post published that quote with a straight face. If the paper had bothered to assign someone to cover the burgeoning Tea Party movement, its editors would have known that Robertson doesn't actually represent anyone, except maybe himself...read more

Video: Obama's Jobs Success