How the GOP Establishment Is Co-Opting the Freshman Tea Party Class

Constance Dogood

• Publisher: Broadside e-books
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9780062112606
• Topic: Politique et relations internationales
• Subtopic: Gouvernement américain

New from Broadside Books' Voices of the Tea Party. In this first-hand account of the perils of Washington, Constance Dogood, an average American who became an early leader of the Tea Party movement, describes the methods used by the Republican Establishment to co-opt the Freshman members of Congress. Called "the Tea Party Class" because they were propelled into office by a wave of Tea Party support, these 63 new Republican members of Congress face a daunting challenge in the 112th Congress. On the one hand, they need to honor the promises they made to the tea partiers in their districts who helped elect them. On the other hand, they need to learn the ropes of Washington without unnecessarily alienating the Republican Establishment so long entrenched in and around the corridors of power. Constance concludes that the House of Representatives would be well advised to ditch the century old hierarchical party leadership structure and look to the Tea Party movement itself for a superior model of organizing to return the country to its constitutional roots.

How the GOP Establishment Is Co-opting the Freshman Tea Party Class

Along with a handful of activists brought together on Twitter, I participated in the exciting launch of the Tea Party movement in my small town in February 2009. I had no prior political experience, but I understood Twitter, Facebook, free phone conferencing, and all the other tools we scrappy grassroots defenders of the Constitution used to turn this country around through our participation in the political process.

From the beginning, a core group of a few hundred online activists had a vision of returning the House of Representatives to conservative control in 2010. There was no road map laid out before us to accomplish this goal.

The Washington pundits scoffed. Yet we knew it could be done. Not because we were the greatest activists in the world, but because we understood that the majority of Americans felt as we did, and we realized that the tools of technology gave us a chance to succeed.

I found a Republican challenger in my district who was willing to take on a seemingly unbeatable incumbent Democrat. I signed on to his campaign as a volunteer, and recruited many of my Tea Party friends to pitch in. After a year of hard work and late hours, as well as an infusion of much-needed cash from traditional sources, my candidate won in November 2010.

It was a great day—a vindication of all my hard work, and that of the thousands of Tea Partiers here locally who helped make it happen. When I was offered a job on the staff of my newly elected member, I knew that this was a fantastic opportunity. But I also knew it had the potential to cause serious heartbreak.

Let me explain why.

I said above that even before the Tea Party had a name, our outlandish goal was to return the House of Representatives to the control of conservatives. By “conservatives” we meant those who supported the limited-government ethos of the Tea Party movement, with its focus on the promotion of three core values: (1) constitutionally limited government, (2) free markets, and (3) fiscal responsibility.

I specifically didn’t say we wanted to return the House to “Republican” control because, as we know, not all Republicans are conservatives who support the ethos of limited government. However, in the practical world, we know that there are only two political parties, and at least in the election of 2010, there were only two choices: Republican or Democrat.

As the voting behavior of the 112th Congress has so far proven, there simply are no elected Democrats in the House who are constitutional conservatives. The so-called “blue-dog Democrats” like North Carolina’s Heath Shuler, who mounted a symbolic challenge to Nancy Pelosi’s leadership after the historic defeats suffered by the Democrats last November, marched in lockstep to oppose the repeal of the unconstitutional Obamacare legislation when that vote was held this winter.

The Alice in Wonderland quality of thinking among Democrats can best be illustrated by the public gnashing of teeth we’ve heard from them in response to Republican proposals to cut $60 billion from a 2011 budget that has a $1.7 trillion deficit. Never mind that this budget was one they should have finalized last year in the 111th Congress, which they controlled.

Consider the ludicrous outrage over a budget proposal that reduces the 2011 deficit from $1.7 trillion to $1.64 trillion. It’s mean and unfair, the Democrats argue, to limit the budget deficit to $1.64 trillion. A “fair” budget deficit would be $1.694 trillion, representing a mere $6 billion cut. Many of us in the Tea Party think a “fair” budget deficit would be zero.

Compare the range of deficits: the Republican Party leadership says $1.64 trillion is fair, the Democratic Party leadership says $1.694 trillion is fair, and many Tea Party activists say zero is fair.

Of the three, which group is acting sanely and responsibly?

When we began our movement with the lofty goal of securing a conservative majority in the House, it was with the idea that these conservatives would repeal Obamacare, and reduce the deficit to zero.

We knew that the Republican leadership was subject to the same sort of Alice in Wonderland psychosis as the Democratic Party, but we also hoped—perhaps a little optimistically—that our freshman Tea Party members could provide a jolt of electoral therapy to the leadership’s unhealthy Washington groupthink.

It was with these sentiments in mind that I viewed my candidate’s upset victory in November. What would my new member do once he got to Washington? Would he be true to the concepts of constitutionally limited government that animated the Tea Partiers who provided such important support during the campaign? Or would he be seduced by the perquisites of power and influence?

These thoughts weighed heavily as I considered the offer of a job i...