The Patriot Post - Alexander's Column 10-4-2013

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The Patriot Post - Alexander's Column 10-4-2013
From The Federalist Patriot
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Tea v. the GOP: Getting it Right
Winning versus Whining

By Mark Alexander

Oct. 3, 2013

“Experience [has] long taught me the reasonableness of mutual sacrifices of opinion among those who are to act together for any common object, and the expediency of doing what good we can; when we cannot do all we would wish.” –Thomas Jefferson (1803)

The title of this column should read “Tea and the GOP.” Unfortunately – no, tragically – “Tea versus the GOP” is more accurate.

The infighting between conservatives and moderates in the Republican Party is undermining any chance of ever establishing conservative majorities in the House and Senate, much less seating another conservative president of Ronald Reagan’s1 stature.

Too many Republican conservatives and moderates refuse to abide by President Reagan’s 11th Commandment2: “Republicans shall not ever speak ill of their fellow Republicans.” They ignore this advice at great peril to the objective of ever achieving any redress to the Left’s relentless assault on Liberty3. (Stay with me – I’m going to provide irrefutable evidence of Reagan’s wisdom in practice.)

Unfortunately that “ignorance” has been on full display for the last three weeks, in the self-mutilating spectacle of Republican infighting over the House’s Continuing Resolution and its use as a tool to force votes on defunding, delaying or amending ObamaCare (better now referred to as “DemoCare”).

I got a taste of that circular firing squad last week, when I dared to question the wisdom of Republican Sen. Ted Cruz’s unilateral tactics4 as a follow-up to my outline of the conservative strategy5 published two weeks ago. I asserted that Cruz, however good his intentions might have been, undermined the conservative Continuing Resolution strategy, and I stand by that assertion. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Now, for my fellow Patriots who identify with the grassroots “Tea Party” devotion to Liberty, as do I, but who make a practice of “shooting from the hip,” read on before jumping down to the comments section and applying to me the same slash-and-burn labels some have been so quick pin on anyone questioning Cruz’s orthodoxy.

Of course, Cruz has been on the receiving end of intraparty insults. Rep. Peter King (D-NY) played right into the hands of Democrats and the Leftmedia by calling Cruz a “fraud” and a “con man” and blaming him for “hijacking the party.” But he has also issued a few, even likening Republicans opposed to his faux-filibuster tactic to “Nazi sympathizers,” but I can assure you, if the U.S. fought WWII using his tactical template, there would be a lot more German and Japanese spoken around the world today.

That being said, the purpose of this column is not to revisit the pros and cons of Cruz’s tactics – I actually admire Cruz’s tenacity, if not his methodology.

My purpose is to plainly lay out the strategic implications of all the self-defeating infighting, too much of which is instigated by self-anointed “Tea Party leaders” across the nation. Their caustic rhetoric, mostly focusing on who and what they’re against rather than who and what they support, is largely antithetical to the objectives of the genuine grassroots Tea Party movement6, which is to establish conservative congressional majorities which can defend Liberty against legislative assaults.

Now, anyone who’s been reading this column for the past 20 years can readily attest to the fact that I am no “moderate” when it comes to defending Liberty, and, more recently, when aggressively refuting the socialist agenda7 of Barack Hussein Obama8 and his Leftist NeoCom cadres9. Nor do I classify myself as a “Republican,” though the Republican platform aligns much more closely with the pursuit of Liberty than the Democrat platform.

Longtime readers also know that I am not a Beltway dweller, but reside with my family in the mountains of East Tennessee, as my ancestors have since before Tennessee statehood in 1796. I am a proud Tennessean for many reasons, including the remarkable transformation in Tennessee politics over the last decade.

That transformation is due to the efforts of two of my colleagues, and friends, current Tennessee GOP Chairman, Chris Devaney, and his immediate predecessor, Robin Smith. Let me tell you how they, and elected Republicans across our state, have used the unity principle10 of Reagan’s 11th Commandment to transform Tennessee politics, and why that transformation should be a model for the rest of our great nation.

If nothing else that I here write garners your attention, then this should:

Tennessee is now among the most conservative states in America. Our governor is a conservative Republican, our State Legislature has a conservative Republican super-majority and conservative Republicans have firm control of our State Senate. Consequently, our economy is rapidly recovering despite Obama’s failed economic policies. We are fourth in the nation in job creation. We are a “right to work” state and our economy is driven by entrepreneurial ingenuity and hard work. We have the lowest debt of any state in the nation, even though we have no income tax. Our congressional delegation is largely conservative, and we have one conservative senator and one moderate, whom we are endeavoring to replace.

Does that sound like something Republicans of all stripes should strive to achieve in every state, and moreover, inside the Beltway?