Establishment Republicans have an unfortunate tendency to slam the outsider Tea Party members who push for more reductions in spending. Remember what happened when people with this same point of view decided to operate outside the Republican Party.
I've long felt that Ross Perot cost George H. W. Bush the election in 1992. Perot was a convenient place for people unhappy with Bush but unwilling to vote for Clinton to register their discontent.
When the Tea Party got going, you could hear a lot of people urging them to work within the Republican Party rather than outside of it. That has happened and now the establishment gets uncomfortable.
Tough. Deal with it. You think the Democratic Party is a monolithic entity? Hardly, but they paper over serious differences to fight together in the elections.
Seriously, do the establishment leaders really want to find out, as Churchill might have noted, that the only thing worse than fighting a political campaign with allies is fighting one without allies?
And to the Tea Party, suck it up and deal with it, too. You think you'll do better as an independent force? Forget it. We could get a President Clinton, again, you know.
About Me
- Brian J. Dunn
- I live and write in Ann Arbor, Michigan. University of Michigan AB and MA from Eastern Michigan University. One term in the Michigan Army National Guard. Former American history instructor and retired nonpartisan research analyst. I write on Blogger and Substack. Various military and private journals have published my occasional articles on military subjects. See "My Published Works" on the TDR web version or under the mobile version drop-down menu for citations and links.
