Tea Party Activists Are The New GOP (via NPR: Nichols | The Nation)

[struggle4progress]

y John Nichols
November 2, 2009

... Scozzafava, a state legislator, had the Republican ballot line and support from the party apparatus in Washington. But Tea Party and Town Hall activists — and their mentors and funders such as former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, and the powerful Club for Growth — threw their support behind Doug Hoffman, a more right-wing contender running on the New York Conservative Party line.

Scozzafava took a beating for her support for gay rights and abortion rights, her alliances with organized labor and her sympathy for the plight of the unemployed ...

Republicans who have tried to move party back toward the political mainstream, after a three-year losing streak that has cost the GOP control of the U.S. House, the U.S. Senate and the White House, are frustrated — and a little bit scared. As Gingrich, who backed the decision of local Republican leaders to nominate Scozzafava, explained: "I think we are going to get into a very difficult environment around the country if suddenly conservative leaders decide they are going to anoint people without regard to local primaries and local choices" ...

The question, of course, is whether a GOP defined by "the Tea Parties and their candidates" can compete not just in New York's 23rd district — where the party has always won — but across the great expanse of a country where the party has in recent years been losing ...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120006433

[calimary]

1. Hey, if it's bad for the GOP, that means it's good - even GREAT - for all the rest of us!

[janedum]

2. Redneck Hannity's got them meeting at the Capitol this Thursday @ noon.