Don't Drink The Tea

Scott Brown, Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, and Rick Snyder. What do these guys have in common? If you are a tea party member, then you already know the answer. Rick Snyder accepted the Medicare expansion for his state. Marco Rubio tried to tackle immigration reform. Scott Brown... who am I kidding? Like they need a reason? Heck, Chris Christie hugged Obama, let's throw him under the Tea Party Express. These are all candidates once endorsed by the Tea Party who have found themselves on the outs with the same group.  Now, with another midterm election looming around the corner, it appears Mitch McConnell has made the Tea Party Hit List as well. But before you guys get too far into this, would you kindly allow me to present you with some simple logic?

Let me try to get my point across here with a little analogy. Let's say that you and I have 8 friends with whom we eat dinner every night. You and I like hamburgers, but the rest of the pack likes chicken. Every night we take a vote on what to eat, and every night we get chicken. Usually it's an 8-2 vote, but occasionally one of them breaks rank and chicken wins 7-3. Once or twice, we have managed to tempt two of them and we got within 6-4, but that is the closest we have ever come to getting our hamburgers. But there is good news. One of our friends is moving away, creating the opportunity to elect a new friend to the circle. You and I, being members of the Hamburger Caucus, have a meeting to plan our strategy.

You present me with a picture of your friend, who likes hamburgers even more then we do. This guy eats burgers for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a midnight snack. He cut himself shaving the other day and bled gravy. This, of course, is the guy we should nominate to join our group. But there is a problem. The friend that we nominate has to not just please the hamburger caucus, but he asked to be elected by the whole group. Are the chicken lovers honestly going to vote for our beef loving friend?

I have a better idea. I have a friend who loves burgers too. The only problem is, every now and then he gets a craving for chicken. But I assure you that 90% of the time he will join us in voting for burgers. You object, calling him a "BINO." He's not a real hamburger lover, or he would never vote for chicken. So against my better judgement, I join you in nominating your burger loving friend. He, of course, loses the election and we get another chicken lover and continue to lose every meal vote 8-2 or 7-3.

A little time goes by, and another friend moves away. This time I reject your advice and nominate my friend. You get mad at me, but he wins the election and for the next three weeks we lose 7-3 or 6-4. You lecture me repeatedly, pointing out that we are still losing. Out of sheer desperation, I reach out to our chicken loving friends. I have to win one eventually. We're both dying for a juicy, mouth watering burger. What about a hamburger steak? They reject that. However, after a late night session of wheeling and dealing in an e-cigarette vapor filled back room, I strike a deal. Man, are you going to be surprised tomorrow when we have the dinner vote and we get... meatloaf!

Unfortunately, you are not happy with the result. You lecture me about selling out my hamburger values for a watered down version of what I really wanted. You call me a traitor, and threaten to try to get me and my friend voted out of the group. You mock me for accepting the meatloaf appeasement from the chicken caucus.
I defend myself, pointing out that if we had nominated a 90% burger guy both times we would have had our hamburgers by now. All we would have needed was 1 of them to switch their vote on a night when all 4 of us voted for burgers. This only amplifies your outrage at me "selling out my hamburger values."

Now of course, this whole story sounded silly to you. Unless, of course, you are a Tea Party loyalist. In which case, it may have made perfect sense. After all, you remember the day when the Tea Party primaried Mike Castle for the vacated Senate Seat of Joe Biden. They rejected Mike's 21 point lead in the polls, and opted instead for Christine O'Donnell who trailed by 14 points in the polls and was such a bad candidate that she even had to reassure voters that she was not indeed a witch. At the time, I used to listen to Mark Levin. The day before that primary was the last day I listened to his show. I remember him saying "I would rather lose with a conservative than win with a "RINO." I had had enough.

I wish I could say that Christine O'Donnell was the only horrible mistake that the Tea Party has hoisted upon us. In doing so, however, I would have to ignore the race in Missouri where a tea party candidate introduced us to the notion of "legitimate" rape, and presumably the flip side of that coin "illegitimate" rape. If you are cringing already, than you might want to skip the rest of this paragraph. He went on to give us an easy way to tell the difference between the two. Apparently, legitimate rape almost never results in pregnancy. Thus, if you got pregnant from a rape, chances are it was a fake rape? It seems that the female body can identify the sperm of a legitimate rapist and block it from fertilizing the egg. Unfortunately, this message didn't make it the short trip to Indiana. I'm sure had Richard Mourdock known that real rape doesn't make babies, he wouldn't have pointed out to all of us that God intends for women to get pregnant as a result of a rape.

In Nevada, the son of legendary UNLV coach Jerry Tarkanian had a one point lead in the polls over Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The Tea Party decided they would rather lose with Sharron Angle than win with Tarkanian. In Alaska, the Tea Party managed to primary Lisa Murkowski with a candidate that was so bad she went on to defeat him in the general election as a write in candidate. She was the first write in candidate to win a Senate seat in 50 years. Of course, to win as a write in people need to be able to spell your name. That means there were more people who knew how to spell "Murkowski" than there were people willing to take a chance on the Tea Party guy. In case you were wondering, there aren't enough people sitting in front of this computer who know how to spell Murkowski to help her win an election where only one vote is cast. (I googled.)

Now, why do I bring all of this up? Because I'm mad at the Tea Party? I am, but that is not my reason. I'm desperate over here. You see, the American Conservative Union ranks Senators every year by their voting record. For 2012, there were a total of 7 Senators who got a perfect score of 100%. Among them were Mitch McConnell and Marco Rubio. Yes, Mitch McConnell whose tea party primary opponent just announced, and Marco Rubio who couldn't write this article himself because he is busy at a banquet today where the Tea Party will award him his ass. Speaking of food, remember the meatloaf? Remember the burgers we missed because we insisted on nominating someone who agreed with us 100% of the time even though they couldn't win? This leads me to the real dilemma of the tea party influence in the GOP.

What if we had Mike Castle, Danny Tarkanian, Richard Lugar, and a few of these other Republicans we have tossed away over the last few elections. We might have a majority. If not, perhaps we would have had enough votes to get hamburger steak instead of meatloaf. What meatloaf? The Gang of Eight home cooked Immigration Reform Bill. Spare me. I'm tired of hearing it isn't perfect. I know. But as you tea partiers talk about how Rubio got played, it got me to thinking. Maybe he did. Played by the Democrats? No. Played by his supporters who expected him to go to Washington with half a pack of ground beef and come back with quarter pounders for everyone. If we had Lugar, than perhaps we would have had enough support to make the whole bill hang in the balance until the border was certified secure. But we didn't. If Tarkanian had beaten Reid, then perhaps whomever was the current majority leader might have worked with us a little. But he didn't get that chance. Maybe Mike Castle could have worked a little magic like his trillion dollar coin trick to help us along the way. Probably not. He couldn't even trick himself out of the spell Christine O'Donnell cast on the voters of Delaware.

Here's a clue, Tea Party. Not every city is Provo Utah, and not every State is Nebraska. Jim Demint is every bit as likely to win a State election in Delaware as President Obama is to speak at CPAC next year. Quit teasing yourself at how much more conservative Sharron Angle is than Danny Tarkanian. That is completely irrelevant now, isn't it? Do I want Conservative candidates? You're damn right I do. But would I rather lose with a conservative than win with a RINO? Hell no I wouldn't. Because losing with conservatives tastes like chicken.

Consider this. The fewer Republicans we have in Washington, the fewer votes we will win. The more Democrats there are in Washington, the further to the left our guys have to reach to get anything done on real issues that are affecting us. And the further to the left our guys have to reach, the more of your own candidates you tea party types end up cannibalizing. I know you guys aren't too fond of the GOP right now, but I'm not asking you to do it to help your party. I'm asking you to do it to save your country.