The Tea Party train has run off the rails in Tampa.
Or at least that looks like where it’s headed in the upcoming, uphill race to unseat populist and popular Democrat Kathy Castor from her District 11 Congressional seat.
First, there’s the dazed and confused case of Tim Curtis – a self-described Democratic Tea Party candidate preparing a primary challenge to Castor.
Curtis, to the surprise of no one, has received far more attention and support from the FOXNews and Newsmax echo chamber than any real Democrat would ever want. It’s almost as if the Tea Party is so desperate to prove they’re not all right-wing Republicans they’re making Curtis a national poster-candidate.
Alright, it’s not "almost like that." It is exactly like that.
But what makes the Curtis crusade even more puzzling is that his attempt to run as a Democrat, in a Democratic primary, puts him in the impossible position of having to go campaign for votes from the very people the Tea Party hates – "Democrats" and "poor people."
The recent New York Times poll of Tea Partiers showed that,
"The overwhelming majority of (Tea Party) supporters say Mr. Obama does not share the values most Americans live by and that he does not understand the problems of people like themselves. More than half say the policies of the administration favor the poor, and 25 percent think that the administration favors blacks over whites — compared with 11 percent of the general public."
The same poll also found that Tea Party members are,
"...more likely than the general public, and Republicans, to say that too much has been made of the problems facing black people."
And it found that 92% of Tea Party members have a negative impression of the Democratic Party.
To summarize, most in the Tea Party are upset (correction: the same poll found that Tea Party members are more likely than other Americans to describe themselves as) "angry" because they think Obama’s values favor the poor and blacks over whites. They think that the "problems facing black people" are overblown. And they hate Democrats.
Back to Tea Party poser-boy Tim Curtis and his brewing (pun intended) Democratic primary challenge to Castor. Someday it will dawn on Mr. Curtis that he not much more than a tool the Tea Party will use to try to prove it’s not the Republican Party in disguise.
In the mean time, Mr. Curtis, meet your constituents. They are: Democrats, strong supporters of President of Obama, a plurality are black and many are, shall we say, "poor."
You know, the very people your party hates.
In what will be an immediate entry into the political slogan hall-of-fame, I can see the bumper sticker now: Vote Tim Curtis. He Hates You.
Runner-Up: "I’m Tim Curtis and my party thinks too much is made of your problems."
Tim Curtis running as a Democratic Tea Party candidate in Florida’s 11th is like George W. Bush the creationist oil "tycoon" who does not believe in evolution but made money from selling oil which comes from dead dinosaurs. However you slice it, it’s a hell of a commute.
Which brings us to the "real" Republican running against Castor – Mike Prendergast.
Unlike Tea Party Timmy, Mike must be the real Republican because his website has him in a suit complete with flag pin and in army uniform. And he’s using the poll-tested language about Ronald Regan and "Castor-Pelosi" policies as if they’re roommates or some law firm.
(It’s none of my business, Mike, but your website domain name "PickPrendergast" is a real problem for me because I’m a quick reader and I can’t help but see "Prick Pendergast" every single time I see it.)
Anyway, Prendergast’s blind-eye racism is already making Tim Curtis’s Tea Party racist paranoia look quaint. Even charming by comparison.
In addition to the poll-tested language and flag pins, Prendergast proudly has a link to his Facebook pageon his aforementioned website. A quick jump over there and a stroll through the photos on his Facebook page reveals this winner: a photo of President Obama dressed as a pimp with the all the disgusting bells and whistles you’d expect from a first-rate racist.
Seriously. I wish I knew how to post it here but maybe it's better that I don't.
To be fair, it’s not clear that Prendergast himself posted it on his Facebook page. According to what can be seen there, the photo was posted by a "fan" named Sean. But that does not explain why the photo has been up there since March 25 – nearly four weeks.
Prendergast has updated his Facebook page 17 times since then and the "Pimps and Hos" photo even appeared (and continues to appear) on Prendergast’s Facebook homepage. There’s just no way he didn’t know it was there.
If you know anything about Facebook, you also know that every picture posted has a "report" link below it to (obviously) report anything inappropriate.
Even if it’s not the candidate’s picture, it says one thing that a "fan" of his thought it was a good idea to share it with him. And it says something else that Mike Prendergast has left the photo up there for nearly a month.
And it says something else – something even worse – that in that time not the candidate or anyone else thought it was inappropriate enough to report.