Splitters!
In a bid to advance the tea party movement from holding rallies to holding office, the leaders of the anti-establishment groups announced a new political organization Friday that they say will “endorse, support and elect” conservatives across the country.
Mark Skoda, chairman of The Memphis TEA Party, made the announcement at a news conference in the middle of the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville. Though he said the group -- Ensuring Liberty Corporation and an affiliated political action committee -- is "distinct and separate" from other parts of the tea party movement, including convention organizer Tea Party Nation, the announcement was the closest thing so far to a national organizing strategy for the upcoming 2010 midterm elections.
The Ensuring Liberty CorporationTM [insert hearty guffaws here] will support candidates who stand for "fiscal responsibility, lower taxes, less government, states' rights and national security" as well as the Republican National Committee platform.
The teabaggers call this platform the "First Principles," and are committed to voting for candidates who share their values, regardless of party. Unless, of course, they're talking about actually voting for candidates. And then it's principles schminciples.
Of the nearly two-dozen I spoke with, all of them praised Scott Brown's election to the Senate, even when it went against their own beliefs. "It was wonderful, wonderful that he won," says Debi Keatts, who works with a pro-life group in Danville, Virginia. When asked about Brown's pro-choice stance, she shrugs, "We had to bite a bitter pill but it was worth it if it helps stops this unilateral liberal agenda."
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