Sunday tea party edition.
WaPo:
So who wants to join Rand Paul's "tea-party" caucus?
"I don't know about that," Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) replied with a nervous laugh. "I'm not sure I should be participating in this story."
Republican lawmakers see plenty of good in the tea party, but they also see reasons to worry. The movement, which has ignited passion among conservative voters and elevated big government to the forefront of the 2010 election debate, has also stirred quite a bit of controversy. Voters who don't want to privatize Social Security or withdraw from the United Nations could begin to see the tea party and the Republican Party as one and the same.
It's not a question of "could begin to see the tea party and the Republican Party as one and the same." That's dishonest reporting. They are the same. Do they read their own paper?
Gerald Seib:
My latest Capital Journal column looks at how Republicans’ hopes for Senate control are affected by the tea party movement:
Here are two big questions hovering over this year’s congressional elections: How radical is the mood out there, and do Republicans have a real chance of taking back control of the U.S. Senate?
And here’s a simple way to track the answer to both: Simply keep an eye on four tea-party amigos chasing Senate seats in the key states of Nevada, Kentucky, Florida and Colorado.
Ahhh, Nevada. Ahhh, Florida.
Frank Rich:
Six years ago [Mel Gibson] was not merely an A-list movie star with a penchant for drinking and boorish behavior but also a powerful and canonized figure in the political and cultural pantheon of American conservatism. That he has reached rock bottom tells us nothing new about Gibson. He was the same talented, nasty, bigoted blowhard then that he is today. But his fall says a lot about the changes in our country over the past six years. We shouldn’t take those changes for granted. We should take stock — and celebrate. They are good news.
You'd think from listening to the media that Obama's job approval is dropping like a stone. Oh, wait...
Yeah, but he must be doing way worse than Reagan and Clinton. Oh, wait...
But assume he's dropping like a stone. The Times asks: How Can Obama Rebound? Bill Hillsman's response:
Independents are not prompted by party fealty to vote for a particular candidate. They decide on the basis of which candidate’s promises they most believe. And they become unforgiving when an incumbent for whom they voted doesn’t deliver.
For most independents, the bailout of Wall Street was a grave injustice. While the Obama administration has been engrossed in worthy long-term issues — health care, the environment, terrorism — it has let Main Street down. Unemployment is still rampant, there is little money flowing to small businesses, entrepreneurship has been stifled.
Independents believe in a level playing field, and have no faith in big business or big government. And they absolutely have no patience for “too big to fail” arguments while their families and neighbors consistently find themselves overlooked in the president’s economic palliatives.
The president’s supporters are fond of saying that “elections have consequences.” As Mr. Obama and his team try to figure out how to re-engage independent voters in 2012, they will discover just how true that is.