If your inbox is anything like mine, you are being deluged with fundraising emails from Democrats these days. And virtually every one of them contains the words “Karl Rove,” “Koch brothers,” or “tea party/partier.” Apparently, that’s what fundraising consultants think brings in the bucks these days. Maybe they’re right.
But this email (just arrived; no link) from MA-6 incumbent John Tierney is just ridiculous.
If Richard Tisei — John’s 2012 opponent — gets back in this race, we have to be ready. Otherwise, Massachusetts’ 6th district could be represented by a Tea Partier….
House Republicans are some of the most obstructive elected officials this country has ever seen. The last thing in the world residents of the 6th district need is a Tea Party congressman representing them in Washington.
Let’s make sure we have what it takes to defeat Richard Tisei.
Now, I don’t particularly like the idea of Richard Tisei winning a congressional election, for the familiar reason that, IMHO, anyone who would back the current House leadership of Boehner, Cantor & Co. is by definition bad for America. If I recall correctly, Tisei never actually said he’d back those guys during the last election cycle, but neither did he say that he wouldn’t. Until he flatly rejects the current leadership of the national Republican party in favor of something more reasonable, I can’t consider supporting him.
But for heaven’s sake, let’s try to keep some perspective. Anyone who knows the first thing about Massachusetts politics should be guffawing at the notion that Richard Tisei remotely resembles a “tea partier.” There’s nothing wrong with Tierney trying to raise money off the possibility of Tisei running again, but he should respect the voters more than this email reflects.
Guys like Tisei can, if they choose, play a valuable role in steering the Republican party back to something approaching sanity. (In a related story, it was good to see that Gabriel Gomez has joined the board of GOProud.) And we should all hope that he and other like-minded folks are successful in doing so, because the ongoing sh!t-show on the GOP side of the aisle in Washington right now is seriously hurting America. I don’t see how it helps those of us interested in a healthier politics to pretend that everyone with the letter “R” after his or her name is exactly the same.
and I’m glad you wrote the diary.
I like Tisei, I prefer Tierney, and I would much prefer a progressive candidate (I don’t like this centrist veteran HBS guy running in the primary against Tierney).
The attack is over-the-top and silly. I think it generally might be time for Tierney to move on. He votes the right way but he hasn’t been a strong progressive leader on many things, and the issues involving his wife and brother-in-law don’t inspire much confidence.
Frankly, given the closeness of the last race and current issues, like the ethics investigation starting against Tierney, we could lose this seat.
I bet Kim Driscoll could beat Tisei.
Salem mayor Kim Driscoll could bet Tierney in a primary and any Republican in a final. But, she is not interested in going to Congress. (Lucky for Tierney).
Rep Steve Walsh could also beat Tierney in primary and any Republican in a final. But, he does not appear to to interested either. (Tierney lucky again.)
The two most threatening opponents are not looking to unseat him…not because he is that great, but because they are heading in other directions.
…but I fear she squandered a lot of good will by how she handled her loss to Elizabeth Warren.
he had no problem with their nastier associates running ads for him in the election against Tierney, and he had no problem getting nasty himself, so I don’t want him representing my district in Congress. I don’t object to Tierney getting primaried, I just don’t want a Republican, no matter how nice he is promoted to be, adding to a Republican roster in the US House.
I get that Tisei doesn’t call himself a Tea Partier, but we saw who they supported and we saw what happened to Tisei’s “moderate” views when he ran in a Republican primary.
What does one have to do in order to be considered up there with a Tea Partier? Support the Blunt Amendment?
Oh, wait, Tisei already did that.
Walks like a duck, talks like a duck… and would be a vote to empower all the other little duckies… at some point we have to say the dude’s a duck. And not the Mighty cool kind.
I think the Tea Parties is past the fourteen-minute fame mark, and this attack may seem silly by 2016. Tisei is no more Tea Party than McConnell is progressive.
Rivals often don’t use accurate labels. Did Tisei ever call Markey a “socialist”? Because he isn’t. A liberal, sure, but a socialist? If yes – then I don’t mind this. If no, then sauce for the goose, etc.
I don’t recall Tisei ever using that word, but I could have missed it.
I respect and admire that Tisei came out about who he was and was honest about his socially liberal views throughout his career and he seemed like a good State Senator for his district. I think Tierney is seriously vulnerable in a non-presidential year, especially if there is no libertarian nominee to split the anti-incumbent vote. I agree wholeheartedly with Doubleman that Kim Driscoll would be a solid progressive vote and based on her leadership in Salem, a strong progressive leader.
I also agree the hyperbole series neither candidate well. Tierney was around corrupt people and exercised poor judgment, but slamming him over the same issue was unfair. As was Tierney labeling Tisei as more extreme. Tisei’s notion that he would deliver more as part of the majority is laughable though since he would have very little influence over that caucus, and it’s telling that he had to endorse Ryancare to get national support. It’s too bad, we could use his service and his brand of politics, just not in Congress.
The so-called Tea Party is about spending and deficits, right? Where does Tisei line up on those issues? That would seem far more relevant than where he stands on abortion or marriage equality.
Some Paultards and libertarians like the Tea Party label, but many are hawkish and strongly socially conservative. Hence why Sarah Palin and Bachman get so much tea party live and why libertarian Reason and The Economist views them with derision. That said, Tisei on fiscal issues is with Paul Ryan-that is-far to the right. Much like Scott Brown. A true Weld-Cellucci Republican would be far more moderate on economic questions. That is a new phenomenon in MA politics-The Shamie/Ed King wings have no fully taken over the MA GOP.
But not socially. Okay. I have to say I don’t share David’s outrage at the characterization- seems like Tisei could become a reliable ally of those anti-taxes-for-the-rich “deficit hawks” in Congress, many of whom are proud to call themselves Tea Partiers.
and wonder if RMG spends its time defending Democratic candidates against debatable terminology in Republican fundraising emails (which I admit are least-common-denominator communications) or if such “fairness” is only for Democrats.
A guy who’s with Paul Ryan on economic policy is close enough to “Tea Party” (which, as farnkoff rightly points out, originated with a focus on budget and tax issues) for me to have little problem with the characterization. I might have used slightly different language myself but I’m not going to jump on a reliably progressive Democrat over it.
They don’t. That’s why BMG is better than RMG. 🙂
Note Seven reasons why conservatives are superior to liberals including the delightfully self-contradicting Conservative possess humility and the anti-empirical Conservatives are not infuriated by opposing opinions.
delightful….
If you want to see some really off the wall “Lunatics screaming at the Universe” insanity. Because Marriage Equality is causing everything that is wrong with the world, from the Federal Debt to the Polar Ice Caps melting. Remember, that he was going to run a write in campaign for the Senate because Gabe Gomez was not anti-gay enough for him.
He posted on BMG for awhile too.
But at the national level this tendency to argue the other side’s points for them is not helping us any. Here in Massachusetts the Democrats hold every major office, yet much of the policy coming from Beacon Hill is pretty conservative. That too, in my opinion, derives from the willingness of too many liberals to hold the debate on the right’s terms and make concessions, in the name of “reasonableness,” that the other side does not make.
The trouble is that Republicans merely want to reduce government. They want it to do less. Democrats actually think we have responsibilities to one another and that some of those responsibilities are discharged by the government. That means we have to be better. It’s easier to dismantle the ACA than it is to run it successfully.
Or stated differently, the conservative agenda requires less intelligence to carry out than the liberal agenda. So we have a higher bar — and that’s not entirely unfair even if it isn’t equal.
Government expanded at very high levels during Reagan and Bush eras, with large increases to spending and huge additions to debt. They were just very selective over what they expanded — free money for their friends? Check. Vast expansions to the military? Check. A giant unfunded expansion to Medicare that mainly aided their Big Pharma friends? You betcha. Ditto subsidies for fossil fuels, corn and who knows what else (so long as it didn’t help regular people).
Lots of pork for Congresspeople, especially the GOP, too.
Government didn’t shrink under Republicans. It rapidly expanded — but it just expanded in ways that hurt working families and the middle class and helped their friends and allies.
and not the Reagan Administration.
No Republican has campaigned on a platform of expanding the government in a very long time. Up until the Iraq War, the only particular government proficiency that Republicans pushed concerned national security. To the extent that they promise a brighter future, it is by getting out of the way of business so that the economy blooms and everyone does better.
To choose an issue at random, think federal education policy. It’s been a demand of the Right for a decade or more to shutter the Department of Education. Shuttering the Department of Education, by the way, is a simpler task than actually running it and trying to do your best to cause the most good by way of it.
The GOP lies about this, just as they lie about deficits.
The GOP campaigns on a platform of reducing government, and do just the opposite if and when elected. The GOP campaigns on a platform of reducing the deficit and reducing spending, and they do just the opposite if and when elected.
They simply lie.
Keynesians these days have the approach
Republicans, on the other hand, have this approach
What they objected to was what and who the money was spent on, and the fact that for years, they didn’t have a say on that spending.
is because the Tea Party is such an amorphous group. Ron Paul and Sarah Palin agree on almost nothing, but are the two “Tea Party” all stars. “Tea Party” in many ways became the descriptor of the Republican base by Republicans themselves.
It also means different things to different people, hence David may get upset over it with one understanding of the Tea Party, but a Tisei supporter may nod his head and say, “yeah, that’s us, proud of it.”
Yet, Tisei backing the Blunt amendment was not just backing the Tea Party, it was backing the Sarah Palin wing of the Tea Party.
He’s a Tea Partier on “illegal immigrants.” He’s also for cutting Social Security benefits.
So, again, the Tea Party label…. completely fair, and to many Republicans, probably not an insult, either.
The Republican Party cannot be steered toward sanity. The party of 30 years ago that recognized that some kind of social contract exists but kind of hates the poor is now the Democratic Party. Anybody calling themselves a Republican is signing on with religious extremism and deserves to be tarred with that brush.