It irritates members of both groups when I note the similarities of the tea-party movement that swept the nation in the 2010 election and the peace movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
But they are similar. Both movements represent a surge in political activity by hundreds of thousands, even millions, of previously uninvolved citizens.
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Both movements focused on what are undeniably central, not peripheral, political issues: war and peace, the size and scope of government.
Both movements initially proclaimed themselves nonpartisan or bipartisan, but quickly channeled their efforts into one political party — the peace movement in the Democratic party, the tea-party movement in the Republican party.
Both movements were critical of leaders of the party they flocked to. The presidents who escalated American involvement in Vietnam were Democrats, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.
Similarly, Republican George W. Bush increased federal involvement in education and sponsored the Medicare prescription-drug entitlement, and Republican appropriators increased federal spending more than the tea partiers like.
Any inrush into political activity by hundreds of thousands or millions of people will bring forward a certain number of wackos, weirdos, and witches. Tea partiers, like peaceniks, beat moderate incumbents in party primaries and then lost in November. There were left-wing Christine O’Donnells 40 years ago.
But both movements also thrust forward many solid citizens with strong convictions, and some turned out to have good political instincts.
Peace activists meeting in a living room in Denver in 1972 seeking a congressional candidate passed over lawyer Jim Schroeder and settled on his lawyer wife, Pat. She won the seat and turned out to be a competent and well-known House member for 24 years and was, briefly, a non-frivolous candidate for president.
Similarly, in April 2010, a plastics manufacturer from Oshkosh named Ron Johnson decided to run for the U.S. Senate in Wisconsin. Mainstream media ignored him and focused on candidates like O’Donnell as part of its project to depict tea partiers as weirdos. But Johnson beat a competent and hard-working three-term Democratic incumbent and is now a U.S. senator.
When new people embrace politics, they can change the nature of a great political party. From 1917 to 1968, the Democrats were the more militarily interventionist of our two parties. Since 1968, they have been the party more likely to oppose military intervention. That transformation, whatever you think of it, was the work of the peace movement.
New movements can ultimately strengthen a party, particularly one like the late 1960s Democratic party, which saw some of its historic constituencies (southern whites, big-city Catholics) flee its ranks. Similarly, the Republicans in 2006 and 2008 lost many voters they had registered and rallied to re-elect Bush in 2004.
But new movements prove troublesome for the political pros, and nowhere more than in the most problematic part of our political system, the presidential nominating process. (Is it just a coincidence that this is the one part of the system not mentioned at all in the Constitution?)
Peaceniks and tea partiers naturally want nominees who are true to their vision. They are ready to support newcomers and little-vetted challengers over veteran incumbents who have voted the wrong way on issues they care about.
But the things that make candidates attractive to movements can also make them unattractive to independent voters.
The Democrats struggled with this in the 1968, 1972, and 1976 cycles. The old-timers pushed through the accomplished Hubert Humphrey over the diffident Eugene McCarthy in 1968, but they lost to George McGovern in 1972. He was a more serious candidate than is generally remembered, but he did lose 49 states to Richard Nixon.
Since then, Democratic candidates have strived to meet peace-movement litmus tests. Bill Clinton did so characteristically by saying that he agreed with the arguments of opponents of the 1991 Gulf War resolution but would have voted for it.
Republicans are now grappling with a similar situation. Mitt Romney is next in line, but some of his past positions are — how to put this politely? — in tension with those of the tea-party movement. Tea-party types have been scrambling to settle on an alternative, so far without success.
Tea partiers will grouse if Romney is nominated. But maybe they need patience and perseverance. One lesson of history is that a movement can reshape a party. Another is that it takes time.
I guess you could find similarities between an apple and an orange if you try, you eat both, they grow on trees, they are both fruit, etc., etc.
The Tea Party was vilified daily in the media. Occupy, until very recently, cheered and excused daily. Tea Party had very few incidence of any violence while undergoing media investigation with a neutron microscope. Occupy has had so many incidence even the entire Liberal establishment can't cover it up.
Tea Party patriots stood up for a return to the Constitution, limited government, and self reliance. Occupy gets "in your face" for more free stuff. Like apples and oranges, some small similarities, but a huge difference in taste!
The only issue I am paying attention to is downsizing of government power. I don't need the candidate to have strong family values, so long as the government neither compels nor impedes specific moral character for the people. This is not to say that nothing should be illegal, e.g. murder, theft and lying. A society cannot function effectively if people are unwilling to leave their homes to work, lest something happen to them.
This nation has prospered under Democratic and Republican presidents and Congresses. But this is not a machine that needs to constrain the actions of every gear and cog. It's more like a great dance. We each hear our own music and respond in our own way. When government starts restricting music choice and allowed movements, dancing loses its appeal.
Government needs to be pruned sharply. The only other thing I'd like to see is a commitment to enforce the laws equally for everyone. Voter intimidation by the NBP is as bad as it is by the KKK. Illegal aliens who are not already known felons should also be deported. Enforcing law is a fundamental government function. If it is beyond the scope of our government, instead of increasing the government, we could cut back on the laws.
Typical washington think! You guys never stop and question whether Angle or ODonnells fortunes may not have been different had they not been universally trashed by our team from teh beginning, yourself included. Your analogy is flawed, as the tea party's only issue is restoring the insttitutiions and princicples that made this the greatest country in history. But of course, y'all are more interested in power than principle. Why don't you wake up before the communists take over- right or left, totalitarianism is wrong- and the lite version pushed by the republican establishment give the media the power of cynacism toward reform- be honest about who you are instead of pushing this tripe- flyover country is smarter than you think
If conservative pundits and congressional leadership spent less time worrying about "the next in line", movements like the tea party wouldn't be necessary.
For many years since Reagan, conservatives in general - and social conservatives in particular - have spent time, money, and yes, patience and perseverance to support the GOP on local through national levels only to watch the promises made by the officials they worked so hard to elect evaporate into thin air once the election is over
In short, they've BEEN PATIENT and are now FED UP.
The GOP establishment wants a voting bloc with an "anybody but a Democrat" voting mentality to counterbalance analogous voting blocs within the Democrat party.
I've seen a couple clever pitches to tea partiers to support Romney, but this appeal here falls very flat. It seems to suggest that Romney be accepted as incremental change of the Republican party. The problem is that Romney is not even incremental change. He is the definition of the status quo. No thanks.
Why does it seem that everyone is missing the point? The tea party was founded to cut the size and scope of the government. The government has not been reduced. The spending has not been reduced. At the current spending levels we will be as broke as Greece in only three years. Will no one step up and cut the spending please? Basic economics says that the wasted money spent by the government could be spent better in the private sector, and without the government trying to pick winners and losers by being middlemen. If you think this deficit spending doesn't rob the private sector then consider this: Nothing is for free, those bonds being issued by treaury are either being bought by us citizens or China with their trade surplus dollars, and the over spending leads to inflation which robs private savings and reduces investment here. We must get the spending under control or the consequences will get really nasty really quickly.
Having lived through the late sixties and early seventies, I will confirm what Mr. Barone is reporting: that the anti-war movement changed the Democratic Party pretty radically *over a period of 12 years*.
Changing things takes *time*. You have to overcome inertia, bad press (the antiwar crowd got excoriated by the media for the first four years or so, even after Uncle Walter Cronkite more or less endorsed their views publically), stupid and ill informed early mistakes and the Old Guard, who won't give up the keys to the armory without a fight.
We're only two or three years into the cycle, people. That is all Mr. Barone is saying.
Our time will come, Lord willing before it is too late.
The American Agriculture Movement was a very large populist upsurge, perhaps the most recent of any significant size prior to the current period, and has much to offer in terms of insights into the cycles of influence in movements.
Barone, you have gotten lost in the inside the Beltway think. It's not the TEA Party that is or needs to learn a lesson, it's the GOP. The GOP has lost a lot of us that have been waiting since Reagan for someone to even claim to be interested in shrinking the government. The GOP lost us in the early 2000's with its big spending and now risks losing us to a third party; there is an even chance that in 10 years the GOP will be a permanent minority party or gone the way of the Whigs.
It might do well for the TP to recognize that they are NOT the only voters in the elections. Not now, not ever. There blindness to ineptness led to us losing the Senate. Their hand picked candidates were real losers. TP don't represent all the American R Conservatives; nor do they represent all the American Independent Voters. To believe that they do is pure hubris. Many haven't a clue re how elections work in a democracy. Everyone gets to vote. And everyone doesn't see eye to eye w/the thinking of TP who'll back people that are real losers. If the TP people have their way, we'll likely have 4 more yrs (or more) of "O". For surely there are many like myself who will never vote for some of these inept people that TP love.
