Earlier today I read an article by Elspeth Reeve of the Atlantic Wire. She asked the very sensible question, “Why doesn’t the Tea Party love Ron Paul?” It’s an obvious question to which an answer is long overdue.
The answer to the question is that the Tea Party as it exists today is really an illegitimate offspring of the true revival of the Tea Party Movement which occurred in Boston in 2006-7. Do you remember the historic “money bomb” that raised $6 million dollars in one day for Dr. Paul’s 2008 Presidential campaign? That was the result of hard campaigning on Congressman Paul’s behalf by the Boston Tea Party and a man named Bob Dwyer and his friends in Boston.
That event was succeeded by three more Boston Tea Party events, all of which focused on the (then) Tea Party goals of gold and silver currency, abolishment of the Federal Reserve System, reigning in over-taxation, restoration of liberty, and a less powerful Federal Government. Not to mention non-intervention (NOT isolationism) and ending U.S. global militarism.
After Dr. Paul’s quick rise to popularity, other groups began to emerge with the same ideals. And some began to coalesce, as history will show, with a completely different political agenda. Among those different political idealists were many who had become disenfranchised from and disenchanted with the typical GOP incumbents after the George W. Bush bailout. And for many of these, John McCain’s nomination was the “last straw.”
Who are these folks? Of course, they’re the Social Conservative Evangelicals who in the past held such prominent sway through the Christian Coalition but found themselves “without a party” after the charades of the George W. Bush administration and the McCain debacle. So, seeing themselves as “righteous rebels,” they took the Tea Party name for themselves and decided to take over the GOP. Enter Sarah Palin (and uninvited at that!), Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck (who wouldn’t be on the map if it weren’t for Ron Paul).
The Tea Party Movement today is comprised, or at least led by, mostly these very same former Christian Coalition folks who don’t have a thorough understanding of the principals of sound currency, limited government, and freedom that the Boston Tea Party acquired through much study and careful inpection of the Constitution. They want their Christian Coalition back, and with more power than ever. And Ron Paul desires a true interpretation of the Constitution and the Republic of individual States for which it stands.
Which is why there is a lack of love in the Tea Party for their estranged father, Congressman Dr. Ron Paul.
This article was written by a Christian Social Conservative and Republican Constitutionalist, and I approve this message – because somebody had to say it.