Life of the Party - New York Times

Right, you from Florida and Tim Scott from South Carolina.
I think that there is a changing wind. There are black conservatives out there, and their voices need to be heard.

Like other Tea Party candidates endorsed by Sarah Palin, you came from a nonpolitical background. A longtime Army officer who rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel, you retired in 2004 after being investigated for firing a handgun close to the head of an Iraqi policeman during an interrogation. Is that correct?
Yes, I did that, but let me tell you what happened. I went through what is called a nonjudicial punishment, where I was fined $5,000. I redeployed from Iraq, and I retired with full rank and benefits and an honorable discharge, and that’s the end of it.

Do you consider President Obama a good leader?
Not really.

Do you think those in the military respect him?
I don’t know, you gotta ask guys in the military, but I will tell you this: I think that going in in the middle of the night doesn’t show leadership.

Are you referring to that recent three-hour trip to a base in Afghanistan? He needs to consider his own safety, doesn’t he?
Leaders lead by example, and if I’m asking my young men and women to go out there and puttheir lives on the line, I should be willing and able to do the exact same thing. As I told my soldiers when I was commander in Iraqin 2003, the most expendable person in our battalion was me.

Didn’t George W. Bush go in for a surprise visit to Iraq under similar circumstances? Remember the platter-of-turkey photo op on Thanksgiving Day?
I’m not saying that’s right, either. I’m saying that my understanding of leadership is a little bit different. Leadership is about being a servant first.

Even though you’re a Republican, did you feel a sense of pride when President Obama was elected?
I don’t look to a man to get pride in myself. It’s not about having a black president, it’s about having a good president, and I think that’s the most important thing. This country needs a good leader, and I don’t care if he’s purple or green but yes, there are some people that saw in him a sense of pride.

Michael Steele, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, said last year that blacks don’t have a reason to vote Republican because Republicans haven’t given them one.
I think that there are some objective criteria that you can look at that Chairman Steele needs to try to work through.

What made you become a Republican?
When I retired out of the military, I registered myself as a Republican because my views and perspectives were more in line with that party.

You were raised in Atlanta, in a military family of Democrats, and were the middle of three boys. Are your wife and two daughters Republicans?
After all of the crap that I was put through in this election campaign, I don’t think they’ll be liberals any time soon.

What do you mean by crap?
When you turn on the television and people are accusing you of being a member of a white outlaw motorcycle gang and saying that you run drugs and deal with prostitution, I think that’s a little bit over the top. My opponent was very nasty.

You haven’t started your new job. But you probably feel ready to retire.
No. I have not yet begun to fight, as John Paul Jones said.

INTERVIEW HAS BEEN CONDENSED AND EDITED.

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Tea Party group says Palin should lead GOP - USA Today

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Some key Tea Party races - Boston Globe

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The Tea Party movement has been a defining force in 2010. With its aim zeroed in at the power structure of Washington, this political whirlwind has energized some Republicans and independents and left others shuddering. Some GOP leaders have feared that the movement’s candidates — most have never held high elective office — would cost the party a chance at grabbing control of the Senate. With the exception of Christine O’Donnell’s campaign spectacularly crashing, costing the GOP dearly in Delaware, Tea Party-backed Republicans are either running ahead of Democrats or about even. In Republican-dominant Utah, Mike Lee is expected to easily win. Marco Rubio, one of the first candidates to tap into Tea Party fervor, is cruising in Florida. Here’s a look at six other Tea Party-backed candidates in six races that will keep political junkies on the edge of their seats Tuesday night.

?Grew up in a household of avid Democrats in East Providence, R.I., and graduated from Harvard.

?Business career includes stints as an international currency analyst and co-founder of a string of sports bars.

?Was three-term US representative before becoming president of Club for Growth, which supports fiscally conservative politicians.

Campaign: With his longstanding attacks on business-as-usual in Washington and his fervent push for fiscal conservatism, Toomey had been a Tea Party-type politician before there was a Tea Party. His decision to challenge longtime GOP Senator Arlen Specter sparked a series of decisions that altered the political landscape in Washington. Specter, who barely beat Toomey in 2004, decided he could not win a rematch and switched parties, giving the Democrats a filibuster-proof majority until the election of Scott Brown of Massachusetts. Despite White House backing, Specter still lost the primary to Joe Sestak. Toomey backs replacing the income tax system with either a flat tax or consumption tax and calls for a constitutional amendment to require a balanced federal budget. The success of his campaign depends on the heartland of Pennsylvania, a state that Democratic consultant James Carville once characterized as (liberal) Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, with Alabama in between.

Prospects: Although his numbers have been slipping, Toomey still has a lead of 4 percentage points.*

?Son of US Representative Ron Paul of Texas, the 2008 Republican presidential candidate whose libertarian backers formed a cornerstone of the Tea Party movement.

?Has practiced ophthalmology for 17 years.

?Running for seat of retiring Republican Jim Bunning.

Campaign: “I have a message, a message from the Tea Party, a message that is loud and clear and does not mince words: We have come to take our government back,’’ Paul said in May after he became the first candidate backed by the movement to win a primary. He did so resoundingly, crushing the establishment candidate endorsed by his potential Senate stablemate, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. It did not take long, however, for libertarian views to land Paul in hot water. He suggested that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 should not apply to businesses and questioned whether the federal government should have a role in food or worker safety, prompting a storm of attacks. Yet his tough talk on the need to cut government programs and stiffen eligibility for entitlement benefits has attracted a strong following. The race has turned particularly ugly, with ads by Democratic nominee Jack Conway characterizing sophomoric pranks Paul allegedly did in college as anti-Christian and potentially criminal, a ploy even some Democrats say is desperate. Also, a video of Paul supporters pinning a protester to the ground and stepping on her head has inflamed emotions on both sides.

Prospects: He has maintained a rather sizable lead throughout the fall and is now up by almost 9 percentage points.

?Started an Oshkosh company that makes plastic packaging material.

?A political neophyte, he became drawn to the race after speaking at a Tea Party rally.

?Has pumped $4.4 million of his own money into the campaign.

Campaign: Johnson was catapulted to a primary win when the establishment candidate unexpectedly dropped out and supported him. He started as an underdog against incumbent Russ Feingold, but by pitching himself as an outsider and Feingold as a big-spending, out-of-touch insider, he has become the late favorite. He also has combined a well-regarded quirky ad campaign touting “the Johnson Way” with such provocative quotes as “I absolutely do not believe in the science of man-caused climate change’’ and calling the health care overhaul the ”greatest assault on our freedom in my lifetime.’’

Prospects: Johnson maintains a lead of about 5 percentage points.

?Earned All-Ivy League honors as a punter on the Princeton football team.

?Served as a lawyer and investigator for Dick Cheney, then a US representative, during the Iran-contra hearings and worked as a prosecutor for the Justice Department.

?Served 14 years in the US attorney’s office before becoming district attorney for a county north of Denver.

Campaign: His upset win over the GOP establishment candidate put him against Democrat Michael Bennet, who was appointed to replace Ken Salazar when Salazar was named US interior secretary. In this ideologically splintered state, Buck has generally avoided moderating his positions to attract independents. He opposes abortion except to protect the life of the mother and suggests ending Social Security benefits for well-off Americans. He also calls for overturning the new health care law and opposes cap/trade legislation, while backing nuclear energy.

Prospects: Buck’s lead in the polls has been dwindling -- down to less than 1 percentage point.

?Co-founded a K-12 Christian school.

?A grandmother of 10 and a weightlifting aficionado known to carry a .44 Magnum handgun.

?Earned a reputation in the Nevada legislature for opposing nearly all bills, with votes of widely popular legislation becoming known as 41-to-Angle. Led fight in state and federal courts to preserve state rule requiring two-thirds legislative vote to pass tax increases.

Campaign: In an upset, she won the primary over the establishment candidate for the chance to grab one of the top trophies of this election for the GOP: the seat of majority leader Harry Reid. Her campaign, however, has suffered through several misfires of intemperate remarks, awkward run-ins with media and voters, and backpedaling from hard-line views, such as privatizing Social Security and Medicare and eliminating the EPA and departments of education and energy. She has, however, been able to raise a staggering amount of money -- $14 million in last quarter -- and her strident pitch against the Beltway mentality has resonated with Nevadans in one of the states hardest hit by the housing downtown. Reid, on the other hand, has struggled to spark much enthusiasm among independents.

Prospects: After swapping leads with Reid in the polls for much of the late summer, Angle has seemed to regain her footing, up by 3 percentage points. Fans of politics might need plenty of coffee for this one: Returns will probably be coming in through the early morning.

?A West Point graduate, he earned the Bronze Star in the Gulf War.

?A Yale Law graduate, he served as a state judge and federal judge.

?Lost his first attempt for elective office, for state representative in 2004.

Campaign: Propelled by support from fellow Alaskan Sarah Palin, Miller won a stunning upset in primary, edging out GOP incumbent Lisa Murkowski, a body blow to national Republican leaders. That was only Act I in this political drama. Murkowski has bounced back with a write-in campaign that features fliers picturing skis to guide voters on how to spell her name, and Democrat Scott McAdams is showing life in a state where his party had been on the edge of extinction for years. Miller vows to drastically cut the size of government, but the only thing shrinking now is his lead. His campaign has been freighted by controversy recently, with charges that his family had received various federal benefits despite his criticism of such programs. With questions swirling on how to verify Murkowski’s write-in votes and with potential challenges to thousands of ballots expected, campaign watchers say Alaskans could be in for an extended and contentious tallying of ballots.

Prospects: It’s a tossup between Miller and Murkowski, with McAdams about 10 percentage points behind.

*All poll results are from an averaging of recent surveys by political website, fivethirtyeight blog.

SOURCES: New York Times, Washington Post, campaign websites

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Obama returns to home turf to rally party spirits - Boston Globe

var archivedState=0;Campaign 2010 | HEADLONG DASH TO FINISH

CHICAGO — President Obama embarked on a last-ditch campaign marathon yesterday in a bid to blunt the political rebuke expected to be delivered by voters in Tuesday’s midterm elections, urging dispirited Americans to give Democrats more time to deliver on the promise of change the president made two years ago.

“For those of you who were so excited two years ago, I just want to remind you this: Two years ago was not about me,’’ the president said to volunteers at a get-out-the-vote canvassing event in Philadelphia yesterday morning. “It was about you and it was about this country. And I said then that change was going to be hard . . . We can’t move backwards now. We’ve got to keep moving forward.’’

Democrats are hoping they can avoid the widely forecasted anti-incumbent wave that could overturn the party’s majority in the US House and seriously erode its advantage in the Senate.

But Obama’s choice of locations to deliver his closing argument was telling: He made stops in Pennsylvania and Connecticut, places where he enjoyed broad support in 2008, before wrapping up last night in Illinois, where his party is struggling to prevent his former Senate seat from falling into the hands of Republicans. Obama was scheduled to visit Cleveland today.

The Illinois Senate race, between Democrat Alexi Giannoulias and Republican Mark Kirk, is at best a toss-up for Democrats, who need a strong turnout among their base to prevent the GOP from snatching a highly symbolic victory in Obama’s backyard.

In Pennsylvania, Democrat Joe Sestak and Republican Pat Toomey are in a close Senate race, though most pollsters give Toomey the edge. The Connecticut Senate race is faring better for Democrats; polls show Richard Blumenthal leading Republican Linda McMahon.

Obama supporters who are sticking with the president and backing Democrats this fall foresee difficult times ahead for the party after Tuesday’s vote.

“Absolutely — I’m worried,’’ said Jarrod Ayme, 23, of Chicago, who works for a nonprofit agency. “I’m worried that [the Democrats’] power is going to dwindle considerably.’’

The president last night revved up Democrats at a rally just a few blocks from Lake Michigan and a few miles from Grant Park, where two years ago he celebrated an overwhelming Democratic victory with 240,000 ecstatic supporters.

The euphoria of that 2008 night has faded, as the nation’s slow economic recovery has undermined the president’s campaign themes of hope and change, and hurt his popularity. He also has come under fire in some quarters for pushing through a health care insurance overhaul that Republicans are promising to roll back if they seize power.

“I was gone overseas for the first six months of his presidency, and when I got back the perception of him seemed to have totally changed. . . . So many people were pessimistic,’’ said Matti Scannell, 19, of Chicago, who traveled to Spain in 2009.

Democrats are fighting to hold onto threatened Senate seats in California, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Colorado, Washington, and West Virginia. In Nevada, the majority leader of the US Senate, Harry Reid, is fighting to save his career against Republican Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle. Democratic seats in North Dakota, Arkansas, and Indiana have already been all but written off as lost.

The Republican House minority leader, John Boehner, who would likely become speaker if his party takes a US House majority on Tuesday, said yesterday that Republicans stand ready to bring more transparency to government and cut federal spending if voters entrust them with the reins of power. “We’ve tried it President Obama’s way,’’ said Boehner, in the weekly Republican address. “We’ve tried it Washington’s way. It hasn’t worked. It’s time to put the people back in charge.’’

Obama has been trying for weeks to build a firewall against Democratic losses by rallying supporters in states with close races, a strategy that led him back to his hometown.

The contest between Giannoulias, the state treasurer, and Kirk, a five-term congressman from the northern Chicago suburbs, is one of the closest Senate races in the country. Most of the polls suggest the race is a statistical tie, within the typical margin of error for opinion surveys.

The tight race “is a good metaphor for what’s going on nationally,’’ said Kent Redfield, a political science professor at the University of Illinois at Springfield. “You’ve got the president trying to bring the Democratic base — women, African-Americans, Hispanics — back to their candidates, trying to generate enthusiasm in a state the Democrats have dominated.’’

The seat Obama gave up when he won the presidency is open this fall; Roland Burris, who was appointed by then-governor Rod Blagojevich to serve out Obama’s unfinished term, declined to run again.

The campaign to replace Burris is between two men who are considered rising stars of their parties.

Giannoulias, (pronounced jeh-NOO-lee-us) a Boston University graduate, entered politics four years ago after helping manage Broadway Bank, a Chicago community lender founded by his father. In 2006, with support from then-senator Obama, Giannoulias, then just 30, became the nation’s youngest state treasurer.

But the private banking experience that was so helpful in his last race has been a liability this year. Broadway Bank failed in April and was taken over by the FDIC. And Giannoulias has been dogged by revelations that Broadway loaned $20 million to two Chicago felons, sometimes more colorfully described as “mob figures’’ in the local media, while Giannoulias was a senior loan officer.

Those embarrassments might have crushed Giannoulias’ campaign months ago if Kirk hadn’t evened the playing field by exaggerating his résumé.

Kirk, 51, apologized in the spring for making false statements about his 21-year Navy Reserve career, including the untrue claim that he had served in the Gulf War. He speaks contritely about learning “a painful lesson’’ from the episode, though he has resisted explaining why he overstated his record. He is the type of centrist Republican that typically has the best chance of winning in Democratic-leaning Illinois, specialists said.

“Mark Kirk is not a hyper-partisan,’’ said Gabe Rubin, 18, of Skokie, who stood for hours in an eye-watering cold wind demonstrating for the Kirk campaign outside a debate last week. “I want someone who votes what he believes is best for his constituents, not what his party tells him to vote.’’

Kirk’s campaign office did not respond to several messages for an interview.

Throughout the hard-fought campaign, the candidates have eagerly exploited each other’s missteps.

“All the campaign ads begin with smears,’’ said John Brehm, a University of Chicago political science professor. “It’s been pretty dirty. Though perhaps I shouldn’t use the word ‘dirty,’ because what they’re saying about each other is true.’’

The tone of the race has been so relentlessly negative that Giannoulias surprised campaign watchers last week by promising to run only positive ads in the final days. His prohibition on attacks did not extend to debates — the two candidates exchanged unpleasantries in person last Wednesday in their final televised forum.

On Friday, Giannoulias and his mother canvassed on the busy streets of Boystown, a Chicago district with a large gay population. A jovial Giannoulias said his campaign’s field operation was ready. “Turnout in this city is going to be through the roof,’’ he predicted.

He will need a large turnout from the city’s Democratic base to win, and to save the president from an embarrassing rejection by the people who know him best.

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The Rent Is Too Damn High Party: Jimmy McMillan Shows Dems How It's Done - Death and Taxes

Jimmy McMillan of the Rent Is Too Damn High Party stole the show at last night’s New York gubernatorial debate.

Yesterday we wrote a piece about how ineffective Democrats were this year at fighting back against the conservative Tea Party candidates. Maureen Dowd’s “Mean Girls” article about the Mama Grizzlies only reinforced their perceived strength by calling them mean. If you don’t like the things your opponent is saying, we argued, you have to change the conversation.

Reinforcing the meanness of your successfully mean opponent is not a conversation changer. “The rent is too damn high”—now that’s a conversation changer.

Last night Jimmy McCmillan, head of The Rent Is Too Damn High party, and that party’s candidate for Governor of New York, showed mainstream Democrats how you effectively change a conversation. Gawker has a great report on McMillan, but it suffices to say he’s an eccentric Brooklyn candidate who wears gloves on his because he was exposed to agent orange in Vietnam (but, he says, “it could be psychological”) and who focuses his campaign on a singular issue with brilliant clarity: the rent is too damn high.

Jimmy McMillan will not win the governor’s race. Not by a long shot. But he does stand for progressive Democratic values (“the Rent Is 2 Damn High Party feels if you want to marry a shoe, I’ll marry you”) and he holds a valuable lesson for more mainstream Democratic candidates who actually stand a chance of winning: Political winners set the conversation, and political losers respond to the conversation.

Like them or hate them, the Tea Party has been highly effective in the last two years at setting the conversation. Democrats would do well to take a look at Jimmy McCmillan and learn from what he’s doing. Though they may not want to start the exact conversation he’s choosing to, they should take note of how many people are talking about him this morning. It’s not because he called Carl Paladino “mean.” It’s the oldest trick in the book: if you don’t like the argument on the table, change the conversation.

Below check out a clip of McMillan from last night’s debate. Below that, check out four glorious minutes of McMillan sitting on a stoop, ranting.

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Tea party convergence: Big boost for Republicans in Election 2010 - Christian Science Monitor

It’s still three weeks and a couple days before the midterm election. But the likelihood of a Republican takeover in Congress just keeps growing, powered by a major boost from the tea party movement – a political phenomenon that has evolved from a scattered and sometimes flaky insurgency into a sophisticated, organized effort.

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In his latest estimate, polling expert Nate Silver of the FiveThirtyEight blog says Republicans have a 72 percent chance of taking over the House, up from 67 percent last week. Also, he writes in his latest New York Times column, the GOP has “nearly even odds of a achieving a net gain of 50 seats” – 11 more than it needs to become the majority party in the House.

No doubt that’s thanks in large measure to the higher level of preelection energy among tea-fueled Republicans.

IN PICTURES: Tea parties

The latest survey conducted jointly by the Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University shows why.

“On every measure, strong supporters of the tea party movement stand above the rest of the field,” writes Dan Balz in the Post.

“For starters, take the question of whether people are very interested in these elections,” Balz writes. “Forty-three percent of Democrats said they are. Among Republicans, 57 percent said they're very interested. Among tea party supporters the figure was 74 percent, and among the strongest tea party supporters it was 83 percent.”

While the Republican Party has had its run-ins with tea partyers – most notably in GOP primaries where establishment candidates got whacked – the Washington Post-Kaiser-Harvard poll shows a large majority of tea party supporters favoring a GOP takeover of Congress.

Meanwhile, what probably should have been called the “tea parties” – over the past year there have been many disparate and sometimes contending groups – are becoming more organized and unified as the election approaches.

In Virginia, for example, groups from around the state have formed a federation called “Virginia Tea Party Patriots.” The group just held a two-day convention in Richmond.

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For One Tea Party Candidate, Time to Temper the Message - New York Times

“I smile when I think of what we can do together in the Senate if the people send me,” Mr. Paul wrote.

Mr. DeMint related the note to the crowd of 300 people at the evening rally, in Erlanger. He said he himself smiled at the thought of “not just us two but eight or 10 senators” being elected and going up against the Republican establishment to push the Tea Party goal of limited government.

But Mr. DeMint’s smile may have vanished by morning. During a nationally televised debate on Fox News Sunday, Mr. Paul said that if he were elected to the Senate, he would support Senator Mitch McConnell, also from Kentucky, to keep his job as Republican leader.

Pressed to say whether he would choose him over Mr. DeMint, Mr. Paul said that he would vote for whomever Republicans chose as their leader and that he assumed it would be Mr. McConnell.

It was one more sign that no matter how devoted Mr. Paul is to Tea Party principles, he may be forced to yield periodically to some realities of the old-school politics that he denounces.

This also occurred last month, when Mr. McConnell set up a fund-raiser in Washington for Mr. Paul with several Republican senators who, like Mr. McConnell, had supported the $700 billion bank bailout in 2008; during the primary, Mr. Paul said he would not accept donations from anyone who had done so.

With the election just a month away, Mr. Paul’s wide lead in the polls over Jack Conway, his Democratic opponent, has narrowed, but he still appears ahead. And Mr. Paul may be acting a bit more cautiously these days to hold on to his lead, which is par for the course for many candidates after they emerge from a party primary and face the broader electorate.

“His approach has changed,” said Trey Grayson, the secretary of state, who lost in the primary to Mr. Paul. “He’s acting more like an incumbent. His tone is designed more for a general election audience and swing voters.”

But, Mr. Grayson quickly added, Mr. Paul still gets across his points. “He still, at the end of the day, talks about shrinking the size of the government,” Mr. Grayson said. “Those things haven’t changed, and that’s why he’s ahead in the polls.”

During the spring primary, Mr. Paul invariably opened his speeches by declaring that “a Tea Party tidal wave is coming.” His “randslide” win of the Republican nomination was the movement’s first major success on the national stage.

Now, his references to the Tea Party are fewer and farther between. On a trip last week through eastern Kentucky, the trademark yellow “Don’t Tread on Me” flags of the movement were gone. Mr. Paul did not sound his earlier battle cry that he would shut down Congress for a week if it failed to amend the Constitution to require a balanced budget. In fact, he did not mention the Tea Party at all.

Almost inconspicuous in a dark blue button-down shirt and cotton pants, Mr. Rand began his short speech in London by reciting in a soft voice the names of the other small towns he had just visited.

“I haven’t met one person on the entire trip who is in favor of President Obama or any of his policies,” he said. Even Democrats, he added, “realize that this is the most anti-Kentucky, anti-coal president we’ve ever had.”

He put in a slight dig at his opponent, Mr. Conway, whom he did not name and whom he rarely mentions, saying that the Democrat had once supported the cap-and-trade legislation, which is much loathed in this coal-producing state. “He was for it before he was agin’ it,” Mr. Paul, who is an ophthalmologist, said.

At Saturday’s rally, Mr. Paul did acknowledge the Tea Party — his campaign had bused in several dozen members of a contingent from northern Kentucky, who were having a convention nearby. Mr. Paul shared the stage with his father, Representative Ron Paul, the Texas Republican and 2008 presidential candidate, and with Mr. DeMint, and they were more overtly whipping up Tea Party sentiment.

The Conway strategy has been to cast Mr. Paul as out of the mainstream (in one advertisement, some seniors say he is “off the wall” and question “what planet” he is from). They also portray him as being unfamiliar with the state. Indeed, Mr. Paul focuses chiefly on national issues, like the debt and spending.

But Danny Briscoe, a Democratic consultant here who is not part of the Conway campaign, said this approach had not worked so far. Mr. Paul has “managed to appear normal,” Mr. Briscoe said, particularly with other controversial Tea Party-backed candidates, like Christine O’Donnell in Delaware, taking over the national stage.

Analysts here say the race appears to be Mr. Paul’s to lose. It seems he would have to make a blunder of gigantic proportions to alienate his supporters, and neither candidate appeared to make many in the debate on Sunday.

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Tea Party Darlings - Newsweek

By Alan Mascarenhas and Katie Maloney
This year is proving to be one of insurrection within the Republican Party. In recent weeks a cavalcade of long shots has shocked the establishment in GOP primaries, armed with little but Tea Party backing and a supportive tweet or two from Sarah Palin. Now comes the Tea Party’s biggest test: can its heroes actually win in a general election? While few pundits would be willing to bet against the house just yet on Sharron Angle coming out on top in Nevada or Christine O’Donnell pulling ahead in Delaware, the movement has certainly thrown this year’s campaign for a loop. But among the kookier candidates the Tea Party has unearthed, there are a few who stand out as possible rising stars. Following our recent look at the top Tea Party movers and shakers, here’s a rundown of the most exciting and controversial names you’ll see on November’s ballot.    

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