See, you knew that name. Why? Cause the media is obsessed with her. Why? Because she's a moron and the media covers her thoroughly to discredit the Tea party. There are a number of very good tea party candidates out there, such as Ron Johnson is Wisconsin or Ken Buck in Colorado but none of them get coverage like this awful woman. Its blatant media bias. What else can explain the attention she has gotten in a totally uncompetitive Senate race? There's no reason to cover her idiotic debate statements, she's down 20 points in the polls. The media in this country is truly awful.

On a related note, fluff you Sarah Palin for costing the GOP the Senate by getting this fluff nominated.

On an unrelated note, NPR is a joke for firing Juan Williams. Nice guy, real shame that NPR is run by communists.

I just felt like venting.

Wait a second...

Are you trying to tell me that the media chooses to cover unusual events rather than common-place ones?

I agree with you, she doesn't deserve the attention she's getting, but it's not just bias that's causing it. It's an entirely logical series of connections. It worked like this:

- Her winning the nomination meant that the Senate would almost certainly remain in Democratic hands. (Big news, can't fault the media for covering it).
- No one knew who she was when she won though, and it makes sense for the media to introduce the public to people who play a significant role in "big news" events. This made her, in her own right, something of a celebrity.
- She's continued to do extremely odd and unconventional things throughout her campaign. When celebrities do such things, the media reports on it.

I'm not at all convinced that this is beneficial, but I don't really think the media is only covering her because they want to discredit the tea party.

Truth be known though, the fact that the tea-party is so un-discerning in who in choosing to support as nominees is a news-worthy story. There certainly are tea-part candidates who are entirely reasonable, but whether or not the individual is reasonable seems to have very little effect on whether tea-party-ers will support them. That's a story that's impossible to cover without also giving a good deal of coverage to the radical nominees themselves.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

No doubt it was a story when she first won, however thats it. After she won, that Senate race was over. They felt the need to extensively cover her debate with Coons PURELY to make conservatives look bad. Every outlet carried her questioning whether or not the 1st amendment calls for separation of church and state. Which wasn't even an inaccurate statement as I believe she was asking if that language is there, which of course it isn't. Though she later questioned the establishment clause but that wasn't even the main point of the stories.

Why isn't Alvin Green widely covered in the media if Christine O'Donnell is? Pretty much the same thing other than that O'Donnell had that whore Palin's endorsement. But you don't hear a word about Green and his insane antics because the media is out to protect the Democrats. Green has the same chance of winning as O'Donnell.

On a side note, why in the fricken hell is it so hard for the Tea party to understand that for Republicans to win in liberal states, they have to nominate more moderate candidates?? Whats the point of nominating the most conservative candidate you can find if they have ZERO chance of winning? It has the opposite effect of what they wanted by putting an ultra liberal in the Senate. Mike Castle was a perfect candidate in Delaware. And they act like Scott Brown betrayed them for casting some votes with Democrats.... do they NOT want him reelected? Mind boggling to me.

The worst part is the power of the Tea party is making me think Palin might get nominated. If that happens i'll never again vote Republican. In fact I'd vote for Barry.

i just read up some stuff on this woman.

She is batfluff crazy, like seriously insane.

how can someone like this get elected to run for office in your country?lol

I believe a lot of parallels can be drawn between Sarah Palin and Howard Dean. Both came from out of nowhere, pandering to a disaffected base, with which they were highly popular despite being politically unrefined (some might say inept) and at times portrayed as batfluff crazy.

As far as the Tea Party movement goes, it is being treated with the same derision third parties and independent candidates receive. The media ignored it as long as they could because they didn't believe it would be viable. Now they mock it because they believe it shouldn't be viable. It is represented by people who are politically unrefined and contrary to the establishment. They have not built any credibility with the Fourth Estate because they're grass roots efforts are focusing on the common man and woman at the individual level. In a lot of ways, this is a bid by a third group (or party, if you will) of individuals to take control of one of the two parties.


My question is what will become of the Tea Party movement? Will it fizzle quickly, like the Republican Revolution of the congressional elections in 1994? Or will this endure like the populist takeover of the Democratic Party by William Jennings Bryan in 1896?

I expect them to get Paul, Buck, Miller, Johnson, Angle, Rubio, etc. all into office. They'll be looking pretty good then. However, when they lead to Sarah Palin to the presidential election and defeat in 2012, I expect it to fizzle out. The Republicans will certainly have had enough at that point. I'd expect them to start converting primaries to caucuses to start getting the Tea party out.

Obama is incredibly weak right now, really the only way I see him getting reelected is if Sarah Palin becomes the nominee.

Klown... pretending that you can call a Presidential Election before the mid-terms even take place is ludicrous.

I can see why you may think that, if the Presidential Election was 11 days from no, Obama would have no chance against anyone except Palin. But who would beat him? I can't think of the nominee off the top of my head that would be a shoe in... all the possibilities with national exposure have huge negatives against them too.

Of course, if we were at a Presidential election in 11 days, we would have just gone through a massive campaign. Campaigns are impossible to predict. You just have to look at how Obama got the Democratic nomination to realize that. Certainly, we'd know the Republican candidate by now... but to guarantee that they wouldn't have made a huge mistake which cost them their popularity is a huge assumption. And while I don't know how Obama will do as incumbent, he certainly has proven that he has the potential to campaign well.

Trying to call the election more than 2 years out without having any clue as to who the opposition will be is not realistic. I think it's correct to say that if the rest of his term is similar to what's happened so far... he'll have difficulties. Beyond that, don't even pretend.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

the Tea Party isn't just the militant wing of the wide-assed elephant party?

The Tea Party at least in my region of the country is constituted by a lot of the Old South. I am a Republican but I have grown up in the South my entire life and it is quite simply a fact that there are a hell of a lot of Old South racists in the Tea Party.

Neither Clinton, GW, or Obama was even a blip on the presidential radar during the midterm election prior to their nomination/election. A LOT happens in 2 years, the GOP is using Palin as a foil right now - when the time comes to consider serious nominees - they won't need her anymore and will throw her ass on the fire.

Ron Johnson is terrible. I proudly voted for Russ Feingold today.

Looks like you lost

Pandering to the disenchanted masses in a recession will take you places here.

I am no political analyst, but I suspect a group like the Tea Party wouldn't be able to achieve near the "success" they have had as of late were the US economic picture a bit better.

Am I way off base in thinking that (as a general rule, of course) the less people know about "the process of government" the more vocal they are against those who are leading it?

ding dong the witch is dead
(which old witch?)
the tea party witch!

had to be said.

i agree now3p....

bad economies create conditions for fringe parties to gain ground

imagine this scenario:
the economy gets worse, the tea party gains control of the republican party and eventually we see a tea party president

part of their election pledge is to get the US out of debt.... but the plan is to do it BY DESTROYING CHINA!

it could happen :p

if Obama wasn`t so incompetent and such an electoral fraud, this discussion wouldn`t even be happening.

if brazil stopped complaining about beer and airplanes at the WTO there would be more flufftice:P

I DID like her concession speech tho.
It was like "W00 H00!,I lost,we're here,food's bought, and the room is paid for..Let's Par Tay!!"

Way to make a completely baseless accusation! Obama's competencies are debatable but electoral fraud is an absolute lie.

sure it is a lie. Go tell that to the democrats that stayed home because they had buyers remorse and didn`t want to elect another bunch of democrats that will run the government as republicans would.

Change we can believe in. haha. Suckers we can believe in is more like it.

Democrats staying home and "buyer's remorse" have nothing to do with electoral fraud.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

you need to watch that episode of the simpsons where Side Show Bob runs for mayor of Springfield, Eric

that will help you understand what voter fraud is :p

Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.

Anyone else find it funny how the media kept trying to convey a message that the "Tea Party" endorsed was right wing to win? Yet, they scored massive wins across the board.

Christine O'Donnell was trailing by a wide margin and I guess the media wanted to make her a symbol of a failed political movement despite the fact that was trailing miserably in a lopsided race.

But at the same time: Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Pat Toomey, Ron Johnson and Mike Lee all won. Sharron Angle lost a close race but managed to raise $14 million over the summer, without support from the Republican HQ.

I wouldn't be too mad Klown. It's annoying but at the end of the day, fiscal conservatives won across the board.

That's definitely not the impression that I got. CNN is the only American news that I get on basic cable, but I read plenty of American online sources.

Certainly in specific cases, like Christine O'Donnell, they correctly pointed out that she had no chance. I also think that Sharon Angle took everyone by surprise in how competitive she was... so some early predictions that she was too far right to have a chance were proven wrong.

But, if anything, the media I read kept pointing out how much of a benefit tea-party support was for most candidates.

Of course, I never look at anything MSNBC puts out (who may very well have made the kind of statements you mention), and I ignore anything I see from Fox that talks about other outlets (I know that I saw stuff from them talking about how "the media" was out to get the tea-party).

So, I suppose if you got this impression about the media by believing Fox, or by watching MSNBC -- I can understand where it's coming from. Otherwise, I think you're way out in left field to suggest that the media tried to convey that no one in the tea-party had a chance.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

I think you are both correct, as it seemed to me the media was pointing out how much of a benefit Tea Party support was to Tea Party candidates where they were successful while also attempting to convey the message that the Tea Party was too right wing to win across the board nationally.

One thing these national news stations consistently fail to account for is that the east and west coasts are vastly different from each other, much less from Middle America. As our country has become more mobile, it is nowhere near like it used to be, but there is still an element of sectionalism that is alive and well today in America. One size fits all national coverage does a poor job 'fitting all.'

FiveThirtyEight.com

!!

I suspect that the tea party may have peaked a bit early. I suspect that when the tea party House fails to deliver any more than the Obama House, that it may be a little tougher for the Glennbeckians to rally a lot of support in 2012. It will be made even more so if some crackpot like Rand Paul sticks his foot in his mouth a few times.

I mostly voted for Obama because the thought of electing a 127 year old man that sang 'bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran' at a press conference sent chills down my spine. My biggest gripe with him is that he is a fluff. If you had given GW the majorities that Obama had in the house and senete during his first year in office - Halliburton would have been running Medicaid and we would have 'liberated' Mexico.

Blackmamba, FYI - its a myth, there is no such thing as a fiscal conservative. They waste just as much money in different ways.

Jim DeMint, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Pat Toomey will be fiscally conservative senators. The fact that there aren't many doesn't mean that there isn't any.

The idea that the Tea Party has peaked is flawed. The Tea Party is motivated mostly by anti-government sentiment, that isn't going to change with Obama still as president. That isn't going to change if Pelosi wins the House Minority leadership position.

Blocking and trying to repeal the Democratic agenda is all the Republican party needs to do to maintain voter enthusiasm. In fact, most supporters would be happy about the idea of a stalemate in congress to block Obama's progressive agenda.

On the other hand, Obama is going to have a lot less support the next time around.

Even among his own party:
He faces a major fracture among support from gay voters. Many gay voters are furious over Valerie Jarrett commenting about the death of the student and mentioned his gay "Lifestyle choice." The idea that being gay is a choice is highly offensive and is preceived as ignorance among Obama's inner circle about the GLT community. Then there is disappointment about lack of action with regards to don't ask don't tell and gay marriage on the agenda.

Two of his Obama's voting blocks are in direct opposition with each other. Namely, African Americans vs Gays, Lesbian and Transgendered. When it come to gay marriage, most of the AA community is strongly against gay marriage. Obama's lack of action in advancing GLT causes is putting this schism at the forefront.

A large contingent of support for Obama came from his anti-Iraq stance. What a lot of Obama supporters didn't realize was that Obama thought it was a better idea to fight in Afghanistan instead. His own party base is strongly against his continued engagement in the Middle east, while Obama himself will not be ending Middle East military involvement any time soon.

Then there is fracturing among the Blue Dogs. The cap and trade issue combined with healthcare dug their graves. Democrats are going to face resounding defections in the next election.

In fact, the Republicans might be able to get some key legislative victories despite not holding the Senate because these career politicans are going to do what it takes to keep their positions, even if it means selling out their party.

opps double post

The Tea Partiers don't get it either. The American people are not sick of progressive ideas OR conservative ideas. They are sick of gridlock and SICK of all of these allegedly intelligent people going to Washington and not doing fluff. They cannot make intelligent compromises to move forward on ANYTHING and the Tea Party people who do that are themselves going to be voted out if they bring that crap to the table because THAT is the "more of the same" people in general are bleeping sick of. We don't WANT you to go there and play hardball with your all or nothing approach. We want you to pass some effing legislation and get as much as you can of whatever side your constituancy happens to be on but not at the expense of nothing effing happening.

I agree completely.



Palin can't win. She scares the fluff right out of most moderates. And conventional wisdom dictates that you NEED the moderates if you are to win.

Paladin, I do indeed think that you're calling the result of a Palin v. Obama election way too early -- but that wasn't my main criticism of Klown. Mainly, I was pointing out how ludicrous the statement is that Obama can't win against anyone except Palin.

That's why the majority of my post uses examples of things that could improve Obama's odds... demonstrating that I was criticizing the idea that nothing could happen to allow him to win.

I thought that this was relatively clear.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

no, we're technically tired of them passing legislation just because it makes it look like they are doing something.

i gotta wear a seatbelt so i don't fly out of my car? wtf?

i got bucket seats dude, it's doubtful that my fat ass will slide into the passenger seat and i'll lose control because i went through a clover leaf too fast and can't grab the steering wheel anymore.