The Tea Party Express shed credibility this week by throwing a life preserver to failing and only faintly Tea-flavored Republican candidate Mike Rounds. Reasonable Republican John Tsitrian finds that endorsement laughable and incompatible with good government for South Dakota. Arch-conservative Bob Ellis finds it horrible... or should I say whore-able?
...the Tea Party Express, a national Tea Party group, has decided to whore itself out, selling its values and virtue in a quest for a seat at the table of power [Bob Ellis, "Tea Party Express Whores Itself to RINO Establishment," American Clarion, 2014.10.15].
Ellis is incensed (Ellis is always incensed, but this time he's right) that anyone could mistake Mike Rounds for Ted Cruz or Rand Paul or Sarah Palin or whoever represents this amorphous group of do-nothing, tax-nobody anarcho-conservatives:
The guy who kicked the can of a $127 million structural deficit down the road for his successor Dennis Daugaard and the legislature to deal with…is “not something Mike Rounds is going to do”? Give me a break!
The guy who lacked the guts to sign South Dakota’s first attempt to ban abortion in 2004–and instead vetoed it–is “going to confront the problems”? Spare me!
The guy who grew the size of state government, who supports government health care schemes, amnesty, Marxist minimum wage increases and a host of other liberal ideas can be relied on for “getting America back on track”? Please!
According to Mike Rounds record–not his lying rhetoric, but his record–he isn’t even a good Republican, much less a good Tea Party candidate [Ellis, 2014.10.15].
Gordon Howie is the only true Tea Partier in the Senate race and the only one besides Lora Hubbel on South Dakota's statewide ballot. Government by Howie, Hubbel, and Ellis evokes terrifying visions of theocratic tyranny. But if you drink that Tea, that's what you dig, and you cannot in good conscience dig Mike Rounds.
Endorsing Mike Rounds is capitulation. If you really believe the Republican Party is filled with pragmatists, opportunists, and fakers who trade principles for raw power, you don't vote for Mike Rounds just to preserve a Republican majority in the Senate. You vote en masse for Howie. You either win the Senate seat or, if you can't quite beat Weiland or Pressler, you knock the legs out from under the RINO establishment, prove that fakers like Rounds are no longer viable, and set the stage for full-tilt Tea-volution in 2016, when you run Howie for Thune's Senate seat, Bill Napoli for House, and Stacey Victor Nelson for President.