Dodge, Barron: The GOP and Tea Party need to split up

The phrase "truer words were never spoke" came to my mind several times as I was reading "The tea party and the GOP: a marriage that isn't working" [1] by Andrew Dodge (former head of the Maine Tea Party Patriots) and Christopher Barron (GOProud). I suggest all of my fellow Tea Parties patriots read it and take its message to heart:

Let's be honest, the marriage between the Republican Party and the tea party has always been a marriage of convenience โ€” and an uncomfortable marriage of convenience at best. Unfortunately, this marriage is no longer working and it is time for both sides to move on. Call it irreconcilable differences.

The split doesn't have to be a contentious one. The two can part as friends: certainly plenty of establishment Republicans would be happy to be free of the tea party, free to go back to doing business the way they have always done business; and there are growing numbers inside the tea party movement who would be happy to see the movement reassert its political independence.

Unfortunately, like most quickie Vegas weddings, the marriage between the GOP and the tea party simply hasn't worked out: certainly not for the tea party.

...The tea party brand, a brand that was once popular among average Americans, has suffered under the politically poisonous weight of being seen as little more than an appendage of the GOP. Part of what made the tea party so popular to begin with was that it was not seen as a wholly owned subsidiary of either of the failed political parties. Indeed, surveys showed that up to 40% of tea party members didn't describe themselves as Republicans.

...The Republican Party, believing that we have nowhere else to turn politically, treats the tea party and tea party activists with the same plantation mentality that the Democratic Party treats minorities in this country.

Nowhere is this mentality more present than in the Republican primary for president. It's simply preposterous to believe that any of the three front-runners - Romney, Santorum or Gingrich - can claim the tea party mantle. Mitt Romney is the candidate of the establishment, a flip-flopping Massachusetts moderate whose healthcare plan was the basis for Obamacare. Rick Santorum has been openly hostile to the tea party movement, saying he will "fight the libertarian right," and Newt Gingrich is a career politician who lobbied for the very entities responsible for the crash of the housing market...

Indeed. The only place for us true conservatives and true patriots is in the Libertarian Party or the Constitution Party, or perhaps a third party can be organized that would combine all those seeking true liberty. In any case, there's no room for us true patriots and true conservatives in the GOP.

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[1] dailycaller . com/2012/03/02/
the-tea-party-and-the-gop-a-marriage-that-isnt-working