On one side is Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold, who has made his name championing many of the Tea Party’s purported views about the state, the Constitution and national sovereignty. For instance, when it comes to “big government,” Feingold has opposed wasteful pork barrel spending, worked to trim the defense budget and voted against financial bailouts. When it comes to the Constitution, Feingold was the only senator to vote against the Constitution-defying Patriot Act and has boldly questioned both parties’ willingness to let the state trample citizens’ civil liberties. And Feingold has been one of the few senators to consistently oppose NAFTA-style trade deals -- pacts that usurp domestic control over our economy and lay waste to the very industrial heartland the Tea Party claims to cherish.
On the other side is Republican Ron Johnson, the antithesis of everything the Tea Party says it stands for. In business, Johnson built a company propped up by government grants and loans -- otherwise known in Tea Party terms as “bailouts.” As a board member of a local opera house, he lobbied for funds from the same “big government” stimulus bill the Tea Party despises. During the campaign, he has touted NAFTA-style trade policies’ “creative destruction” of Wisconsin’s manufacturing economy. And rather than promoting the freedom the Tea Party says it values, Johnson has praised China’s repressive communist regime for its economic policies.
Candidate contrasts rarely get starker than this. And clearly, if the Tea Party is as nonpartisan as it asserts, then its supporters should be flocking to Feingold.
If that were happening, though, Feingold would be winning. Instead, polls show Feingold trailing Johnson -- and as CNN notes, Johnson “owes much of (that) political success to the Tea Party.” Indeed, despite contradicting most major Tea Party positions, Johnson has been featured at Wisconsin Tea Party events; touted in the local media as a Tea Party favorite; called a “Champion of Freedom” by national Tea Party activists; and promoted by Tea Party opinion leaders like George Will as the epitome of “what the Tea Party looks like.”
It's no secret that the Tea Party is faking being "independent" in order to gain the vote this fall. The truth is the Tea Party is nothing more than the most extreme wing of the Republicans, looking to wind the clock back rather than face America's diverse future. They're scared, they're angry, they see "their" country slipping away and they are fighting like crazy to keep America from going forward.
But the fact is they need the help of independents and yes, even disaffected Democrats to return power to them. They won't let it go without a fight, and as many times as I've criticised Obama and the Dems this year, I cannot under any circumstances think that giving power back to these elements of the Republican party will improve anything in our country...other than their own bank accounts.
Vote.
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