Lol!! I'm not a supporter of Angle at all, but I do respect the Tea Party initiative. People want a change in government: a smaller, more responsive government, and the Tea Party represents a variety of interests with that goal in common.
The Tea Party started off with small government as a slogan, but the people they elect, the people that head their rallies, and the way they vote belies that. So far, they've been pro-Patriot Act, anti-gay marriage, anti-abortion, and virtually indistinguishable from the rest of the Republicans...except that a higher-than-usual percentage of them seem (IMO), to be batsh-- crazy.
I don't think they stand for anything like "small, responsive government" anymore, because when they voted for the Patriot Act powers to be renewed, when they voted against abortion rights, when they've...well, made pretty much every vote they've made so far...their supporters didn't yell foul. By and large, their supporters seem cool with their voting in favor of government expansion and the protection of government power. Why? I don't get it.
Imo, Tea Party candidates were voted in last November because of the disappointment in a president that promised changed, and delivered nothing of substance to the average American.
Which may be true...but if so, they weren't paying attention to the great lengths the Republicans went to to BLOCK him from doing anything of substance. Yes, he was too willing to back down, too willing to compromise in the name of bipartisanship...the Republicans weren't afraid to play dirty, and Obama was too idealistic. But if he didn't get things done, it was because he refused to FORCE the Republicans to accept what he was pushing, and they did everything in their power to roadblock. Voting for the Republicans because their cynical tactics worked is, IMO, rewarding everything that's wrong about Washington and punishing someone who was TRYING to play the game right.
He put out a few fires that probably should've burned, and barely winced when millions of Americans lost their homes, American servicemen/women lost their lives for a crook named Karzai, and the US continued to raise its epic trillion dollar debt.
"Barely winced?" I guess a supporter could call that "remaining calm," "keeping a steady hand," or whatever. But, really, BOP, what sort of emotional response would you have felt was more befitting of a president? Obviously, you don't like his handling of these situations, and yeah, he's dealing with more than his fair share of crisis...most of them entirely out of his hands. But I disagree with your characterization.
He gives a good speech, no question about that, but he's worse than his predecessor in terms of crushing American liberties, the American middle class and helping the rich get richer. . . .
Your opinion...and I utterly disagree with you.
You can respond to me or not...but I'm going to drop this as it's so far outside the context of the thread.
My point was, if you look at who heads Tea Party rallies, who Tea Partiers vote in and how those people vote once they are in...they seem to be Republicans. They don't have a real platform, and whatever they said they stood for in the beginning, it no longer seems to hold true.
So when Sharron Angle says she's running on a Tea Party platform...what does that mean, anymore?