Ed Rendell Wants to be the Skunk at the Tea Party

[Geee]

Politico:

Rendell wants to be skunk at the tea party

By KENNETH P. VOGEL | 5/15/10 5:47 PM EDT

Most national Democrats have been careful to tread lightly around the tea party for fear of provoking its activists’ wrath.

Not Ed Rendell.

“There is no movement,” Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor told POLITICO when asked why in recent months he has used appearances at rallies and on television to assert that the tea party movement is hyped, extreme and lacks a basic understanding of how government works.

“The media – and not just the conservative media, the mainstream media – has made the tea party guys out to be an impactful movement, but they aren’t,” he said asserting tea party activists had little to do with Sen. Bob Bennett’s loss at this month’s Utah GOP convention and Sen. Scott Brown’s January special election win in Massachusetts.

“Sen. Bennett is not a victim of the tea party. I mean, it’s like the tea party taking credit for Scott Brown,” he said. “They were about as influential in Scott Brown’s election as I was – it’s ludicrous.”

Rendell, who is barred by term limits from running for a third term, seems to relish taking shots at the tea party, and said Democrats should consider joining him as they head into November’s critical midterm elections.

The party is expected to suffer potentially massive losses, thanks in part to anti-incumbent sentiment perhaps best embodied by the tea party movement.

“If we’re going to lose anyway in 2010 – and I’m not sure we’re going to lose as badly as everyone says – but if we’re going to lose anyway, let’s lose going down fighting for things we believe in,” said Rendell, who has emerged as perhaps the tea party’s highest profile critic.

His swipes, often delivered in punchy talking points (in minimizing the turnout at tea party rallies in Washington, he’s repeatedly said he could draw many times more people to a rally for “stronger laws to protect puppies” and has asserted tea partiers should hold “rallies in my honor” for his effort to collect back taxes in Pennsylvania) have earned him the enmity of the tea partiers in his home state and nationwide.

To them, Rendell’s jibes reinforce their belief that politicians are elitists who have forgotten – and even look down on – the people they were elected to serve. And they say that Rendell, a lame duck who doesn’t have to answer to voters, is doing the dirty work of Democrats who are on ballots in 2010.

Rendell says Democrats should consider joining him as they head into November’s critical elections.
AP photo composite by POLITICO

Rendell’s allies and followers, on the other hand, chalk up Rendell’s tea party broadsides to Ed being Ed – a garrulous old-style pol compelled to speak his mind regardless of political considerations, sometimes to the detriment of himself and his Party. Some Democrats still cringe when they recall his prediction during the 2008 presidential campaign that white Pennsylvanians “are probably not ready to vote for an African-American candidate” or his assertion after the Supreme Court ended the 2000 presidential campaign recount that Al Gore should “act now and concede” -- which contradicted the official party line and was all the more jarring since Rendell at the time was chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

But in an interview, Rendell sounded a bit like a Democratic strategist laying out a blueprint for his party to deal with the threat of the tea party, which surged onto the political scene last year in opposition to what it’s mostly conservative activists see as unchecked spending by the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats. Partisans on both sides have grappled with how to deal with tea party activists, many of whom are new to the political process and have deep misgivings about the Democratic and Republican parties. The GOP has assiduously courted tea partiers, though many have rejected the party’s advances and their activism has occasionally stung establishment Republicans.

Democrats, meanwhile, have had something of a schizophrenic approach towards dealing with the tea parties. At times, they’ve rejected the tea party as illegitimate grassroots activism, instead casting it as an “Astroturf” creation of corporate-funded Washington groups, but they’ve also recognized its potency and plotted to pit tea party activists against Republican Senate candidates. They have also highlighted – and sought to blame Republicans for – extreme sentiments among some tea partiers, while some conservative Democrats even have sought to forge common cause with tea party activists on fiscal issues.

In a single late February interview, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi seemed to sample from several of those approaches, saying “we share some of the views of the tea partiers in terms of the role of special interest in Washington, D.C.,” but also asserting the national GOP was “hijacking the good intentions of lots of people who share some of our concerns we have” and branding the movement “Astroturf, as opposed to grassroots.”

On the whole, though, Rendell asserted to POLITICO, Democrats haven’t been bold enough in challenging the tea partiers.

“They have our guys petrified,” said Rendell. “We hiding behind shower curtains,” he added, launching into a critique of the movement more confrontational than typically employed by Democrats.

Call it the Rendell tea party doctrine. It includes questioning the size of the tea party, accusing the press of hyping it (“the media has a herd mentality and somebody decided that these tea party guys were good copy, so they made them out to be an impactful movement, but they aren’t,” he told POLITICO), challenging the role its activists played in electoral victories it’s claimed such as Bennett’s loss and Brown’s win (“Our candidate Martha Coakley was probably more impactful in Scott Brown’s election than all the tea partiers put together”), labeling tea partiers as extremists (“they harm themselves by having the President in whiteface, bringing guns to rallies – I mean, it’s nuts”) and questioning their understanding of government 101.

[SrWoodchuck]

Geee! Thanks for the post.

 

I for one say he doesn't need to wait for a Tea Party......he's a skunk right now!

 

Skunk

In

Chief

Knowing

Many are

Offended by his

Fatheaded

Orations

[Pepper]

Good acronym, SrWoodChuck.