buck, kaiser was the one who said that the tea partiers gave themselves the nickname, not me. mass. voters were opposed to the current health care bill, but not only for the reasons that republicans give. some voters wanted a more progressive bill and were against the current moderate bill. they voted for the person who opposed the bill which was brown. and hoffmann was the right’s candidate because the republican candidate conceded. the republicans didn’t field a candidate. the fact that she got any votes when she wasn’t on the ticket shows how split the party is. it was a strongly conservative district so it was more impressive that a democrat won.

that happened in new york where a democrat won a seat in the house in a strongly republican district. conservatives went with the tea-party candidate instead of the republican and they lost.

what’s extreme about the tea party platform? death panels; birthers; all the stalin/hitler/mao comparisons to obama during the health care debate; the town hall meetings where tea-partiers shouted down any debate; bringing guns to health care protests; conspiracy theories; texas secession to name a few.

the tea parties have no solutions to problems, all they do is try and stop obama (evidenced by the stifling of debate of health care in town hall meetings). they are organized by corporations like freedom works, not a grass roots movement like they claim. and the worst thing is that they are not informed about the issues. that’s not really their fault because they are being taught by the right wing media. their anger is real but the they are dangerous to the political debate.

what have they added besides partisanship to an already politically divided country?

Don’t bother bringing up “the Teabaggers invented the term”. I know, and it’s still offensive no matter who’s using it.

Although, you do have a point: this is simply a political victory, which may or may not be indicative of a centre-right shift. I hope it is.

I don’t know what you mean by “too extreme for mainstream politics”. They seem just fine to me; what’s the extreme part of it?

This really shows the kind of thing a real conservative can do, even in Massachusetts.

I’m going to give credit where credit’s due, however: thank you to all the Independents out there in MA who proved that they could make a difference. Thank you for being truly independent when it was most important and at such a vital point in time for our country.

I’m feeling a little pessimistic for the Democrats though. This could be a good time (or even the last time) that they could stop what they are doing, look around, and say “Hey, we’re alienating the very people with whom power and responsibility really rest in this country. Let’s work together on this.”

Somehow I don’t feel like that’s what they’re going to do.

Kudos to Scott Brown! I hope he does a good job.

that anger wasn’t about anything that buck said. more people in massachusetts wanted obama to move farther left on health care than what the current bill was. where is the evidence that voters were angry at the political elite or wanted a revolution? this election was a choice of the lesser of two evils. both candidates had flaws, the voters showed that coakley had more.

but this post raises a larger issue: the tea party movement. buck seems to think that it is a legitimate political entity. sorry to break it to buck, but they aren’t. the tea baggers are too extreme for mainstream politics. if we’re looking at elections, why not talk about the election in new york where the candidate that the tea baggers endorsed lost…to a democrat.

this is one election. it should be a wake up call for democrats because they vastly underestimated republicans. but democrats will be fine.