The Tea Party Cover Band

Don Surber and others report on the plan by two GOP governors to start a Tea Party movement of their own:

Politico reported: “Hoping to recapture the grassroots energy of last month’s tea parties, Republican Govs. Mark Sanford of South Carolina and Rick Perry of Texas will host a tele-town hall Thursday that’s being dubbed ‘Tea Party 2.0′.”

I’ll wait until it is beta-tested.

Oh, I am a Republican all right. I do hope they recapture the House of Representatives next year.

But this is a time for Republican leaders to listen to conservatives.

Republicans ran a moderate at the top of the ticket last year and he was clubbed like a baby seal. Conservatives held their noses and voted for him. Moderates went for the cute guy who looks good in swim trunks.

And now they want to come back and demand that conservative Republicans abandon their principles?

I think not.

As to spending — and the Tea Parties are about first and foremost about the spending — Republicans had better start saying no.

To their credit, every Republican in the House and all but two in the Senate voted against the $787 billion stimulus.

But there are fences to be mended. The more Republicans say no to this socialistic agenda, the better for the party.

As to Tea Party 2.0, Glenn Reynolds said it is not a sequel: “I’d say it’s more like a Tea Party tribute — you know, like a Beatles cover band, or an Elvis impersonator, or all those Grateful Dead imitators. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but they’ll be playing a tune that originated with someone else.”

For Republicans, it is a good place to start. Learn the chords. Learn the lyrics.

There's no way an event put on by a couple of GOP officeholders will have the same energy and vitality as the original Tea Parties which were a grassroots movement by people fed up not only with the direction the Democrats are going, but the direction the Republicans went when they had control. That's why many of the Tea Party organizers would not allow GOP officeholders to speak at their events.

This is a classic example of a politician seeing a parade in progress and jumping in front of it so he appears to be leading the way.