Principles? Pshaw

From a Tea Party Express fundraising email of Sept. 4, in support of its "no-holds-barred constitutional conservative" candidate in Delaware, for the U.S. Senate:

[T]he GOP establishment here is pulling out all the stops to help elect Liberal RINO Mike Castle....

Mike Castle is so liberal, he not only opposes the repeal of ObamaCare, but he was one of the last U.S. Senators [last indeed, and in this case one of the least as well, contrary to the old saying, since Mr. Castle is a U.S. representative, not a senator] to announce how he'd vote on ObamaCare because he was thinking of voting FOR it.

Mike Castle has about $2.5 million he can still spend. The only way we here at the Tea Party Express can feel confident to win this race is if we expand our own campaign activities, and that means buying ads on Philadelphia TV stations....

So we need your help, and the help of conservatives and tea party activists across the nation!

Please - forward this to all your conservative friends.... We are up against the entire political establishment, who want to see us lose this race. But we CAN win - if we all stand united on the principles of constitutional conservatism.

Notice anything missing?

Evidently, one of the revolutionary principles of "constitutional conservatism" is to omit any reference, by name, to whatever human embarrassments the constitutional conservatives are supporting.

In this instance, the embarrassment is Christine O'Donnell, who, notes the NY Times' tea-party specialist, Kate Zernike, "is a perennial candidate with a history of financial problems, including unpaid taxes and a home in foreclosure." She's also a first-rate fibber and fabricator, having misrepresented to friendly audiences her "perennial" electoral flops as burgeoning successes. "Republicans," observes Zernike, "have attacked her for 'repeatedly lying to voters' and 'manipulating her own political history.' "

All of which is true enough; it's on the record, in print, on tape, on video. The charges against O'Donnell aren't just your garden-variety political mudballs. They're incontrovertible, impervious to happier interpretations. Delaware's tea party candidate is just a pretty face in need of a job, anyway she can get it, and she bamboozled her sponsors to get this far.

To be fair, I've received other Tea Party Express fundraising emails that do mention the wily O'Donnell by name. In the above-cited email, however, she's simply been airbrushed out, as an embarrassment, even as the unapologetic plea goes forward to donate against her more honorable opponent.

Object lesson: How quickly self-proclaimed revolutionaries, hellbent on changing disreputable politics, will adopt orthodox political ways, just to win. Principles? Pshaw.

Comments

[Mike K.]

They are not revolutionaries, and should not be called such. The Tea Tantrum is the Libertarian Tea Party co-opted by rich petro dynasties and the Fox mouthpiece. Fox will then truly own their own political party. For the politicians, it is an attempt to re-boot the Republicans to erase the catastrophe of Bush Jr. For the companies, it is an attempt to return to the cheap labor days of laissez faire.