NY Gov Patterson Praises Tea Party, Says It Rejects Extremism
I don't think the NY Gov is working from the playbook here, making nice to the Tea Party for the Democrats. I think he's being candid. Contrasting his view with that of Bloomberg, one gets a sense that, just as in Chicago, Alaska, and elsewhere, there's a combine, where ruling class Democrats and Republicans have more in common with one another, than the people they presume to represent. Where that occurs, no one outside the box is supposed to get to play in the game, as is the case with Carl Paladino. Unfortunately, said combine is growing and bankrupting government in cities, states and in Washington. This may also be part of why Patterson never had a chance, before being destroyed by the media. They might not have been so quick to dish the dirt on a Spitzer, or a Cuomo. The system is broken and it needs to be broken up, including a mostly complicit press.
NEW YORK (AP) — New York Gov. David Paterson, unlike many of his Democratic colleagues, says the tea party movement is a good thing.
Paterson says most tea party activists reject the extremist views of some members and that the movement as a whole is making important contributions to democracy.
Although Paterson prefers Democrat Andrew Cuomo over tea party Republican Carl Paladino in the New York governor's race, he says the movement is bringing people who are not interested in government back into the process.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has described the tea party as "irrational" and not a political movement. The Republican-turned-independent also favors Cuomo.
A big liberal democrat in my district who recently retired from politics said the same thing in an interview with me a few months back.
http://www.examiner.com/tea-party-in-boston/all-politics-is-local-a-conversation-with-annie-dimartino
We even had democrats turn up for a candidate forum:
http://www.examiner.com/tea-party-in-boston/massachusetts-democrats-find-fear-of-votes-is-not-a-game-changer
For a blind man Patterson sees clear enough that trashing the voters doesn’t win votes, particularly when your political friends don’t outdraw them in DC etc.
A sure sign that a pundit is either dangerously out of touch and/or dishonest to the core: he talks up Bloomberg as a presidential candidate. Bloomberg is not a centrist, even if he did once register as a Republican for surely strategic reasons. Would Ron Paul be a centrist if he registered as a Democrat? Bloomberg is a down-the-line leftist. His views on gun control alone would alienate 75% of Americans and at least forty states.
“The system is broken, and it needs to be broken up.” That’s bumper-sticker-worthy.
Watch the blacks vote for Palladino to avenge what Cuomo did to Paterson
Some time ago (when he still had some influence) the President publicly and gracelessly dumped Paterson, endorsing Andrew Cuomo so that the Dauphin might assume His throne with minimal fuss. Paterson was stung by that. As they say in the Justice Department these days, it’s payback time.
This isn’t the first time Paterson has stepped out of the box, of course, and I’ve always liked him for it, regardless of his apparent gubernatorial shortcomings. He didn’t feel compelled to “apologize” for his private life; he didn’t just toe the Caroline Kennedy line; he doesn’t stick to the usual racial talking points — all of which is really refreshing. He showed up on Saturday Night Live last night, enjoyed the spoof, and even did the meandering on camera exit at the end of the bit. What a contrast to the kneejerk outrage over putative insults to the disabled purportedly voiced on his behalf from the usual politicized suspects.
Patterson is just playing word games. Like always, you have to make assumptions about what people like Patterson mean when they say “most Americans”, “extremist elements” (people who believe in Constitutional law?), and so on. “Reasonable” people are defined as “moderates” and the further you get from espousing Constitutional law and personal freedom, the more “moderate” you are. That is how everyone gets away with describing an ultra-leftist like Mike Castle as “one of the most moderate Republicans”. He is far left of center. That is “moderate”?
The power of that kind of rhetoric is that no one wants to be labeled “extremist” but that’s what you are if you are an average American who backs the Tea Party agenda (which is not exactly “unfocused” or “anarchy”). The true political center in America is “extremist”? How can that be?
Ask Americans if they believe in Constitutional law, personal freedom, national sovereignty and government accountability and you will get an enthusiastic “yes!” from the vast majority. But if the question is couched in terms of “extremism”, which is what everyone does by dutifully adhering to the left-wing terminology, you get a completely different answer. Be specific about the values and Americans give you one answer. Ask them if they agree with or are concerned with the more “extremist” elements of the Tea Party, and you get a completely different answer from the same people. So where lies the truth?
America is not a right-leaning country. By definition, the center is wherever you find most Americans. That is Tea Party territory. If you take Patterson’s words at face value without forcing him to define his terms, his comments mean whatever you want to hear. Empty rhetoric.
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/WSJNBCPoll09282010.pdf
pg 15 in the pdf, question 18:
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Q18 Do you feel that the Tea Party movement has been a good thing or bad thing for the American political system, or has it not made much difference either way?
Good thing … 42
Bad thing….. 18
Not much difference … 28
Some of both (VOL) … 1
Not sure … 11
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wow. bloomberg in with the 18%ers.
double wow on a blind, african-american democrat who actually gets it.
i imagine that bloomberg saw himself as a transitional figure, with the ability to blend moderate dems and gop members into his own political party. his dreams are over.
Only 29% of Americans endorse the Tea Party. It is hardly centrist.
actually, the gop is now the party of centrism, only a very realitve sense, given the reports of the perceived extremism of the tea party.
if you line up the political spectrum on fiscal matters, the dems have become increasingly irrelevant.
from the same link above…
question 10, among those expressing a wish for a gop controlled congress:
“Is your preference for a Republican-controlled Congress more because you support the policies of the Republican Party and its candidates, or more because you oppose the policies of Barack Obama and Democratic candidates?”
37% favor the gop, 56% fear the dems.
when you have people advocating a political party by this margin, for what they are not, opposed to what they are, it would seem the gop has already lost control of their own party.
worth mentioning that the split in the dems who prefer a dem congress is 48% for obama, 48% in fear of the gop.
“Only 29% of Americans endorse the Tea Party. It is hardly centrist.”
let’s take a look at the dems…
only 48% of those who favor a dem held congress support the actual polices of the dems.
the generic allotment on the ballot in the above survey is 44%.
48% of 44%?
21%.
I’d rather have 29% support over 21% support, any day.
if it makes any libs feel better…
running the same equation for core gop support…
36% of 44% is less than 16%.
this is the political world, today.
29% tea party(fiscal conservative).
21% core democrat support.
16% core gop support.
for a movement(not a party) that is less than a year and half old, to eclipse both political parties…?
there is only one solution for the dems and the gop…
evolve or die.
I think the punctuation on the movement occurs on nov 2. i imagine that all the likely voter models are centered around the belief that some equation of gop, dem, and unaffiliated support will provide the polling data of today.
there is a subset, within the unaffiliated, the fiscal conservatives, whose intensity is at category five. the problem doesn’t go away with a midterm election:
it intenisifes as we approach obamacare, and continue running deficits. the only way out for dems/libs is to reverse course. they are actually going down with the ship, and they have severed all lifeboats.
The NYT reporter is leaving out a little fact which more accurately defines Bloomberg.
He’s NOT a “Republican-turned-independent”.
He’s a “Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-independent”.
Mea culpa – I should have said “the AP writer”, not “the NYT reporter”.
29% tea party(fiscal conservative).
21% core democrat support.
16% core gop support.
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worth noting that the 08 eligible voter turnout was about 56%.
add the three above categories and you get…56%.
Actually, it’s 66%
i used to be so good at math. note to self: clean the bong water out more often.
along those line though…
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html
midterm turnout in 06:
37.1%.
apply the national popular tally from wiki,
53.6 dem, 46.4%.
dems…19.9%
gop…17.2%.
if the tea party provides independent support to the gop, even as low as 3%, but possibly up to 8%, we are looking at a complete rewriting of politics as we know it.
“Contrasting his view with that of Bloomberg, one gets a sense that, just as in Chicago, Alaska, and elsewhere, there’s a combine, where ruling class Democrats and Republicans have more in common with one another, than the people they presume to represent.”
I think a lot of talking is going on between the combines now that the tea party is “making hay”.
Whether desirable results can be achieved for youth development indeed depends on the support and efforts of all of us.