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Loading...Mythology of a Tea Party Candidate
When it comes to Tea Party candidates, there’s a certain pattern that needs to be upheld. They are supposed to be political outsiders, running against the “establishment.”
There’s no better example than in the Minnesota Eighth district, where long-time Democratic Congressman Jim Oberstar is being challenged by newcomer Chip Cravaack. Cravaack claims to be within striking distance, based on his own internal polling, although he has refused to release what the actual polling questions used by his firm was. He has also won over endorsements from radical Right to Life groups, who feel that Oberstar, an anti-abortion Democrat, turned his back on them by voting for health care reform.
To boost his Tea Party mythology, Cravaack has created is own “call to action” story that epitomizes the corrupt, uncaring Goliath now being fought by the earnest, hard-working David of politics.
Sadly, it appears to simply be that. Myth.
Via press release:
Eighth District Congressional challenger Chip Cravaack has told the story many times. He was inspired to run for office by an incident in which Congressman Jim Oberstar refused to meet with Cravaack and his group to talk about health care reform, the political newcomer says.
“I went to his (Oberstar’s) office. There was (sic) about 20-25 people there, but at the end of the meeting they (the Congressman’s staff) said, ‘You know what, the Congressman is just too busy to meet with you.’ So, at the end of that meeting, when I walked out, I decided I had to do something, I had to get involved,” Cravaack said most recently in an interview on the Fox network. The story drew a sigh of disbelief from Fox host Gretchen Carlson.
However, the Oberstar staffer who met with Cravaack and company in Oberstar’s North Branch office in August, 2009, says the true story is not as the Republican candidate presents it.
“Congressman Oberstar could not meet with the group because he wasn’t in North Branch the day they came in,” says Blake Chaffee, an Oberstar staff assistant now on leave from the federal office to work on Oberstar’s reelection campaign. “They were pressing for a town hall meeting, and I told them that no decision had been made yet on scheduling town meetings. That was the honest truth. They couldn’t accept that.”
Oberstar eventually decided not to hold town meetings on health care reform when it became obvious that tea party activists would likely disrupt any such public forums and not permit a serious discussion of the issue. The chaotic atmosphere generated by protesters at such meetings held by other Members of Congress, and the unruly behavior of the Cravaack supporters at the Duluth debate this week, confirmed Oberstar’s suspicions.
Instead, Oberstar met with hospital administrators, doctors, and other health professionals to get their input on the pending health care bill. He also met with patients and victims of the broken health care system, and communicated with thousands of constituents via phone calls, letters, and e-mail.
Apparently it is hard for a candidate to separate myth from fact. Luckily, to many Tea Party supporters, fact is not something they value highly.
Read more: 2010 election, chip cravaack, jim oberstar, minnesota, politics, tea party
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+ add your ownAny body hear aqnything of the preplanned repub party backed media wanting to call the elections by 9p.m or nov 2 2010? Are all the polls really ready to be called cause there is a time difference and everything else? You know they called the election for bush in 2000 and it was an inside job, conflict of interest and error. This was found out in an investigation afterwards. Most news media keep putting a dim light of dems winning and that is a downright lie. Keep the faith dems and vote like your livelihood depended on it. Cause it does. Taxes don't happen if you are out of work and the repubs want a 24% sales tax across the board and paying for individual services as they change our governement to a dictatorship nationally and statewide. Their words. The repubs are against clean air and water and for cancer cluster and for de regulation that crashed our housing markets with fraud. Info per the last election. They like our jobs overseas and decreased minimum wage, along with an end to social security. Party platform period. And more.
Those tea party-ers are living in a fantasy world where they make up the rules as they go along and create their own truths.
Well, we can't really prove either side of this. Honestly, there's enough real, documentable duplicity, idiocy, bigotry, etc, from the Tea Bag Party without trying to prove the unprovable.
Who cares how/why he got into politics? If you oppose his candidacy, worry about how you're going to get him OUT of politics instead.
Yeh, bring in the lie detectors!!
I saw a spokes woman for the tea party being made a complete and utter fool of on the BBC news late the other night.
I just goes to show the type of people the tea party attracts, they are fools to oppose health reforms in America Obama should stick to his guns and the democrats should stand by him, look deaply into members of the tea party you'll find all your societies ill's racists, ultra right wing christian fundamentalists, anti gays, the hang em high brigade you name it they have it. You have all seen what corruption has done to your good counties standing in the world these last eight years, costing good people their lives in Iraq and Afganistan. The trillions of $ US your counrty owes, who picks up that tab "you do", Bush and his Haliburton buddies are laughing all the way to the bank. Perhaps you should even impeach the lot of them, you'd be supprised what they did in the name of America.
But the tea party stupid as they are want more of the same,, it sort of shows them up for what they really are !!!... " think tank ".. Ha there' not even two brain cells to rub together between the lot of them.
Everyone who wanted progress MUST go out and vote against the G NO P! The Republicans are accepting $75 million from unknown sources who refuse to reveal themselves. Call it legalized(by the 5 conservative members of the Supreme Court) bribery. But it is clear that the Republican agenda is simply to gain power at the expense of the middle class. It was Bush and deregulation of the Banks, mortgage companies, and Wall Street that caused this economic mess. Not even Iron Man could repair it with a snap of the fingers. The Party of NO has sabotaged efforts to improve it just to keep things bad so they could manipulate anger into power. You MUST defeat this cynical, money accepting party from giving back to their corporate sponsors their soul for $$$$ (75 million worth). DO NOT SIT THIS ONE OUT. If you do, EVIL and GREED and EXTREMISTS will prevail! VOTE! Damn it, YOU MUST VOTE!
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It's a shame that all candidates aren't required to take a lie detector test. And that we can't force truth serum down their throats so we could know what we are really voting for. With those in office you have a track record of votes and positions. With "newcomers or outsiders" there is no idea of what they'll actually be doing.
Tea Partiers don't seem to want to hear from "their" candidates. They don't press for specifics, and don't seem to care that "their" candidates (and others) are unwilling to answer any thoughtful or critical questions. They short-circuit the democratic process in action and call themselves patriots. They don't cry out when "their" candidates make clear calls for violent revolution. They claim to love the constitution and don't know what is in it. They twist facts and rewrite history. They seem to think that being educated means being elitist. And I am just plain weary of hearing their nonsense.
From the story, it sounds like it depends on who you decide to believe. I don't know either one of these people, so I couldn't say for sure who is telling the "honest truth".
However, based on the fact that the vast majority of town hall meetings that Tea Partiers have been involved in, and other gatherings of Tea Partiers have been peaceful and respectful, I have my doubts the true reason for not holding town hall meetings is because he was afraid the Tea Partiers would be disruptful. I think it's more likely this Congressman was afraid to answer questions about health care reform (most of those in Congress are running from the health care issue like it's the plague). It sounds to me like this Congressman took the chicken's way out.
Again, theres no proof who is telling the truth - it just depends on what scenerio sounds more plausible.
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