Primaries, Tea Party, and IRV

Christine O'Donnell perpetuates that myth of the angry small government majority in her Value Voters speech:

Christine O'Donnell, who rode Tea Party fervor and funding to a stunning win Tuesday in Delaware's Republican Senate primary, brought her us-against-the-D.C.-ruling-class-elites message to a decidedly friendly Washington crowd Friday afternoon, promising a "revolution of reason" that will stick it to the Beltway "popular crowd" this fall.

"They call us wacky, they call us wingnuts," O'Donnell said to a crowd of 2,000 conservative activists who filled a Washington hotel ballroom Friday afternoon at the Annual Values Voter Summit. "We call us 'We the people.'"

 

E.J. Dionne with what is an often overlooked fact about frustrations with government...

Christine O' Donnell said something very interesting. She said, we are our country, referring to Tea Party and the Values Voters. They are not our country. They are a small and influential minority that wins Republican primaries in small states because there aren't moderate Republicans anymore.

My friend David has been running this argument for a while that there is this deep anti-government mood in the country. And there were some very interesting polling results in The New York Times/CBS poll this week. Voters were asked straight up - in trying to solve the economic problems facing the country, do you think Barack Obama has expanded the role of government too much, not enough or about the right amount?

Only 37 percent said too much, 34 percent said about the right amount and 22 percent said he hadn't expanded government enough. When you look at that, it's a 56-37 percent majority against the small government view. Now, if you put the other two together you've got a lot of discontent because the economy's bad. But some of that comes from the left.

I think the other striking thing is, in some ways, the Tea Party is kind of a vanguard, like an old left vanguard party - a very small number of people. Christine O'Donnell won in Delaware with 30,561 votes. Joe Miller won in Alaska with 47,027 votes. That's 77,588 votes. To put that number in perspective, John McCain in losing got 59,900,000 votes. This is a group that can control the meeting because all the moderates stay home.

The tea party small government type is a vocal fringe that looks to be fighting for control of the Republican party.  They aren't a mass movement of small government types coming to take their country back (to a place it never was at...); they are simply a wing of the Republican party upset with the fiscal reckless of Bush years.  The irony is that what they are promoting is even more fiscally reckless and Utopian.

 

But the problem of primaries controlling the political process that Dionne is pointing out is very real.

 

That's why I'm a big supporter of Instant Run Off Voting to help end control of the primary process by radical fringes and ideologues.

 

Here is more on IRV

 

 

If you'd like to help get a voice for election reform in Georgia to the GA Senate please contribute $5 (or $10, or $25, or $50) online right now.  Without your help I can't win this state senate race.  Together we can take back politics from the ideologues and party insiders that control the primary process.