Impact of Tea Party Movement felt by Republican Party

I’ve been a Republican my entire voting life. I believe in the principles my father taught me about government, taxes and what government should and, maybe more importantly, should not be doing. There was no doubt that when it came to the two major political parties in the USA that I made the correct selection for my core beliefs. Sadly, not everyone made that distinction when they selected their party affiliation and the Republican Party suffered as a result.

While the party itself still claimed those values and espoused their virtues, the candidates that the party began nominating in primaries were not so closely tied to them. Oh sure, they would talk conservatism on the campaign trail and tout family values and fiscal responsibility. Then they would get elected to office and we found ourselves wondering how government continued to grow apparently unchecked. Something was not quite right.Before I moved to Florida in 1998 my native West Virginia would occasionally elect a Republican governor and other than that, we were happy to keep the Democrat controlled legislature in check. I was excited upon my move to Florida that we had a Republican governor (Jeb Bush) and a Republican controlled legislature. Washington was a similar picture for most of my adult life. Democrats controlled the Congress for most of my voting years. We had Republican presidents in Nixon, Reagan, Bush and Bush and we were fortunate to get occasional tax cuts (but no real tax reform) and in some years we were successful in limiting the damage done by the left. We took the US House in 1994 with the Contract with America. The Clinton’s had promised to nationalize health care and America woke up. We stopped it… for a while.

The problem we had as a majority party was that we did not know how to act like we were in charge. Our representatives were coaxed into reaching across the aisle, giving up on the principles that got them elected and going along to get along. The idea that our principles were the right ones for the country was lost along the way. Even when we had a Republican White House and Congress under George W. Bush, we allowed the Democrats to control much of the agenda. Instead of taking filibuster rules back to where a real, stay all night event had to be held to stop our agenda, we played nice and let them derail nominations and legislation that the people had elected republicans to implement.

It was the same in my new Florida home. Jeb allowed his views on education to grow government. Times were good and money was flowing so the growth of governments themselves and the programs they provided were largely unnoticed by a fat, dumb and happy public. Medicaid has become a significant chunk of the Florida budget. Education demands more and more dollars all the time and we have embraced “stimulus” funds to keep the ship of state afloat for another year. All the while, Florida continues to increase the dollars being spent by the state while slight of hand is played with the budget numbers to make the unknowing or uncaring public believe that someone in Tallahassee is being conservative.

It is similar on the county and city levels where alleged Republicans are helping government intrude into citizen lives in areas that government should never reach. More taxes for this, more land buying for that, a new ordinance that makes rural areas act like incorporated cities and churches that complied with signage restrictions when the signs were erected are now asked to change a perfectly good sign to meet a code change. Oh, and on the churches, don’t worry; there is a grant that pays for the sign changeover so it is no cost to the church. Really? Funny, I believe most of those church members paid taxes to the government that is handing out the money saying it is no cost. There is the respect the elected officials have for our tax dollars – NONE!

It’s all come to a boiling point. And that is where you come in. You’ve joined a Tea Party or 9/12 group. You are tired of getting lip service for your beliefs and not seeing them implemented by people who espouse them when running for office. You are showing up at Town Hall Meetings in numbers like never before. You are not being silent. You are becoming active in Republican circles. You realize a third party would be ineffective as others have been. You see the way to change what we get from government is to change how we elect our officials. A Republican designation on a voter’s registration card is meaningless without the conviction to back up the principles for which it should stand. You are speaking out to elected officials that don’t vote the way they run. You do this in spite of party acquiescence to whichever “R” happens to get the nomination as being just fine.

Some call this a take over. I call it a pull back. No one is trying to take over the Republican Party. We are trying to pull the Republican Party back to the core principles it still claims to uphold. That’s why you‘ve seen the Republican establishment rebuffed when less than conservative candidates were endorsed. The electorate in the last year or so has time and time again nominated the new guy as opposed to that old Republican that was part of the problem. You’ve seen a State Party Chair expelled from office for failing to uphold principles. You see new faces in politics getting to the front of races because old time politicians are repeating unbelievable themes because their actions have not held them up. You see incumbents being challenged where previously they would have reached office by acclimation. Yes, change is coming and it’s all thanks to you being involved.

This year is no time to stop. We have to continue to encourage new faces to step up and run for office. We have to continue to speak out for our beliefs and hold those elected officials accountable who claim to hold them, too. There is a ripple that is becoming a wave and you are in charge of keeping it going… it’s nowhere near an accomplished goal. Oh, and the go along to get along Republicans, they’ll back you, too. We just have to get past the old ways of taking any “R” for “R’s” sake and backing the truly conservative candidates in spite of what the “establishment” may try to force on us. We’ve seen how that worked in the past and, quite frankly, we’re tired of it.

Bill is the host of Bill Mick LIVE weekday mornings on WMMB (1240 & 1350 am) and online at WMMBAM.COM