CENTRAL VIEW for Monday, September 20, 2010

Election 2010: Will "conservative" trump

According to a recent Rasmussen Report: “‘Conservative’" is still the most positive political label you can attach to a candidate. But voters now have stronger reactions -- positive and negative-- to the Tea Party label than they do to the more traditional labels.”

So, what is this Tea Party business, anyway? Who are these people? What do they want? For sure, they are not understood by the Democrats or by the left-stream media.

This disconnect is so wide one is reminded of King George III and his attitude toward the American colonists. For example, in the mid-1700s, two-thirds of the British population thought Americans were Negroes and, therefore, of no account.

One cannot read Barbara W. Tuchman’s 1984 classic The March of Folly and her characterization of King George III and his sycophants in government without thinking of Barack Hussein Obama and his sycophants. King George III ignored the Boston Tea Party. Apparently, Mr. Obama is clueless about today’s Tea Party.

It should be noted that during the period leading up to the American Revolution the American colonies were the source of enormous wealth for King George III and merry old England. Even so, King George III and his ministers enacted tax laws that harmed the American economy and, consequently, the economy of Great Britain as well. Take aim. Shoot foot. Does this sound familiar?

It should also be noted that King George III was not insane prior to the American Revolution. King George III was perfectly lucid when he failed to understand the needs and aspirations of the American colonists and when he failed to listen to them. He and his ministers had their vision of how the world ought to be arranged. The American colonists had their own vision which only asked that they be treated equally with their English cousins.

King George III, living in his own world and listening to ministers who knew virtually nothing about the Americans, decided the colonists would stand no chance against what was, at the time, the world’s largest and best-trained army and navy. But, by October, 1781, what started out as the Boston Tea Party, led to the defeat of King George’s vaunted military force.

King George, living in his palace in the late 1700s, was very much like the current president in the American White House who has a parliamentary majority in both houses of Congress. The people can write letters to elected officials. They can write the White House. They can hold peaceful demonstration to vent their frustrations. They can tell the government in no uncertain terms they do not want the kind of “change” being imposed upon them by the politically tone-deaf government and, when all that fails, what do they do? They form a political movement like the Tea Party.

Unfortunately, third parties usually end up splitting the electorate with the result of insuring the election of the very persons they do not want elected. For example: Teddy Roosevelt got Woodrow Wilson elected in 1912. Ross Perot elected Bill Clinton in 1992. Ralph Nader elected George W. Bush in 2000.

For the Tea Party Movement to succeed, it must take control of one of the two major political parties. Needless to say, it will not be the Democrat Party.

This year, the exception to the rule might be found in Colorado where the GOP formed a circular firing squad going into an open-seat gubernatorial race which should have been an easy win for the Republicans. The official winner of the GOP primary has zero chance of winning; however, if conservatives of all stripes, to include the Tea Party, get behind the independent candidate they might end up with a conservative in the governor’s office. As the Rasmussen Report suggests, “conservative” just might trump all other political labels.

Nationally syndicated columnist, William Hamilton, was educated at the University of Oklahoma, the George Washington University, the U.S Naval War College, the University of Nebraska, and Harvard University.

©2010. William Hamilton.

Dr. Hamilton can be contacted at:

Email: william@central-view.com