FreedomWorks will protest Mitt Romney appearance
And Romney, for his part, hasn’t focused much energy on appealing to the movement. So it attracted considerable attention — both within the tea party and among the GOP operative class — when it was announced Tuesday that he intended to speak at a Sunday evening rally being staged by the Tea Party Express in Concord, N.H., as part of a cross country bus tour set to culminate in Tampa, Fla., ahead of a Sept. 12 GOP presidential debate co-sponsored by the Tea Party Express and CNN.
FreedomWorks, which had been participating in the Tea Party Express’s tour and had helped turn out activists at rallies during prior stops, decided it could no longer be affiliated with the tour, said Brendan Steinhauser, a lead organizer for FreedomWorks.
Instead, it began working with local New Hampshire tea party groups to organize a counter rally set for about the same time in the same park in Concord as Romney’s speech.
“We have to defend our brand against poseurs,” Steinhauser said.
FreedomWorks had voiced quiet displeasure with the Tea Party Express’s decision to grant speaking time at a rally in Utah earlier this summer to Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who has been targeted by FreedomWorks. But when Romney’s participation was announced, Steinhauser said that represented “a major line we would not cross.
“If we can’t make any distinction between any of the candidates, if we’re just going to provide cover for the establishment candidates, then what is the point of having the tea party?” Steinhauser said. “We’ve got to have a brand, and we can’t water down our brand.”
At least one prominent New Hampshire tea party group — the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire — is planning to participate in the protest, and its organizer, Andrew Hemingway, predicted at least five more groups would join in.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/62380.html#ixzz1Wcn266AL
Mitt Romney to me is everything that is wrong with America. He hasn't taken a stand or supported a single issue that he hasn't also opposed. If you listened to him in 2004 he sounds exactly like Obama did in 2008, and now in 2012 he sounds exactly like Ron Paul did in 1988. The guy is the epitome of a politician. He opens up the newspaper, reads the polls, and decides that he is the champion of every cause that is currently popular. In 2004, when everything was dandy and we were all rich he was touting universal healthcare and welfare for everyone. Now everyone is broke and he is a lean, mean cost cutting machine. The guy has absolutely no foundation and lost any chance of earning my support a long time ago. Also, as a 'business genius' he created shit for jobs in Massachusetts in a time when the economy was booming. He seems to me as more of a 'right place at the right time' kind of guy rather than someone with actual ideas.
The thing about this article that really grinds my gears is that any organization claiming to hold tea party values would even consider for giving Romney a soapbox to stand on. The Tea Party has credibility right now because of the absolute committment to the one cause: limited government. That is the one and only underlying principle that all Tea Party supporters agree on. Clearly, Romney doesn't represent that. As soon as they stray from that principle the entire movement will fall. What the hell is the Tea Party Express thinking? I can only hope that this was some kind of political chicanery where Romney ended up on the nightly program by slipping through the cracks.
Props to FreedomWorks for standing their ground.
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