Hostile takeover
Another tea-party extremist fights the Republican establishment
Hostile takeover
Dick Polman, Inquirer National Political Columnist
Traveling this week in North Carolina, I came across the curious saga of Tim D'Annunzio. If you haven't heard about this fellow - a tea-party favorite and front-running Republican candidate for a North Carolina congressional seat - prepare to be entertained.
We're all aware by now that the tea-party folks are hell bent on thumbing their noses at the Republican establishment and electing their own kinds of candidates. They scored big a few weeks back in Kentucky, when Rand Paul won the GOP Senate nomination; it's rare to find any candidate who thinks that BP should not be held accountable for the oil spill ("accidents happen," he says), but, hey, the Republicans wanted to usher the tea-partiers into the ranks, and now they're stuck with the problem of fighting a hostile takeover.
The problem is, Tim D'Annunzio makes Rand Paul look like Cicero. This guy is so bad that the North Carolina Republican chairman is publicly assailing him as "unfit for public office at any level."
The tea party folks don't care about such assessments. They love D'Annunzio so much, they helped propel him to first place in the May 4 Republican primary. But he's not yet the GOP nominee for the autumn race in a swing district. Under state party rules, the nominee must get more than 50 percent of the vote, and D'Annunzio, while finishing first, failed to reach that threshold. So he's matched with GOP establishment favorite Harold Johnson in a runoff 19 days from now. The winner will face freshman Blue Dog Democrat Larry Kissell, and Republican leaders are now desperately trying to knock down the front-running whacko in their own party.
Here's Tom Feltzer, the state party chairman: "What (D'Annunzio) could do to the party as our nominee is secondary in my view to what he could do to the country if he got elected." And here's the spokesman for the GOP House strategy team in Washington: "The issue is, do we give the Democrats a candidate they can absolutely tear apart in the general election? I don't think most Republicans want to see that happen."
Why are Republican leaders saying such terrible things about their own front-runner? Well, he declared earlier this year that he wants to "abolish the Department of Education, Health and Human Services, Agriculture, Energy, Labor, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Transportation, Treasury, and Homeland Security," plus, of course, the IRS - and (my favorite) "any appellate court that has shown an anti-constitutional activism."
But what makes his extreme libertarianism so special is the way he flavors it with moral certitude. He has written on his blog, "I know that I have been anointed by God to be part of His plan to save the world." He has referred to the federal government as the Antichrist and, according to court papers filed during a divorce and child-custody case, he once told his ex-wife that he had personally found the Ark of the Covenant, that he himself was the Messiah, and that God would drop a pyramid on Greenland. The judge in that case described him as "a self-described religious zealot."
And we know all about these court documents, because Republican leaders have been showing them to anyone with a pulse.
D'Annunzio thinks it's unfair that his critics are spreading "innuendo and accusations," and, for that reason, he has pulled out of a TV debate slated for next week. He says they're simply "afraid of independent rugged individualists, like me." He also thinks it's unfair that the GOP establishment is calling attention to the fact that he was previously jailed for burglary and assaulting a cop. He says his bad behavior is all in the past, and the tea partiers agree. And he assails Republican leaders thusly: "The power brokers in Raleigh and Washington are willing to go to any length and use any unscrupulous tactic to try to destroy somebody. They think that they're losing their control over the Republican party."
With respect to that last sentence, he may well be right.
-------
The sole proprietor of this blog is on the road for the month of June. Virtually all June posts will be briefer than the norm, except on those rare occasions when posts won't show up at all. Apologies in advance for this disturbance in the force. The standard verbosity will return on Monday, June 28.
You're right, this was entertaining. There just can't be enough of these types in the Republican party, and I hope he wins the primary. Maybe if he plays his cards right he can run in 2012 for VP on the Palin Party ticket.— yoda
For months the media pundits' line has been to bash the Tea Party as a republican astroturfing operation. If Polman is finally waking up to the reality that the great majority of Tea Partiers are disgusted with both of the establishment political parties then perhaps there has been a "disturbance in the force."- While Mr. Polman compares this candidate to Rand Paul, I would put him more in the Palin tea party mold. At least give libertarians this; they don't think the feds are the antichrist. Leave that to the religious right. The tea party tries to reconcile these two factions, but ultimately will fail. As the tea party 'movement' evolves, it will inevitably form into more visible factions. And Humongous, there's no doubt parts of the tea party are pure astroturf. The Tea Party Express? The creation of a Republican lobbying firm in Sacramento, which generates 90% of it's business from said Express. And who was just riding along with this Tea Party Express? It was Sarah Palin, you betcha. I feel almost bad for the Paulites. They at least had a philosophical viewpoint, even if it completely falls apart under logical scrutiny. The Palinites, they have their guns and religion. Keep clinging people.— Logathis
- The R's Dennis Kucinich.— pj katauskas
- Ok, let's take your premise that the t party is not a Republican astroturf front. So, uh, who are these guys going to caucus with? I'm sorry, but these guys aren't Bernie Sanders.— pagoda
- Cute liberal escapist piece in an attempt to ignore the sinking ship that is the Obama presidency.— CD75
- "unfit for public office at any level." Pretty much describes any of today's Republicans.— The Bishop
- "Pretty much describes any of today's Republicans." If that's an apt description, it pretty much describes BO, as well. He's doing a bang-up job on all fronts, foreign affairs, halting domestic terrorist attacks, the economy. Indeed, a splendid job.— pj katauskas
- LOLOL! A great majority of the Tea Partiers are disgusted with both the establishment parties? Where'd you pull that pile of BS form? All of the credible analysis I've seen has the Tea Partiers (I am being nice here) solidly aligned and identified with the Republican Party. You can try to run from these fringe freaks, but it isn’t going to work. For all the publicity they get (see Palin the bandwagon jumper), all the defense they get from the likes of you guys, they are yours. The GOP made 'em and the GOP is going to be hurt by them. So much so that Boehner is running fast from his recent comment of 100 House seats going R this fall ... it is NOT Obama's Presidency that is a sinking ship (please!) - it's the GOP as any kind of appealing political ideology anymore that's going down, fast and hard. Play with that one simps.— The Bishop
Comment removed.
BO's presidency is not a sinking ship. It's a log circling the toilet bowl of history.- Amazing how a few primary elections of libertarians has syndicated liberal pundits and their fellow wacko blogging brothers acting like scurrying deer sensing a disaster. The deer seldom scurry when not necessary, so there must be something afar that scares the living daylights out of the likes of Polmanites. They must be sensing the additional humidity that usually preceeds the storm. Be sure to avoid trees.— lefty
- If the Tea Partiers were that disgusted with the Republican Party, they would have started their own party, with its own primaries. The conventional Republicans seem to think that the Tea Baggers can energize the base, like Sarah Palin did, but the base isn't big enough anymore to ride into power.— SteveMG
- God, if Dick or anyone else at the Inquirer/DN writes one more piece analyzing the party out of Power, I might lose my mind.— tr88
- Comment removed.
Cited by the Columbia Journalism Review as one of the nation's top political reporters, and lauded by the ABC News political website as "one of the finest political journalists of his generation," Dick Polman is a national political columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer. He is on the full-time faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, as "writer in residence." Dick has been a frequent guest on C-Span, MSNBC, CNN, NPR and the BBC. He covered the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 presidential campaigns.
ARCHIVES
All commentaries posted before April 18, 2008, can be accessed at www.dickpolman.blogspot.com.
- American Spectator
- David Limbaugh
- Free Republic
- Glenn Reynolds
- Hugh Hewitt
- Human Events
- John Hawkins
- Matt Lewis
- Michelle Malkin
- National Review
- Opinion Journal
- Power Line
- Red State
- The Brody File
- The Daily Caller
- Town Hall
- Weekly Standard
- Center for American Progress
- Crooks and Liars
- Daily Kos
- David Corn
- Huffington Post
- Media Matters
- Mojoblog (Mother Jones)
- Open Left
- Political Animal
- Salon's War Room
- Talking Points Memo
- Tapped
- The Democratic Strategist
- The Grey Matter
- Unclaimed Territory
- Andrew Sullivan
- Attytood
- Chi Tribune's The Swamp
- CJR's Campaign Desk
- CNN's Political Ticker
- CQ Politics
- FactCheck.org
- Gail Collins
- Howard Kurtz
- Mickey Kaus
- NBC's First Read
- Obit
- Political Wire
- Politico
- Politics Daily
- Pollster.com
- Real Clear Politics
- The Atlantic Wire
- The Fix
- The Moderate Voice
- The Plank
- USA Today On Politics
- Wonkette
