LF: Civil War: Tea Party Group Invites Romney To Speak, Sparking Protests By Tea Party Group; Tea Party Group FreedomWorks Plans Anti-Romney Rally

Title: Civil War: Tea Party Group Invites Romney To Speak, Sparking Protests By Tea Party Group; Tea Party Group FreedomWorks Plans Anti-Romney Rally
Source: Yahoo! News
URL Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/ ... es-romney-speak-201044591.html
Published: Aug 31, 2011
Author: Chris Moody | The Ticket
Post Date: 2011-08-31 19:40:15 by Brian S
Keywords: None
Views: 2182
Comments: 2

FreedomWorks, a Washington, D.C.-based tea party organization led by former House majority leader Dick Armey, will protest during a New Hampshire rally this weekend sponsored by the California-based Tea Party Express. The reason for the protest: the Tea Party Express invited Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, to the event.

The president of FreedomWorks, Matt Kibbe, pointed to what he referred to as Romney's support for "government-run health care, Wall Street bailouts and spending hikes," in a statement explaining the reasons for the counter-rally in Concord.

"One of the great successes of the decentralized tea party movement has been its ability to self-police. If every political opportunist claiming to be a tea partier is accepted unconditionally, then the tea party brand loses all meaning," Kibbe said in the statement. "Our grassroots activists will be in New Hampshire on Sunday to defend the tea party ideas of small government and fiscal responsibility, and to remind Mitt Romney that when it comes to policy, actions speak louder than words."

Calling FreedomWorks' announcement a "a misguided press stunt," a release from Tea Party Express defended its invitation to Romney and said the "tour is open to presidential candidates who want to speak to the tea party." The group noted that Romney will also make an appearance in South Carolina this weekend at a candidate forum hosted by Jim DeMint, the Republican senator from South Carolina who is an ally of the tea party.

"It's just silly to protest a tea party where Governor Romney is speaking," the release said. "It would be just as ridiculous to protest Senator DeMint's gathering on Monday, to which Romney has also been invited. Narrow mindedness is not the way to strengthen the tea party movement."

News of the protest comes on the same day that Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor, announced that she was considering dropping out of a tea party rally hosted by a third group, Tea Party of America.

Tea Party Group FreedomWorks Plans Anti-Romney Rally

As U.S. News reported yesterday, former Massachusetts Republican Gov. Mitt Romney seems to have the conservative creds to cut it with plenty of voters who consider themselves conservative—and perhaps enough, some argue, to win in a state like South Carolina. The fact that he's even headlining a Tea Party Express rally in Concord, New Hampshire this weekend attests to his esteem among some in the movement.

FreedomWorks, which has come to represent the purest of the pure among the conservative, limited-government Tea Party movement, has a different idea. He's a Tea Party poser, they say, and they're prepared to take action. They've organized a boycott of the former governor's Sunday evening speech at the Tea Party Express event, gathering up their local forces to instead attend an anti-Romney rally at the same time. [Read more about the 2012 presidential election.]

From the announcement on their website:

After months of distancing himself from the tea party, suddenly Mitt Romney wants to be one of us.
That's right, the big-spending former governor who signed Massachusetts' very own version of ObamaCare is scheduled to take the stage this Sunday at a rally in Concord, NH to lecture real conservatives about limited government and fiscal responsibility.
FreedomWorks and tea party groups from around the region will be there. But not to hear more platitudes from an establishment hack posing as an outsider.
We'll be there to tell the real story about Mitt Romney, and to protest his record, which represents everything the tea party stands against.
After all, if we don't hold candidates accountable for their actions while in office, who will? If we let ourselves be used as pawns to provide cover for the establishment, then what is the point of having the tea party?
We're standing on principle, not politics. Will you join us?

FreedomWorks, which is chaired by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, demonstrated their organizing power throughout the healthcare debate and during the 2010 election season. And for Romney, as he continues to gather votes from conservatives in key primary states, the group could certainly create a lot more trouble ahead.

Spoiled, stupid and ignorant, brain dead phuckwads, libTURD fools, tools, and idiots, are the real sickness; the messiah "king" obammy and his regime are only the symptoms.

Sounds like BS, will Ron Paul, Herman Cain, Gary Johnson, etc. be there as well? It's a meeting of the Mitts Romney/Rockefeller Republican cult!

Obama's watch stopped on 24 May 2008, but he's been too busy smoking crack to notice.