A Post Election Perspective
The morning after an election is always filled with new hopes and dashed dreams. I have spoken with many of you since the election results were announced and have been humbled by your persistence to return this country to the governance of the U.S. Constitution and our Tea Party principles.
Many of you are thrilled that your candidate won the primary, while many are disheartened that your candidate did not win. I’ve heard several comments that the incumbents ran away with the elections.
Give us your thoughts by completing this post election survey. http://surveys.polldaddy.com/s/03C8B06EC5492CD8/
Here are some thoughts and perspectives:
- As we patriots rallied at the polls yesterday, we were met with waves, thumbs up and honking horns. The voters support the Tea Party and the direction we are going. Many say we are not doing enough. We need their help and thus we should challenge them to join us to help win back our country.
- Conservative get out the vote (GOTV). The conservatives were much more engaged in this primary than liberals – over twice the gubernatorial vote. By staying motivated, we will position for the landslide in the November election.
- I was awed by the number of Tea Party patriots who, for the first time in their lives, attended their precinct conventions last night. You brought forth resolutions that in many cases were approved unanimously, and you asked to become county convention delegates. Way to go!
- Many are upset that incumbents stole the night. But did they really?
- Look at the incumbents spread between the 2010 primary and the 2008 primary. In many cases, the challengers captured 30% more votes then in previous years.
- At the same time, we have matured as a movement from “throw out all of the incumbents” to “keep in the (largley deserving) conservative incumbents.”
- In this district, we are fortunate to have in most cases representatives who align with our principles, and while we may not always like their voting record, are not so far from having the same concerns we have.
- In most cases, those who won the conservative organization endorsement also won the election.
- Unlike our fellow Tea Parties in blue states, our decisions were not so much about “good vs. evil”, but rather “good versus better”.
- The propositions all won in a landslide – in fact, we need a new term for landslide given the roughly 9:1 vote for all but one proposition.
Remember where we were just 1 year ago – the Tea Party was tiny and painted as a mob, a kook fringe, Nazis and other ugly epithets. Today, even Nancy Pelosi has tried to align herself with the Tea Party. Unbelievable.
We have made tremendous progress, but we have only begun the journey. Here are some thoughts of what we need to consider going forward:
- Work on turn-out – there is NO reason why everyone should not vote given the stakes at hand
- Continue our activities in “working through the system” via involvement in conventions, etc.
- Continue to ensure that our leaders hear our message as reflected above through continuous email and other media campaigns
- Hold our state leaders accountable for enforcing the 10th amendment
We also have to be wary of so-called “false flag” organizations who appear to be aligned with the Tea Party but instead are trying to create third parties or acting in a manner that will bring scorn to our mission. See video. So, thank you very much for all of your help so far – now let’s re-double our efforts to victory in November!
