To anyone of the many Americans who has lost his family, his home, his career or job, his car, boat or RV, his investment income, his retirement, his dignity, his self-respect and any hope for his future; any new political party, political movement, candidate, or special interest group quoting, citing or offering to return to the ideals, goals and values of our Founding Fathers and waving the Constitution as its standard – is totally and completely irrelevant to them.
Most Americans KNOW what our country was founded on, and most Americans know that the body of laws that protect them and their freedom is based on our Constitution.
What they want to know from our politicians and elected officials is how they are going to restore economic stability and a future for our children that is not already mortgaged to the hilt. In other words, they want answers, they want solutions to SPECIFIC problems and they don’t want platforms, pledges, esoteric and unreachable goals and some individual’s idea of how to overturn the corruption in Washington by invoking Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams or any other 18th century political icon – those times and those men have past.
There are political movements currently gaining the attention of the media, such as the Tea Party movement and even “Goooh.com” and there are TV entertainers like Glenn Beck and a host of Fox News personalities with admirable objectives; namely cleaning-up and throwing out the corruption in Washington.
Setting aside the polarization effect of our “newsertainment” stars, the new political movements flying the Founding Father’s banner as a symbol of their quest for a return to the values of our Constitution, assuming they’re currently not there, all have a few problems; they are too premature, targeting the 2010 off year elections with inadequate grass roots support; they are restrictive in their audience, for example, Tea Party is very conservative and cannot and will not attract a broad spectrum of voters. List goes on and none of them have or will not succeed in changing anything.
An example of well-meaning but immature political thinking is the broad based agenda of Goooh.com. Their website says that: “GOOOH's solution is simple: replace the politicians with 435 everyday Americans”.
Well, in studying the make-up of Congress while formulating the strategy and tactics needed to launch the “American Federalist Party” I quickly discovered while reading the bios of the House and Senate members that I would estimate 50% or more are very qualified to be in their office. The problem is their respective parties and what these men and women have to do in order to represent their districts and states. No party vote, no bacon to bring back; no party vote, no campaign financing support. Even Goooh.com stresses an obligatory financial commitment.
One other small “simple” matter, how do you define “everyday Americans”? Education, wealth, occupation, age or race or gender? Who makes that determination – some elitist, a panel, an individual? Does a current main stream thinking Member of Congress trapped by party, qualify as an “everyday American”? If not, this sounds more like the French Revolution than the American Revolution!
I have said this before on iPolitics, and I say it again; organizing, developing and supporting a new National party has to be an evolutionary process, not a revolutionary event. It must be based on specific issues, with specific answer and must above all represent middle-of-the-road, mainstream America and exclude no one.
Tpaine© 2010
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