COMMENTARY | On Sept. 7, the Tea Party sponsored a debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. When NBC News anchor Brian Williams mentioned the number of executions in Texas in a question to Texas Gov. Rick Perry, audience members burst into applause even as Williams wondered aloud about the possibility of someone innocent being executed, according to The Associated Press.
Roughly a week later, in Florida, Rep. Ron Paul was asked about what should happen when a 30-year-old man who did not get health insurance slipped into a coma and needed expanded medical coverage. When CNN host Wolf Blitzer pressed on, asking if the man should die, there were more cheers, according to Rachel Rose Hartman’s article “Audience at TEA Party Debate Cheers Leaving Uninsured to Die” in Yahoo! News’ The Ticket.
What’s going on here? Sure, most polls show Americans support the death penalty and finding ways to get health insurance for the insured. But most aren’t tastelessly cheering either gut-wrenching decisions (unless it is someone who had killed thousands of Americans and threatened to do worse, like Osama bin Laden).
On the subject of the death penalty, most folks want the guilty to pay but wish to make sure steps are taken to avoid the execution of someone innocent. Even when guilt is clear, the execution event should be a sober, somber occasion to remember the victim and the families involved, not be mistaken for a Texas vs. Texas A&M pregame tailgate party.
Likewise, would most Americans cheer the death of someone in a coma? It’s hard to believe that only a few years ago many of the same folks screamed out angrily at anyone who wanted to take Terri Schiavo off any life support. Who knew the real moral dilemma for them was not her life, but whether or not she was insured!
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, who upended Republican Robert Bennett with Tea Party help, rushed to the Tea Party defense. He claimed that the group’s great accomplishments in 2012 would make 2010 resemble “a Sunday picnic,” reports The Daily Caller. Actually, most of those who won their elections were mainstream Republicans (Iowa’s Branstad, Illinois’ Kirk, Ohio’s Portman and Kasich), not Tea Party members. Losers were those who wrapped themselves in the mantle of the Tea Party, like Nevada’s Sharron Angle, Alaska’s Joe Miller, and Delaware’s Christine O’Donnell. That’s why the Obama administration labeled the Standard & Poor’s downgrade of the U.S. “a Tea Party downgrade,” according to AP.
Lee dismissed polls confirming that the label is toxic, showing that only 28 percent have a favorable view of the Tea Party. Nearly half have a negative association with that label, whereas the favorable-unfavorable rating was split in 2010. Lee said, “I don’t really care what those polls say because, first of all, I think many of those polls are engineered by people who wanted to reach precisely that conclusion and who wanted to try to draw momentum away from this movement, away from this political phenomenon.”
Lee couldn’t explain why Rasmussen Reports, the most conservative polling firm, confirmed those negative findings. Perhaps that’s why the Utah senator claimed he actually is not “wedded to the [Tea Party] brand.” If the Tea Party is really so great and popular, then why is Lee running away from the label?
This isn’t to say all Tea Party types are really so bad. Many of the local members in my town are respectful of my opinions, even when I disagree with them. They show proper decorum at Tea Party events that I’ve attended. And the message of smaller government, finding a solution to the uninsured, and a tougher law & order policy resonates with Americans. But unless more Tea Party types show some class at prime time national events, the party label itself will perish.