Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/198837
Sarasota News Leader October 25, 2013 OPINION Page 97 In 2010, the so-called Tea Party Revolution pro- current representatives or "look around" for duced similar results, except that the village other candidates. Two thirds of respondents idiots were not elected by accident. Instead, said they planned to "look around." Fewer hidebound ideologues offered themselves for than one in four expected to vote for the elective office based on their mantra of "taking incumbents. back the country" — Despite some imprunow realized as code dent decisions in for taking back their According to a recent ABC News/ his career, no one "white" country from Washington Post poll, 55 percent of voters has ever denied that a black president. oppose the Tea Party, compared to only Newt Gingrich is a Regardless, the results 36 percent who still support it. And more very bright man. He were the same as in than three times as many voters "strongly perfectly surveyed 1994. Many marginally oppose" the Tea Party as "strongly the Zeitgeist in 1994, qualified — and some support" it. leveraging it into his wholly unqualified new job as speaker — candidates found of the House of themselves not only in state legislatures, but Representatives and Republican control of also in the United States Congress. If the 1994 Congress. Do the Democrats have someone sweep was the legislative equivalent of hitting similarly prescient to seize the moment for the lottery, then 2010 was the equivalent of them 20 years later? winning the Powerball … with, once again, It is a critical and pivotal opportunity for the tragically predictable results. Democrats to regain both houses of Congress Now, three years later, Americans are fed for the final two years of President Obama's up with those village idiots and their unsur- administration, accomplishing many of the important legislative goals that have lanprising ineptitude at governing. So polls are guished since 2010. starting to show that a groundswell of change is in the offing for 2014. Immigration reform, clarifying the limitations of corporations with regard to campaign According to a recent ABC News/Washington financing, restating the necessity for fedPost poll, 55 percent of voters oppose the eral oversight of voter rights, fine-tuning the Tea Party, compared to only 36 percent who Affordable Care Act and, most important, still support it. And more than three times as getting the nation's economy back to full many voters "strongly oppose" the Tea Party employment ... all are within reach if this as "strongly support" it. political moment is seized. Even more interesting was the response The question is, "Who will be the Democrats' when asked if they would vote to reelect their 'Newt Gingrich'?"