FreedomWorks President on Tea Party Successes from The Takeaway: Early Edition by feedback@thetakeaway.org (Public Radio International and WNYC Radio)

The Tea Party claimed some major victories during in yesterday's mid-term elections: Marco Rubio won the Senate seat in Florida, and Nikki Haley the governorship in South Carolina. Rand Paul took a decisive victory in the Kentucky Senate race. But the Tea Party had losses, as well, both in Nevada, with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pulling out a narrow win against oppponent Sharron Angle, and Delaware, where Republican Christine O'Donnell lost her Senate bid against Democrat Chris Coons. So what do the wins and losses add up to for Tea Party members across the country? Matt Kibbe is the President of FreedomWorks and author of the book, "Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto."

Check out the full show here, as well as the podcast's webpage's other content. See this post as well. See also: Boiling Mad: Inside Tea Party America

"Give Us" A Break

As manifestos go, this one's no less idealistic and naive than any other manifesto out there, no less passionate as well.

It was also during this time I remember post-World War II refugees from scoialist Eastern Europe fleeing to the prairie. It struck me that people would leave their homeland and everything they knew to go someplace for freedom. I did not see anyone fleeing the United States to go in search of collectivism.

I guess seeing is believing, there. Great way to come up with your universals. I've never seen a black hole, or even the moon, up close and personal. So I guess those things don't exist either. I do see the ground, and I can tell that it's flat, though. Again, as far as I can see.

I believe we are at a turning point in our nation's history, as the pendulum has swung far to the left. Trillion-dollar deficits, government control of health care, federal ownership of banks [...]

Don't like deficits much? Want the country to have more cash? Authoritarian China's got trillions in greenbacks. Was that the freedom that you were thinking of? They've got the largest cash reserves in the world, so they're doing something right, there. They're definitely on their way to becoming the largest "coordinated" economy in the world, and skeptics have been saying "no way" for the past 25 years.

The Tea Party is such a farce, and the fact that the "movement's" so popular right now, really does speak to one truth in this book. The country is at a turning point. It's going down the tubes, and that's just the way it is. It's nothing to get sentimental about. A few billion years, the sun'll go out. What then?

Nothing lasts forever.

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More good quotes:

1. But I believe Americans are genetically opposed to big government. 
2. The Republican leadership was always having to apologize to the Democrats for us.
3. The Contract with America [...] outlined our platform of limited government. 
4. That is great advice for liberals, whose base is looking for special favors and handouts. 

You know what this means, right? Implicitly, this guy's saying that the Tea Party is a Republican Movement, and if that's true, this has been the most creative reengineering of hope into fear, since, well, since Hitler engineered his ideas up about Jewish folks. Remember, "genetically" he said. "Us" he says, when he speaks of Republicans. Remember that the next time you think of the Tea Party as a movement and party that's separate from the Republican Party.

Is There A Single Tea Party Platform? from The Takeaway: Early Edition by feedback@thetakeaway.org (Public Radio International and WNYC Radio)

Ever since April 15th, when Tea Party groups emerged around the country, the public has been hearing a lot about what—and at whom—Tea Party anger is directed. But as America heads into the midterms with dozens of candidates endorsed by local Tea Party groups on the ballot, it's time to take a look at what the Tea Party wants. In other words, without a national party structure or official spokespeople, what is the best way to identify common planks of a Tea Party platform? Matt Kibbe joins the show to discuss that question. He’s the president of conservative political group FreedomWorks, and the author of a book called "Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto."

Listen to the podcast here. Download the podcast, mp3 file here.