This has been THE problem we have always faced as a political nation. If a third party is injected into this, it invariably ends with a split vote for one of the "large tent" participants, which is largely supported by the out of favor "tent". I know we have all seen this movie before, and it doesn't change just because we are watching it again, or because the third party has an invigorated, grassroots base.
If this conservative move is going to be a success, we (Tea Party) have to remain not a party, but a movement. It MUST remain an all inclusive move toward very simple and somewhat universally accepted principals of common sense, integrity, freedom (as even we now perceive it), and law. That's what I and many others see this movement as, so if we loose that integrity of "grass roots" we loose the meaning, and integrity of "Tea Party".
How do we do that you will no doubt ask. I don't have a real answer to that question, but I can say that it will be apparent as the pieces fall where the may. I can say that as a beginning we absolutely must have verifiable integrity of our voting system, or systems. That is the strength of grass roots movements, to be engaged at the local level. City, county, and perhaps state levels.
Where it starts to blur for me is in choosing a candidate. I don't believe most viable candidates can really be vetted to the acceptance of most Tea Partiers. That really is the question for us. How do we have enough influence to really be sure the candidate is for real, and not just the stuffed shirt we have become accustomed to. I certainly don't trust the current Republican "system" of choosing our candidates for us.
So, I would submit that those two, not tiny, problems be addressed with vigor, and let the pieces fall.
Beyond that rambling, I feel quite helpless, and clueless. May God and the Constitution save us all.
