| Several teabaggers around Albany will be carrying Republican petitions over the next few weeks, for their simpatico sure-losers in Assembly and Congressional races, and for Paladino.
And there's the rub, according to some teabagger leaders.
Like Tom Chandler:
Now I find us collecting signatures for several candidates all endorsed by the same party, and they are under pressure to not have us carry petitions for people we vetted and approved, alongside their petitions.
Looks to me like we are being manipulated into gathering signatures for those approved by one party, and to shut out the outsiders they have not approved.
One party is pretty much taking us for granted, the other has written us off.
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To the party bosses holding their candidates we support hostage, I say:
Be thankful to us for helping those of your candidates we feel we can trust, to bad you did not send us more.. You are supposed to be working for and representing us, we came together to fire and replace people who can not do those jobs.
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I for one say help ALL the candidates you support, if you have to ask people to sign for Carl last so it can not be said you risked having a door slammed in your face before you could get the other petitions signed, do so. (I personally think that whole argument against Carl is a big steaming pile of crap from the outset.)
Chandler refuses to recognize that the "whole argument" against Paladino was supported by a whole lot of GOP convention delegates.
Nonetheless, NY teabaggers will be carrying petitions for Paladino, no matter what their county and/or town chairmen say.
Spyder, a town committeeman in Ballston, agrees with Chandler that teabaggers who carry petitions will do whatever they want (at the same link):
WE will decide who we will carry petitions for, and those people's petitions will be on the top of my stack, and if I feel like it, I might mention the other petitions I have at the bottom of my stack
In Ballston, my own petition is on the top of the stack. If I care to have any others signed, fine, but, mine gets signed first
In Guilderland and the hilltowns, Debbie's (Busch, a sure-loser GOP Assembly candidate) is on the top of the stack, if I care to have Paladino's signed too, fine, but, Debbie's gets signed FIRST
WE are in charge
WE make the rules
If they don't like our rules, they can find somebody else to play with
Obviously, teabaggers are not in charge of who the Republicans nominate.
Just as obviously, establishment Republicans are counting on the teabaggers to provide the kind of field support that many are doing right now, knocking on doors of registered Republicans and getting petition signatures.
But there is an essential conflict here, as everywhere, between the more active teabaggers who support the most conservative candidate possible, and the more sedate establishment Republicans who prefer to win elections, and benefit from the subsequent patronage, by supporting more moderate candidates.
Teabagger candidates are perceived as weaker for good reason -- far-right conservatives are about 20 percent of the electorate, and their extremism scares moderates in the middle.
They may win in Alabama or South Carolina, but they'll never win in NY. |
