Tea Party Spoiling for a Bigger Fight
By ALBERT R. HUNT | BLOOMBERG VIEW
Published: October 20, 2013
WASHINGTON — In the aftermath of the U.S. government shutdown and a close call with default, there is a political consensus among Democrats, many Republicans, establishment conservatives, business leaders and the inside-the-Beltway commentariat: Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Tea Party members in the House have done grievous harm to themselves and their brand.
They caused economic and political wreckage and got nothing for it. The silver lining, critics say, is that these right-wingers may now be chastened, and Mr. Cruz’s national ambitions have been dealt a lethal setback.
That, however, isn’t the way Deedee Vaughters and Bob Vander Plaats see things.
“We’re winning this argument and now have to go back at Obamacare and getting our fiscal house in order,” says Ms. Vaughters, a Tea Party activist in Aiken, South Carolina. Mr. Vander Plaats, who heads an influential family-values group in Iowa, agrees: “Ted Cruz is a rock star sucking all the energy in the conservative movement. He’s making all the right enemies with the Republican establishment, which is taking him to unprecedented heights.” The reaction of these grass-roots activists may undercut hopes of mainstream party leaders that the Cruz-led shutdown — for which most Americans blamed Republicans — would have a sobering effect on the right wing and avoid such mayhem in the future. Yet the showdown may have only whetted the appetite for more confrontation, starting with the budget and debt battles early next year and stretching through the 2014 midterm elections and the 2016 presidential contest.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/21/us/politics/tea-party-spoiling-for-a-bigger-fight.html?_r=0
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Sun Tzu: The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.
Napoleon: Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.
-Laelth
