GOP is getting trapped by Tea Party politics

Rod Haxton, editor

By Rod Haxton, editor

Trying to have it both ways may have cost Republican Congressional candidate Tracey Mann some valuable momentum in the closing days of what appears to be a very close primary election in Kansas.
During an interview on a Salina radio station, Mann was asked if he was a “birther,” which refers to that faction who believe President Obama was born in Kenya and, therefore, cannot legally serve as President of the United States. Mann responded that the President “needs to come forth and show everyone that he’s an American citizen.”
This isn’t the first time that Mann has hinted that Obama’s presidency isn’t legitimate. During a candidate forum on June 21, he challenged President Obama to “show his birth certificate to really resolve this thing one way or another.”
In so many words, he sure sounds like a birther.
When given an opportunity to clarify his remarks, Mann said he has “no interest in pushing . . . the birther issue.”
It’s not as though Mann is alone in his thinking on this non-issue. Sen. Tim Huelskamp referred to the birther question as an “easy distraction.” Sue Bouldra accuses President Obama of not showing everyone his birth certificate or school records.
Mann, Huelskamp and crew could eliminate this “distraction” by simply referring to the birther claims as nonsense. They could offer that those who believe in the birther claim are a few bricks shy of a full load. They could denounce the birther claims as illegitimate and unworthy of discussion on the campaign trail.
They could, but they don’t . . . and they won’t. Doing so would cost them that fringe element in the Republican Party, the Tea Partiers among them, who will attach themselves to anything that gives them reason to think that Barack Obama really isn’t our President.
During an interview with this newspaper in late June, Mann had no desire to distance himself from the Tea Party or some of their wingnut beliefs. Instead, he stood squarely in the corner of the Tea Party and added that one reason he has their support is “because they don’t see me as a politician.”
How ironic, because that’s exactly how he’s acting. He’s trying to walk the line between being a birther and appearing to be moderate enough not to come right out and say that birthers have a legitimate complaint.
He’s playing both sides of the fence, which is exactly what too many politicians do.
In this campaign, perhaps more than most, Republicans are trying to avoid the Tea Party trap. They feel they need the endorsement of the Tea Party to get through the primary election, but they don’t want to appear too Tea Partyish for fear of alienating more moderate Republicans in the general election.
U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck of Colorado has been a Tea Party favorite, but revealed a little about himself and the dilemma facing many Republicans when the birther issue came up at a recent rally.
In a private conversation he was caught on tape stating, “Will you tell those dumbasses at the Tea Party to stop asking questions about birth certificates while I’m on the camera. God, what am I supposed to do?”
Oh, I don’t know. I suppose you could be honest about your opinion instead of lamenting that the question is asked. Either you believe in the birther claim or you don’t.
Of course, making a stand one way or the other would require a certain level of honesty, which may not get one nominated in a tough primary race.
Such honesty has obviously been absent from the Kansas primary election.
That’s why it was no surprise when a former campaign manager for Congressman Jerry Moran said he was stunned to see the Republican candidate “so seemingly unsure of himself and his beliefs.” Moran’s not unsure of his beliefs. He’s unsure he can get elected to the Senate if he remains true to his beliefs.
It’s no secret to anyone who has followed Moran’s political career over the past 20 years that he couldn’t be characterized as a right-winger in the same category as a Todd Tiahrt. He has been seen as a reasoned moderate in Kansas politics - until this year.
Moran has assumed - I believe mistakenly - that only by playing conservative leapfrog with Tiahrt can he get elected to the Senate. That assumption is based on a belief that the Tea Party wields a tremendous amount of power in this year’s elections.
Republicans are turning that perception into reality. Moran, like too many other Republicans, are willing to sell their souls on the gamble that chameleon politics will pay off with a win on Aug. 3.
In the end, they all look foolish by adopting unreasonable and unattainable positions in order to appease a far-right faction that has lost touch with reality.
This is the same group willing to put retirees at risk by privatizing Social Security, who want tax cuts and a reduction in the federal deficit, who oppose government regulation even as Wall Street wrecks the nation’s economy and who oppose federal expending, except when it comes to earmarks that benefit their state or community.
They want strict interpretation of the 10th Amendment and their Medicare.
They condemn what they call “socialism” but don’t you dare stop those farm subsidy payments.