James Pethokoukis:
Some assumptions:
1. Let’s say Tea Party groups had continued to grow at the pace seen in 2009 and 2010.
2. And let’s further say that their impact on the 2012 vote would have been similar to that seen in 2010. A new paper co-authored by AEI’s Stan Veuger estimates the grass-roots movement generated 3 million to 6 million additional Republican votes in House races in the midterms.
3. The 2012 result would have seen as many as 5 million to 8.5 million additional GOP votes versus a President Obama victory margin of 5 million votes. And right around now, Mitt Romney would be pushing hard to implement his tax reform plan, and #44 would be launching the Obama Global Initiative.
Veuger:
The Tea Party movement’s huge success was not the result of a few days of work by an elected official or two, but involved activists all over the country who spent the year and a half leading up to the midterm elections volunteering, organizing, donating, and rallying. Much of these grassroots activities were centered around 501(c)4s, which according to our research were an important component of the Tea Party movement and its rise. … Unfortunately for Republicans, the IRS slowed Tea Party growth before the 2012 election.
As Veuger concedes, we don’t know — and perhaps cannot know — the exact impact the IRS targeting had on the Tea Party movement and how that translated into actual 2012 vote totals. Of course, the Romney campaign had other problems. AEI’s Henry Olson:
It’s called tyranny. I’ll wager that none of us who write for these Conservative sites don’t wonder if we will get a letter from the IRS, letting us know we are going to be audited until we are living in a cardboard box on the sidewalk. This is the power and control our fearless reader has been trying to get.
He has it now for all practical purposes and unless we can halt his totalitarian tendencies we will be at the mercy of the virtual brown shirts of the IRS. Our RINOs should be pressing for criminal convictions and the dismantling of the bureau that gave a president the most egregious abuse of power in our history. Take a stand or say goodbye to freedom and hello to statism, Obama Style.
yes I believe it did, it was part a big part of a screw up AMERICA,
he said he has to win at any price,
and he sold his soul to win. he called on the SHADOW WORLD,
and they came.
@Skook:
I do think about it especially when I write some contentious comments. It won’t stop me though as I will not be intimidated
I belive that the RINOs and many of the establishment Republican leadership are actually fine with a tyrannic big brother government so long as they are the ones in charge. Their problem is that their version of elitist, monopoly-game style crony-capitalistic can’t generate enough votes to put them in power without concessions to court the support of Conservatives. I don’t think these Washington DC insiders realized that by trashing the TEA Party and ignoring their complaints about the IRS, or that by treating Conservatives and the Libertarian factions of the GOP like “red-headed stepchildren”, that they were stupidly destroying any possibility of getting sufficient votes to beat Obama. Political “tools” like Rove just figured that Conservative dislike for Obama’s socialist regime would automatically give them the votes of all Republicans without even trying to reach out to the party factions. Rove and his ilk didn’t count on Conservatives to say “a pox on both of you” and stay home. It had little to do with this myth that Republican’s lost because of the “Hispanic vote”. The small share of the Hispanic vote that Republicans were getting was too s,all to make that much of a difference. What they lost was support amongst the party base by their moving the party leadership farther and farther into the big spending progressive RINO zone.
those big agencies in the GOVERNMENT could not care less of what happen to the citizens they like to reprimend and torment and intimidate,
they are protected by the UNIONS, just like the TEACHERS,
and they are set free to do their worse abuses and they know it will give them
to be known and to be given higher positions,
if the UNIONS would not be allowed in GOVERNMENT jobs,
you would see the big difference and they would work to help the citizens because they would be remindered the citizens pay their earning not the UNIONS who have taken even the power of the PRESIDENT who has to keep them happy or else, no more freedom in the GOVERNMENT,
the UNIONS bragg on hundreds of them making the win in the last election.
they have corrupt their first meaning of their beginning, they are no more believeble
but they are instead scaring the MEMBERS also, to preserve their number at any cost,
even if it take crimes to achieve their goal like winning the election, not for AMERICA, but for their own thug to keep his seat, they are willing to hurt the citizens and scare anyone exposing them.
this LEADERSHIP IS A SCARING ONE and we see it, they cannot hide anymore,