NaughTEA Republican View of the WI Presidential Primary

On the eve of the Wisconsin Republican presidential primary, I am still searching to find a real Republican running to be our next US President.  After a non-stop, full week of Super PAC negative ads highlighting each candidates weaknesses and how each fails the corporate-funded TEA Party Patriots’ agenda, their inane rhetoric fails to inspire this Reagan Republican.

Newt Gingrich's campaign bus at a stop in Madison last week. (photo by Nicole Schulte)

While campaigning in our state, all of the remaining candidates have voiced their admiration for our soon-to-be recalled Governor Scott Walker.  The Republican National Committee will be pouring money into Wisconsin to defeat the recall of their ALEC TEA Party GOP poster boy. I am outraged at the blindness displayed by the leaders of my once proud party of Honest Abe Lincoln.

The once proud Wisconsin-born party was founded on the premise that, “Of Commerce and Labor: Labor should be of the prime importance, for without Labor, Commerce cannot exist,” and that all men were born free and equal.  It was a party of ultimate Statesmen who inspired our nation to believe in itself and our democracy of the people, for the people, by the people.  Now it has been reduced to the delegation of Corporate Robber Barons to whom party members owe loyalty.

Republican politicians offer favors to their cronies, the new Corporate People created by the U.S. Supreme Court “Citizens United” ruling of 2010, instead of representing the interests of those taxpayers who elected them to be their voice in our Government. Where is the candidate that can write that memorable patriotic speech to inspire me? Who can united this state, this nation that has become so divided so that we can begin to find bi-partisan solutions to common issues we face?

The Republican Party has come to embody the very thing it was formed to abolish in Wisconsin: The corruption of big business money influencing politics. “Fighting Bob” La Follette fought this type of Robber Baron Republican in the 1920’s, bringing the open and transparent Wisconsin Idea of populist democracy to our progressive state. When those who aspire to be President of our country start parroting the unpopular TEApublicCON Walker’s agenda as the kind of policies they hope to provide our country on a national level, I have to wonder if they are fit for this job.

The mutual endorsement between Romney and Paul Ryan has me wondering if this might be the future ticket if Romney wins the nomination.  But then I consider Rick Santorum and Walker’s religious war on women’s healthcare and their mutual concern that smaller government is restricting women’s access to contraceptives or equal pay.  If Santorum wins he could pick Walker as VP! Either way, the RNC saves the embarrassment of their Wisconsin rising stars from being badly beaten in a fair and open election for their betrayal of working class Wisconsinites.

Rick Santorum addresses the crowd at a Koch Brothers' Americans for Prosperity event last month. (photo by Whitney Steffen)

The extreme right wing Christian conservative TEA Party has taken a turn that betrays 50% of our population, openly declaring a TEAhadist War on Women.  I see my Party trying to set women’s rights back 100 years as I listen to politicians like Santorum saying women are not fit to serve in our military either emotionally or physically. I feel deeply betrayed as I am one of Wisconsin’s 28,000 female veterans.  Both Santorum and Romney have stated they will de-fund and dismantle Planned Parenthood.  Yesterday a Planned Parenthood clinic was bombed in Grand Chute, home of the John Birch Society.  Those descendants of the same Robber Baron Corporatists LaFollette defeated so long ago.

This is NOT my Republican Party! Who will I vote for today? Will I vote Barack Obama as my 87 year old mom-in-law, a 60 year Republican voter did? Or will I write in Bernie Sanders, the Vermont Senator who is the ONLY legislator in Washington D.C. who cares about people and refuses to toe a party line? Without a doubt, I cannot support a candidate who would betray the party base – those seniors, veterans, small business men and women – by denying them their right to vote through unconstitutional voter ID laws and their right to assemble or form a union; who would rather give corporate tax breaks to the corporate “job creators” who will either create those jobs overseas or pay minimum wage, or offer no healthcare benefit jobs.  They would rather give tax breaks to the wealthy than to fund our educational system, our BadgerCare GOP healthcare insurance, or our public services.

With the imminent recall of Scott Walker, the only Wisconsin Governor to ever set up a legal defense fund, I do not feel that any of the official Republican candidates who support this man who blatantly ignored the workers and farmers protesting his unconstitutional acts will ever understand what the loss of our Wisconsin Idea of populist democracy, our progressive Republican heritage, during this past 15 months in Fitzwalkerstan and the Grassroots Recall of the Corporate TEApublicCON Walker is all about.