For the most part, I don’t really care what they’ll do, but there is one point worth noting:
“I can’t say the tea party support for Rick Perry is very strong, but the opposition to Bill White is intense,” said Don Zimmerman, a state Republican executive committee member who is active in tea party groups around Austin. “I’m supporting Rick Perry, but \u2026 I’m working more on the down-ballot races.”
Many tea party activists have remained silent on the gubernatorial contest, instead focusing on congressional and statehouse races in the Nov. 2 election, said Greg Holloway, a board member for the Austin Tea Party Patriots. Those voters, he said, realize the importance of the Legislature’s decisions on issues such as voter identification, immigration and health care.
Tea party voters who have an anti-incumbent bias and supported maverick candidate Debra Medina in the GOP primary may turn away from Perry and toward Libertarian Kathie Glass or may not vote, Holloway predicted.
For any of this to be meaningful, you have to accept the premise that “tea party” and “Republican Party” are two distinct entities. They’re not – note that in this context, we’re talking about people who voted in the Republican primary – but for the sake of argument, let’s skip over that. If there’s going to be any kind of significant Libertarian effect in the Governor’s race, it’s going to come from these people, Republicans who for whatever the reason don’t want to support the Republican candidate for Governor. It’s my opinion that party affinity is a frequently underestimated force, which is why I don’t put that much stock in predictions of Kathie Glass getting a significant number of votes. I could be wrong about this. Certainly, the 2006 campaign showed that people can be persuaded in large numbers to abandon their party for an alternative. The question is whether or not they’ll do it on their own accord, since Kathie Glass has neither the resources nor the personal following to do more than a token amount of that persuading. I say no, but we’ll soon see.
On a side note, this guy thinks the teabaggers should be abandoning Perry. Fine by me, I’m just not counting on it.
Shouldnt’ the Teabaggers be called the Anthill Party?
They run around like ants acting like they’ve just had their anthill step on. They’re all angry, but don’t know what the heck is going on and who to attack.
Bill White means gridlock in the Texas legislature which means they can’t take more of my freedom by passing a bunch of leglislative partisan trash.
This conservative voter will do anything to fire Rick Perry and his corporate buddies, even if it means throwing my vote to Kathie Glass.
Think about it Texans. Hold Austin hostage vote against Perry.