Samira wrote:
Sure, sure. My point is that she inspires the fringe, and that her candidacy will pull the party even farther to the right, because moderates have no balls in politics.
That's a good thing though. It's not necessarily about a "tea party candidate" winning the primary, but making sure that whomever does win has to spend time addressing the tea party issues. Most likely whomever does win will be a more moderate candidate, but if that moderate candidate can find a way to assure the tea party folks that he's got their principles in mind, while not scaring away the independents in the middle, that candidate will be a much stronger candidate and have a better chance of unseating Obama than one that just played the middle course from day one. Obviously, there are a ton of variables involved, and I'm not even going to attempt to guess how things will actually go. However, I do happen to think that the involvement in a broader set of issues based candidates in a primary is generally better for the party and it's also better for the people as a whole when a candidate comes out of the process.
I don't want fringe candidates winning too much power in high office. However, I *do* want their ideas and issues to be part of what's taken into account when those who do win take those offices. Where those fringe candidates do harm is when they don't win a primary and then embark on a third party debacle, which almost always ends out badly for them and the party they were originally working with. I don't think Bachmann will do that though, so I'm not too concerned about here influence "tearing the party". Pulling them a bit? Again, that's a good thing IMO. We need more Republicans at least talking about the conservative principles espoused by the tea party.