It looks like some members of the Republican establishment are starting to fear primary challenges by the Tea Party folks. The Wall Street Journal reports that Colorado Republicans have adopted a “Platform for Prosperity,” intended to placate populist outrage, and are strongly encouraging all candidates for state office in 2010 to get on board.
The platform stresses limited government, fiscal restraint, opposition to further stimulus spending and a determination, it says, to push back against “a federal government that is too big, too intrusive and all-too-eager to seize power from the states.”
Let’s just hope they mean that last part. There’s nothing quite so aggravating as politicians who preach states’ rights when the other party is running Washington, then proceed to trample the 10th Amendment with things like No Child Left Behind and Medicare Part D. But then again:
“At the end of the day, the tea partiers don’t have anywhere else to go,” said Eric Sondermann, an independent political consultant in Denver. “If they show up at the polls next year, it won’t be to pull the Democratic lever.”
Of course, thinking like that is what got us here. Voters should forget party labels and back candidates whose understanding of the Constitution mirrors their own. Only then will the people, not the federal government and its courts, rule again.
