Jon Kay on the debate: blinded by contempt for the Tea Party

Jonathan Kay concluded his postmortem of the first Presidential debate with:

“... till last night, I supported Obama from afar, because I was alarmed by the degree to which the Tea Party fringe had co-opted the major GOP candidates, Romney included, on most of the major issues. Last night went a long way toward convincing me that a vote for Romney is not a vote for the Tea Party. ...”

It’s nice that Jon has seen the light but his “analysis” of the debate is blinded by his predictably misguided contempt for the Tea Party movement. As usual, he misunderstands and misrepresents its character and importance:

“... a raving Tea Party base that wants to gut government, destroy medicare and put copies of Atlas Shrugged in every hotel room bedside dresser, alongside the Gideon Bible.”

“... Romney sounded like a normal human being who cares about real flesh-and-blood people — the opposite of the Tea Party vision of America ...”

That’s a ridiculous, cartoonish, cardboard characterization. Sure, like the National Post, the Tea Party has a few extremists and flakes, but it’s a serious political movement with serious objections to Obama’s policies. It was largely responsible for the Republican’s regaining the House in 2010. Also, Paul Ryan, as a strong fiscal and constitutional conservative, is a Tea Party favourite. It’s one of the big reasons Romney picked him as his running mate.

Part of Romney’s problem (at least until the debate) was his inability to connect with independents and that he came across as a RINO (another John McCain) to more conservatively minded Republicans. However, Tea Party Republicans were delighted with Mitt Romney’s debate performance saying that he had never sounded so conservative. So, maybe Jon’s vote for Romney is a vote for the Tea Party after all.

Furthermore:

“... When the subject turned to health care, he didn’t talk about ‘death panels.’”
[Maybe not literally (he’s not an idiot), but he did say that under Obamacare there would be federal review boards deciding who would or would not get what types of care. It’s not a far stretch to “death panels”.]

“On green energy, he didn’t recite crank talking-points about global warming being an unproven myth or a UN plot.”
[Not in so many words (he’s not an idiot) but he said he’d get oil exploration and production, off-shore and on-shore, cranked up, big-time. Implicitly he was saying that global warming is not a serious consideration. Whatever it is, the economy trumps it. And, alternative energy is, maybe, sometime in the future, a possibility.]

"... Obama ... refrained from mentioning the “47%” meme, or similarly snide tweetables)...."
[Virtually all the American heavyweight media pundits, liberals and conservatives alike, were unanimous in being mystified why Obama didn’t use the 47% “meme”. One Dem supporter called it “political malfeasance” on Obama’s part.]