Obama

[Devereaux]

In the late 1850's, the creation of the Republican Party was the result of Whig intransigence on the issue of slavery. The Democrats were solid FOR slavery and so held the South. The Whigs basically held the North, but weren't about to come out against slavery - while THEIR populace was progressively anti-slavery. So arose the Republican Party - to whom much of the North flocked. And eventually so did most of the Whig politicians as the Whig ship was clearly sinking.

Today we see a somewhat similar situation with the Tea Party. It isn't - yet - an independent party, but if the Republicans don't get their act together, it may well go off and create a third party. THAT will cause some interesting results. There are the country-club Republicans who will have a difficult time with the TP's, in that mostly they are for not rocking the boat. Many, just as the Democrats, like big business, and so enact legislation that promotes big business over the smaller guy. This has a long and well documented history in this nation, and both sides have done it, just in different ways. Warren Buffet makes his billions regardless of who is in power or whose system is running. He makes it as a capitalist, or a socialist. He is big enough that he gets the attention of the government, who chooses to "partner" with him for this or that, while he goes off and makes his killings. His profit in BofA is simply playing the system. While he makes a little jaw-movement about "taxes on the rich" he has an army of lawyers to find ways to avoid paying tax. No philanthropist there.

IF the TP goes "third party" it will be something distinctly different than what we have seen up to now, at least in my lifetime. Up to now, 3rd party candidates were fringe-issue people who wanted to toss a monkey wrench into the system. The TP is a genuine grass-roots uprising of MANY of the citizens, who have common issues about how badly our government has dealt with us. Their issues imply sea-change in government approaches to our problems. We see to this day bitter resistance by the Democrats to any attempt to curtail the outrageous spending the govt is doing. We see Republicans opposing and the news claiming the people are tired of them all - and to a degree that is right. I believe that come 2012 the Republicans have a final chance to get the message right. Else there may well BE a third party - and the Republicans may well go the way of the Whigs.