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GOP-'tea party' link a sign of Democrats' 'desperation'?
Ed Gillespie, chairman of the Republican State Leadership Committee, told reporters at a Monitor Breakfast Thursday that DNC efforts to link the GOP to Tea Party positions ahead of midterm elections was a 'sign of their desperation.'
Ed Gillespie, chairman of the Republican State Leadership Committee, told reporters Thursday that he's happy to have a 'tea party' 'problem.'
Andy Nelson/The Christian Science Monitor/File
Washington
Ed Gillespie, chairman of the Republican State Leadership Committee, says it is a “pretty good sign of their desperation” for the Democratic National Committee to launch an effort this week to try to damage Republican candidates’ electoral chances by linking the GOP to the extreme elements of the Tea Party.
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'Tea party' a 'double-edged sword' for GOP, top Democrat says
Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, says Republicans have a more engaged voting base, thanks to the 'tea parties.' But the GOP's shift to the right could hurt it in the general election, he says.
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Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) Chairman Ed Gillespie responds to a plan recently rolled out by the Democratic Party to link the GOP to the Tea Party. "I think it's a pretty good sign of their desperation," says Gillespie. As for the Tea Party? "It's the right problem, and I'm happy to have it," he says.
Mr. Gillespie, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, spoke Thursday at a Monitor-sponsored breakfast for reporters.
He was asked about a plan announced Wednesday by the Democratic National Committee seeking to reinforce a link in voters’ minds between Republicans and Tea Party positions. DNC Chairman Tim Kaine released what he called the “Republican Tea Party Contract on America” which, he claimed, showed what Republicans would do if they took control of Congress in November’s elections. Items on the ten-point list included repealing Wall Street reform and health insurance reform, privatizing Social Security, and ending Medicare.
"They usually wait until October to start telling voters that Republicans are going to eliminate Social Security and Medicare. It is a sign of their desperation that they have started that in July this year,” Gillespie said.
The rise of Tea Party movement is a net positive for the Republican Party, Gillespie said. “I do find it somewhat amusing the notion that a wave and a flood of newly engaged voters who are concerned about debt and rising taxes and government intervention in our economy who are coming into the political process, many of them for the first time, is somehow a problem for Republicans.”
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