By Brandon Kosters - Talk Radio News Service
As November’s midterm elections approach, the Democratic Party is moving to link the GOP with the extreme elements of the Tea Party movement.
Speaking alongside a handful of Congressional Democrats at a press conference in the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters Wednesday, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz said that in terms of policy, the GOP and the Tea Party are “one and the same.”
“Essentially, you don’t know where the Republican Party ends and the Tea Party begins,” Wasserman Shultz claimed.
While the Tea Party movement, essentially made up of a collection of conservative activists, has proven to be popular in some circles, it has at times walked a political tight rope. Tea Party favorites Sharron Angle (R) in Nevada and Rand Paul (R) in Kentucky both won their party’s Senatorial primaries due in part to their strict conservative platforms, but have taken a more moderate tone in recent months to garner centrist support.
The House Democrats who spoke at Wednesday’s conference criticized the Tea Party for their opposition to health care reform, Wall Street reform, the Environmental Protection Agency and the 17th Amendment to the Constitution, which gives citizens to directly elect their Senators.
“The Tea Party Republicans offer a retrograde, reactionary program for the American people that is extreme… [and] way out of the mainstream,” Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) said.