Roundup: A Friday Look At The Tea Party

Labor Day is almost here, which means that the race to election day is here as well. The uber-conservative Tea Party has had a lot of success in getting their anti-government, anti-choice candidates installed as the GOP nominees in races, but how are these extreme candidates doing overall?

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer may have started way before the Tea Party went into full swing, but her overseeing of numerous pieces of anti-choice legislation since she went into office (not to mention the highly controversial immigration law) likely grandmothers her into the movement itself. But it may be a bit harder for her to win re-elections with public appearances like this [10]:

Despite some greatly sexist attacks against his female opponent (like telling people to vote for him because he doesn't wear high heels [11]), Colorado Tea Party candidate Ken Buck made it through the primary and is now focusing his aim on Democratic senator Michael Bennet. But how are the voters going to react to the news that Ken Buck is for eliminating birth control?

Via the Colorado Independent [12]:

Buck spokesman Owen Loftus said that Buck is against any drug that prevents a zygote from attaching to the uterine wall, but he added Buck does not feel that most common forms of contraception would be banned if November’s Personhood Amendment (62) passes.
“Most forms of birth control aren’t included in this, so like the pill, condoms and other types of contraception that are commonly used aren’t included,” Loftus said.

Of course, this assumes that you aren't playing the "but the pill might cause an ABORTION! [13]" game like the anti-choice like to play, as the story points out as well:

Representatives of the Personhood campaign [14] have said that barrier forms of contraception will remain legal if the amendment passes. NO on 62 members do not disagree, but note that many common forms of birth control, including the pill, would likely be outlawed by Amendment 62.

Finally, in Delaware, one Tea Party candidate has taken abstinence to a whole new level [15], stating that masturbation is bad as well. Via Huffington Post:

The Delaware Republican, who is challenging Rep. Mike Castle in the state's Senate primary and has earned the financial backing of a portion of the Tea Party movement, made an appearance [16] in the MTV series "Sex In The 90s." Entitled "The Safest Sex Of All," the episode was ostensibly geared towards understanding the importance of abstinence. But O'Donnell's guidance went a bit further. Masturbation, she argued, is not a moral substitute for sex. "The Bible says that lust in your heart is committing adultery. So you can't masturbate without lust."

"The reason that you don't tell [people] that masturbation is the answer to AIDS and all these other problems that come with sex outside of marriage is because again it is not addressing the issue," she extrapolated. "You're just gonna create somebody who is, I was gonna say, toying with his sexuality. Pardon the pun."

Mini Roundup: The right is blaming the Discovery Channel gunman on the left [17]. The left can find ways to link him to the right [18]. Let's all just agree that he was nuts [19] and leave it at that.

Roundup: A Friday Look At The Tea Party

September 3

September 2