Another Stupid “Tent” Story
By Mitch Berg
Is the GOP a “big tent?” Or is it a “pup tent?”
The real answer is below.
But for the biennial pundit palaver on the subject, who better to ask than Doug Grow, who spent decades carrying water for the DFL at the Strib before decamping to the MinnPost?
“The idea of a big tent means different things to different people,” Sutton told MinnPost. “I believe we are a big tent, filled with right-of-center folks. We have social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, people who believe in a strong national defense. There’s a business wing, and we have those people who have a libertarian/populist streak. … But the unifier is the economy. People are anxious about the economy, about their jobs. That makes people more conservative. Business. Jobs. That’s our brand.”
Sutton, as should be expected, gets it right; the GOP should be open to everyone who believes in small government, prosperity for the individual, security and family.
And who better to ask about our tent size than someone who got kicked out of it for supporting bigger government and higher taxes?
But former Rep. Neil Peterson, who was drummed out of his party and office by conservative forces in Bloomington after joining five other House Republicans in overriding Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s veto of a gasoline tax, has a different view. He says the delegates gathering for this convention are not even close to the party regulars who supported him.
“When I was in office, we still had a fairly big tent in my district,” Peterson said. “But those people [the party activists] have all been replaced by much more conservative people. The party has moved from being a big tent to a pup tent.”
And Grow, like much of the Twin Cities media, audibly pines for the days when the GOP was basically nothing more than the DFL with better suits – a half-hearted speed bump to complete DFL domination.
The real answer is “the tent is as big as it needs to be; all who support prosperity, limited government, security and the family are welcome.”
It’s really pretty simple. If you’re not a reporter with decades of experience covering Minnesota politics, anyway.
April 29th, 2010 at 8:30 am
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by mitchpberg. mitchpberg said: How Big Is The GOP Tent? http://bit.ly/d9iWGE #narn2 #hhrs – Simple – big enough for all who want smaller government and lower taxes. […]
April 29th, 2010 at 9:29 am
Can we – pardon the expression – pitch this “big tent” concept once and for all? There isn’t a big tent and there never should have been (if there ever was). What you have is a number of tents, tee-pees or tribes that chose to affiliate for a time, coming in from their respective parts of the wilderness and making a big camp when there’s common cause. Each is willing to make minor adjustments in the interests of being neighborly but holds to its own customs. If the common cause is big enough, and clear, they’re willing to hang around the campsite. Start trying to create zoning ordinances and restrictions (or 382-plank platforms) and the tents and tribes start to say, “screw this, there’s a reason I was camping in the first place instead of being squeezed into identical little boxes” and depart.