I have a home in Utah, come from the city boasting the Reagan Presidential Library – Simi Valley, Calif. – and have an office near Nashville, Tenn., which serves as a second home. I love the people in these areas; they are the salt of the earth. Could be that I’m comfortable around conservatives and people of faith, or maybe it’s just the water I drink. But one thing I know; after armchair monitoring of political events for forty years, I can read political tea leaves.
Being a self-appointed member of a non-organized national grassroots Tea Party movement, and a founder of an online group dedicated to educating principles in constitutional leadership and conservatism – Reagan Revolution 2 – I instinctively knew what the outcome to Utah’s Republican Convention (held Saturday) would be.
Even so, I traveled to Salt Lake City to watch the results. Here are some of the tea leaves I had been following and why the reflection in the teacup didn’t show Sen. Bob Bennett’s face to me for the last couple of months. I personally like and trust him. Yet he’s made some moves and cast votes causing doubts among Utahans who have a genuine affection for him. Now their convention just rejected the veteran for untested newcomers. Is this a portent of things to come? Read the tea leaves, friend.
Ingredients to understanding current political tea leaf reading:
The American Experience: I, along with many of my baby boomer colleagues, are old enough to have witnessed dramatic transitions in political play and power. Many 50+ years old now, veterans of wars and tough economic cycles, can claim having lived approximately 1/4th the time our country has been a Republic (222 years). We have comparisons of good politics and bad, good times and bad, validating our feelings for freedoms enumerated by the voices establishing our republic. Most live in the heartland and are invigorated for the most important fight of our lives; saving America.
American Values and Big Government: Quintessential American values of thrift, hard work, fair play, risk and reward, faith, self-motivated charity, are juxtaposed to “big government” rule. Americans watched rights whittled away over decades by politicians amassing personal power and influence. They witnessed the creation of a centralized power structure sapping life blood from the world’s strongest economy while offering an unsustainable entitlement state on the brink of bankruptcy. Anyone associated with the “status quo” of Washington DC are, by default, suspect and weakened as candidates for re-election.
But wait, there’s more!
People Empowerment: The “tea party” has tasted the exhilaration of victory and are now addicted to their power to foment changes into formerly static and unchallenged political machinery. These lovers of the American Constitution are called, “right wing elements of the conservative movement” by news media. They call themselves patriots.
Because of heart-felt love for country they are going to neighborhood caucuses in numbers never before witnessed. I had never known a “delegate” before this state convention. I knew eight delegates this round; all first timers.
Do I have to explain? The people, fed up with the “status quo,” are willing to step up and impose the “term limits” on a Congress which refused to consider the issue before.
More predictions from my tea cup:
In Utah: Utah Senator Orrin Hatch will wrap up these next two years in style. He will be challenged in 2012 and lose if he does not retire. Most Utahans will not tolerate another six years of Mr. Hatch, also a good man. They have determined 35 years is long enough.
The RNC: They will downsize to the level corporate and other interest group donors offer. The people have lost faith and will donate directly to candidates of their choosing – across state lines – due to sophisticated social media networking and new technology for direct donations.
Democrats: Losing the House and Senate in 2010, they retain inner cities, the media elites, socialists, hard left, unions, corporate contract and other dependent types. These will fight with extreme anger, lies, distortions, and pejoratives against the tide of genuine American conservatism and patriotic emotion sweeping the country.
No Third Party: Tea Partiers aren’t stupid. They watched the UK this week and remember races of the past. However, they will no longer simply hold their noses and pull the lever for a “Republican.” Goodbye 50% of the incumbents, hello Tea Party approved candidates.
Will this spirit prevail through 2012? No. It will grow for as long as America remains a republic.
If you can’t foretell what lay ahead in American politics, you are hiding your head in the sand, or just too emotionally challenged for the rigors of tea leaf reading.
James Michael Pratt is a New York Times bestselling novelist and non-fiction author of nine works , CEO of PowerThink Publishing, public speaker, and Founder of Reagan Revolution 2. Email: james@powerthink.com.