Priebus speaking at McCain Town Hall 2008 - image norunny eggs blog
Newly elected RNC National Chairman, Reince Priebus, according to a very brief biography from the Associated Press Is a 38 year old lawyer from Wisconsin, who had risen to the top of the Wisconsin NRC, and has a stunning legal resume :
Served as committee clerk for the Wisconsin State Assembly Education Committee. Clerked for the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, the United States District Court, Southern District of Florida and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in Los Angeles.
He is married with two children.
A lengthier blog post, can be found here on The Republican National Convention Blog, which gives one a more in-depth look at the new RNC Chair’s life.
He is credited with the huge change in Blue Wisconsin, where Russ Feingold was defeated by Tea Party backed, Ron Johnson, and saw two Wisconsin Congressional seats go Republican. That said, one gets the impression, after reviewing Tea Party Blogs, that Mr. Priebus may understand the Tea Party (Politico story here), but they also understand him, and it is not necessarily complimentary: considering some that the two groups, The RNC and the Tea Party, although often joined in the minds of many, are two separate entities with two very different goals. The RNC is a political party and machine, while the Tea Party is a limited government, grass roots organization that is becoming more organized.
The commonality that concerns Mr. Priebus is the organizations (multitude thereof) ability to raise funds and also to put together impressive ground games that have no equal (with some exceptions, notably, the growing yet persistent Massachusetts Tea Parties).
With a crop of 2012 contenders for the White House that, of course, have not yet announced, he is walking very thin line as far as what happens when the primary dust settles (on or immediately following Super Tuesday (or whatever it will be in 2012 given the states propensity to continually roll back their primary dates); should Mitt Romney perform (despite beltway predictions), no better or nor worse than last time, will the RNC get behind whoever emerges as its torchbearer in 2012?
That’s going to be the crux of the matter – what if the nominee is a Tea Party backed candidate? (See Politico article where the author notes that the Republicans may have co-opted the Tea Party, but...then again, it might be the other way around – bet on the later.) States where the Tea Party candidate will do well on the national scale running in an RNC primary? Everywhere, including Massachusetts, California and very Conservative Upstate New York – the rest of the nation, south, Midwest and West –it is a given almost that should one of the front runners of the 2012 GOP presidential hopefuls have Tea Party “creds”, that person will, despite the best efforts of the beltway conservatives, and those who are known as “country club conservatives”, be the nominee. What remains to be seen however, is if they will put aside their insider ego and with the flow. It remains to be seen who will even through their hat into the ring, the speculation at present being on those most highly visible in past and present Republican events, however, it also remains to be seen if this one 38 year old from Wisconsin, home to the Green Bay Packers, will be able to continue to work with the Tea Party and push forward and push past Washington Beltway think, as quietly as possible, and pickup additional seats in the Congress, take the Senate and yes, the White House – with a Tea Party backed candidate. It’s more than a fine line he’s walking, and should he be able to pull that off? It will be one of the biggest political stories of the decade.
Suggested reading (tea leaves of course): Tea Party Patriots (46 listings), Wisconsin Tea Party.org, Tea Party.net (42 listings), and although somewhat aligned the Wisconsin 9-12 Project.
A note: the Tea Party is primarily a fiscal conservative, constitutionally based movement, while the 9-12 project, the brainchild of talking head, Glenn Beck, is a social and fiscally grounded organization, which at times joins with local Tea Parties in grassroots and planning efforts. However, keep in mind that they are two distinctly separate organizations with difference in ideology.
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