The Tea Party Tries To Stir Up Controversy

You have to give credit to Republicans. They know how to make the media jump do their bidding. Republicans have been hammering away at a story from New Jersey where aides on Democrat John Adler’s campaign helped a Tea Party candidate gather signatures to get on the November ballot. One of those aides now works for the Coons campaign and two Tea Party groups are trying to stir up the controversy here.

Two tea party groups and a conservative grassroots organization have called for a press aide to Democratic Senate candidate Chris Coons to resign or be fired for his role in gathering signatures for a “fake” Tea Party candidate in a South Jersey congressional race.

Leaders from the Independence Hall Tea Party PAC and Delaware-based Diamond State Tea Party and Common Sense Communities Society held a news conference this afternoon outside the Delaware Democratic Party headquarters in New Castle to denounce Coons aide Marshall Spevak’s role in the matter.

Spevak gathered signatures and signed a petition this spring to put Peter DeStefano on the ballot as the “NJ Tea Party” candidate, creating a three-way race with Republican Jon Runyan and Democratic incumbent U.S. Rep. John Adler.

First of all, isn’t it odd that Tea Party groups are angry about a Tea Party candidate being on a ballot? I thought they claimed to be “independent.”

The Tea Party groups held a press conference about a topic that I doubt most people understand or care about and got the media to show up. In my opinion, this story is going nowhere. For one, it’s too hard to explain to people who don’t care about politics. For another, it’s not illegal nor particularly unethical. I do have to admire the Republicans for creating a scandal out of a practice they’ve been doing for at least a decade. Many Republican campaigns have gathered signatures to get Green Party candidates on the ballot, in hopes of pulling a few percentage points away from the Democratic candidate.