Michael Caputo suggests that the Tea Party is cracked in NYS. Well clearly Caputo is cracked, because the Tea Party is alive and well and getting stronger. When people who call themselves Tea Party pit a pro-partial birth, pro-union deep pocket who supports collective bargaining against a good conservative candidate like Jane Corwin, naturally there’s gonna be some contention. But we have a very solid network of Tea Party, Patriot, 912 and other reform groups working together across the state with virtually NO contention. We’ve made strides, but we’d be a whole lot further if this rogue group wasn’t working overtime to discredit us with non-stop attacks and bogus accusations. Their main antagonist wildly contends that Rus Thompson endorsed Jim Domagalski for the 59th Senate race, which goes much to the source of the conflict. Yet neither Rus Thompson nor TEANewYork endorsed Jim Domagalski for that seat, and didn’t even express a tiny measure of support for him, though Carl Paladino did against our very strong advice. Coniglio knows all this, but for whatever reason, he continues to perpetuate the lie.
Any of TEANewYorks attempts to resolve the conflict have been met with attacks, demonstrating that this “coalition” is a completely counter-productive entity. They do not represent many of the shared Tea Party values, and putting up candidates with some very strong liberal positions is not helping their cause.
Correction: Michael tells me that “cracked” comment was WBEN’s title, not his … I also feel a need to qualify that though we did not support or endorse Jim Domagalski, we felt he was very decent individual with strong conservative values, and at least deserved our consideration. As the new Chairman of the Erie County GOP in 2006, he was a breath of fresh summer air after a long cold winter with RINO Bob Davis.
Just last night at a Niagara Patriot Candidate Forum, Jack Davis flipped his long-standing position on abortion, saying he is particularly abhorred by partial-birth abortion. O Glory Be! When asked to clarify if that position included the defunding of Planned Parenthood, Jack accused long-time Niagara Patriot, and new Grand Island Republican committeeman Mike Madigan of being a GOP plant, then promptly marched out of the room. Jane Corwin was asked the same and stated that she would definitely vote to defund Planned Parenthood.
I also drove an hour every day for three days to Derby, and spent 4 to 6 hours gathering signatures on Dave DiPietro’s Conservative petitions, to ensure he got onto the ballot. I will always consider Dave a friend, no matter how much the TCP falsely vilifies us.
~Jul