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Erick Erickson Follows Up Abandoning The Tea Party Movement With New RNC Attack

by Frances Martel | 4:01 pm, April 17th, 2010

» 9 comments

RedState Editor and CNN Contributor Erick Erickson has taken the offensive against the right lately. It began when he called for an end to the Tea Party movement, and now he’s taken on the Republican Party for an appearance by RNC Chairman Michael Steele at Al Sharpton‘s National Action Network. Is there a place on the right for someone who is neither a tea partier nor a Republican?

In a post titled “If You Give Money to the Republican Party, You Subsidize Al Sharpton,” Erickson attacks Steele for appearing at a National Action Network event and funding Sharpton. He also says he would love to see Steele deposed but reckons that the battle to get him out of there, what with the race issue, would not be worth bleeding the party dry:

One wonders the reaction if donors were told their hard earned dollars that they sent to the RNC to help elect Republicans were instead flowing to Al Sharpton.

I have no faith in Michael Steele to lead the Republican Party. He knows and I know it would be a bloody fight to remove him and he’d just hurl the race card with impunity.

On the one hand, even if Sharpton were a right-wing actor, RNC funds should exclusively be going to promote the election of Republican candidates to public office, so Erickson does have a point. On the other hand, compared with all the other stuff Steele has been spending on, giving a few dollars here and there to an organization promoting racial tolerance is probably a step in the right direction.

Erickson’s attack after his words against the Tea Party are forming somewhat of a pattern, though. He is no longer a predictable, one-dimensional right-wing actor. Sure, he promotes the propagation of his image as one-dimensional through things like his Census “shotgun” comment, but so far he has also identified himself as a right-winger that eschews both the Tea Party movement and the Republican Party and works on CNN, not a network traditionally trusted by the right. The only other choice for him by process of elimination is to be a libertarian, but he’s way too socially conservative to be that. He is certainly conservative, with an emphasis on social conservatism and family values, but social conservatism alone does not a wing identify (ask any of the millions of LGBT people oppressed by left-wing dictatorships). So where does that leave him, how many people will follow him there, and is this an early indication of even further splintering off within the right? The tent is getting awfully big, even if on the main points there is an extraordinary amount of cohesion, and the increasingly vocal opposition to some within it from people like Erickson could become either extremely constructive or extremely problematic.

Al Sharpton, Erick Erickson, GOP, Michael Steele, National Action Network, Red State, Republican Party, Tea Party, Tea Party Movement

disgusted

They ALL have ‘em!
republicanblack

You know Brown is doing the right thing. I don’t know how many videos I have seen with tea partiers throwing out people who are supporting health care or are against the tea prty candidates. But I have never seen people with the signs and the bigoted posters getting thrown out like everyone else. So this notion that there are a few bad apples or SEIU plants is stupid and a lie. Sarah better get her act together and denounce these freaks that claim Obama is a communist nazi and get on or she will not be viable in the future, check the story

http://bit.ly/brVSs1
TylerDurden

Who the hell is this dbag to call for the end of the tea parties?

BTW, republican black, BHO is a socialist.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Bill-Adkins/1585417987 Bill Adkins

If CNN’s goal is to increase their ratings, Erickson is no way to do it.
Glenn.Bovine.Merrill

Tea bagging bowel movement.

RIP.

Scratch that.

GO AWAY AND DON’T CALL, LOSERS.
marcus.lewis

Don’t worry—Erick isn’t moving towards the center since being on CNN and still is on the right. Erick doesn’t like the tea party, because they could potentially break away into a third party and would hurt the republican party. He doesn’t like the RNC because he feels they make idiotic choices for candidates.

Also, he has an absurd theory regarding Obama’s response to the Polish President’s plane crash.
http://www.isil.org/resources/introduction.swf Starchild

The Republican Party should be hurt — and so should the Democratic Party. Both organizations are run by the corrupt, the power-hungry, and the greedy. They effectively function as a political cartel that rules the United States and doesn’t allow alternative political parties to effectively compete.

We need a system of proportional representation, where a party that gets 5% of the votes for Congress gets 5% of the seats in Congress. That would break up the establishment old boys & girls club.

If you vote for the “lesser evil” you’re still voting for evil. At some point we’ve got to bite the bullet and stop supporting either the elephants or the donkeys. Hopefully before the economy totally collapses or the U.S. becomes a full-blown police state.
Sunnyr

This guy is a total ZERO!! I unsubscribed to his blog, Red State, because of his stupid mouth. I don’t know who the hell he thinks he is, but he cannot stop over 2 MILLION motivated Tea Party patriots. He can go to Helen Waite. The Tea Party people have more brains than this IDIOT and they have no intention of forming a 3rd party.
peteersimmons

The shelter is getting awfully big, even if on the important points there is an extraordinary amount of cohesion, and the progressively vocal opposition to some within it from grouping like Erickson could embellish either extremely constructive or extremely problematic.
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