If you have read my requiem for the Republican Party, you know where I’m coming from. If not, go ahead and read it now. I’ll wait. Oh, and by the way, if you voted for Ron Paul last cycle you have no idea what I’m talking about, here. Matter of fact, just go put your tinfoil beanie back on and watch some cartoons, ‘kay?

There.

Good.

Let’s sally forth.

TEA is TOXIC. This is not an edict by the FDA, the USDA, the EPA or any other government agency. This is directly from me. Conservatives, Constitutionalists and any other limited-government stripes out there who are dissatisfied with the election and re-election of our sitting president need to stay away from the TEA. For that matter, they need to inoculate themselves against any and all virii that provide their opponents with great, big, stout clubs with which to beat them.

Why, you might ask, when the results the TEA backed folks at all levels have been wicked good stuff…well…yes, it has been. No one can argue the original premises of the entire TEA movement. What one CAN, (and indeed should), recognize is the abject histrionics of the Left whenever the term is applied. So great was the fear of the Left’s broad-brush smearing that it led to TWO Republican tickets that LOST the general elections. “TDS”, or “Tea Derangement Syndrome” is a malady that cannot be cured by increasing the dosage of the toxin. Similarly, “BDS” and “PDS”, (Bush & Palin Derangement Syndromes, respectively), wrought havoc, (and continue to), on all levels of discourse from 2004 extant.

Notice the way, in the 2012 cycle, that the current president didn’t use the celebrity power of former president Clinton. Notice, as well, the fact that candidates in many other races didn’t use the power of president Obama. Too much “baggage” on both counts. The savvy of the Left’s handlers was magnificent to behold. On the Right, the best we could do is to try and “moderate” our candidacies. “Centrist” was the mantra. But it didn’t, in the words of the philosopher, “Git-R-Done”. Neither McCain, (D-AZ) or Romney, (D-MA), running mates aside, represented a truly conservative skills/mind/values set. They were counting on the skills, beliefs and plain star power of their running mates and a, (hopefully), friendly legislature.

CPAC, (you remember CPAC…the “CONSERVATIVE” Political Action Conference), was this weekend. I was confounded to see Mitt Romney, (D-MA), at the podium. He had as much reason to be there as did the current president! Is CPAC dooming itself to the dustbin of political history? I think so. Rand Paul “won” the straw poll. Senator Rubio came in second. Together they garnered nearly half of the ballots cast. Not bad, but…with an eight percent take Rick Santorum came in third. ONE percentage point higher than number four…NJ governor Chris Christie…who beat out the 2012 V.P. nominee Paul Ryan. Position six went to Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, who marked five percent of the tally, ahead of Dr. Ben Carson and Sen. Ted Cruz, (tied for seventh place), with four percent each. Following even further behind were such conservative people as Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal, Nikki Haley and Rick Perry. Note please my parenthetical at the beginning of this paragraph. Compare that with the list of people presented. Does this represent the “C” in CPAC to you? It doesn’t to me. Maybe going forward it should be “L-PAC”?

Libertarians are not Conservatives. They’re SALAD DRESSING. A little oil, a little vinegar, some herb…shake it up and pour it out. Appetizing? Maybe. Nutritive? Hardly. Would we have been better off with them at the wheel for the last twenty-odd years? Yes, we probably would. But it’s too late for the salad course, now. We need to get to our meat and potatoes. Good, solid fare. No salad, no sushi. Nothing but solid food. Something we can, as a nation, sink our teeth into. And we can’t sink our teeth into TEA, either. It’s a DRINK. A drink every bit as addictive to Conservatives as “Kool-Aid” is to those on the Left. A drink every bit as toxic. It’s a hallucinogen that causes one to see things in a very distorted tunnel-visioned way. The biggest pitfall to avoiding ingesting something baneful is to test it with litmus paper. Sure, sounds like a very expedient test – the Left tests the Kool Aid to see if it turns blue and the Right to see if the TEA turns it red. Fair enough, but analytically it’s a bit lacking. The only “litmus” paper we should be bringing forth toward a candidate is the parchment of our founding documents.