A month ago, Vice President Joe Biden, who always seems to know the wrong thing to say and then says it, uttered my favorite quote from this election season:
This is not your father’s Republican Party. This is the Republican Tea Party, no this is a different deal, guys. This is not Bob Dole. This is not Howard Baker.
No doubt the silver-tongued Biden intended that as a dire warning, a wake-up call to his troops. But I’ll bet that millions of Americans reacted with a grin and thought, “I sure hope he’s right!” I know I did.
Recently, Dick Morris affirmed Biden’s point and expanded on it (emphasis added):
A fundamental change is gripping the Republican grass roots as they animate the GOP surge to a major victory in the 2010 elections. No longer do evangelical or social issues dominate the Republican ground troops. Now economic and fiscal issues prevail. The Tea Party has made the Republican Party safe for libertarians.
There is still a litmus test for admission to the Republican Party. But no longer is it dominated by abortion, guns and gays. Now, keeping the economy free of government regulation, reducing taxation and curbing spending are the chemicals that turn the paper pink.
It is one of the fundamental planks in the Tea Party platform that the movement does not concern itself with social issues. At the Tea Parties, evangelical pro-lifers rub shoulders happily with gay libertarians. They are united by their anger at Obama’s economic policies, fear of his deficits and horror at his looming tax increases. Obama’s agenda has effectively removed the blocks that stopped tens of millions of social moderates from joining the GOP.
Read the whole thing. I sure hope he’s right!