Dave Bitner isn't the only incoming Republican chairman who needs to assure tea parties. New RNC boss Reince Priebus raised the hackles of some tea partiers who feel they're not getting enough respect.
Politico.com reported Monday that while Priebus boasted of good tea-party relations when he chaired the Wisconsin GOP, leaders of those groups give his tenure mixed reviews.
"Some accused him of giving only lip service to the movement while stacking the deck against its candidates, shutting them out of the process or working to absorb them into the GOP," Politico stated.
Bitner, the Jefferson County state committeeman who on Saturday was elected chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, didn't even mention tea parties in his remarks at the RPOF meeting in Orlando.
Such slights -- real or imagined -- are roiling the conservative base in the GOP, here and nationally.
"Reince Priebus was not my first choice as chairman of the RNC. However, I am not nearly as concerned about his selection as I am about the fact that not one time did anyone speaking at the meeting give any credit to the tea party movement. This is very telling about their opinion and should be corrected if they want success in 2012," said Robin Stublen, a tea party activist from Punta Gorda.
Priebus, for his part, acknowledged at his election Friday, We need to play well in the sandbox with the tea party movement and the conservative movement.
Certainly in Wisconsin we did that. Were not in competition with the conservative movement. Were part of it.
But tea partiers aren't letting Priebus or the GOP off that easy.
Karin Hoffman, founder of a South Florida tea party group called DC Works for Us, noted that Priebus Milwaukee law firm helped clients secure stimulus funds.
That violates everything that the tea party movement has been fighting against, so the fact that the RNC voted for him shows that the party still doesnt get it at all, Hoffman told Politico.
Stublen was willing to cut some slack for Priebus, who said he was not involved in the stimulus work.
"Evidently other partners of the law firm saw things differently," Stublen noted.
But Erick Erickson, founder of RedState.com, wrote that tea partiers maintain concerns that Reince was too connected to former RNC Chairman Michael Steele. Others thought Priebus played a two-sided political game of siding with the controversial chairman and then attacking him.
Ultimately, Stublen says it's up to tea party members to work their will, and not to rely on the good graces of the Republican Party apparatus.
"It is the responsibility of the different tea party groups to become involved in their local Republican Executive Committees and start the process of change there, locally. Work from within to promote your message as well as in the public square," Stublen advised.
In Florida's case, rifts in the GOP spun off an independent TEA (Taxed Enough Already) political party, which fielded more than 20 candidates in the 2010 election. Though none were elected, party candidates garnered more than 300,000 votes statewide.
Ironically, the most vocal opposition to TEA came from other tea party groups, some of which collaborated to sue the party over its use of the tea name. TEA has prevailed in each case.
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Contact Kenric Ward at kward@sunshinestatenews.com or at (772) 801-5341.
