"Reelect Obama to Stop the Tea Party"
by Nicholas Ballasy on The Daily Caller
Former Obama administration adviser Van Jones said the country should re-elect President Barack Obama to “stop the tea party” because former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney would “govern as a tea party president.”
Jones also said that some of Obama’s supporters misunderstood Obama as a “social movement leader” after his victory in the 2008 presidential race rather than as “head of state.”
“We have to win politically in November to stop the tea party. We don’t want a tea party presidency, and I don’t care what you think about Mitt Romney. If we wins, he’ll win because the tea party got excited enough — that base got excited enough — he will have to govern as a tea party president so we don’t want a tea party president,” Jones said Friday at The Center for American Progress during a discussion about his The New York Times bestseller “Rebuild the Dream.”
“You’ve got to build an independent progressive movement that can both help to re-elect the president, but it also can re-energize the movement because we’re going to have to be able to both have somebody in the White House — who will listen to the people and who can be moved by the people — but we also have to have a movement to do the moving. And the last time we came out of the voting booth cheering; this time we’ve to come out of the voting booth marching. I mean, we’ve got to be very clear. We’ve got to pivot right into another big fight.” Read more: The Daily Caller
Jones also said that some of Obama’s supporters misunderstood Obama as a “social movement leader” after his victory in the 2008 presidential race rather than as “head of state.”
“We have to win politically in November to stop the tea party. We don’t want a tea party presidency, and I don’t care what you think about Mitt Romney. If we wins, he’ll win because the tea party got excited enough — that base got excited enough — he will have to govern as a tea party president so we don’t want a tea party president,” Jones said Friday at The Center for American Progress during a discussion about his The New York Times bestseller “Rebuild the Dream.”
“You’ve got to build an independent progressive movement that can both help to re-elect the president, but it also can re-energize the movement because we’re going to have to be able to both have somebody in the White House — who will listen to the people and who can be moved by the people — but we also have to have a movement to do the moving. And the last time we came out of the voting booth cheering; this time we’ve to come out of the voting booth marching. I mean, we’ve got to be very clear. We’ve got to pivot right into another big fight.” Read more: The Daily Caller
“If you only have formal control of the government, but you don’t have the media
and you don’t have the movement, you can be checkmated”
~Van Jones
Video: Has the Tea Party Lost Power?
