Did TEA Party Star Cut A Deal With Romney?
By Dell Hill
Just
when you thought it might be safe to rejoice over the young, dynamic
Conservative voices leading the TEA Party charge, something happens to
throw cold water on the Republican party. The most recent ten-gallon
pail is the result of an investigation by Robert Stacy McCain - TheOtherMcCain - who filed this exclusive report on Thursday.
“When Florida defied Republican National Committee rules to move the state’s 2012 presidential primary
from an RNC-approved March date to Jan. 31, conservatives immediately
suspected that state party insiders had orchestrated the move to help
former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney thwart the momentum of Tea
Party-backed candidate Herman Cain. Some Florida activists focused their suspicion on moderates in state party leadership
– allies of Senate candidate George LeMieux and of former Gov. Charlie
Crist — as orchestrating the change in the primary date. The move was
seen as helping the centrist Romney, whose superior fund-raising
resources would enable him to score an early knockout in the Sunshine
State before Cain could fully leverage the boost he got from an upset victory in a Sept. 24 Florida GOP straw poll.
Yet
while the moderate Republican faction in Tallahassee was immediately
blamed for the primary date-switch, only insiders knew that a key factor
was a push from inside the staff of the Tea Party’s own 2010 hero, Sen.
Marco Rubio. GOP sources in Washington and Florida say that Rubio’s
senatorial chief of staff, Cesar Conda, has been a major force in
persuading Florida Republicans to move their primary to January.”
As is usually the case, this story gets a little complicated, but if you read the rest of Stacy’s exclusive report, you’ll readily see why this move may NOT have been in Marco Rubio’s best political interests.
As
of this writing, there’s no statement from the Rubio camp concerning
this report. However, if Marco Rubio doesn’t come up with a believable
denial, several million TEA Party supporters - who strongly oppose Mitt
Romney as just another RINO - will be extremely displeased.
Stay tuned for updates.
UPDATE: It took a while but Rubio himself has denied there's any truth to this report.
ReplyDeletehttp://shark-tank.net/2011/10/14/20562/
He says it was all "made up out of thin air".
The facts suggest otherwise.