This is kind of sad: on Tuesday afternoon RNC Chairman Michael Steele went on Fox News to confess to Neil Cavuto his deep-seated and long-felt affinity for the Tea Party movement, claiming that Republicans and tea partiers are in fact kindred spirits. The following afternoon, however, Cavuto asked an actual tea partier if the attraction was mutual. It was not.
“As I like to tell people, long before there was this big push on tea parties, if I wasn’t doing this job, I’d be out there with the tea partiers,” Steele said on Tuesday. When Cavuto brought up the notion of a schism between the tea party movement and the Republican Party, Steele assured him, “The schism is, is not-… it’s overrated, to put it succinctly.”
On the same program Wednesday Cavuto put the question to Quincy, Illinois, tea party co-founder Steve McQueen:
CAVUTO: Retired Army Sergeant First Class and tea party activist Steve McQueen saying, “Not so fast Mr. Steele.” He joins me right now. Steve, you would say “not quite,” right?
MCQUEEN: Not quite, Neil.
…
The GOP is currently on probation with the American people and obviously you can’t be on probation and probably be a member of the tea paties at the same time.
