Sharron Angel & Christine O'Donnell Move The Tea Party To The Center

A curious thing has happened as Tea Party-supported candidates for the Senate in several GOP races have won their nominations.

The victors, including Christine O'Donnell of Delaware and Sharron Angel of Nevada, have corrected the mainstream media's depiction of the Tea Party as a right-wing fringe group of nutcases.

Instead, both candidates, and, I'm sure, others, have correctly described their Tea Party supporters as simply mainstream, independent voters who are fed up with the same ever-expanding federalism they get from professional politicians and federal office-holders of both parties.

As much as I admired and liked George W. Bush, and, for that matter, his father, for several things they did, and for what they supported, they both helped expand the federal welfare state. So has the Republican-controlled Senate and House in recent years.

Tea Party activists aren't a splinter group of crazy idealogues. Rather, their- our- ideas are currently popular and credible: shrink the size, scope, taxes, borrowing and spending of our federal government. Restore the federal government back to its minimalist role as a jointly-agreed upon single entity, by vote of the states, which implements the necessary- and only the necessary- federal actions which are required by the United States.

Many of us who have attended Tea Party events and donated time or money to candidates voicing these views see the federal government as having been improperly become an entity unto itself. Perhaps the best example of how this has perverted the Constitution is the so-called Supremacy Doctrine, whereby, whenever the federal government chooses to weigh in on an issue, it automatically supercedes states rights.

Somewhere in the past century, the limits of federal power were conveniently ignored, so that the federal officials insert themselves in matters of dubious legitimacy.

It's sufficiently noxious to merit its own amendment. And, with a little luck, may bring that about in reaction.

But back to the main point. This sort of federal overreach is why Tea Partiers aren't a fringe. Most Americans are appalled at the last 19 months of federal autocracy, and want their country and government back.

O'Donnell and Angel are merely two Senate candidates who understand that their views and those of the Tea Party activists are far more prevalent than mainstream media outlets, and, sadly, even the GOP, dare acknowledge.