Why Pataki is important

By Bernie Quigley

For The Hill on 4/26/10

There can be seen now two schools of Republicans. Bush Republicans and Perry Republicans. This took form in Texas Governor Rick Perry’s recent primary race when Dick Cheney, George H.W. Bush, Karl Rove and Karen Hughes (W’s proxy) lined up behind Kay Bailey Hutchinson and Sarah Palin lined up behind Rick Perry. Perry won in a landslide. But the sides had already been drawn up for and against in Doug Hoffman’s Conservative Party challenge in NY 23. It was the moment of the significant turning. Palin and Perry were there and Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty showed up after the brush was cut, while Newt Gingrich and the party regulars lined up behind the traditional Republican. But George Pataki, former governor of New York, was there first. The Bush clan is now sidling up to Tea Party types; Cheney to Rubio in Florida, Mitt Romney to Nikki Haley in South Carolina. But George Pataki was there first.

He told The Hill that he won’t rule out a Presidential race in 2012. He’d be a great addition to a line which would hopefully include Perry, Palin and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. That would leave Mitt Romney holding the coat for the Bush people. But all of these others add substance and character to what is the sea change known as the Tea Party. It is heartland-based and the American century ahead will find its strengths and prosperity in the American heartland.

The fledgling spirit of the Tea Partiers, like Tamino, may need three words for guidance on its journey to maturity. Those words might be: passion, perspective and packaging. Palin provides passion and Perry the comprehensive abilities of a well-run and healthy state manager. But Pataki provides perspective. His recent six-stop tour, Revere America, geared to repealing Obamacare, adds class and character to this grassroots movement.

“Obama’s government controlled health care significantly jeopardizes jobs, our economy and our children’s futures by spending one trillion dollars and adding $600 billion in new taxes on families and businesses,” says Pataki. “ObamaCare represents an unprecedented overreach of the federal government into the lives of individuals and tramples on the Constitution as evidenced by 19 states filing suit against the federal power grab.”

It is of vital importance that this movement include someone from the northeast, preferably New York, or it runs the possibility of dangerously dividing red states from blue. Giuliani has the passion but not the perspective. Pataki is that man. Honest Jeffersonian strengths are growing in the heartland, reaching already beyond the states challenge to Obamacare. Minnesota and other states are now formulating legislation which would build a high legal threshold to any future federal legislation. These strivings are necessary and must find equitable solutions in our time.

And as long as Bill Mayer, Noam Chomsky, Frank Rich, Tiny Fey and David Letterman scorn the Tea Party and Sarah Palin – German fascists, Ku Klux Klan, slut, “two-headed circus freak dog” I read about Palin in a North Carolina newspaper this week; writes on her hand and has a Garfield calendar on her desk - the movement will grow and clarify. This debased commentary suggests a troupe of vampires in the twilight and triggers an archetypal and instinctive Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, conditioned reflex out there with the plain folk in Sunnydale, and she comes with a sword.