According to an AP article today in The Advocate, the Louisiana Tea Party Federation “issued a statement blasting the Tea Party of Louisiana and Roger Villere, the GOP chairman for the state and a candidate for lieutenant governor.”

 Robert Gaudet is a leader on the federation–representating of 20 state tea-party groups including the Tea Party of Louisiana–and  claims that Villere is using the tea party movement to further his campaign.

 Uh.Yeah. Duh.  Why wouldn’t he?

The issue that I have isn’t with Villere’s “attempt to co-opt the tea part movement.”  Honestly, what Republican in his right mind wouldn’t want to take advantage of such a powerful movement?  My issue is that the tea party should stand against the GOP establishment that has consitently cranked out a product of half-baked conservatives content to concede to the Washington liberal agenda.

So, of course Villere wants to use the momentum of the movement to fire up his campaign, it’s good politics.  But it is also the same establishment politics that has left us with middle of the road Republicans, lacking the will to stand up for the Conservative ideals that the American people are calling….no, screaming for in this election.  Maybe Villere will represent tea-party conservative policy as lieutenant governor, but then maybe he won’t.  I don’t have the answer to that.

But what I can say for sure is that the tea-party shouldn’t be out there preaching against the establishment Republican culture and then turning around and endorising the leader of that culture in our state.  Villere might be a nice guy, clearly hes a good politician, and he might represent the conservative movement well.  That doesn’t matter though.  As I said, he might be a good candidate to endorse, but the Tea Party of Louisiana has absolutely no buisness being involved in that endorsement.

If he is a quality candidate, and you think so, get over it.  He needs to be a necessary casualty of a conservative movement inherently against the established GOP half-baked policy. “We’ve never claimed to be an umbrella group for the entire tea party movement,” Chris Comeaux, the leader of Baton Rouge-based Tea Party of Louisiana, is quoted as saying in the article.  Really? Then why are you connected with a federation of 20 tea-party groups representing the entire tea-party? I don’t listen to what you say, buddy, I look at what you do.  And so should all responsible citizens.

The issue that a sect of the tea-party movement has endorsed a GOP chairman is scary to me.  We worked this hard to fire up the conservative base against the establishment, and now we have a Baton Rouge-based representative of that revolution colluding with the very establishment the general movement was formed to reject.  We are conservative.  So, let’s not adopt a anemic state of mind about this issue.  If we stand against lukewarm Republican centrists, then let’s not be hypocrites.  Let’s stand up and show the guts that we claim to bring to the table.  If we carry that mindset it is absolutely hypocritical to endorse the leader of the state Republican establishment we claim to be vehemently opposed to.

Get some guts, Tea Party of Louisiana.  The rest of your movement sure as hell has.