Ned & Jim Ryun ATTACKING the Tea Party for news coverage: “Defective” Tea Party Leaders?

Jim and Ned Ryun are now presuming to be leaders of the tea party movement through their organization "American Majority." Their marketing strategy is to sell their souls pleasing the liberal news media by attacking tea party candidates like Sharon Angle in Nevada and Christine O'Donnell in Delaware. The Ryuns are taking their 30 pieces of silver paid in undeserved, favorable news coverage.

However, the Founder of the Northern Virginia Tea Party -- whose territory covers American Majority's headquarters -- says he has never heard of them. The American Majority website lists Purcellville, Virginia, as their headquarters. Purcellville is in Loudoun County, one of the four main Counties covered by the Northern Virginia Tea party.

A search of the Federal Election Commission website shows a total of $0.00 raised and $0.00 spent by the Virginia-based American Majority Action, Inc. in the 2009-2010 election cycle.

Similarly, their website at www.AmericanMajority.com has been inactive until recently. The internet archiving website "Way Back Machine" shows that the Ryuns' American Majority project website had some activity from 2001 to early 2005, but had no content after February 2005, until just recently. http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.americanmajority.org. So their website was inactive until late in 2010.

So, the Ryuns were not significant players in the tea party movement or the 2010 elections. They want to tell us what happened in 2010 although they were not there. They are trying to run in front of the parade to tell the tea party movement what the tea party should do, including unfairly attacking Sharon Angle and Christine O'Donnell. They claim to have engaged in some training in Kansas, but never offered their training to tea parties near their official headquarters in Purcellville, Virginia.

Ned Ryun’s comments to The Politico are offensive to most tea party members: Ryun said: “I don't blame them, since most of these people are so new to the process, and they don't know anything beyond the protests.” http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/08/09/tea-party-running-out-of-money/

The tea parties do not need these groups coming along and telling us what we believe in or what candidates we should support. Those in the tea party already know what we believe. That is the very reason why we have gotten out of our living rooms and into the public square. We are tired of elites telling us what to think. The tea party movement believes we remember American values that the elites have cynically forgotten.

The Ryuns’ claim that they will create a ‘more sophisticated’ tea party movement. Yet the Ryuns’ own blunder of attacking leading tea party heroes like Christine O’Donnell and Sharon Angle showed a lack of sophistication, political skill, and even common manners. Similarly, the Ryuns talking down to tea party members like ignorant children is offensive and lacks the "sophistication" that the Ryuns claim to be offering. While the tea party is diverse, many members know more about politics and elections than the Ryuns do.

Before taking cheap shots at Christine O'Donnell or Sharon Angle, the Ryuns should understand that unfair attacks in politics are no indication of a person's quality or competence. In fact, the greatest 'threats' in politics attract the sharpest and strongest attacks.

The Ryuns themselves come under such attacks, yet don't appreciate that this is a normal part of politics. For example, the website "Left Brain Kansas" posted: "Ned Ryun...crazier than his dad?" http://leftbrainkansas.blogspot.com/2008/05/ned-ryuncrazier-than-his-dad.html

The Ryuns were (unfairly) featured in a website "Crooks and Liars": "What do you do when you live in Kansas, are the twin sons of disgraced Kansas Congressman Jim Ryun and you have access to a whole lot of money? What else? Start a non-profit organization to raise up a 'grassroots army'." http://crooksandliars.com/taxonomy/term/4803,13060

The Ryuns have themselves attracted the same kind of attacks from the Left as Sharon Angle and Christine O'Donnell. Yet, the Ryuns' hypocrisy in judging others for the same kind of issues proves the Ryuns are simply cashing in on the tea party. They are not sincere.

Are we to call the Ryuns' "defective tea party leaders" because of their weaknesses -- because they have been attacked by the Left?

Will the Ryuns teach their candidates and activists that the personal attacks against O'Donnell and Angle have been a staple of the Left for decades? Will they teach the party to join forces behind their candidate the way Democrats do? Will the Ryuns teach candidates and campaign leaders that a party cannot be succeed by forming a circular firing squad?

For example, Barack Obama has said an amazing number of crazy things: He visited 57 States. The US Constitution is 20 centuries old. He wants to put more inefficiencies in the health care system. Obama said "The time has changed to come." On and on.

SEE: http://www.ObamaGaffes.org (NOT .com)

And yet the Democrats and the mainstream media close ranks and defend their man. The Democrats know how to defend their candidates against attacks. Moderate Republicans join in the attacks to sink Republican candidates.

We obviously agree that training future candidates is a great idea. But what kind of training will it be?

The Ryuns will need to train candidates that the same old attacks and themes used against Christine O'Donnell and Sharon Angle have been used against almost every conservative since Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. Goldwater, of course, was not a social conservative, and yet the personal attacks were the same.

To train a future crop of candidates, the Ryuns must learn what the founder of the Republican Party, Abraham Lincoln, taught us:

A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF CANNOT STAND.

Teaching candidates to attack each other within their own party is not going to be a recipe for success. We expect that the Ryuns would be toast if they ran for political office against both their own party and the Democrat party like Christine O'Donnell did.. I am not sure what the Ryuns actually know about running a campaign worth teaching to a future crop of tea party candidates.

The Ryuns start their enterprise by selling their souls to the liberal news media for a little favorable news coverage. Will they really stand up to the political insiders and elites with the same courage as Christine O"Donnell and Sharon Angle? Having begun by selling themselves for favorable news coverage, where will they end up?