On August 2, a statewide petition for Pennsylvania governor was filed by the Tea Party. The candidate for Governor is John Krupa, who had earlier expected to be the Constitution Party candidate for Governor. The Constitution Party did not feel it had enough funding to complete its own petition. But then a Tea Party group contacted Krupa and asked him to be its gubernatorial candidate, and he accepted.
The petition has approximately 24,000 signatures. The requirement is 19,056.
Any chance the Constitution Party still endorses him?
Yes, the Constitution Party endorsed him. Krupa is still a registered member of the Constitution Party.
There are bascially two (2) Tea Parties in the United States.
There is the “Tea Party” political party organization, and there is the “Tea Party” political action group
The former(except perhaps in the state of Michigan) are a group of people who desire a new party, and have latched onto the popular name “Tea Party.” For whatever reason (and I can certainly see why in many cases) they reject existing 3rd parties because they see so much “in-fighting” and “big frog in little pond” mentality among them.
The latter group is basically an unofficial appendage of the GOP. They prefer the GOP over any other party, but they see the Republicans failing them, and they hope their ancillory activities under the “Tea Party” mantle will cause GOP candidates to start paying more attention to them.
Of course, the GOP, just as it has in the past with other “grassroots” groups, initially ignored them, but now as a result of the strength they have shown in certain primary elections, are having to cozy up to them.
I really don’t see any permanent future for the Tea Party – either the “political party organization” or the “political action group.” Most of the former will either fizzle away or grit their teeth and join an existing 3rd party. While the latter will eventually go back to blindly voting GOP but without the enthusiasm they currently have.
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John Krupa is a man of considerable past political experience and an impressive grasp of state issues. He served for 12 years as a township supervisor and was a past GOP County Chairman in Clinton County. He most recently has been the Constitution Party County Chairman in Clinton County.
John is our candidate. We nominated him. He is one of us. We wholeheartely endorse him. The “Tea Party” that petitioned to put him on does not appear to be interested in anything of a long term nature, though one should never assume how things might play out in the future.
Since Gov and Lt. Governor run together as a ticket in the General Election in PA, we are hoping to place our excellent Lt. Governor, Ed Roberson on the ballot as well via the committee to fill a vacancy (I’m not going to get into the details of how that might work…if it does). Why they didn’t put him on the petitions I don’t know, but we are hoping to correct that.
So, this year, on the statewide ballot, the Constitution Party IS the Tea Party!
I would like to know which “Tea Party” is running a candidate under their banner. We have been fighting the perception that we are a political party for some time now… and now this.
FWIW:
For the record… the Lehigh Valley 9-12/Tea Party group does not run or endorse candidates.
Has this “tea party” established themselves as an actual official political “party”? Do they need to? Is there an issue of being “the teaparty” political party on a state wide ballet without official designation as a political party called “the teaparty”?
All of the “they aren’t the real Tea Party, we are” talk reminds me of the dozen or so 3rd parties with Socialist in there names…each claiming to be the only “true” Socialists in the country.
If the people who started the pressure group didn’t want anyone to think they were a political party, maybe they should have called themselves the Boston Tea-Throwers, or the Boston Tea-Patriots, or the Boston Tea-Movement. It was a mistake for them to have included the word “Party” in their name if they don’t want to be a party.
I don’t think getting a Lt. Gov. candidate on the ballot is possible for them at this point. As there was no candidate on the nomination papers who withdrew, there is no vacancy to fill. That was a bad error.
Also, it appears the number of signatures was more like 22,400.
And the requirement was 19,082.
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John Krupa IS NOT A MEMBER OF ANY TEA PARTY GROUP! He is a sham, and he’s a “front” for the Democratic Unions and the Democrats! He does not represent ANY GRASSROOTS MOVEMENT or any “Tea Party” organization! His ONLY purpose in running is to take votes away from Tom Corbett!