ProgressOhio

Last month, over 150 reporters came to cover a 600 person Tea Party event. Last week, 113 politicians showed up for a 100 person Tea Party rally in West Chester. Why? Because, fed by Fox and friends, our nation’s politics are as polarized and dogmatic as ever. While majorities pay lip service to bipartisianship, we are fascinated by purity on both sides of the aisle.

When you get to the top not because of the quality of your ideas or your record of service, but your driven snow levels of purity, hypocrisy is unavoidable. In the case of many Tea Partiers, Scott Brown prompted their first encounter with situational purity (a phrase I borrowed from a sharp Statehouse observer). Suddenly, supporting a pro-choice, pro-universal health care (for Massachusetts only, mind you) centerfold was all the rage.

Inevitably, now that he is in the national spotlight, Brown will step on a landmine or two as he navigates trying to effectively represent his constituents while servicing the far right rhetoric that got him there. I suggest he call Pat Tiberi who just found out what sort of problems Tea Party pandering can get you into. It was revealed recently that although Tiberi was publicly railing against stimulus funds, he secretly fighting to bring home the pork for his district. In one article, Tiberi was recognized for his “refusal to participate” in earmarking and his spokesman commented:

"[Tiberi] feels there needs to be reform in the earmarking process. There needs to be more transparency and a more streamlined process when selecting earmarks. He felt like he couldn't help solve the problem by being part of the problem."

There is no right answer as to when a litmus test is appropriate or whether considering the body of a politician’s record is more appropriate. Are Tea Partiers committed to purity on all issues or will they settle for a candidate with a D grade from the Chamber of Commerce? What about liberals? Will ideological perfection remain the enemy of good governance?

For instance, what makes the litmus test of Jennifer Garrison’s positions on choice and DOMA different than, say, Ted Strickland or Richard Cordray’s views on guns or the death penalty?

Recently, Ohio Right to Life fought the Ohio House Speaker over whether to honor on the House floor a teenager who won the “politically sensitive” group’s essay contest. Would those very same free speech purists fight for Equality Ohio if they had a gay teenage essay contest winner recognized on the floor of the Senate?

Mike DeWine is hated by the Tea parties for joining the Gang of 12. (Although in reality, it is liberals who should be enraged for preserving a process that has stuck us with the filibuster and justices like Sam Alito.) In fact, DeWine is so reviled by the far-right, Tea Partiers sought out Delaware County Prosecutor David Yost to run against him in the Attorney General primary.

These days the Tea Party and Yost have a rockier relationship, thanks to the Ohio Republican Party which cleared the field for the hated Mike DeWine by luring Yost into an Auditor’s race against current-Tea Party pin-up Seth (Who?) Morgan.

But let’s turn the clock back to March 2009, when Yost spoke on the Statehouse steps at a Tea Party rally.

What we found is that absolute purity is a tough standard to live up to.

See for yourself:

While Tea Party Yost gets incensed at the thought of government spending increasing by 66% in a decade, Prosecutor Yost had no problem increasing his own government office’s budget by 65% in his first year in the office.

He didn’t stop there. Yost has been the Delaware County Prosecutor since 2003 and, in 6 years, his office’s budget grew to 2.5x Times the size it was under his predecessor. Or as Tea Party Yost might put it, “Over 10 times the rate of your paycheck going up, my office’s spending went up.”

Should the Delaware County Prosecutor be spending almost a million dollars a year more than in 2002? I can't say, but it’s hard imagining the man standing on the Statehouse steps making that case.

What it really comes down to for these want-to-be Tea Partiers is that government is too large – unless it’s their street that needs fixed, their child that needs health insurance, their district that needs earmarks or their office that needs to expand. Then it can’t be big enough. The real problems start when you try to explain that on the steps of the Statehouse.

[Links: The Delaware County Prosecutor office budget from the year before Yost took office, his first year in office after and last year.]