Hope everyone had a marvelous Thanksgiving time.

Having had the term "rant" obliquely aimed at a Facebook comment (I was responding to something that had do be answered, and did so rationally), I started thinking about rants, primarily what a rant isn't. If I reasonably respond in disagreement to your point of view, that does not constitute a rant. To be pellucid, just because I don't agree with you, my answer is not automatically a rant.

NOT A RANT!!!!!!!!

(ahem)

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I am bugged by how few conservative, Constitutional black politicians there are out there. Alan Keyes was a man I supported several years ago, but he is not on the radar any more. Herman Cain is a possibility.
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Vox has been uttering dark utterances about the Tea Party for some time, but I have bravely whistled past the graveyard. Well, the Tea Party is being co-opted. The losses by Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell have made them gunshy about different candidates with odd comments. The Movers and Shakers are pushing to take a page from the Conservative playbook. Their socially conservative playbook. You know the one, the overwhelmingly popular and successful playbook that has done things like reverse Roe v. Wade.

The Tea Party leaders want to be Successful, and apparently do not see their initial muscle-flexing as Successful Enough. They want to do not only fiscal conservatism; they want to add social conservatism as well. The problem is, much of what flies as "socially conservative" does not fly as Constitutional.

War on drugs: unConstitutional
Abortion "rights": unConstitutional (pro or con)

These are most popular issues among social conservatives (read: conservative Republicans or Constitution partiers). They are not congruent with the stated Tea Party concerns of Fiscal Responsibility, Constitutionally Limited Government, Free Markets. The Tea Party distinctives are threatened by same-old "conservative" interests.

For my money, Constitutional=Conservative.

Teal Party people, don't allow the Conservative losers to cause you to lose what made you a (comparative) winner this November. The fact that opponents or friends want you to change means that you probably shouldn't.