Minnesota Independent: Ellison: GOP and Tea Party 'Have Been Fused'

Democrats see the Republican Party’s close ties to the tea party movement as a wedge issue in the November election, and yesterday the DNC held a press conference to drive that wedge a bit deeper. A new DNC video asserting that the GOP and the tea party are “one and the same” echoes a message Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison made at the press event: “There is no doubt that the Republican Party and the Tea Party cause have been fused.”

The video, which includes an image of Rep. Michele Bachmann, founder and chair of the House Tea Party Caucus, was released along with a new website, The Republican Party Contract on America, which outlines the Democrats’ ten-point perspective of what this GOP/tea party fusion stands for:

    1. Repeal the Affordable Care Act (Health Insurance Reform)
    2. Privatize Social Security or phase it out altogether
    3. End Medicare as it presently exists
    4. Extend the Bush tax breaks for the wealthy and big oil
    5. Repeal Wall Street Reform
    6. Protect those responsible for the oil spill and future environmental catastrophes
    7. Abolish the Department of Education
    8. Abolish the Department of Energy
    9. Abolish the Environmental Protection Agency
    10. Repeal the 17th Amendment

“The Tea Party is now an institutionalized part of the Republican party. They are one and the same,” a DNC operative told National Journal’s Hotline yesterday. “The positions espoused by the Tea Party is the governing platform of the Republican party. And as voters make their choice this fall it’s important to understand what the Republican-Tea Party wants to do if elected.”

Watch the DNC video: