Last updated on 2014.08.10
We saw this coming: The Tea Party is realizing Kristi Noem isn't Tea Party enough for them. The Club for Growth has rated all freshman Republican members of Congress for their fealty to "economic freedom." They find three of the 87 GOP freshmen scoring 100% in their commitment to letting fat cats exploit labor and land without restraint: Rep. Justin Justin (MI - 3), Rep. Tim Huelskamp (KS - 1), and Rep. Raul Labrador, Raul (ID - 1).
Where's Kristi? Tied for 61st in her class with a meager 60% score. In my Spearfish classroom, 60% is the absolute lowest D-minus.
Dragging down Noem's Tea Party score are her continued support for energy subsidies, ethanol subsidies, and federally subsidized flood insurance. She also gets dinged for voting for last summer's debt ceiling deal.
Attentive readers find no surprise in Rep. Noem's betrayal of the Tea Party. Wingnut Shad Olson ripped Rep. Noem last year for the debt ceiling vote. Talk radio host Mark Levin pegged Rep. Noem as an Establishment phony last summer.
Now whither Ed Randazzo's hopes that Rep. Noem will join the Tea Party Caucus? With a 60%, she may not have good enough "grades" to get in.
And how does this confound challenger Matt Varilek's effort to portray Rep. Noem as a die-hard Tea Party politician heck-bent on wrecking the federal government for the sake of anarcho-capitalism? The Club for Growth seems to know its Tea Party, and it knows Kristi Noem is struggling to make the grade.
Update 20:40 MDT: Reporter David Montgomery banged those keys and hit "Publish" on Noem's poor Tea grade 25 minutes before I did. Darned full-time job! ;-)
Noem spokesman Tom Erickson tells Montgomery that Noem considers such Tea Party advocacy "noise coming from Washington" that she prefers to ignore. Oh my: did a Noem staffer just speak sense?
Cory,
You have been right all along in portraying Noem as a hypocrite. Matt and Jeff would be wise to listen to you or at the very least attempt to hire you.
Wow Cory...I thought most schools had 70% as the cutoff for a passing grade. You might want to revise that grading scale to make it tougher.
Michael, 60% is the district standard, not for me to revise unilaterally. At Montrose, the district standard was 70%. (I design and score my homework and tests accordingly.) That's why the headline: "D-Minus at Best."
Mike: Thanks! I'd really some highly paid strategist to explain which branding best helps Dems take Noem down. Who faces the greater Catch-22: Dems in trying to pin the Tea label on Noem, or Noem in trying to keep it off?
Where it hurts her the most is if she ever decides she wants to actually be a Senate candidate against Mike Rounds. If they leave her or stay home in a primary she really doesn't have a shot.
I just think she is an absolute phony and that is why I don't like her.
I would think exposing her as a phony would peel away more votes than branding her Tea Party.
I knew there was a reason that the Republicans made her one of the liasons for the freshman class. She is just as much a party loyalist as when she was questioned in the campaign on an issue and her answer was that was what party leadership wanted. She was in a leadership position then also. Blame the leadership when you are the leadership. Just coy.
Doesn't matter if her initial grades are lousy. She's on the 20 year plan, so lots of time to bring up the grades. It's only the final internship grade at the end of the 20 years that counts anyway, right? I just hope she drops out after the first 2 years and goes home to the farm.