been in probably about 20 of those meetings and the message is always the same. help me or you re going to help the democratic president, and you don t want to damage the speakership, and our cause, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. and i ve got to say, a lot of things, that, mike, you re calling these freshmen, i can get you clips from a decade ago or 15 years ago, people were saying the same thing about myself and largent and coburn and salmon and shadegg. excep except, joe, i would say at the end of the day, when you were there, when that group was there, there was much more willingness to compromise at the 11th hour than there is now and much more party discipline. more than needed to compromise. and i think a lot of times i didn t compromise. i mean, ask tom delay, a point
the 90s and learned the lesson from that and they will not follow anybody. i m not again well, again, i m not certain that is exactly right. but, here s the deal. i think we are missing the boat by looking at the tea party movement. it is more important to look at the tea party sentiment. here s the movement. the people are active in a group and here s the tea party sentiment. there is broader sentiment, people who applaud the tea party movement and have not gone to one of its meetings or attended a rally, is what is driving the american electorate and in includes republicans, democrats and a healthy slug of independents and they went for republicans by a margin 59-38 in this election, a 24 points swing from two years ago and 36 points from four years ago and, while it is important to consider the tea party movement because it has energy and effort and activity it is also important to remember that it is an expression of a broader thing, the tea party sentiment and that is really