Ohio Republicans are rewriting the rules in an attempt to exclude TEA Party members from being members of the State Central Committee. As I’ve written a number of times, Establishment Republicans want Democrats out of office so they can spend our confiscated tax dollars their way.

Republicans haven’t been that concerned about spending limits, deficits, and long-term liabilities. In fact, they have used the looseness of the rules to pay their political benefactors with payouts to keep them in power. The Democrats are honest about their payouts; Republicans have learned to lie well.

We’re seeing how the RINOs want to take their Party back. Romney operatives, with the help of McCain and Dole, are trying to redistrict Allen West out of his seat.

[U]nder a redistricting plan put forth by the GOP-controlled Florida legislature, West could have a hard time winning a second term — a situation that has some conservatives suggesting a conspiracy by establishment Republicans, including GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. . . . Some are pointing out that House Redistricting Chairman Will Weatherford has been a Romney surrogate and suggesting the former Massachusetts governor wants to be rid of West — and, by extension, the Tea Party. (source)

Romney knows that if he’s elected, West will be a thorn in his side. Better a Democrat than a Republican who speaks his mind.

A similar thing is taking place in Ohio. In 2010, the Ohio GOP was trying sell its Establishment candidates as TEA Party candidates. “[T]he [Ohio Republican Party] outraged many conservatives when it used the tea party brand and sent out mailers with a ‘Tea Party Values’ logo that endorsed . . . Jon Husted. Ohio conservatives know that Husted can hardly be described as ‘Tea Party.’” (source)

Now we learn that the Ohio Republican party leadership is rigging the game by requiring that to be “seated and sworn in as a member of the State Central Committee, a person shall have voted in the three immediately preceding Republican statewide primary elections, including in the year in which the person was elected.”

Many TEA Party members are new to politics. “This rule, if adopted, is clearly intended to make it harder for outsiders to be seated on the State Central Committee, even if they are elected to the position.”

The Ohio Republican Party wants the votes of the TEA Party movement, but they don’t want their candidates.