Has Mike Causey Drunk the Tea Party Kool-Aid?

Mike Causey is running for Insurance Commissioner of North Carolina.  For the fourth time in 20 years.

In addition to the previous expose of his work as a paid lobbyist and a 30-year insurance industry executive, there's yet one more item to add to his political resume:  He's the Tea Party candidate in 2012.

In fact, he's apparently drunk the Kool-Aid on the Tea Party.

Mike Causey has taken up the Tea Party cause and, consequently, he's been endorsed by the Tea Party groups all across North Carolina.  Readers are probably not shocked to learn that some of the Tea Party agenda is way out in deep, right field.

Some of these groups want North Carolina to create its own currency -- you know, its own money.  Isn't it unpatriotic for those people to turn their back on the American greenback?  And isn't it indicative that they and Mike Causey are, as my homebuilder and plumber friends say, a "bubble off center?"

Mike, do you think those insurance companies you want to regulate will take that "funny money" that you and many of your fellow Tea Party members are yearning for?

When Mike Causey and his Tea Party endorsers advocate for changes in insurance laws and less regulation in insurance laws, what they mean is de-regulation of insurance companies ... which means insurance companies can trample consumers and raise prices even more without a reasonable check and/or balance.  Hey, aren't "checks and balances" constitutional (and founding) principles?  You'd think Mike Causey and his Tea Partiers would understand that reasonable insurance regulations are a check and a balance.   (Even Founding Father Thomas Jefferson and fellow signers of the U.S. Constitution would agree with me.)

When Mike Causey says he wants to allow insurance companies to operate in a pure free market here in North Carolina, that means he is endorsing higher insurance rates for everyone.  That's what has apparently happened in other states that have gone the route of Tea Partiers and non-consumer advocates like Mike Causey.

Knowing the above now, my question, then, is two-fold:

What is Mike Causey thinking and what is he drinking?

Yours truly,

Trust But Verify