By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Recent political events can’t be pleasing for the Tea Party. The rise of the “moderate ” Mitt Romney coupled with the S.S. Gingrich running aground everywhere but South Carolina has forced many in the ostensibly “grass roots” movement to question their viability. The soul-searching has caused as least one prominent leader to declare the movement kaput. Ohio Liberty Council co-founder Chris Littleton said, “The tea party is dead. It’s gone.”
This dire observation seems prompted by the lack of any enthusiasm for the Republican slate of Presidential candidates (Perish the thought that this “nonpartisan” group might consider a Democratic candidate). Says Littleton, “I think largely the Tea Party is irrelevant in the primaries. They aren’t passionate about any of the candidates, and if they are passionate, they’re for Ron Paul.” Damning praise indeed from an expert in the field.
But what about Tea Party darling, Rick Santorum, now that Gingrich has faded? The former Pennsylvania Senator, who during office resided in Virginia, did make some surprising noise in Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri. However as they say on that most Republican of boulevards, Wall Street, the “fundamentals” are against him. Santorum trails well behind Romney in fund raising and his infrastructure has the feel of the Afghan highway system. Santorum promises an aggressive attack in Michigan where Romney’s father was governor, but polls show him dead last in the four horse race.
That said, what’s a right-wing anti-government type to do? Well look to the future for one thing: “When the (Republican) candidate is selected, I think ‘anybody but Obama’ will have nationwide support from groups like us,” Dayton Tea Party President Don Birdsall said. But that presumes the Tea Party will show up at the polls despite its admitted lack of enthusiasm. The next time they do that will be the first time it’s been done.
Groups that are agin’ things tend to peter out rather quickly. Think Ross Perot. The Tea Party claimed some headway (though how much is debatable) in 2010 when it pointed to victories in the mid-term elections of Marc Rubio and Rand Paul and the Republicans took over the House. But has anybody heard from these two since their matriculation to Capitol Hill? How about legislation cutting taxes or cutting government? Lots of talk about it, but most of the meaningful legislation passed is Obama proposed law. Groups with staying power tend to be “for” something and not just agin’ something else.
The Tea Party suffered from a lack of a charismatic spokesperson and any real traction in the political middle where staying power is built. Oh, there were pretenders to the throne. Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, and several others had plenty of rhetoric but no real intellectual gravitas to throw the disgruntled right on their back and carry them to the White House. Most are still trying to pick up the standard, but being out of the Presidential Race in 2012 doesn’t help. At best, they are left to cheerlead from the sidelines or offer timid advice like this stuff from Sarah Palin: Romney has work to do to convince GOP voters he’s moved beyond his “pretty moderate past … even in some cases a liberal past. I am not convinced, and I do not think the majority of GOP and independent voters are convinced.” Not exactly “Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead,” is it?
The Party does claim success in shaping the Republican campaign issues, but are cutting taxes, less government, run-away capitalism, and the Second Amendment really anything new in Republican circles? More importantly will they be front and center in a Romney White House? History says emphatically “no,” and that’s what has the Tea Partiers hopping mad and likely to take their six-packs and stay home this Fall.
There still a chance the movement could rally around a Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, or Sen. Rand Paul, but none have the national stature to get traction before November. All in all the Tea Party seems fated to be just another passing fancy littering the political landscape.
Anyone remember the Whigs?
Source: Daily Beast; Detroit Dailey News; and USA Today.
~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/02/14/138888/why-do-tea-partiers-flock-to-santorum.html
http://patdollard.com/2012/02/rick-santelli-takes-60-seconds-to-describe-the-difference-between-tea-party-and-occupy-movement/
NIght of the Living Dead?
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/13/polls-all-knotted-up-between-romney-santorum/?iref=obinsite
OS,
Hilarious!
raff, we need to call all the attention we can to “spreading romney.” Notice the word “terror” in the definition is a hotlink to an article about the infamous incident.
http://spreadingromney.com/
Elaine,
Great link to additional evidence that the Tea Party is bought and sold.
OS,
Mitt deserves all the notoriety for that senseless act.
Mitt Romney now has a Google problem. If you Google “Romney” about the fourth page down in the listing is this:
http://spreadingromney.com/
This had its beginning when Mitt strapped Shamus, the family Irish Sitter dog, to the roof of his vehicle when the family started out on a family road trip in 1983. According to a 2007 Boston Globe profile of the candidate, Romney’s oldest son, Tagg, yelled, “Gross!” as he noticed a brown liquid flowing down the back window. Poor Shamus had “romney” all over the top of the car.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/13/rick-santorum-mitt-romney-polling-elections-2012_n_1273709.html Santorum and Romney are tied nationally.
The Tea Party’s war on mass transit
House Republicans try to gut federal funds for subways as they extend the culture wars to urban policy issues
By Will Doig
2/13/12
http://www.salon.com/2012/02/13/the_tea_partys_war_on_mass_transit/
Excerpt:
In the week since House Republicans introduced their proposed transportation bill, one thing has become clear: It has virtually nothing to do with fiscal responsibility.
The Tea Party soared to power on the notion that it was the antidote to wasteful government spending. It’s now clear that reigniting the culture wars was a top priority, too. From guns to abortion, the extremist wing of the Republican Party has fought to turn back the clock on many socially progressive ideals.
Mass transit is its newest target.
“Federal transportation and infrastructure policy has traditionally been an area of strong bipartisan agreement,” says Aaron Naparstek, a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design and founder of Streetsblog.org. “Now, it seems, Republicans want to turn cities into a part of the culture wars. Now it’s abortion, gay marriage and subways.”
House Republicans seek to eliminate the Mass Transit Account from the federal Highway Trust Fund. The Mass Transit Account is where public transportation programs get their steady source of funding. Without it, transit would be devastated, and urban life as we know it could become untenable.
And there’s the rub. “The Tea Party leaders and the Republicans who pander to them do not care about cost-effectiveness in the slightest,” wrote blogger Alon Levy in a comment about the bill on the Transport Politic. “They dislike transit for purely cultural and ideological reasons.” To the Tea Party, transit smacks of the public sector, social engineering and alternative lifestyles.
How do we know this is a cultural battle and not an economic one? Because transit spending is far more fiscally fair than spending on roads and highways. Transit riders subsidize roads to a greater degree than drivers subsidize transit. And cities, which are the chief engines behind the American economy, rely on buses and trains to function. “The economic future for states hinges largely on the performance of their metropolitan economies,” determined a recent Brookings Institution study.
Tea Party leaders know all of this. But they also knew that defunding NPR wouldn’t help balance the budget, and they voted to do it anyway. They knew that by law no federal money can go toward abortion services, yet they voted to defund Planned Parenthood too. The Tea Party is superb at disguising cultural battles as the pursuit of responsible thrift. And mass transit exists at the vortex of many of their No. 1 ideological targets. It’s brilliant, when you think about it.
Gene,
The “Gubinator” Rage LePage is the reason TPs stayed away in droves and went walking for gas for their snowmobiles.
The most stunning aspect of the Maine primary to me wasn’t who won, but rather that only 6,000 people voted.
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/02/did-ron-paul-win-maine.html
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/arg-poll-santorum-up-in-michigan
It doesn’t really matter. The teabagger agenda is the standard GOP candidate platform. In much the same way, the supposedly marginalized social conservatives dominate platforms as well. the real problem are the money guys behind all of this as well as ALEC, etc. The GOP as a party no longer operates as parties have in the past. In part, its the old Southern politics of inciting a mob while remaining in the background, but it’s also robber barons who feel entitled to everything.
I think the tea party will continue to control government in about ten states for a number of years. Arizona is the model for them. Probably, they will still have considerable influence in the house of representatives for a time to come as they elected so many in 2010.
AY:
“.I listened to Sister Sarah’s speech on the radio and was like…..WT hell…people are still buying this stuff….”
Came across this from awhile back.
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/08/sarah-palin200908
eniobob,
That is scary….. VF is usually balanced…..seems like she is not much different than your regular folks that may have some degree of education but seem to have forgot the part about wisdom….
I think there are a lot of RINO’s and DINO’s out there…..
Thank you.
@ Tony 1, February 12, 2012 at 6:54 pm
x2 – The way people believe the tea party is a populist movement, the way the media portrays it as such is false propaganda put out by Dick Armey’s, The Koch Bros., et al’s (astroturf)’s p.r. dept.
Alive and well is the Southern Strategy which was first rolled out by Nixon and then Reagan and every RepubliCon since then. It is a nationwide policy. The tactic is to divide the poor white trash from the poor African American folks and pit them against each other and insure that the whole white population votes for Repubs. Now they work the baby boomers who were democrats until the retired and moved to the retirement community and have their old prejudices aroused by folks that rant about Obama care. Schmucks like that Bachmann overdrive woman from Minnessota. They want the guy who has a few hundred grand in the pension, house and stock market to think he is in the top 1% ers and a special guy. Pit him against the welfare cheats. The RepubliCons urge the wife to think the same way and validate the smart hubby. Read up on Lee Atwater on Google. Tea Party, Pee Party was just a temporay sctick. Live Free or Die and all that. Be a chump folks, be a bigot, vote with the One percenters and against your own interests. Nixon, Reagan, Bushie, Bushie, McCain and now Romney and SantoRum. Code words wedge issues. Dont believe me, read up on Lee Atwater on Google. His script is still being followed. Dont plead the schmuks with the N word, use little code words like welfare cheat, etc.
If it is truly a populist movement, it should be rejecting both sides.