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The End of the Tea Party?
November 3, 2010
Today, many of the incumbents and political elite who were mystified by the public uprising of the Tea Party are leaving office just as bewildered. After nearly two years of rallies, activist, and electioneering the Tea Party Movement has done what many on the left and in the media thought impossible. They united together on basic economic principles and sent a message through the ballot box that America’s debt and spending addiction cannot go on. Scores of Tea Party favored candidates triumphed up and down the ballot.
These groups have every reason to celebrate. They ignored the political establishment, they defied the “wisdom” of professional political pundits, and they showed how powerful a group largely consisting of political neophytes can be a force in swaying public opinion and achieving electoral success.
In a few days, though, after the confetti falls and weary activists get their first real night sleep in months, the euphoria will fade and the danger that has been lurking in the background will slowly start creeping towards the light. Every movement will achieve ebbs and flows of interest and involvement, but this is not the danger I am speaking of. It is a danger that could irrevocably fracture the Tea Party movement as we know it and bring it to an end long before it fulfills its potential.
That danger is the 2012 Presidential Election.
The Tea Party Movement and Presidential Politics
Having interacted with so many members of the Tea Party movement and their leadership, I know there are few fans of President Obama within their ranks. While they praise the historic nature of his presidency and his commitment to his family, they believe that his ideology and the policies that flow from that ideology are contrary to what America needs when nearly 10% of Americans are out of work and our national debt soaring without an end in sight. Because of the nature of his position, he easily becomes the most tantalizing target come 2012.
With the Presidential primaries set to begin roughly 14 months from now, the question will inevitably arise about who is the best candidate to run against President Obama. Many prospective candidates have already been busy building shadow campaigns, building their financial war chests, and making appearances to gain supporters in early primary states like Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. This is not to mention their building of political capital in this election cycle through fundraising and campaigning on behalf of candidates in tightly contested contests.
Until now, the Tea Party movement has been comprised of a loosely knit group of individuals holding a wide variety of political beliefs. There are fiscal conservatives, social conservatives, independents, conservative Democrats, main street Republicans, conservative Republicans, libertarians, moderates, and many other self-identifications and combinations too numerous to list. These philosophical and ideological differences have remained under the surface due to the common goal of rescuing our nation from the fiscal ruin. Yet, the 2012 Presidential Election has the ability to bring these differences to the surface.
In 2008, many conservatives were unhappy with the selection of Senator John McCain to run against then Senator Obama in the general election. Many in the establishment and some fiscal conservatives supported former Governor Mitt Romney. Some social conservatives preferred former Governor Mike Huckabee, while libertarians fueled the candidacy of Representative Ron Paul. Other social conservatives and some fiscal conservatives supported former Senator Fred Thompson while former Mayor Rudy Giuliani earned the support from many neoconservatives and socially liberal wing.
Due to the inability of fiscal conservatives, social conservatives, libertarians, and the establishment to agree on a candidate, Senator McCain was able to shrewdly build a campaign comprised of the more moderate and hawkish voters of the Republican Party. In 2012, history has a strong chance of repeating itself if the Tea Party movement allows the Presidential Election to pit those with philosophical and ideological differences against one another.
How the Tea Party should Approach the 2012 Presidential Election
With recent history, and the assumed goal that the Tea Party movement wants to continue to be a force in American politics in mind, how should the Tea Party movement approach the 2012 Presidential Election? Here are four guidelines.
First, acknowledge differences among members and be transparent. The Tea Party movement has been fond of promoting its diversity. When it comes to 2012, the movement should not construe unity of purpose in 2010 as evidence that the movement is now homogenous in its belief. If the movement is honest about the makeup of its membership, it will lead to less conflict and misunderstanding down the road.
Second, remain neutral in the primaries and re-evaluate in the general election. Didn’t you just say that not uniting early on a candidate in 2008 resulted in a less than preferred candidate? I did. Yet, in all likelihood, even if a local Tea Party or 9.12 group is able to mostly agree on a candidate, it does not mean that Tea Party and 9.12 groups across the country are going to agree. It is more likely, however, that those in the local groups will not agree and, therefore, local groups risk divisiveness, mistrust, and even splits.
The power of the Tea Party movement was based on the power of local involvement. Although the Presidential Election is important, it is only one of the thousands that will take place between now and November 2012. Why risk the entire influence and prowess of the movement on one election? Tea Party groups should re-evaluate their position with their membership after the primaries, however, they should keep the principle of local involvement in mind. (As an aside, American Majority will be shortly announcing a new initiative to help local groups take their local involvement to the next level).
Third, remind members of the importance of local involvement, but allow them to choose their preferred Presidential candidate(s). It is naïve to think that the Tea Party movement will be able to prevent its adherents from getting involved in the Presidential Election, nor should they. But the movement must continue to push the (accurate) narrative that the more local the election, the more it will apply to our everyday lives. In addition, it must be remembered that nearly 50% of government spending occurs at the state and local level. Local groups should allow some time for members to participate in the primary process, especially early and large primary states, but should also fully continue their local involvement.
Fourth, be a bridge-builder when the selection process is over. Even if local Tea Party groups remain neutral, there may still be some hard feelings among some members directed towards those whose candidate 1) survived the primary or 2) undermined another candidate’s chances in some way. It is here where the Tea Party can be most useful in unifying its membership. Local groups should not only remind potentially disaffected members of successes on a local, state and national level in 2010, but also that there are many upcoming races where they can make their presence felt.
Of course, it is always difficult to predict the future, but regardless of what happens in the next two years, the Tea Party movement can continue being a force in the political arena if avoids the pitfalls that the 2012 Presidential Election can bring by keeping these four principles in mind.
The tea party needs to remain committed too issues more than politicians. Committed to principles and education. As a group, and as Americans we need to stay engaged and help keep the enthusiasm ramped up.
We need to work on states that clearly made the wrong choice in the candidate they chose to send back to Washington. Everyone needs to be taught about how we got to where we are, and how we have begun our decline as a nation if we ever hope to get back too exceptionalism. People need to be taught how limited government will increase opportunities for them. And how smaller government will allow the private sector too increase in prosperity. People need to be taught how they will benefit from our philosophy.
I don’t think we have to worry about the Tea Party letting up.I do worry about when they choose do do certain things.Timing is everything.If you don’t believe that timing is everything then someone needs to explain how Harry Reid got to stay in office.This guys people waited till the perfect time to turn up the campaign and get the union buses running to get voters to the poles to represent him.You can be very smart about something but if your smart to quick it can calm down and cost you.
I noticed in your article you made mention of “fromer Governor Rudy Giuliani” I was wondering what was Rudy Giuliani Governor of??????
You are absolutely correct. Apologies for the elementary error!
-Doug
It is my opinion that the “Tea Party Movement” of the 2010 election, are the SAME PEOPLE who, back in the 1980’s were known as “The Silent Majority”. These people for the most part are NOT USUALLY POLITICALLY ACTIVE, until they see our Country being misdirected by people like Jimmy Carter (in the 1970’s) and now, Obama, Reid and Pelosi. Not to mention the many now UNEMPLOYED POLITICIANS who thought they were sent to Wash. DC. to do what THEY THOUGHT BEST, instead of what WE THE VOTERS THINK IS BEST. A NOTE OF CAUTION TO THOSE WHO FIND THEMSELVES NEWLY ELECTED OFFICIALS AS OF TODAY…..YOU WERE ELECTED TO DO AS YOUR CONSTITUANTS WISH YOU TO DO, AND YOU WILL BE WATCHED LIKE NO OTHER POLITICIAN BEFORE YOU…..YOU SHOULD KNOW WE ARE ANGRY, VERY ANGRY. AND WE AREN’T “MARRIED TO YOU”. DO AS WE SAY, AND YOU’LL BE RE-ELECTED. DO AS YOU WANT, AND YOU’LL BE LOOKING FOR ANOTHER JOB WHEN YOUR TERM IS UP. Sincerely, The Voters
I dont see Tea Partiers fading out. Because the aim of the The Tea Party in my thoughts is that it is an incredible cleaning agent, washing out the dirty laundry of politics so the truth can be seen again. And it has been quite effective. I dont believe that the Tea Partiers want to be a “New Party” nor do they think the job is done. Why would we stop and hand it all back,right! Even after 2012 we need to keep educating our country, because for some reason we have short term memory problems. And we need to teach our children again who we are, and where we come from to better stay the enemies of America. Because they have not been taught these things. Our textbooks reflect the globalization and NOT the nationalization. Their heritage has been stolen.
Grassroots people tired of being run over by Washington. Spending and Health care gave rise to an energy we needed to stand up and say NO MORE!!
Americans know how to come together and fight for what is right. Especially in the face of a great Crisis. Look how we all came together on and after 911. God Bless America!
Thanks for the thoughts above Doug we need to keep going!! Ü
As a Tea Party Patriot since April 2009, I totally disagree with you. While your concern is appreciated…it’s not needed.
Contrary to beliefs, we started connecting nationally before locally. We started springing up across the states…then grassroots people started springing up locally. We understand we must collectively move with our eyes on our main goals.
The thing I want to say, politely, in response to your article of guidelines for the Tea Party movement is this:
We came together all across the States for some common causes (more than just economic reasons) and no one had “a plan” drawn out. We used our individual “instincts” and collectively and amazingly moved forward and accomplished the beginning of our shared goals.
If something is working, and is not broke, don’t try to fix it. As long as we keep our eyes focused on the common threads we share, and promote and protect them….we’ll be fine. We’re not stupid, and realize there are a lot of differences in our beliefs. But we’re smart enough to keep our focus on our common goals only, which are mainly, but not limited to, Fiscal Responsibility, smaller government, protection of our U. S. Constitution, securing our borders while promoting & welcoming “legal” immigration,and continually making sure Congress(Republican, Democrat, or Independent) understands that they are there to do the will of “we the people” and NOT what they think is best for us. If ANY of them, in any branch, turns from that….they will be fired by us…”we the people”.
The government and others that don’t understand keeps trying to make the main focus about Red & and Blue. We are “sick” of that way of governing and no longer accept it! If a republican stops doing the will of the people…they will be fired just as quick, or quicker. We believe in doing things legally & peacefully. But we do mean business! We are alert now & watching them all. If people still do not understand this…all I can say is wait and watch. The Tea Party is alive & well and we’ve only just begun! 🙂 🙂
My personal goal for 2012 is to defeat the Democratic candidate running for President, be it Obama, Hiliary C, or another. I am not a Tea Party member but a true TP sympathizer. I just hope the TP comes together and gets behing the Republican candidate, whoever it might be. We MUST get Obama out of office! We MUST stop all progressives from gaining this high office. That MUST be the main goal!
I think we should also remind our friends, who haven’t already done so, and all others, (i.e. Liberals) to go back and read the Constitution. A lot of what we are arguing about isn’t even in this document! The current President & Congress are writing bills that are setting this great nation on the path to failure if we don’t join togther & do something!
Ithink we need the tea party to balance out the extreme left.
Democrats know how to run as something they’re not. Just look
at Joe Mamchin. You’d think he hadn’t heard of Obama in his
campaign commercials let alone support his ideas. I hope the
people won’t let him forget how he promised to vote once he got to Washington D.C.
Connie, Your comments are spot on. This is but one battle in the war for the future of the human race. If we lose liberty in America, it shall be lost to the world for a long time. We need to enthusiastically push the idea that we the people cannot just go back to the recliner after November 2nd. Most of us are more concerned with the big picture and will not be distracted by partisan politics.
I don’t trust the Republican party anymore than I trust the Democratic party. They have both morphed into money centered corporate types. And I firmly believe the Repub. party is just a front for big business.
The suggestion that the Tea Party remain neutral in the primaries is nothing short of ridiculous. This implies that the Tea Party needs the GOP or some other political party to be viable. That is a dead wrong assumption. The Tea Party does NOT need the GOP. However, the GOP DOES need the Tea Party.
The Tea Party is not just a movement. It is a revolution.
I am not going to stop my involvement in the issues-and that’s what being involved with the Tea Party was about for me: finding others with similar values to network with. I have always written representatives, called, e-mailed + showed up at city council, county board, etc..again, that will never end. And now my tea party friends will remain + unite on issues forevermore, because the threat will never go away. We are the watchers and town criers!
@nancy:”My personal goal for 2012…..etc., etc” Should we assume this is a quote, and came from someone on “The Right”. OR WERE YOU HAVING A SPONTANEOUS ANTI OBAMA MOMENT? Assuming you were in fact quoting a newly elected office holder with Conservative leanings, it seems 1) you should put a name on the person. AND B), a date, time and place where he uttered these immortal words so worthy of quotation.
@CE.Leeson, What do you have against large corporations? They hire most of the working class and make it possible that goods and services are available for the folks who work for them to purchase as they need them. Perhaps you would have us all go back to the 19th Century and become farmers. Who incidently, died at a much younger age, on average, and toiled from sun up til sun down, just to feed their families. Provided nature cooperated. Perhaps you would put a lid on just how big a business should be allowed to grow? Maybe a business building Cars and Trucks should be limited to 20 workers. A pharmaceutical company should have no more than 8 employees including one research chemist to take care of Research and developement of new drugs meant to cure things like Cancer. This way, they NEVER turn into one of those “mean old profit taking” Corporations. Like Merk, Eli Lilly, Bayer, OR maybe US Steel, Allied Chemical, Alcoa Aluminium, Johnson&Johnson, GMC, Ford etc. etc. Sounds to me, CE.Leeson, you don’t hate the Corp., near as much as you hate Capitalism. If THATS THE CASE, A COUPLE OR 3 HUNDRED BUCKS AND A 3 HOUR FLIGHT AND YOU COULD BE BROKE IN CARACAS, VEN. BE SEEIN’ YA, CALL US IF YOU GET BACK AND WRITE IF YOU FIND WORK, one thing before you go, the SOCIALIST system down there, has a GIANT CORP. EVERYONE WORKS FOR, ITS CALLED “THE GOVERNMENT. BYE BYE
@Carie: Of course you’re right Carie. To stop NOW would not only be foolish, but would be a colossal waste of the past 19 months of VERY hard work on the parts of Tea Party activists across the Country. Not to mention the fact that this is ONLY THE BEGINNING. We all know that 2012 IS OUR ULTIMATE GOAL, and we won’t be denied. The Tea Party, although NOT A POLITICAL “PARTY” in the literal sense, but the BIGGEST POLITICAL MOVEMENT EVER SEEN in this Country. As long as we keep our eye on our ultimate goal (the restoration of “Constitutional values” AND Economic recovery) BOTH PARTIES will wish to garner our support. WE MUST STICK TO CONSERVATIVE POLITICS as it concerns “The American Way.”
I have continued to be amazed how the media, politicians and Hollywood Bipolars…. always paint the Tea Party people as radical violent citizins. I attended a rally in Knoxville, TN….the very first one and I was amazed at the diversity of the crown. People in their 70’s, young adults, young mothers with their children, businessmen, businesswomen, etc. I rode a bus to downtown from a mall with several elderly couples, two young bussinessmen, a mother and her nine year old (she wanted her to see what people can accomplish) and many others. Most of us had never protested anything in our whole lives! This grass roots group has grown due to the necessity of it. People who are wearing blinders…..had better take them off!!!! You Go Tea Party!
Your thoughts are great. We learned over the last two years that we the American people have correctly analyzed the agenda of the Democrat Party. Their agenda has been the same for 100 years during which they have built a tax-payer and union funded political machine while we were busy building and living our lives. Now that we are awake we need to deal with the systemic problems this has caused which we absolutely must fix by 2012.
Specifically voter fraud they have institutionalized and plan to perpetuate with the lack of ID to vote, illegal aliens, circumventing the Move Act (absentee soldier votes). This is huge, local and national even during this election. I intend to personally write all the new Governors and Republican leadership in Congress to address this: Voter fraud should be a federal felony, regardless of the person’s job in or out of government. When a state’s returns are 100% in on all but one office (i.e., one Senator, one Governor as we await returns now), you can bet people are hiding somewhere creating more ballots. It makes me sick every time, i.e., Al Franken. The game worked in 2008 and 2010. Margins are so close we need to take this on as a serious objective now – even more important than individual candidates at this point. The left believes the ends justify the means and believe incidents like employee intimidation at Harrah’s in Las Vegas is justified.
How can we effectively use our power to stop voter fraud?
What once was the “silent majority”is increaseingly becomeing vocal However, this dosent mean that we are republican by default. We will not be managed by either party and republicans havent been magically forgiven for there part in our current affairs, yet we are growing in numbers and will continue to do so in the future. The republicans are being given a 2nd chance change from the corporate backed front theay have become and it may be that the 2012 elections may bring the real goal of the Tea Party into the open, that is the forced change of both parties and there set in stone doma. Will it be necessary to incrementially force these old guard members of extremes out quietly, or will it be open, loud, and ugly? Only time will tell.
Remember what Lincoln said about being fooled. Most of the people may have been fooled once. I still see so many uninformed and unconcerned people and that is dangerous.
I feel the main focus should be education thru a massive media blitz. Simple, short and entertaining commercials aimed at showing the simple principles of our Constitution. At the same time exposeing bigger Government and what it brings.
They already do this with their agenda and see how effective they have been.
An informed public is their worst enemy.
Anyone who thinks the “Tea Party” is FINISHED, clearly missed our message. While we ARE DELIGHTED with the results of our work SO FAR……The mid-term elections were merely a “warm up” an exhibition game, if you will. OUR ULTIMATE GOAL, comes in two parts, 1) to remove BO from office. Most of us didn’t vote for him, but the ones that did, probably have NEVER REGRETTED ANYTHING MORE in their lives and CAN’T WAIT to rectify their mistake. AND 2) to put in the Oval Office a CONSERVATIVE PRESIDENT along the lines of Ronald Reagan, because its become clear that NOTHING LESS WILL BE NEEDED TO BRING OUR COUNTRY BACK TO ITS PREVIOUS STANDING IN THE WORLD. We WILL NOT SETTLE, as we were prepared to do with JOHN McCain. NO RINOS LIKE BUSH (face it, the man was NOT BY ANY MEANS A CONSERVATIVE) WE WILL ONLY ACCEPT THE “REAL THING”. We (the TEA PARTY) HAVEN’T FINISHED. We’ve only just begun.
The progressives have a head start – a big head start and are well funded.
But the Tea Party is quick to learn, implement and influence.
We have come this far so fast because TRUTH HAS NO AGENDA.
I will fight as hard as my group, friends, and family can to keep our children FREE.
2012 is crucial to the Republic – Let’s roll!