Sharon Angle. Todd Akin. Richard Mourdock. Christine O’Donnell.
 |
| Akin |
Maybe the tea party leaders have already forgotten those names. Those
candidates represent four easily winnable Senate seats that the Republicans
lost over the last two election cycles directly due to the tea party nominees’
“nuttiness,” as RedState’s Erick Erickson might say.
Yet, the tea party loyalists seem to believe that they have been scapegoated
by the GOP establishment and that their movement is still a major force in
general election politics.
Here’s the lead-in for a piece published by The Washington Times:
say they refuse to be the scapegoats for the drubbing Republicans took on
Election Day, claiming it was the party establishment — not their insurgent
movement — that cost the party seats in the House and Senate and returned
President Obama to the White House.
of the grassroots movement vow to reassert themselves on the local and nation
levels as Congress
begins talks aimed at averting the ‘fiscal cliff.’ They say their call for
limited government is more relevant than ever before.”
Am I missing something? Isn’t it the tea party that’s adamantly opposed to a
“grand bargain” or a “balanced approach” to the nation’s fiscal mess? Aren’t
these the same people who are determined to defeat any immigration reform bill?
Sounds like the GOP is saddled with more internal problems than they
thought, if they want to respond to voters who are fed up with partisan
gridlock.
concerned, we are still here,” said Amy Kremer, leader
of the Tea Party
Express, told the Times. “We may not be out on the streets with the colorful
signs like 2010, but we are here, we are engaged and we are going to continue
to fight. We never thought this was a short-term process. It is going to take a
long time to turn it around.”
Do these people need reminding already about the November election outcome? One
of the tea partiers’ most outspoken advocates, Rep. Allen West of Florida, lost his bid for re-election, while Rep. Michele
Bachmann, after running a weak presidential campaign as a founder of the
congressional Tea Party Caucus, barely scraped by to keep her Minnesota seat.
One of the fatal wounds suffered by the Mitt Romney campaign was when he was
caught on camera saying the bottom 47 percent are people who don’t want to work
and expect to live off the government. In mainstream politics, that was
considered a damaging gaffe. In tea party world, the 47 percent comment is widely
accepted as true.
Yet, here’s where we’re at as the congressional lame duck session unfolds:
head of Tea Party
Nation, said the tea
party’s first order of business is to rebut Republicans who want to blame
the movement for their poor performance at the ballot box.
their way to ignore us, marginalize us and pretend we did not exist,” Phillips said,
taking particular aim at Karl Rove, the architect of President George W. Bush and
founder of American
Crossroads, a super PAC that spent more than $100 million in the campaign
but had few successes to show for it. “And they gave us the most liberal
nominee in the history of the Republican Party.”
grasp of political history than that displayed by their top leadership.
