To Party Or Not To Party
January 27th, 2010 by 
Kevin
A week ago, Scott Brown won his Senate seat in Massachusetts and the entire political landscape changed. It was a major defeat for Obama, who personally campaigned for Coakley and it was a major setback for Democrats, whose agenda is now threatened. Meanwhile conservatives and Republicans have celebrated and started prognosticating an insanely bright future for the GOP. There is a big problem with that….the Democrats weren\’t the only losers last Tuesday, the Republican Party was also big loser, and in an potentially fatal way.
It\’s extremely likely that this election was a rejection of the Obama agenda. Both candidates made health care one of the foremost issues. Obama and other high-level Democrats campaigned for Coakley. Even in deep blue Massachusetts the voters rejected her. Polls continue to show that the voters are against the Democrat\’s healthcare bill, they\’re against Cap&Trade, they\’re worried about the deficit, and they want smaller government even if it means fewer services. The conservative agenda is clearly popular right now, it\’s a gimme for the Republicans right?? Wrong. Polls show conservatives simply don\’t trust Republican legislators, and they have a lot of reason to.
But Tea Party activists have to eventually side with Republicans don\’t they?? No, not at all, and Scott Brown\’s election proved it. Scott Brown got his volunteers from the Tea Party movement. He raised over a million dollars a day via the internet. His campaign existed largely outside the Republican Party structure. Republicans always promise lower spending and smaller government, but when they get to Washington they feed the government hog instead. When Scott Brown promised the same, the public, especially the Tea Party activists responded with great enthusiasm. The Scott Brown campaign didn\’t just exist outside the Republican Party structure…..it THRIVED.
The Tea Party is the most popular movement in the country, far outpacing both the Democrats and Republicans. And now they\’ve proven they can do more than just stand around and make noise in town halls and in web forums on the internet. They can make or break an election, even in hostile territory. The Republican Party hasn\’t yet figured out that they need the Tea Party, but the Tea Party movement is slowly waking up to the fact that they don\’t need the Republican Party.
Instead of going through usual Republican Party process of creating an electoral platform, the Tea Party folk have instead bypassed the party. Instead of a top-down Contract TO America, they\’ve banded together and through grassroots methods are creating a Contract FROM America. In fact, internal divisions within the Tea Party movement, have at least partially been from mistrust of RNC affiliated groups.
The default position of the Tea Party movement appears to be that they choose to go it alone and the window is rapidly closing for that to change. The Republican Party needs to find something to offer the Tea Party movement, or else they may very well find themselves in the minority, along with the Democrats. Upcoming caucuses and primaries are the best, and probably last chance, for the Republican Party to accomplish that.
[Crossposted at True North]
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Posted in 2010 Elections, Political Mumbojumbo, True North | 
5 Comments »
January 27th, 2010 at 11:09 am
I’ve been making similar observations, but I’m not sure I agree with your conclusions or, more correctly, with the conclusions you claim the Tea Partiers have made. The TPers should recognize that Scott Brown is a Republican. He would have little value, indeed would not even have been on the ballot, without the Party to endorse and elect him to the State Legislature from where he came. The RNC put together a tremendous “ground game” to support his campaign, and no doubt assisted in other ways, such as his internet savvy– which finally IMHO has matched OFA’s.
IOW, the Tea Partiers and the GOP, to the degree they are different, still NEED each other to win, and if you don’t win you may as well be drinking tea.
January 27th, 2010 at 12:36 pm
The RNC only came in in the final week or so of the race, when Brown had already made up a tremendous amount of ground. And it may or may not be coincidence that about the time the RNC came in Brown stopped improving in the polls and stabilized a couple points ahead of Coakley.
Endorsement? If that’s the biggest advantage the Republicans can offer, they may as well not exist. It’s not overly difficult to establish endorsement power in elections. Already the Tea Party could easily transition to that role if they so chose.
Brown’s magic was not in not using the Republican Party, but instead reaching out to the Tea Party via the internet.
January 28th, 2010 at 11:26 am
The Republican Party has a history of using, absorbing and then dismissing each wave of energy that comes it’s way: evangelicals, the “Paul-bots” and, I expect, the Tea Partiers have been milked, used to get out on the streets with the lit drops, and then pat on the head as if they were children while the “grown-ups” made the decisions. I’d guess that a fair number of evangelicals and Ron Paul supporters are now count themselves in the TP, precisely because of the way they’ve been used and ignored while the suits and hair-dos plumphered about “electability” while edging themselves over until there’s scarcely a nickel’s worth of difference between them and the suits and hair-dos in the Democrat Party.
A pox on both your houses. If we’ve seen anything in the last two years it is that you don’t need a majority or even a super-majority to get things done (or undone). A passionate, principled and strategically placed minority can have great effect.
February 2nd, 2010 at 6:58 am
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February 6th, 2010 at 1:18 pm
I note that the Tea Party convention is this weekend, and that the stated objectives are for the tea party to become a large “special interest group” that finds and funds and supports candidates friendly to the TP point of view. They concede that a great portion of the time these will be Republicans, but not in every case. Sounds like a fantastic strategy to me, especially if we can get the Republican Party to do likewise.