Tea Party: the cracks begin to show

[jrtom]

As a political movement, the Tea Party has come a long way in a relatively short time. They've already got one prominent supporter on the national ballot for November 2010 (Rand Paul), and there are probably others that I'm unaware of.

I'm starting to wonder whether it may have peaked too soon, though:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/06/not-all-tea-partiers-support-sharron-angle/57793/

It seems to me that established parties can afford to have public schisms; I'm not sure that insurgent movements can.

(For those who may have come in late: I am not a TP supporter.)

Comments

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

I see your point here, but part of the effect of an insurgency (which carries a degree of wild enthusiasm that neither the Green Party nor the Libertarians have been able to muster) isn't just that its support makes people who would have voted one way vote a different way, it's that, especially at primaries, it can deluge the polls with so many voters who mightn't otherwise have gone as to effectively eliminate early any candidate who doesn't have their support. It might end up being the case that Tea Party endorsement becomes a prerequisite for gaining the Republican nomination for office in some states or locales, and even if it's split and so you're not guaranteed the nomination with TP support, you're absolutely guaranteed not to have a chance without it.

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the Greens and the Libertarians have been short on wild enthusiasm for some time now. Arguably they need a rebranding (and arguably, the Tea Party is a Libertarian rebranding, for that matter--sort of, anyway).

Part of my argument, however--which is still not spelled out very well--is that if there are multiple 'insurgency' candidates that it may actually decrease turnout, because it's clear that the individual candidates' chances are compromised by the split.

The situation you're describing--in which TP support, or even a segment of it, becomes a prerequisite for nomination--is arguably concomitant to the TP supplanting the Republicans as a party, at least locally. (Granted, the phrase 'necessary, but not sufficient' should probably appear in here somewhere. :) )

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

I think the Tea Party is starting to, de facto, replace the Republican Party in a lot of local offices. For national stuff, there will need to be a coalition of TP and assorted other people who can tolerate them... AKA the Republicans, which has for some time largely consisted of the whacko libertarian/social conservative/ultrapatriots plus whoever else can tolerate them. So I don't see that changing much.