Is the Party Over? Tea Party’s Visibility, Unity Under Scrutiny
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The Tea Party movement emerged on the U.S. political scene with much fanfare, but nearly three years after it began, its influence in the 2012 presidential election has yet to stand out.
The grassroots conservative movement was successful in pulling in hundreds of thousands of Americans into the nation’s capital and organizing rallies across the country to bring attention to the nation’s fiscal plight. It was also credited with helping propel to power many new, unusual candidates in the 2010 mid-term elections.
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But the Tea Party has been less visible when it comes to the 2012 elections, with many questioning whether it wields the same kind of influence it once did. There have been no rallies in Washington, D.C., recently and the movement has been overshadowed by the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, the top two contenders for the GOP nomination, have both supported policies on health care reform and economic issues that go against the very core principles of the Tea Party movement.
There’s also little unity within the movement. Though some Tea Party leaders have endorsed Gingrich, saying that there’s no perfect candidate, one of the movement’s shining stars, Sen. Rand Paul, today warned that doing so could crumble the movement.
“While conservatives and limited-government activists did, indeed, make great strides in 2010, those could easily be set back by nominating someone with a different set of ideas and values in 2012,” warned the senator from Kentucky, whose father, Rep. Ron Paul, is also a candidate. “Gingrich is not from the Tea Party. He is not even a conservative. He is part of the Washington establishment I was sent to fight.”
An Associated Press-GfK poll conducted in mid-August — after the debt showdown in Congress — found that unfavorable views of the Tea Party jumped to 32 percent, up 10 percentage points from November 2010. Only a quarter of those polled considered themselves a part of the conservative movement, the lowest number ever in Associated Press-GfK’s polling.
Meanwhile, the presidential candidates who rose to the top on the back of Tea Party support – Rep. Michele Bachmann and Gov. Rick Perry – have seen their popularity drop sharply. Both Gingrich and Romney are establishment candidates that the Tea Party has so derided in the past.
Tea Party leaders say the movement isn’t dying, but acknowledge that it’s changing and the overt show of support has declined from its heyday.
The movement “has grown up. We have learned that there is more to being involved in politics than simply getting up there screaming as loud as we can,” said Judson Phillips, founder of the Tea Party Nation, which held the first and only Tea Party convention in February 2010, featuring Sarah Palin. “Sometimes that does have a place, and it was crucial in the birthing of this movement, but now the important thing for us to do is to be involved in the campaign.”
Phillips has endorsed Gingrich despite the former House Speaker’s close ties to corporate giants and once support of such anti-Tea Party principles like the individual mandate, which requires people to purchase health insurance .
“We are not looking for a perfect candidate,” he said. “We are looking for the best guy running.”
Others challenge the claim that the movement’s influence is waning, saying that though the Tea Party may not be as visible in the streets and in the media as before, it’s been successful in getting people to talk about its core principles of fiscal responsibility, limited government and free markets.
“The reality is, what’s happened is, the ideas of the Tea Party movement have ingrained themselves in American consciousness,” said Mark Meckler, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, which doesn’t officially endorse any one candidate. When one listens to Romney, “he’s saying he’s for fiscal responsibility, lesser government, less regulation, following the constitution, that we need to support the job creators in the free market. That’s our core principles.”
The focus of this conservative grassroots movement, in large part, will be on local and state elections next year.
“What the Tea Party is going to focus on a lot in this election cycle is … Democrats and Republicans running in congressional races that the Tea Party believes will hold whoever the president is accountable,” said John O’Hara, author of “A New American Tea Party” and vice president of external relations at the Illinois Policy Institute.
Even though Tea Party supporters haven’t yet coalesced behind one presidential contender yet, they eventually will because “all of the frontrunners offer better alternatives to the status quo,” O’Hara added.
Perhaps the biggest shift in the movement is that it’s less of a national force – as it was when the health care law was being debated – and more of a regional entity, experts say.
Its influence has diminished severely in states like Massachusetts, where Sen. Scott Brown – once the darling of the movement – has now backtracked from his staunch support and has made several votes that have irked those conservatives who helped get him elected.
In Maine, where Tea Party activists helped lift Gov. Paul LePage to power, the state’s highest ranking official has run afoul of his own Republican party. He’s been publicly rebuked for calling some protestors “idiots” and saying that the NAACP can “kiss my butt” after declining to attend a Martin Luther King Day celebration. The former incident prompted a rare op-ed by Republican state senators criticizing LePage for “picking a personal fight.”
The Tea Party’s influence is also questionable in key swing states, observers say.
“I think it’s doomed not to extinguish its opponents and achieve dominance over the entire country because its support varies strongly regionally,” said Colin Woodard, journalist and author of “American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America.” “The decay of its support in certain key regional cultures is crippling to the Tea Party’s influence not only in the Northeast and Upper Midwest but also in key swing states like Ohio and Pennsylvania.”
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The tea party became irrelevant when they became funded by the Health Insurance Companies and signed pledges to Grover Norquist. They fooled the American people until we all saw this was no grassroots movement at all, but just a front for the extreme right wing conservatives. There are no moderate republicans, democrats or independents represented.
Posted by: tmferretti | December 9, 2011, 3:02 pm 3:02 pm
“But the Tea Party has been less visible when it comes to the 2012 elections….”—-Maybe it’s because they pick up their trash and go home at night. They could get attention if they defecate on police cars, trash the place, hurl bottles at police, throw liquid in the police officer faces, and generally be uncivil at protesting. Can you believe some people in the MSM were comparing the Tea Party with Occupiers?
Posted by: jonnie | December 9, 2011, 3:15 pm 3:15 pm
Right on tmferretti! However in my opinion they became absolutely irrelevant when they proved they were willing to drive the country over the cliff (S&P Downgrade) in order to get President Obama. Make no mistake, the Tea Party IS NOT about fiscal responsibility–that’s just an issue which gets them some traction. From the beginning the group was all about “taking down” President Obama by anuy means necessary.
Posted by: MyTakeOnThis61 | December 9, 2011, 3:26 pm 3:26 pm
This group is just a crew of Republicans ON STEROIDS!!! They SCREWED up the whole debt ceiling vote and made us LOSE our credit standing in the world. Many of the actual Tea Party Politicians that WON are most likely one termers and those that ran and did NOT win were REALLY embarassing, off-the-wall – crazy people. Sharon Angle, Christine the WITCH and the man from Alaska that was so SURE he’d win that he went to DC to find a place to live and then he LOST to a WRITE-IN candidate! The TP has proven themselves to be even MORE selfish and uninformed than the orginary Republican.
Posted by: demNme5 | December 9, 2011, 3:27 pm 3:27 pm
The party is over in 2012. Obama’s 4 year long “democratic party” of overspending and thumbing their nose at the GOP.
Posted by: Paulie | December 9, 2011, 3:33 pm 3:33 pm
JONNIE
Your right, some of the OWS is disorganized rowdy, undisciplined and disrespectful but they represent the views of 99% of Americans. Doesn’t it remind you of those rag tag colonists in 1776? George Washington even complained about them.
They are not bused to rallies, given hotel rooms, have their signs manufactured, all funded by the Health Insurance Industry and the Koch Brothers.
Posted by: tmferretti | December 9, 2011, 3:34 pm 3:34 pm
According to a Gallup poll released Friday, more than three quarters of registered voters say most members of Congress deserve to lose their jobs–the highest number since 1993, the year before the political climate resulted in a Republican “tsunami.”
Posted by: Guesswho | December 9, 2011, 3:35 pm 3:35 pm
JONNIE
Your right, some of the OWS is disorganized rowdy, undisciplined and disrespectful but they represent the views of 99% of Americans. Doesn’t it remind you of those rag tag colonists in 1776? George Washington even complained about them.
They are not bused to rallies, given hotel rooms, have their signs manufactured, all funded by the Health Insurance Industry and the Koch Brothers.
Posted by: tmferretti | December 9, 2011, 3:37 pm 3:37 pm
At least the tea party has some relevance….unlike the occupy movement
Posted by: whining liberal | December 9, 2011, 3:37 pm 3:37 pm
“Your right, some of the OWS is disorganized rowdy, undisciplined and disrespectful but they represent the views of 99% of Americans.” – - I’m part of the 99% and they certainly don’t represent me or anyone I work with or know. The truth is they represent far less peope than what you believe.
Posted by: Mitch | December 9, 2011, 3:47 pm 3:47 pm
MITCH
I believe the middle class is shrinking, that 99% of the wealth in this country is controlled by the truffle eaters. These OWS people equally slam democrats, republicans and anybody else who believes that the corporations and rich should use their money to buy all the power in this country.
I don’t particularly like the tactics they are using now (hopefully they will become more sophisticated) but I certainly think their message is right on. I just hope they don’t become bought and paid for like the tea party.
Posted by: tmferretti | December 9, 2011, 3:59 pm 3:59 pm
Maybe it’s because they pick up their trash and go home at night. They could get attention if they defecate on police cars, trash the place, hurl bottles at police, throw liquid in the police officer faces, and generally be uncivil at protesting.
Can you believe some people in the MSM were comparing the Tea Party with Occupiers?
Posted by: jonnie | December 9, 2011, 3:15 pm 3:15 pm
—Amazing isnt it.
Posted by: billy bob | December 9, 2011, 4:06 pm 4:06 pm
They are not bused to rallies, given hotel rooms, have their signs manufactured, all funded by the Health Insurance Industry and the Koch Brothers.
POSTED BY: TMFERRETTI | DECEMBER 9, 2011, 3:37 PM===You mean like the bunch who were funded by Oprah and Huffington , Soros bused to Colberts and Stewarts show in DC?
Posted by: whining liberal | December 9, 2011, 4:09 pm 4:09 pm
TMFERRRETI, i am not saying I like bankers, Wall Street, politicians, lobbyists, Congress, etc., but why do OWS have selective outrage? Target Fannie/Freddie, Barney Frank, unions, D.C. etc.as well. BTW we belonged to unions and unions can be as oppressive as government–IMHO, the worker is caught between two devils. I doubt that my local TP has signed pledges to Norquist or sponsored by health insurance companies. They are very independent thinkers. Could you show your source on that? How about the sponsorship of the OWS and their SEIU and other unions? Income-wise I may be 99% but no way do I belong with the OWS and their disrepectful behavior.
Posted by: jonnie | December 9, 2011, 4:13 pm 4:13 pm
JONNIE
If the Unions, Oprah, Soros and all the rest are funding the OWS they’re certainly not getting their money’s worth. These people are sleeping in tents, bring their own food and can’t even afford microphones. .
The point is, although they are rag-tag as hell, they unlike the tea party, represent the views of the majority of Americans who are fed up with our representatives (republicans and democrats) being bought and paid for by a powerful few.
In 1918 the Russian people had no choice but armed revolution to change their government. We Americans have the best tool of all, our votes, if we are smart enough and have the will.
Posted by: tmferretti | December 9, 2011, 4:27 pm 4:27 pm
Who funds the occupiers? I have seen their tables of food, tents,and signs. Could it be Soros, Obama’s pal? How many countries has ole George Soros brought down now? Also if anybody thinks these people represent 99% of the views of Americans they are sadly mistaken.
Posted by: specialty57 | December 9, 2011, 4:29 pm 4:29 pm
If these OWs and Obama are intent on making everybody the same,take from the rich and hand it out,forget it. Ever wonder why a flat tax is not introduced.? Because Obama and the rich know if he raises their taxes they will just find more deductions. Makes Obama look good to some but it is waste of time and he knows it. Maybe that is why a flat rate tax has never been put in place. The rich will pay more, and the 40% of the population that pays nothing will pay something. Obama said last week everybody needs to pay their share, no other way to do it than a flat rate tax.
Posted by: specialty57 | December 9, 2011, 4:42 pm 4:42 pm
When I heard about the tea party I was excited. I thought here we go, democrats, republicans, moderates, liberals and conservatives, all working together to get this government working for the people again. It didn’t take very long to become disillusioned.
When all the tea party did was protest the health care bill, it became apparent who was driving this movement. The only people who had a voice were the extreme conservative republicans. They sent politicians to Washington whose only purpose was to maintain the grid lock. They signed pledges to people like Grover Norquist and could care less about what was best for this country.
Sorry, I know they don’t represent me and deep down I know they don’t represent hard working middle class republicans either.
Posted by: tmferretti | December 9, 2011, 4:43 pm 4:43 pm
Who funds the occupiers? I have seen their tables of food, tents,and signs. Could it be Soros, Obama’s pal? How many countries has ole George Soros brought down now?
Posted by: specialty57 | December 9, 2011, 4:29 pm.
LOL! Just cannot leave the boogie man alone, can ya? Even without a shred of evidence linking him to the OWS movement, you HAD to toss it out there. Then, use it as an excuse to slam him again with more ridiculous unfounded tripe. Nice, Specialty. real nice…………..
Posted by: Searambler | December 9, 2011, 4:59 pm 4:59 pm
“Who funds the occupiers? I have seen their tables of food, tents,and signs….”
I can only speak for NYC (Zucotti Park) and all of the food was donated by major hotels, restaurants, chefs volunteered to cook, people opened their kitchens and bathrooms, and yes there were many, many donations from a strata of the economic scale. Believe it or not, there were many, many people with rolexes who gave financially, marched, and supported too. ; )
Posted by: MyTakeOnThis61 | December 9, 2011, 5:00 pm 5:00 pm
Liberals: They call us ‘greedy’ while they rob us blind, and then turn around and pass our money to their wealthy friends and buy votes from leeches. They impoverish and enslave entire generations of people, while extolling their empathy. Then they call us ‘stupid’ for thinking for ourselves, and learning the lessons of history. And their enablers in the media and the education sector not only permit this, but participate in the game. You cant have an honest discourse with a liberal as they are dishonest at times I think its even detrimental to let them know of our plans and ideas as conservatives as they will look to subvert them at every turn.
Posted by: Paulie | December 9, 2011, 5:04 pm 5:04 pm
Ferretti, I never heard of the pledge signing. Most people agree with some of the OWL ideas and some of the tea party ideas. IMO the HCR bill is a joke. You can get what they offer now if you can pay the price. Nothing has changed there. You will still be paying for somebody else through taxes or higher rates. Hopefully most or all of that 2400 pages of nothing will be repealed and done better the next round. Obama should have never listed to Pelosi,”pass it now and read it latter”.
Posted by: specialty57 | December 9, 2011, 5:05 pm 5:05 pm
The democratic party and its people are simply communists by another name. The problem unfortunately has grown larger than Obama and our failure of a Senate. I only hope we can change things for the better in 2012.
Posted by: Getreal | December 9, 2011, 5:05 pm 5:05 pm
Just as many people support the ideals of the Tea Party, but they are uncomfortable with being called racist and stupid which is the Alinsky model to diminish them. It worked to a point, they are hesitant to be out publicly, but they will be voting in force. Romney is the nominee to challenge Obama.. Romney has had 6 years of unrelenting vetting. In contrast, Obama was not vetted at all and it shows. I think you will find Romney is the man with the best chance to unseat Obama among the widest demographic. Most people I know have decided on Romney. He is calm and thinks things out. Romney has business and government experience that is sorely lacking in Obama and most of his Republican opponents. He has the best chance to turn the economy around because of his experience and history of working across party lines in Mass. where he governed with an 80% Dem majority. He is not flashy, but a good stable man who loves his country and will do the best job. On the health care issue, he has the most experience as to what works and what does not. I think he will be able to offer some real help in that area and it will not include a Federal takeover.
Posted by: Connie Davis | December 9, 2011, 5:34 pm 5:34 pm
The TeaParty got power, and performed ABYSMALLY and we are WORSE off than before they came. They proved yes, you CAN actually do worse. ALOT worse. Put a fork in them, they’re done.
Posted by: NotURAverageJoe | December 9, 2011, 6:21 pm 6:21 pm
“LOL! Just cannot leave the boogie man alone, can ya? Even without a shred of evidence linking him to the OWS movement, you HAD to toss it out there. Then, use it as an excuse to slam him again with more ridiculous unfounded tripe.”……Do you need George Soros to stand up and say “I sent money to OWS” ? There have been numerous orgs that list George Soros as their funding benefactor who’ve given money to OWS.
NOTURAVERAGEJOE | DECEMBER 9, 2011, 6:21 PM 6:21 PM….Exactly what is ABYSMALLY? All those bills passed, INCLUDING A BUDGET, that Harry Reid won’t even allow the Senate debate?
Posted by: deanbob | December 9, 2011, 6:42 pm 6:42 pm
The Tea Party movement is largely responsible for the drubbing the Democrat party took in the midterms. How effective do you think they can be with an obstruction, Democrat-controlled Senate. When the senate goes to Republican control after the 2012 elections you’ll see things get done. As it stands now, there are something like 25 bills (passed by the House) but stalled in the Senate because of the uber-obstructionist Harry Reid. Why is this difficult for you people to understand?
Posted by: s | December 9, 2011, 6:46 pm 6:46 pm
The debt debacle really did them in, they were told to lie low, because honestly most normal Americans know it was their fault for the downgrade, even republicans realize it but won’t admit it.
Posted by: phantomniter | December 9, 2011, 7:51 pm 7:51 pm
S: The republicans were given a second chance after GWB, and they screwed up royally with the debt debacle, give them a little power and all he11 breaks loose, and give them the senate, we’ll be finished. They need to be out of the house majorities for a few years and then once they have become a little bit simmered down, a little more centered, they can come back into the fold. People are fools not to notice they want a one term dem president, we went through the same thing during president Clinton, it’s time for the mess to be cleaned up and the republicans have nothing but old dinosaur ideas that are not beneficial to middle class Americans in the 21st century, they are old ideas they will send the majority of Americans to the poor house.
Posted by: phantomniter | December 9, 2011, 7:56 pm 7:56 pm
I am a Tea Party Patriot who has been a supporter since Feb. 2009. The Tea Party has lost its direction and credibility because we now have numerous Tea Party organizations with differing agendas and no coordination. The Tea Party was a movement, everyone going in the same direction, with the same agenda, now it is an Internet business with multiple organizations in competition for membership. Membership without a purpose in my opinion.
Posted by: MKCBurd | December 10, 2011, 12:07 am 12:07 am
To Special TV57: I have a strong suspicion that you have no idea what the definition of a “communist” is. You strike me as a rick Perry wannabe – hip-shooting from the mouth. How much have you studied the subject of Economics? Not much, I bet. Did you pass Econ 101 in your freshman year?
I think you’re 180 degrees off the mark with regards to 2012. The Republicans are going to get a drubbing that will bring back memories of Goldwater’s Guiness Book of Records in 1964. The GOP has lost its way, helped a great deal by the misnamed Tea Party – they are Anti-Federalists, and by Grover Norquist and his toxic pledge. The Tea Party and Norquist have done more damage to this country than Osama bin Laden could have done if he had lived another 10 years. 70% of voters disagree with the GOP position on “no tax increases” when we’re trying to solve a negative cash flow problem that runs the deficit up.
Abraham LIncoln is credited with saying, “you can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. The GOP managed to fool enough of the people in 2008 to take over the House, and look at how they’ve screwed it up. I find it supremely ironic that the uncertainty created by the GOP intransigence this summer is going to result in hundreds of billions of additional interest costs because of the credit downgrade created by that uncertainty. who’s going to pay those additional interest costs? American taxpayers, both corporate and individual, that’s who. And this by the stupidity of the pledge signers, who don’t understand that the operating principle of a negotiation is that both parties have to compromise. No-onw ever gets all that they want in a negotiation.
I hope the Tea Party crashes and burns before it does any more damage. It’s a bunch of people who are angry, but who have no idea how to fix the things they’re angry about under the rules established by the US Constitution. The country has to manage itself out of the mess we’re in that Bush 43 created. It’s past due for us to stop the rhetoric and get to work fixing the economy.
BTW, you obviously don’t like President Obama, but in elections, everybody gets graded on a curve, and he’s an order of magnitude better than any of the 8 mental midgets trying to get the GOP nomination. I don’t think Mr. Obama has been a great President so far, but in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
Posted by: excfo | December 10, 2011, 1:43 am 1:43 am
To TM Ferretti: Why do you think it’s significant who funds the OWS movement? Since our first election, people and organizations who had the resources to fund candidates, movements and parties have done so. Try reading a little US history.
What I think is significant is the message of the OWS Movement: 1% of the citizens control 99% of the country’s wealth. That imbalance is not sustainable, in my opinion. I think the current GOP has lost its way and will implode after losing substantially in 2012. I hope that a new conservative party will form with principal members similar to Dwight Eisenhower, Bill Buckley and Ronald Reagan. The TP and Grover Norquist’s ATR will lose any traction they have had as voters begin to understand the enormous damage they have caused, by generating the uncertainty that led to our credit downgrade.
Posted by: excfo | December 10, 2011, 2:15 am 2:15 am
Sorry but I cannot relate, support, or condone the tea party movement or it’s leaders. The nation is worse off with them.
Posted by: Tyrone | December 10, 2011, 3:07 am 3:07 am
The Tea Party will be over when the Koch brothers SAY it’s over. Period.
Posted by: Searambler | December 10, 2011, 9:28 am 9:28 am
EXCFO
I think it’s significant who funds OWS for obvious reasons, money talks, BS walks. If the OWS becomes funded by just a few big donors they will only fight for the interests of those donors.
The tea party is funded by the health insurance, industry, Grover Norquist and the Koch Brothers, you see where thats gotten us.
Posted by: tmferretti | December 10, 2011, 11:50 am 11:50 am
The TEA Party is merely working behind the scenes educating the citizens on a wide range of issues. We will work for politicians that support the value of limited government and fiscal responsibility. We also realized politicians can NEVER be trusted, so a lot of us are running for office ourselves.
For the record: Koch Brothers fund Americans for Prosperity, not Tea Parties. We are totally funded by local donations. Grid-lock only exists because the Senate will not take up any legislation passed by the House. Reid is evidently afraid to have Democrats go on the record as to what they are for or against. There are 27 jobs bills and a couple hundred other bills sitting in the Senate collecting dust. No thanks to the media, the people know the truth. The TEA Party is the new media.
Posted by: Diane Benjamin | December 10, 2011, 12:53 pm 12:53 pm
DIANE
The grid lock exists because the tea party republicans in the House have signed a pledge to Grover Norquist never to raise taxes on the millionaires, period.
Posted by: tmferretti | December 10, 2011, 1:19 pm 1:19 pm