WHAT NEXT FOR THE TEA PARTY?

A few days ago Virginia's Tea Party (TP) organizations held a state convention in Richmond. The Washington Post reported that at the meeting concerns were expressed by Manassas and Newport News attendees about the Republican party establishment co-opting the TP movement which has brought so much sound and fury to our politics and policy. Such concern is the crux of the TP organizational problem.

The TP perceives itself as being a "grass roots" organization with no single political leader, made up of loosely affiliated local chapters whose members share a common set of goals--make government smaller, make major cuts in the federal budget which in turn will end deficit spending. The term "grass roots" is in quotes since the TP has also become a tool of a lot of big outside money interests pursuing their own self-interests. The TP's chief targets have been stimulus spending aimed at creating or saving jobs, health care reforms, and greater regulatory control of the banking/financial industry-- major legislative accomplishments of the Obama administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress. In a previous post, it has also been pointed out that the TP movement has become wrapped in religious robes and the American flag to convey the message that TP opponents are godless and un-American.

As the Tea Party movement grew, it gained adherents from other activist groups focused on a variety of social/cultural issues such as anti-abortion, anti-gay rights, anti-immigration reform, and more recently an anti-Islamic cadre energized by opposition to the development of an Islamic cultural/social center about five blocks from the destroyed World Trade Center in New York City. Within this organizational context, a few thoughts arise.

Right now it seems clearly evident that the tail, the TP, is wagging the dog, the establishment GOP. The TP ideological center of gravity is well to the right of the mainstream conservatism of the GOP, and even farther to the right of what is left of the moderate wing of the Republican party. The TP has become the visible and vocal expression of the so-called disgruntled voter. The ability of the TP to organize and bring its members and fellow travelers out for their anti-whatever rallies and demonstrations have shifted the party base farther to the right and thus forced many mainstream GOP congressional and gubernatorial candidates to shift their positions accordingly to avoid being outflanked by more extremist, TP-backed opponents. So, at least in the short run, meaning this round of elections, it seems that the Tea Party movement has taken control of the establishment GOP.

At the same time, it must be remembered that in defeating establishment GOP election choices in places like Kentucky, Alaska, and Delaware, the end result is that the TP candidates are now wearing the Republican label for next month's elections. So the question becomes--if the TP favorites, running as Republicans, win in three weeks, will they slowly slide into the fold of the establishment GOP as they become members of the party caucuses in the House and Senate? Put another way, how aggressive will any TP winners be in pursuing their political outsider goals now that they are inside the GOP tent?

And, while shunning any hierarchical organizational structure of its own, the TP movement has spawned something of a small industry of name-alike Tea Party organizations. There are several organizations that have sprung up using the Tea Party label to advance their own enterprises, including some for-profit activities. One is the California-based Tea Party Express (TPE) which has funded some successful candidates such as Joe Miller in Alaska and Christine O'Donnell in Delaware. In supporting these candidates, the TPE has acted similarly to a traditional campaign organization which has a paid staff for setting up and carrying out a variety of activities in behalf of a candidate.

There is also the Tea Party Nation (TPN) which organized a national TP convention in Nashville, Tennessee, last February but which came under sharp criticism from TP activists for the high fee required to attend and for the $100,000 fee paid to Sarah Palin to speak. There is also the Tea Party Patriots (TPP) which co-sponsored a 9/12 March on Washington and received $1 million to distribute to local organizations for election activities. So right now it looks like the TP movement has fostered several name-alikes, acting independently of each other, with different agendas that sometimes take on the character of for-profit rather than ideologically driven enterprises. Each of these will, of course, want to stay around to receive and spend money for the general (presidential and congressional) elections of 2012.

In sum, the Tea Party, which started as a loosely organized so-called grass roots movement and has, at least at this point, the intention of staying that way, should not be surprised if it becomes perceived as ripe for a takeover, friendly or unfriendly, by the establishment GOP or an aggressive name-alike organization it has spawned. How all of this turns out will depend greatly on how many Tea Party-backed people get elected on November 2. What we of the left and middle can hope for is that the TP is so unsuccessful in the elections that few people will care, Whither goes the Tea Party? That would still leave the question-- Whither Sarah Palin? who has been so successful at linking herself to the Tea Party base for her own political advantage.