A terrific piece from Matt Bai proves the intransigence of our two party system.
If that’s the case, then it now seems like only a matter of time before the Republican empire, overwhelmed by insurrection for much of the last two years, strikes back at last. “I think it’s waning now,” Scott Reed, a veteran strategist and lobbyist, told me when we talked about the Tea Party’s influence last month. Efforts to gin up primaries next year against two sitting senators — Utah’s Orrin Hatch and Indiana’s Dick Lugar — have been slow to gain momentum, Reed said, and it’s notable that more than half of the 50-plus members of the Tea Party caucus in the House ultimately fell in line and voted with Speaker John Boehner on his debt-ceiling compromise. Party leaders have managed to bleed some of the anti-establishment intensity out of the movement, Reed said, by slyly embracing Tea Party sympathizers in Congress, rather than treating them as “those people.”
Did he mean to say that the party was slowly co-opting the Tea Partiers?
“Trying to,” Reed said. “And that’s the secret to politics: trying to control a segment of people without those people recognizing that you’re trying to control them.”
This whole fight on the right is what’s given us the deplorable state of ineffectiveness in Congress today. Principles are critically important. Seeing leaders and political party heads fight hard for what they want is the stuff of battles worthy of supporting. But when stalemate comes, the American people require that elected officials swallow their partisan pride and do the work they were sent to do.
Majorities happen for a reason: people vote one party in over another.
What happened when Obama came in is that he had a majority in Congress, but acted like he didn’t. Not only did he not take the power he was given and drive to the wall for change, he compromised and created something worse than he had to, starting with health care reform.
The Tea Party pack who won in 2010 had no intention of going down that road. However, their extremism has caused paralysis and made our situation worse. It would have been an economic calamity if the Tea Party had successfully caused a U.S. default and their pushing for just that result is what’s got their power dwindling today.
From Bai:
There was a lesson in all this for the Tea Partiers, Weber said — one he had been trying to impart to them whenever he got the chance. “I think I know what they want to accomplish, and I agree with most of it,” he said. “But if they want to accomplish it, they need to ‘rise to the level of politics.’ I mean, you can’t just stand there and take a stand and say, ‘I’m not going to compromise on my position.’ Because you won’t achieve anything.”
Achievements matter in government. Pres. Obama’s got that down. It’s just his achievements in his first term don’t represent the majority with which he began, with his capitulation during times of Democratic strength proving to the Republicans he can be rolled, leading to even worse outcomes once the Tea Party came in.
But since the Tea Party doesn’t understand, respect or appreciate the point of governing, it’s allowed the Republican establishment to wait them out. Now the Tea Party pack has nowhere to go, as their power wanes in Washington, unless they pitch a fit and start their own stand alone entity, outside the two party duopoly. If Mitt Romney’s the nominee, this next spring they may do just that.
To me the Tea Party was really just the personality based mirror image of the “Obama Movement” A hodge podge of issues with the only common thread being about Obama.
Obama thinks it’s an “achievement” if he signs something.
I also think that the majority of tea partiers will swallow hard and vote for Romney. The question in the end is will it be enough?
I also think that the majority of tea partiers will swallow hard and vote for Romney. The question in the end is will it be enough?
That is certainly conventional wisdom, especially among non-Republicans & non Tea Partiers.
However, anyone listening to Rush Limbaugh today, which I did, would find this notion something yet to be proven.
While I would dearly love to see the TEA Party types self-immolate in the 2012 general by running a clown-car campaign straight into the brick wall of political reality, I have to disagree with you Ms. Marsh. Republicans always play to win.
Obama is very vulnerable, his lackadaisical, reactive, lead from behind style is not playing well to the nose-bleed seats. The economy is deep in the tank, and Obama cannot even get a jobs bill through the friendly precincts of the Senate, he is looking more feckless by the day.
Republicans sense blood in the water, and would dearly love to make Obama the next Jimmy Carter. Why toss all that away for some quixotic goal of political purity? Besides the TEA Party bench is rather thin of real talent. No one in the present batch seems to have the political skills or messaging to be more than the flavor of the week. And this is in the primary season were the playing field tilts to TEA Party strengths.
Once out of the hot-house environment of the Republican primaries, the TEA Party will wilt in the bracing climate of the general. All the TEA Party can do in that environment is be an Albatross for multiple choice Mitt. They will do all the knife work for Obama, pointing out Romney’s multiple flip flops on issues too numerous to mention. Plus Obama will be able to tar Romney with the extremist brush, lumping him in with the more Radical TEA Party set. Obama then can win on a ” I may be feckless, but at least I’m not crazy” meme. A TEA Party insurgency is nothing but bad news for the Republicans in the general.
I just do not see TEA Party enthusiasts wanting a scenario where Obama gets another four years in office. They would gouge out their own eyes with rusty teaspoons before that happened. If Mitt gets the nod, they will get their pound of flesh, and then join ranks to scupper Obama.
“I also think that the majority of tea partiers will swallow hard and vote for Romney. The question in the end is will it be enough?”
I find myself agreeing more with you Ga6thDem than Ms. Marsh on this one. Republicans play politics to win. They are masters at politics, but disasters at governing. I have a hard time seeing a TEA Party running a Nadar-type rebellion.
It may be a hard slog for Romney, but my guess is he can remind the TEA Party faithful that while they may have no love for him, Conservatives really, really, really despise Obama.
Romney may have to swallow hard and nominate a tried-and-true TEA Party man (no icky girls need apply) as a peace offering to Rush and company, but that is politics.
I cannot ding Rush if he backhands Romney in the general, whilst laying into Obama as his main talking point. Both Ms. Marsh and I were more anti-McCain in ’08 than pro-Obama. I still believe that McCain’s mercurial temperament, his tendency to go flying off the rails at the slightest provocation, was a bad fit for the Presidency, but that is neither here nor there.
I still believe the old adage that Democrats fall in love, while Republicans fall in line.