The tea party may have won Republicans the House of Representatives in 2010, but in 2012, it’s looking like it could help Democrats retain the White House. Now nearly three years old, the tea party has fallen out of favor with Americans, and Democrats are prepared to use it against Republicans in this year’s elections.
A recent Fox News poll showed just 30 percent of Americans had a favorable view of the tea party, compared with 51 percent who viewed it unfavorably.
A recent Washington Post/ABC News poll may be more illustrative, though. It showed that Americans were more evenly split on the tea party, with 44 percent supporting it and 43 percent opposing it. But just 15 percent of Americans supported the tea party “strongly,” while many more – 26 percent – were “strongly” opposed to it.
That suggests opposition to the tea party is more strident than the tea party itself, which means the movement may be doing the GOP more harm than good.
In addition, the fervor and enthusiasm spurred by the tea party in 2010 appears to have dissipated, with no major tea party rallies taking place this year and fewer Republican candidates latching on to the label. On the presidential campaign trail, the tea party is rarely mentioned.
The tea party was mostly a blessing for Republicans in 2010. Some less-electable tea party candidates beat Republican establishment candidates in primaries and went on to defeat in the general election. But on the whole, the tea party spurred enthusiasm against President Obama and helped Republicans overcome an emerging problem with their own brand — a problem that persists. The Washington Post/ABC poll showed that just 40 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the GOP, a new low.
I always believed the Tea Party was simply a rebranded part of the Republican base, and that was based on my experience here locally. We didn’t have the situation I kept hearing about, where Tea Party members were organizing and running for local offices. Everyone always says “dogcatcher”. They were running for dogcatcher. Not here they weren’t.
This is an overwhelmingly Republican county, and so we have overwhelmingly Republican local government. All of those Republicans remained in office. They simply went from calling themselves “Republicans” in 2000 and 2004, to calling themselves “conservatives” in 2006 and 2008 (avoiding the term Republican) to calling themselves the Tea Party in 2010. Same people. I don’t know what they call themselves next, but I think I’ll know by June, and I’ll be sure and let you know. My hunch is it involves the phrase “small government”, although that’s a little clumsy, as a brand.
My current House member is the son of a moderate Republican House member who actually beat back a primary challenge from the Right. Grover Norquist’s DC lobbying group helicoptered into town and dropped a primary challenger into the race and created a primary. Latta won that, and went on to win in a bad year for Republicans by pretending to be a moderate, like his dad. He was a moderate Republican for about 15 minutes, and then he magically became a Tea Partier. Same person. Now the word is that the managers of the two largest employers in town (a private hospital and a manufacturing facility) are both donating to his Democratic challenger because he’s “incompetent” which I understand (perhaps cynically!) to mean he doesn’t do anything for the district.
I noticed that the Tea Party could be a powerful motivator for the opposition when I was standing at a rally to repeal Issue Two inside a Teamsters hall in Toledo and periodically and completely spontaneously the chant “fuck the Tea Party” would break out. I was able to pick up that subtle and nuanced feeling of anger from the crowd because I’m so perceptive.
However. I don’t want the Tea Party to fall out of favor with pundits, for two reasons. Pundits were, in my view, always ”the movements” most enthusiastic promoters, and I think Republicans who have to get reelected should have to wear the Tea Party they embraced like a badge. Actions should have consequences, and I’m all about taking responsibility.
GOP strategist Brian Donahue said the Democrats’ strategy is “old hat.” And because the movement isn’t front and center anymore, it won’t matter as much come election time.
We simply can’t let that happen, and not just because it’s probably unconstitutional to ignore or hide or run away from the Tea Party. These images of the Tea Party are an important part of the historical record of the Republican Party.
Cassidy
Fixed for Villager bias.
PeakVT
Pundits were, in my view, always ”the movements” most enthusiastic promoters
They may have been the most enthusiastic, but the entire emmessemm participated in the rebranding effort.
c u n d gulag
KKK + John Birch + NRA = Teabaggers.
Mino
I think the avereage IQ of the 2010 class, national and local, dropped 20 points. Incompetent is the word. Insane, also. Why else do you think they fell on the neck of ALEC. They couldn’t draft a bill if their lives depended on it. Plus, it would be work.
Egg Berry
Not low enough.
Kay
@PeakVT:
It’s funny to watch. We all noticed they changed their signs in 2006 and 2008. They dropped the color red along with the word “Republican” which made me laugh, because you’ll recall the pundit mantra after 2004 was “red states”. They all became maverick “conservative independents” for 2 years, then they broke out the tri-corner hats, and now I guess they’re “small government” enthusiasts.
Kay
@Mino:
It was fear. I maintain Republicans won in Ohio because they said Democrats were cutting Medicare. That’s not a small government platform, no matter how many times CNN tells me it is. I was getting a piece of direct mail a day on Democrats cutting 500 billion from Medicare, and I’m a registered Democrat.
Steve
“It’s probably unconstitutional.” You crack me up!
Steve
“It’s probably unconstitutional.” You crack me up, even on a Monday morning.
dmsilev
Within margin of error, I think we can claim another victory for “27 percent”.
Breezeblock
I saw Rep Bill Pascrell’s campaign ad here in NJ this morning (he’s not my congresscritter however), he’s running forcefully against the teabaggers.
Egg Berry
Why is the second poll more illustrative? Sounds like it fits the harrative better? Why not just say polls are unclear?
Davis X. Machina
@Mino:
Look who voted in 2010. That’s why it’s called the House of Representatives, instead of, say, the House of Pancakes.
Davis X. Machina
@Egg Berry: It’s based on the same sentiment as Kay’s — that the Tea Party is the Republican party. As such, 43-44% is just about right. It’ll just take Fox viewers longer to have the same insight.
Mino
@Kay: I do think the lowinfo voter was stampeded.
But the dregs that got elected from the remains of the Republican Party, after any sensible conservative invaded and captured the Democratic Party, are unabashedly stupid, stupid, stupid. Thank FSM they have ALEC to put their worst impulses into law.
BruceFromOhio
Thanks for the chuckle. Unfortunately, the tri-corner hat crew can conjure the misinformation carpet-bomb pretty easily, a la Josh Mandel. Do not under any circumstances underestimate the power of stupid, particularly the well-funded kind we’ve been so lucky to have here in the Buckeye Stae.
Mino
@Davis X. Machina: I think the local idiots are even more emblematic than national.
And not to get all sexist, I read that women stayed home in 2010. So make of that what you will.
Davis X. Machina
@Mino: Considering what was once said about Pres. Clinton, and what the gender gap looks like today, apparently our first black president was white, and our first woman president will be a guy.
gene108
@Kay:
Medicare isn’t Big Government. Good hard working whites paid into it and should be able to benefit from it.
It’s when you start handing out money to non-hardworking whites is when you end up with Big Government.
It’s sort of like why defense spending isn’t a Big Government issue, because DoD contracts don’t go to lazy non-whites.
RalfW
Well, that’s classic spin. Here it is again, adjusted to reflect Donahue’s actual fears:
Just like how the right wing whines and moans when Obama actually lands a punch, they spin and try to minimize working progressive strategies.
They are showing their underbelly. Bring out the pointy sticks!
julie
I’m in Kaptur’s district, but we’re really excited about Angela Zimmann’s chances against Latta.
http://zimmannforcongress.com/
Kay
@BruceFromOhio:
I follow Sherrod Brown closely. I think he’s underestimated as a political opponent. He’s the top Senate target of outside groups this cycle, they have thrown tons of money at him already, and he’s managed to make an actual issue, a huge headache, for Mandel out of the Ohio Deposit Board, which has to be the most boring scandal ever. He’s done that on the cheap (in relative terms) because he isn’t paying for the media attention. He ran a great campaign in ’06, and now he’s running another great campaign this year, and the climate is completely different.
It’s always going to be hard work for Sherrod Brown, because he’s a liberal populist in a swing state, but if he wins again I’d love if other Democrats in the midwest looked at how he does it. I don’t think it’s mysterious or tricky. They work really really hard and they settle on a theme and stick to it. It helps that Sherrod Brown is actually who he says he is, and he’s been consistent his entire career. Trade and the middle class. Over and over and over.
Gretchen
We had city council elections last week, and three long-term incumbents were unexpectedly thrown out. The council is non-partisan, but a friend who canvassed for one of them said everyone wanted to know the party. Since Republican is usually a good thing around here, my friend admitted that while the council is non-partisan, her candidate was a Republican. Lost her seat after 16 years of doing a good job. I’m hoping this is a sign of how the general will go.
Unfortunately, our Tea Party rep, with his votes for the Ryan budget and all the rest of it, is presently running unopposed, so we may miss that opportunity.
rikyrah
they were never anything more than the rightest of the right-wing. they were never independent. they were a Dick Armey astroturf group.
Jerzy Russian
Hi Kay,
I always appreciate your posts here. However, I must protest that link to the Tea Party signs. It is way too early in the morning (at least in this time zone) for that large of a dose of stupid. I may never see those lost IQ points again.
Kay
@BruceFromOhio:
This is my particular perspective, but I think Sherrod Brown is underestimated because he doesn’t really fit the stereotype of a political brawler, because that is always defined from the perspective of the Right. Their politicians. Manly. Making definitive, bold, (and untrue) statements.
He’s a rumpled-looking liberal who smiles a lot and more often than not he tells the whole truth if one asks him a direct question. Loser! :)
Forum Transmitted Disease
I defy anyone to point me to a case where this actually happened. I still get people – far fewer these days – who insist that the TeaTards were a “grassroots” local movement.
My ass.
Gin & Tonic
I’ll call those idiots a “party” when I can actually find them on a ballot line somewhere. I mean if the Greens or the Socialist Workers can actually manage to field separately identifiable candidates in some places, surely a movement as formidable as this can field a candidate somewhere. So I refuse to even use the term “tea party” as it actually signifies nothing.
Hal
Nuh-uh. The Teapartiers aren’t anti-obama, they are anti big govmint and would have popped up no matter who was in the white house. they swear.
Valdivia
I know I sound like a broken record but your posts always give me a sense of how things are on the ground in ways the idiot Villagers never manage. You illuminate. Thank you.
...now I try to be amused
It isn’t just Romney who’s trying to be an Etch-a-Sketch, it’s the entire GOP. What an opportunity to tie the GOP to Romney, on top of tying Romney to the GOP.
Another cool thing might happen if the GOP tries to Etch-a-Sketch away the Tea Party: the Tea Party base (they do exist in some numbers) might have a huffy, “nobody puts baby in a corner” reaction to it. Hilarity will ensue.
Steve
@Forum Transmitted Disease: Here’s a classic case. Tea Party mayor and city councillors come out of nowhere, end up rejecting federal transportation dollars and doing all kinds of crazy stuff. Unlike Kay’s example, this is distinctly not a case where the same old Republicans simply rebranded themselves.
danielx
I just knew the whole tri-corner hats thing wasn’t going to last; the fashion police were bound to catch up with those people eventually. Now that TAFKAR (that’s The Assholes Formerly Known As Republicans) figure that people have totally forgotten the name George W. Bush, they can just go back to being ordinary troglodyte racist imaginary-victimized Republicans and save all that money spent on costumes. It’s not like anybody could tell the difference anyway.
Kay
@Steve:
They did do some of that, too, they just didn’t “come out of nowhere”. They were the same old Republicans, pandering to the Tea Party.
There is a vacant supermarket across from this office. It was purchased by the city-county and they planned to put the sheriff’s dept. in there, among other things. The “Tea Party” contingent refused to allocate money to renovate the building, and, like vacant property does, it started to deteriorate and lose value. I kept hearing this exact (hysterical) thing from people “there are birds nesting in there!”. There were, and water damage, too.
They eventually found the money, but it was just the stupidity and waste of the thing. They were going to stand astride the supermarket yelling “stop!” ya know, after they bought it. If there’s anything rural conservatives understand, it’s property, land and buildings. The public “got” that.
Southern Beale
Well, the Tea Party IS the rebranded Republican base, and here in Nashville (which is overwhelmingly Democratic, surrounded by knuckledragging GOP Neanderthals) they DID organize and run for dog catcher, school board, etc. as a way of trying to infiltrate a heavily Democratic stronghold. This is still going on but it also led to a bunch of internecine battles inside the Republican establishment, as the Tea Party’s demands for rigid adherence to “conservative principles” (whatever THOSE are) caused some to try to uproot the Republican establishment. I’m thinking the Diane Black-Lou Ann Zelenik race for Congress, Zelenik being the Tea Party candidate. She barely lost, was sued by Black for slander in her campaign ads, and then saw the Republicans redistrict her out of a future rematch. Ha ha. But not to be outdone, Zelenik moved to the new district and plans to run again. These nutballs never give up, they’re like Zombie Conservatives, and about as brain-dead.
Steve
@Kay: Well some definitely did come out of nowhere. That Tea Party mayor in the article I linked was some self-employed realtor with no political background. There’s two different narratives going on.
We see the same sort of thing in Congress, where we have some of the same old Republicans who have rebranded themselves with the Tea Party label, but we also have Tea Party freshmen who really are populist know-nothings that believe everything is unconstitutional.
I am so tired of these people. Nice to hear that America might be, too.
PeakVT
@Steve: Should I laugh or should I cry?
And here I was thinking that Republican stupidity was crippling our way of life.
El Cid
TEA PARTY! WE GON’ TAKE’R COUNTRY BACK! TAXED ENUF ALREDDY! WE GONNA THROW A TEA PARTY AND THROW ALL THE BIG GUBMIT ONES OUT! THIS COUNTRY IS TIRED OF BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA! EVEN THE LIBRUL MEDJA TELLS US THAT PEOPLE LIKE THE TEA PARTY AND HATE OBAMACARE! TEA PARTY! LIBERTY! FOUNDERS! RELOVUTION!
liberal
@Gin & Tonic:
For me the most salient point is that there’s no single agreed-upon party “platform”. It’s just a Rorshach test, though admittedly most of them are rabid right-wingers.
Mnemosyne
That’s really what it’s all about, though: constituent services. Lots of ginormous Republican assholes get re-elected again and again because they have great constituent services. My district in California was Republican for decades, but then the Republican rep decided he’d rather be a big man and work for Clinton’s impeachment than help his constituents, and he was thrown out on his ass.
It’s not a coincidence that the Democrat who replaced him sends me e-mails at least once a week telling me the projects he’s working on for our district and how to get in touch with his office if I need anything.
@Southern Beale:
This. There is a “Tea Party” movement, but it’s a movement within the Republican Party, not some kind of independent political movement like the pundits kept trying to claim. You know, the kind of thing that progressive whiners keep saying we need in the Democratic Party but can never get around to actually organizing. ;-p
Xecky Gilchrist
What’s the over-under on when the entire Tea Party movement is found to have been one enormous liberal infiltration to make conservatives look bad?
El Cid
The Tea Party “movement” used to be called John Birch Society or Sons of Confederate Veterans members. Now they’re called Tea Party members.
catclub
@Steve: “who really are populist know-nothings that believe everything is unconstitutional.”
… who believe everything _they have been taught to hate_
is unconstitutional.
burnspbesq
@Mino:
Surely you don’t seriously think that Congresspeople participate in any meaningful way in the actual drafting of legislation. You are aware, are you not, that Congressional committees have large, permanent staffs that do the heavy lifting.
El Cid
@catclub: …who do not believe that anything they imagine to be in the Constushun isn’t and that anything they imagine not to be in the Constushun is.
I think they generally believe that Article 1 of the Constushun is un-Constushull, seeing as how a legislature which passes “laws” is doing government and oppressing people and even worse these so-called “laws” have words and phrases in them which are not in the Constushun, especially not in the two most important parts, the 2nd and 10th Amendments.
burnspbesq
@El Cid:
Republicans are big fans of unbridled executive power when they hold the Whit House, take an expansive view of Congressional power when they control both houses of Congress, and loves then some Tenth Amendment when they hold neither. Imagine that.
Uncle Cosmo
@El Cid: Ecco. Voila. Etc.
@burnspbesq: Likewise.
@El Cid: B-. You lost major snarkadelic style points for spelling the President’s name correctly…
Make them “wear the Tea Party like a badge?” Nuh-uh. An albatross. A mortar-forking albino Rodan of an albatross around their redstate-red pencil necks…
ETA: Whudisay immoderate?!? FYWP!!
Mino
@burnspbesq: @burnspbesq: Actually, I think many Democrats in both houses have members perfectly capable of doing that. Whether that is the best use of their time may be a consideration.
Being a staff member to the current crop of Republicans–well, it’s lucky that unemployment is such a goad.
dj spellchecka
@kay…check your mail box…sent info on a 4/15/12 tea party rally near akron featuring john mandel among numerous other republican elected officials…
MrCheesyPuff
@dmsilev: Of course, they find themselves favorably……
Kay
@dj spellchecka:
Thanks. I would go to that, but Akron is too far away.
gex
No TP candidates ran as a TP candidate. They didn’t do any party work. They just ran as Republicans. If Republicans don’t like being branded as TPers they shouldn’t have let them use the label.
Too bad, so sad. They let the freak flag out, tried to distance themselves, but planted the flag in their own front yards.