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Will Tea Parties Transform Legislative Landscape in 2011?

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2010, Bob Cusack reports at the Hill, “was the year of the Tea Party“:

. . . the Tea Party was in many ways a net asset for the GOP as Republicans grabbed control of the House and cut into the Democratic majority in the Senate.

However, there was collateral damage as Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.) and other Senate GOP hopefuls seen as the party’s best chance of winning general-election races were ousted in primaries. Some blamed Tea Party candidates for costing Republicans a Senate majority to go with their new majority in the House.

Now, the question will be whether 2011 becomes the year where the Republican House, consistent with Tea Party principles, rejects big-government programs and passes legislation repealing the statist initiatives passed in the 111th Congress while scaling back those federal programs which helped create the financial mess of 2008 and the ongoing economic downturn.

Let us hope that the powers that be in Washington, including some who held significant sway over Republicans like Castle, do not hold the influence they once did over elected Republicans.  And that instead Tea Party principles, nearly identical to those of a great man whose centennial we celebrate this year, guide those election officials.

2010 was indeed the year when the Tea Party helped transform the electoral landscape.  Maybe 2011 be the year when it transforms the legislative landscape.

Some political elites may not get the Tea Party, but at least one powerful elected Republican does seem to have realized this strength and popularity of this burgeoning grassroots movement.

Comments

  1. Some political elites may not get the Tea Party

    This may well be the understatement of the year.

    Like New Year resolutions which soon succumb to habit, addiction, weakness, and lethargy I fully expect the realities of the TEA Party to be a passing epiphany for the professional Republican pols. Most of them need to join a 12 step program and stick with it. But, unfortunately, too many of them are suffering from Lott’s Disease which inclines them toward “reeducating” the TEA Party.

  2. Mike Castle didn’t lose the Delaware primary because of the Tea Party, he lost because he ran a sloppy, lazy campaign that thought he was entitled to the 2010 GOP Senate candidacy by-right with little effort on his or their behalf. They just assumed he’d by the candidate by acclaimation, and ignored the O’Donnell campaign for months….

    Don’t blame the Tea Party, they just filled the political vacuum Castle left them.

  3. I dunno. The thing that seems good about the TEA Party is that it’s many parties and no consensus dictates ideology to its members. To transform Congress they would have to have a dogma, creed, or what have you. The libertarian atheists and birthers and Christian traditionalists would have to agree on things like abortion, Afghanistan, and where Obama was born. I can’t see them agreeing. So in some ways I hope the TEA Party stays non-governmental the way it is. I am not a tea partier so this is just my impression from outside.

    One thing I want to see is Sarah Palin outside of the tea party set. I think she’s stifled herself.

  6. Mike Castle would have voted with the other RINO’s in the lame duck to pass START, the “Food Safety” boondoggle, and all the other horrors the Republicans caved to Obama on. No big loss.

    If the Tea Party puts the fear of primary challengers into the likes of Olympia Snowe and Dick Lugar, the country will be better off.

  7. Why have control of the Senate if the Republicans act like Democrats? This is Mike Castle & other establishment Republicans in a nutshell; he deserved to be ousted because he’s a RINO.

    Every Republican establishment candidate lost either in a primary or the general election. This remains the strength of the Tea Party.

  8. What ought to wake up the GOP is that the RNC is practically bankrupt, while Jim DeMint’s PAC and Sarah Palin’s PAC are flush with cash.

    The GOP Establishment is stupid, dishonesty, and greedy. The last trait may ultimately be the one that preserves them.

  9. The pessimist in me fears / guesses that 2011 is going to be the year the GOP sells out the Tea Party.

    OTOH, economic events *may* overtake us all quickly enough to force the GOP to do the right thing (i.e. reducing government; seriously fighting Obama). As Churchill famously said, you can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they have exhausted the alternatives.

  10. Every Republican establishment candidate lost…

    Well, not Murky.

    But I feel that the lack of her downfall (which would have been so richly deserved) is made up for by the downfall of another literal RINO, Arlen Specter, and his being replaced by Toomey.

  11. Murky LOST as a Republican incumbent in the Alaska primary.

    She won her “new” seat as an Independent. So she really not an incumbent sitting-Senator, she’s just being granted seniority by the GOP as a political courtesy.

  13. BTW: Murky, Specter, Crist, McCain, Olympia Snowe who voted for ObamaCare… Can anyone name a good RINO at the Federal level? Someone who may be given the RINO tag, but who also usually does the right thing on the Tea Party issues?

    I’m an Independent, I’m just being curious here. I know that being a conservative Republican is no guarantee that a person will be good on the Tea Party issues (witness Bush, Huckabee).

  14. The closest I can think of, ILC, is Chris Christie… who’s not on the Federal Level. He’s been brilliant on economic issues and education, but his stances on gun control, abortion, and the Ground Zero Victory Mosque … oy. I also guess Kay Bailey Hutchison hasn’t been completely awful; despite stupidity on ObamaCare and Amnesty.