How The Tea Party Lost The 2012 Republican Primaries

[quote]As Friedersdorf goes on to point out, the pickings are pretty slim for a Tea Partier from the remainder of the field. Notwithstanding the fact that he has tried to hitch his star to the Tea Party virtually since the time the movement started, Newt Gingrich is clearly not a Tea Partier. Before running for President, he supported an individual mandate for health care, worked to advance the interests of Freddie Mac, urged his fellow Republicans to pass No Child Left Behind and George Bush’s budget-busting Medicare prescription drug benefit, and supported TARP, the last of which has been something of a litmus test for Tea Partiers. If the Tea Party doesn’t like Mitt Romney, it’s hardly likely to see Newt Gingrich as a savior without completely sacrificing its principles. Ron Paul, meanwhile, carries the fiscal conservatism banner that the Tea Party likes, but his foreign policy positions are likely to alienate as many Tea Party voters as they attract, if not more. Perhaps Rick Perry counts as a Tea Party candidate, but his campaign is on life support at this point and unlikely to be revived. This leaves the Tea Party left to choose between the moderation of Mitt Romney and the reincarnation of George W. Bush known as Rick Santorum. That’s got to be frustrating.

It gets worse for the movement, though, because the heady days when they were the new things on the political scene are long past and the public has largely turned negative on the movement. A new Rasmussen poll released the day after the New Hampshire primary showed that 46% of likely voters think the Tea Party will hurt the GOP in November. This continues a trend of negative polling for the movement that stretches back to 2010 and suggests that a Presidential candidate with ties to the Tea Party may not fare so well in November, especially among independent voters. Given that, it’s not entirely surprising if candidates for President keep the movement at arms length, adopting their themes in stump speeches to the faithful but eschewing the chance to be closely identified to them.

It’s a big difference from the way things went during the 2010 campaign. Back then, Republican candidates were falling all over themselves to curry favor with the Tea Party movement and it was next-to-impossible for a candidate openly opposed by the movement to make it through a Republican primary unscathed, just as Mike Castle and Lisa Murkowski about that one.[/quote]

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