I am not sure I really get it. What is so new about the Tea Party? The more I listen to these people, the more they simply sound like the radical right wing of the Republican Party that has been screaming at their leaders for the last forty years.
Perhaps in the beginning, just after the sanctimonious rant of Santelli and just before Dick Armey opened his mouth the Tea Party was independent and loosely organized, but that was a pretty small window. What we hear about them from the main stream media is that there are lots of different tea party groups, there is no real leader, its not really a party and all that but then they trot out the same talking heads as representatives of this invincible force known as the Tea Party. To watch how it is presented, you would think the Tea Party is this major block of voters that has to be reckoned with and it is all based on the 2010 mid term elections. They threw out the liberal democratic house.
But they didn't, they mostly threw out centrist, blue dog democrats. Progressive or liberal Democrats actually fared pretty well and have a much more unified opposition to the Republican leadership as a result. This is evidenced by the purely theatrical but none the less effective unity they showed in voting present for a more radical budget proposal than Paul Ryan's. This forced some Republicans to fall on the Tea Party sword to defeat it.
The Democrats were also unified on voting no for the Paul Ryan budget. Not a single Democrat voted yes. Imagine if the progressive wing of the democratic party had lost more than the conservative Democrats in the last election. I would be willing to bet there would have been 20 or so "blue dog" yes votes for Ryan's budget to give Republicans some cover. The 2012 election would be shaping up very differently than it appears to be shaping up right now with Democrats and the President finally taking some high ground in the budget wars. Thank you Tea Party.
The Tea Party revolted against moderates and conservatives who they didn't think were conservative enough. Unfortunately they also managed to convince a majority of the Independents who came out to vote in 2010 that they somehow failed them as well. It wasn't losing the Tea Party vote that cost Democrats, they were never going to win it anyway. It was losing the Independents and not inspiring enough of their own base to come out and vote.
Its not all bad however because just like 1995, Republicans latched on to an invisible mandate and immediately started overreaching buoyed they thought by this invincible force known as the Tea Party, slayer of all things liberal, that is mostly made up for good TV ratings, especially Cable TV ratings. In the end the Tea Party will likely do far more damage to Republicans then to Democrats.
Hopefully Democrats learned the real lesson of the 2010 midterm elections which is you need to elect real Democrats in order to have a real Democratic majority. Real Democrats won in 2010 and more will win if they actually inspire their own base and sound rational enough for independents.