“Bring out yer dead!”
The left spent the last two years shouting the famous Monty
Python line at the Tea Party, determined to infect the movement
with cadaverous gloom. By mid-2011 the press had started a death
watch. “Tea Party’s heyday could be nearing end,” warned the
Hill. “Tea Party movement looks stalled,” exhorted ABC
News.
A
poll by CBS/New York Times (and when are they ever not
reliable?) alleged that Tea Partiers were less popular than
Democrats, Muslims, and atheists. Also Stalinists, Imperial
Stormtroopers, and the Jersey Shore cast. Loony Tea Party
ideas, declared serious people with pale faces wearing suits, had
finally been stopped — and in the nick of time.
But despite the death knells, Republicans in the House of
Representatives, swelled by Tea Party legislators who flooded
Congress in 2010, are poised to keep their majority this year.
And the margin may be wide.
Real Clear Politics counts 195 seats as safe Republican,
compared to 154 as safe Democrat. Throw in likely and leaning
seats, and Republicans keep the lead 226-183. That leaves 26
toss-up races. And while twice as many toss-ups are for incumbent
Republicans than Democrats, Democrats could win every toss-up and
still not control the House.
The likely scenario is that Democrats pick up a pittance of
seats, John Boehner keeps his gavel, and the House remains a
legislative idea shop for conservatives.
The lower chamber has gotten almost no attention. There’s far
more froth coming from the presidential race and the Senate. And
with vacancies inevitable on the 5-4 Supreme Court, the entire
federal government is looking competitive this election, except for
the Tea Party House.
“Bring out yer… wait, what?”
The Washington Post
noticed this over the weekend. “Such a result,” the
Post observed, “will have defied the chorus of
prognosticators who saw so many of these inexperienced freshmen as
beneficiaries of blind political luck — swept up in the 2010 wave
of sentiment against Obama and presumably poised to be swept back
to sea when the tide went out this November.”
That turning of the tides has been the conventional wisdom since
November 3, 2010. It’s become an article of faith in the media that
the Tea Party is the weak underbelly of the GOP and that
Responsible Republicans must heroically Save Their Party by
distancing themselves from The Extreme Right, The Far Right, and
the Party’s Crazy House Wing.
People tend to vote for ideologies or parties in the House, and
candidates in the Senate. Which means that voters are about to send
extremist, wild-eyed, defund-everything-in-sight Republican
right-wingism back to the House this fall (and after the left tried
to warn them!). The narrative is about to fall apart.
The Post tries to console Democrats by claiming that
several high-profile Tea Party lawmakers are “fighting for their
political lives.” Among these stragglers are Rep. Michele Bachmann
(leading
by 6 or 9 depending on the poll), Rep. Allen West (leading
by 9 or 1), and Rep. Steve King (leading
by 3, 2, or 7). The only one in serious trouble is Rep. Joe
Walsh, who won his Illinois district by less than 300 votes in 2010
and has an unusually strong Democrat opponent this time around.
“Bring out yer dead…maybe? Please?”
Part of this is due to redistricting. The Tea Party’s victory in
2010 allowed it to redraw the congressional maps, shoring up
Republicans and exposing already-vulnerable Blue Dog Democrats.
And some concern about the Tea Party is borne out by polling
which shows a plummet in the movement’s popularity, especially
after the debt ceiling negotiations last year.
But this free fall is limited to the label “Tea Party.” Most of
the movement’s core issues still poll well. Repealing Obamacare is
more popular now than in 2010. The national deficit and debt
ranks just below unemployment as the
biggest economic problem. Americans prefer a smaller government
by more than 20 points. Obama’s stimulus package, the
centerpiece of his demand-side economic plan,
receives majority disapproval.
The Tea Party knocked down moderates Richard Lugar and David
Dewhurst earlier this year, gave Mitt Romney stiff competition that
moved him to the right in the Republican primary, and will hold
onto the House in November. That’s an impressive workout for a
movement that supposedly died sixteen times over the past two
years.
The Tea Party may ultimately end up a political kamikaze,
sacrificing itself for its ideals. Going up against party
establishments and telling voters the free ride must end are
bruising tasks. That the Tea Party still shifted the discussion,
continues to persevere, and will maintain a beachhead in the House
this fall is a feat of survival. It deserves to be recognized.
