The Tsunami Trip Turn

In 1995, following the GOP takeover of the House and Senate in the midterms a year before, five Federal congressmen and one US Senator switched parties from Democrat to Republican.  Each had narrowly held onto conservative districts in their state against determined opposition, and had made the decision to switch parties to preserve their seat.  All but one of them won it again in the 1996 midterms - and the one who lost was Rep. Greg Laughlin of Texas' 14th District.  His primary opponent in 1996 was an actual Republican, albeit a slightly crazy one - Dr. Ron Paul.  Laughlin lost the primary to Paul, who went on to win the general election and has held the seat ever since.   One of these party switchers, then Rep. Nathan Deal, is now the Governor-elect of Georgia.  Each of these politicians had held conservative views on most issues while members of the Democratic Party earlier in their careers, and the districts that they served evidently believed their change of heart to be real - or at least as real as a politician can be.

There's not much of what I consider realistic talk of that this time around.  Though the net gain for the Republican Party in the House was of historic proportions, and the gains in Senate were pleasing to say the least, the GOP is not yet magnetic enough to be attracting serious talk of party switching.  What allowed the right to prevail in this midterm was the cohesion displayed by the disparate Tea Party organizations, along with the catch-up ball played by mainstream and old-boy Republicans once the writing had been on the wall for the apparently requisite six months or so.  Keeping the momentum going by spreading and repeating the messages of fiscal responsibility in an exercise of mass emotional manipulation, and having groups doing this in all segments of the nation, was quite effective.  Now, these feelings were and are totally real and mostly justified - after all, the United States currently on a course to be fully owned by China in about three decades.  But the way the anger at the absurdity of our federal budget situation was developed, led, and eventually harnessed, was a masterpiece.  Kudos to the Tea Party for that act.

However, in truth the best that can be realistically analyzed about this election was that the GOP won over the larger segments of the base and a big slice of the Independents that voted this time.  Budget hawks came to the polls driven by the fact that the right kept the controversies and dilemmas of the Obama Administration in the news - much the same way that the mainstream media did this fully automatically during the Bush years.  This time around, they had to go off the script, and disable the autopilot, because the narrative was no longer under their control.  The result: scandals and retirements, Rick Sanchez axed, Olbermann suspended from the network that literally lives and dies on his ratings, and major media outlets turning out less profit than a lemonade stand in a snowstorm.  Of course, in these times the Fox News Channel is booming, but that's truly nothing new since they've been on top for years now.

Democrats in general were not truly magnetized by the GOP.  In fact, pollster Scott Rasmussen reports that 54% of Republican favored analyzing the results as a loss for Democrats rather than as a win for the GOP.  The message is clear but shallow - a "D" made one into a target.  Being bestowed with an "R" simply made one the lesser of two evils.  In fact, across party lines distrust of government is at an all time high, and for good reason.  After two years of insufferably patronizing speeches from President Obama, the prospect of continued borrowing and spending under an agenda of "Marx Lite", the GOP base was sick and tired and the liberals had lost their pep.  And the net result is an imbalance in the statehouses, with the Republican Party now in control of the legislature and executive of fully 20 states, and a slight imbalance in the House (this was exacerbated by Walker Hines, a State congressman from Louisiana's 95th District, switching parties to the GOP - his departure is most likely due to being the son of a powerful attorney and thus the automatic possessor of political will of the slimiest sort). This being a center-right nation, this may not correct itself right away, but in 2012 or 2014 a correction will come around.  So the Democrats took a thumping - but that's all.  There was no real switching of base voters, and less conversion of independents than most pundits had predicted.

This could happen to either party, is what I'm saying . . .

Let the pundits talk about Senator Jim Webb possibly crossing the aisle to the GOP side, or Governor-elect Joe Manchin heading the same way.  I doubt if either will do it this time around, and I'd be surprised to see more than one or two defections in the House in the coming eighteen months or so.  Analysis of the midterms reinforces the strategy for Republicans moving forward: Do not get complacent.  A fitting subtitle to that strategy would be: Conservatives - shout if the GOP swerves to the Left, and vote 'em out if they fail to meet our standards of fiscal conservatism.  And written in invisible ink under all that would be the closer: Memo to the religious right - please, please, please, let's keep these races about economic and fiscal issues and foreign policy.  If the right wants to get sneaky later on about abortion or protections for faith speech, then they'll be smart to let those be the nails that don't stick up.  

The winning issues are the wallet issues, and the security issues, and the issues that affect America's measurable standings in the world.   Hammering these issues, with tangible results, could make 2012 a legitimate victory for the GOP, and not just a repudiation of socialism. 

Tea for Two (or Three) More Election Cycles

With the 2010 midterm elections seemingly in the bag for the Republican Party, I predict that the discourse will begin to turn toward the future of one of the key players in this massive midterm sweep - the Tea Party.  This grassroots movement, spurred on by (but not sprouted from) the famous anti-Obama rant that CNBC's Rick Santelli bestowed us with last year, began to make serious waves in the Spring and Summer of 2009.  Tax day rallies across the nation raised the public awareness of the movement's existence, and though mainstream media coverage was sparse at first, by the beginning of 2010 it became apparent that the Tea Party was going to be a big factor in the upcoming campaigns.

I had the privilege of attending the first gathering of the Albany Tea Party on April 15th, 2009.  It was a fun and inspiring event: Al Roney, host of the late "Al Roney Show" on 810AM WGY in Albany, handled much of the organization for the gathering, and the featured speakers included veterans, aspiring local politicians, and a large group of entrepreneurs whose livelihoods depend on a business-friendly approach to government.  Most people brought handmade flags, signs or T-shirts, and activists were present gathering names and contact information to spread awareness for their individual causes, all of which centered around classic American themes.  There were veteran's support groups, government transparency petitioners, and advocates for tax-relief and social security reform, along with the strict-constructionist crowd, dressed in Colonial-era garb and wearing tri-cornered hats.  I signed a petition to "Audit the Fed", though I now fear the results of such an audit.  To whit, thanks to big-government largesse and the loosest monetary policy in living memory, the US of A is probably far more than the estimated $14 trillion in the hole. 

At the very core this is what the Tea Party is about.  Limiting the scope of government involvement in the day to day lives of ordinary, working Americans - and incidentally, all other Americans - is it's lodestar.  The Tea Party as envisioned by realists is not a social conservative movement like the Moral Majority or Focus on the Family.  Though I'm sure most of the members of the Tea Party would have no problems with more restrictions on abortion, or for gay marriage to remain outside the realm of recognized unions, this is not the principle behind the movement.  Tea Partiers - or Tea Baggers if you're a small child or Anderson Cooper - represent a wide swath of the Republican Party, and all American conservatives.  The call of the day is for limited government, spending restraint, and a sensible policy on entitlements like Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, and Social Security.  Bowing to the pragmatic sense that's made me who I am, I can tell you right now that abortion will never be outlawed (though in a perfect world, late-term abortions would be completely banned for ALL reasons except the life and health of the mother - if you got raped by your cousin and took 7 months to decide on aborting the fetus, too bad).  There should also be some modifications to the parental notification laws so that minors cannot get abortions without their parents knowing.  Same deal on gay marriage - I really could not care less, and in my view it's an issue for the church, not the state.  If a gay couple can find a church that will marry them I believe that marriage should be just as legal as any other.

Many pundits have opined that the Tea Party will fizzle out after this election cycle.  The thinking is that if the GOP sweeps the House and evens up the odds in the Senate, their progress in halting or reversing the Obama agenda will still be unimpressive, and this will cause a dissolution of the movement.  Once momentum is lost (the classic, "We've won!  Now what?" scenario), and once the next election is years in the future, the activists will not be able to sustain interest in the general public.  Some have even pinned this down as Obama's strategy.  Lose the House in an off-year election, keep the opposition party engaged and under fire for the next two years, then ride a wave of anger on the Left and renewed apathy on the Right to a retaking of government in the 2012 general election.  This strategy is not too far-fetched, but I have serious doubt that the Tea Party movement will die out so gracefully as that.

Keep in mind that this movement is not really an organized thing.  Though there are some key figures that have emerged to act as part-time leaders of the cause, there are really four or five major Tea Party coalitions nationwide, with a scattering of independent groups all about.  Liberals tend to believe that the uniting force that keeps this voting bloc together is some combination of paranoia and racism, but this is not the case.  Concern for the direction of the nation and a wish to undo decades of bad monetary and spending policies is the real force behind this nebulous movement.  Because liberals understand conservatives to a far weaker degree than conservatives understand liberals, this is lost on the elites as a whole.  Furthermore, this concern will not simply go away in 2 years, 4 years, or 6 years.  It will take far longer than that to fix what is broken about our nation and the Federal Reserve and I believe that the tipping point against apathy making a resurgence has been reached.  Tea Partiers like facts - they understand that just because things might get better if the GOP has a good year, or Obama loses reelection in 2012, this does not mean the mission is over.  Tea Partiers also have a long memory - they remember the pathetic show made by the GOP in the final years of their Congressional majorities, and many of the conservatives who stayed home in 2006 (and 2008) because of apathy are now part of the Tea Party, and are finding it to be a thrill to have feelings of concern and anger in common with most other working Americans.  This thrill will not be easily banished.

The Tea Party is not an anti-government movement as some would cast it.  I doubt you could find a sane member who would prefer total anarchy over a patch of federal and state and local authorities that take administrative and legislative matters into consideration via a body politik.  But the Tea Party, and the people who are part of it, is an anti-politics movement.  Politics as usual in Washington D.C, and in the statehouses in Albany, Sacramento, Springfield, and others, has driven the nation into a ditch that will be difficult to climb out of.  Politics is a dirty word to many folks in the Tea Party and to me as well (though I am not a member and have no intention of joining).  The paradox is a strange one: I love talking about politics, arguing about politics, and writing about politics, but if you put me in a room with a bunch of politicians, scurrying staffers, and the entourage that comes with the scene, you'll soon find me looking for the nearest exit, or a handy window to throw myself out of.  A town hall meeting, with a pol facing the constituency, is a different story - I love watching politicians squirm without regard to their persuasion.  But a night of political theatre, with all the back-slapping and back-stabbing that entails, is not as fun as I'd thought it would be.  Sadly, the true believers in a crowd like that (and there were a few) are usually outshone by the propagators of cow pies.  This was a crucial error on my part because I figured a night with the in-crowd would be fascinating.  It wasn't, and I understand why.  Being told I looked uncomfortable a dozen times that night didn't help, but that's a different story.  I hate wearing ties . . .

Nor is the Tea Party, in it's current form, a viable third party.  Rather, like the Blue Dogs on the Democratic side of the aisle, the Tea Party must live or die for the moment as an extension of the Republican Party.  Because of the divisions within the party itself, and because the movement is focused on fiscal conservatism and it's scope beyond that is terrifically limited, it has no major policy objectives that don't relate directly to the financial health of the nation and it's people.  Matters of war and peace, civil rights, and environmental policy are not within the purview of the Tea Party collective, and this is a good thing.  Serving as a fiscally conservative wing of the GOP is a good mantle to take up in these times. It is my sincere belief that if the Tea Partiers stick to this line instead of trying to dismantle the GOP or combat it directly, there can be a harmonious symbiosis between the two entities.  Furthermore, the Tea Party may serve as an outlet for those on the Left who hold socially liberal views but wish for a tighter supply-side model to the US economy.  Though this is perhaps a long shot, it is never wise to discount something improbable as being impossible, especially in politics.

In summation, the Tea Party will have a good run at the polls this year.  If it remains true to it's core principles, consciously limiting it's objectives to the fiscal realm, and maintains homeostasis with the current GOP establishment while slowly weeding out the remaining blue bloods who refuse to see the problems with our current economic establishment, it should remain a viable and vibrant movement for at least another decade.  If not, then at least the American conservative population, which has never been much for organizing or holding rallies on a large scale, has been made aware that when the time comes, such an upwelling of grassroots feeling is possible for those on the Right, just as it is for those on the Left.