×
Josh Green says yes:
The Tea Party may continue to alter races across the country, and could also shape the Republican presidential field. But it appears to have reached the limit of its influence in Washington. Here, where it counts most, the Tea Party is looking like a spent force.There are a number of reasons for this. The outsized political personalities most closely associated with the movement have started to fade. Glenn Beck is waning. Sarah Palin's presidential hopes are passing into rapid eclipse. Even Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota -- founder of the congressional Tea Party caucus, heir to Palin, reliably batty provocateur, and once-proud supporter of the Ryan budget plan -- has begun cautiously backing away.She is doing so for the same reason as everybody else. The Tea Party message, so seductive in the abstract, can be deadly in its particulars to any politician seeking a broader appeal. As that doctrine is put into practice, even prospectively, voters are beginning to balk.For at least a year, I've been saying that the Tea Party would fade away once we got into the 2012 primaries, and Tea Party Republicans became more concerned with which candidate they're supporting than with whose tricorner hat is more authentic. That may have been partly wishful thinking, but it was inevitable that the Tea Party would run into the problem Josh points to, the popularity of "small government" in the abstract, but the unpopularity of cutting the specific things government does, which it turns out people really like.The good news for the Tea Party is that once we get past the current budget battle, there is unlikely to be much in the way of major legislation before the 2012 election, other than the debate over the 2013 budget. If there were, what role would the Tea Party play? Once you get past "Cut government!" they don't have a lot to say. What's their position on the Democrats' push to cut tax subsidies for oil companies? Well...they don't like taxes, and they don't like anything Democrats propose, so they're against it. But not too loudly, because that means shilling for oil companies. Nevertheless, there's little doubt that the apex of the movement's influence is behind us. They will mount primary challenges against allegedly squishy Republicans in 2012, and some of those may succeed. But what sustains them is the fear of establishment Republicans, who feel they must submit to the Tea Party's demands. As the cost of that submission keeps going up (see the fallout of the Ryan budget), the Tea Party's clout keeps going down.
