Tea Anyone--Round Three

Love them or hate them—the tea party movement is a dominant force in American politics. This is especially true within the ranks of the Grand Old Party as Republican leadership in the House is now struggling with their new tea party freshman representatives.

Despite their hateful rhetoric, the tea partiers managed to completely dominate the 2010 GOP legislative and gubernatorial primaries and then went on to win almost every contested Republican primary race. Particularly hurt in the 2010 season of political upheaval were the long-time conservative senators and governors defeated in GOP conventions and primaries, because, as far as the tea party was concerned, the GOP of days gone by were just that—to liberal, too accommodating, too willing to compromise and most importantly, guilty of taxation gone wild.

But not every tea party candidate who roared to victory in their primary, ultimately won in their respective general elections. Two of the more notable general election defeats were losers Christine O’Donnell in Delaware and Sharron Angle in Nevada.

Remaining cognizant of the power of the tea party movement, how will their newly won influence impact the 2012 race to the White House? No Republican candidate is going to be the GOP nominee for the presidency unless he or she is embraced by the Tea Party. So, based on that realization, the process of elimination is not that difficult.

Mitt Romney while extremely conservative has adopted the strategy in the early goings on for the 2010 nomination to distance himself as far as he can from the Tea Party. What’s more, his authorship and support for the Massachusetts healthcare bill Romneycare (Come on, what’s fair is fair) is just too much for the tea partiers to stomach.

Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour spent too many years in DC as a beltway lobbyist and also as head of the Republican National Committee which means he fed at the trough for much too long. In the immortal words of Bob Dylan, “The only thing I did wrong was I stayed in Mississippi a day too long.” Haley, you stayed in DC years too long.

Jon Huntsman, former Obama ambassador to China and also known as the “liberal” Republican in Iowa has as much chance of being nominated without Tea Party support as I do.

Newt Gingrich, the man of a thousand positions—just as long as it is juxtaposed to President Obama’s has been married too many times, cheated on his many wives too many times, is constantly tripping over his own forked tongue and has no credibility with the Tea Party, the coffee party and the soft drink party.

Newest possible candidate for the nomination Donald Trump could not win an election to be dog catcher. He may have some in his corner because they support the stupid things he says about China, but tea partiers are simply not moved. Also, once the Tea Party discovers that in the past Mr. Trump has bankrolled several Democratic candidacies, he will be doomed.

And please forget the also-rans like Rudy Giuliani and Rick Santorum who attempted to use the Libyan crisis as a political hook they could hang their hat on.

That said, who can the Tea Party embrace?

Well, it seems that Minnesota Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann is getting all the attention right now. Sarah Palin was the darling of the tea partiers but Ms. Bachman has replaced her, mostly by acting like Sarah Palin multiplied by ten.

Tim Pawlenty, the consummate politician is attempting to be everything to everyone. The downside of that is when you choose to say yes to everyone, you end up being of no value to anyone. He is walking the very tricky tightrope of trying to appease both the Republican establishment while simultaneously wooing the Tea Party. Ain’t going to happen.

Ron Paul is a true libertarian which makes it difficult for the Tea Party to fully embrace him. Like most libertarian politicians however, he does have a small but devoted and almost fanatical base but it is not enough of one to get him the nomination.

Finally, Huckabee despite his initial strong start in the 2008 race fizzled rapidly after Iowa and New Hampshire and ultimately his campaign simply crashed and burned. Today, he might be considered the front runner, but if that is all they got—the Republicans got problems.

Ultimately, the new upstart Tea Party will heavily influence the selection of the 2010 GOP nominee but that is absolutely no guarantee that he or she will win the general election for the presidency. Michelle Bachmann could end up being the next Christine O’Donnell if for no other reason that her witch credentials are more easily proven. In any event, Congresswoman Bachmann will never attract enough independent voters to win the White House.

I don’t know about you, but I can hardly wait for this thing to start…