The Tea Party's Waning Influence: 4 Theories

Nevada was a hotbed of Tea Party activity in the 2010 midterms, but in the weekend's GOP presidential caucuses, the Silver State activists' least favorite candidate, Mitt Romney, trounced the field. In Colorado — which, along with Minnesota and Missouri, picks its preference for the GOP presidential nominee on Tuesday — the Tea Partiers who dominated the political scene two years ago are no longer holding many rallies. And now an Ohio Tea Party leader tells The Daily Beast that while the movement may have been a giant killer in 2010, it's "dead" and "gone" this year. What happened? Here, four theories:

1. Tea Partiers never settled on one candidate"If the Tea Party could get behind one person and call it a day," says Patricia Murphy at The Daily Beast, it could be a force in the presidential election. But the conservative politicians that small-government, anti-tax activists truly love — Sens. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.), for example — aren't running. Instead, Tea Partiers must choose from a field of candidates that all have "original sins against constitutional freedom or fiscal sanity." Tea Partiers aren't excited or in sync, and as a result, "for the Tea Party movement, the 2012 presidential primaries have been a bust."

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