Is The Tea Party Still Relevant?

Is the tea party breaking up? After playing a dominant role in a number of elections in 2010 — Christine O’Donnell, anyone? — there is growing evidence that the power (and visibility) of the movement has faded somewhat of late. To wit: ●Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, the establishment candidate, secured the Republican presidential nomination after the tea party — and conservatives more generally — failed to unite around an alternative candidate. ●Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) very nearly escaped a primary challenge Saturday, almost two years that home-state colleague Bob Bennett was ousted at the state party convention thanks to tea party-fueled unrest directed at him. Hatch begins the primary race against a conservative former state senator as a favorite. ●Aside from Indiana Sen. Dick Lugar, who faces a serious primary fight from his ideological right next month, there are few signs tea party-led uprisings will threaten GOP incumbents this cycle in the same way they did in 2010. (Even Indiana is something short of a pure establishment vs. tea party race; Lugar’s challenger, Richard Mourdock, currently serves as the state treasurer — not exactly the credentials of a pure outsider.) ●In a Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted this month, more than six in 10 people said they were not interested in learning more about the movement, and a majority said the more they learned, the less they liked. Both of those numbers have increased significantly over the past two years. Conversations with a number of Republican strategists — both those of the tea party and those who count themselves as casual observers of the movement — suggest that the tea party isn’t dying, it’s just transforming into a new role. “The tea party clearly is not as successful in 2012 as in 2010, but it still plays a huge role in GOP primaries,” said Republican pollster Glen Bolger. More