The Arrogance of the Tea Party Rebels

Internal party bickering in the primaries shows a deep divide among Republicans. President Obama could profit from that.

The old lion loudly roared once more: John McCain, defeated Republican presidential candidate in 2008, was spared the shame of being sent into obscurity by his own party. McCain has represented the state of Arizona in the U.S. Senate for twenty-four years, but for a time it looked like he might not get a fifth term. A candidate from the far right put him under pressure. But last Tuesday, the 73-year-old senator convincingly won his party’s primary election by a margin of 57 to 32 percent of votes cast. His re-election to the Senate next November is virtually assured.

The old soldier’s latest fight for survival was closely watched. In normal times, someone like McCain would not have had to worry about winning the nomination at all. But America has since begun to distrust the political establishment. The nation, pummeled by the financial crisis, has chosen Washington as its whipping boy. Be they Republican or Democrat, the American political class is in the cellar of public opinion.

America’s conservatives are about to face a fork in the national road. The tea party movement, originally an extremely colorful group of individuals that wanted less government and less public debt than the Obama administration was giving them, has become a gathering point for right-wing populists. The noises coming from that quarter are rough, not only against Muslims or a president they hate so vehemently, but also against any Republican seeking cooperation rather than confrontation. The fact that tea party icon Sarah Palin vouched for McCain out of gratitude for his choosing her as his running mate in 2008, a move that elevated her to national prominence, shows just how much the internal Republican power balance has shifted.

But with just ten weeks to go before the midterm elections, the interim report on the tea party is a mixed bag. The Republicans’ greatest advantages are their easily-mobilized base and the still-negative economic outlook. Republican participation in the primary election was clearly higher than the Democratic turnout. Two years ago it was just the opposite. So far, the Republicans have profited from the energy of the tea party movement.

But wherever polarizing issues are taken to extremes, the limits of the “conservative tidal wave” become apparent. In Florida, tea party darling Marco Rubio split the Republican Party. He was nominated as the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate last Tuesday, but the Republicans still have problems because popular Governor Charlie Crist, a moderate, bolted the party and will run as an independent in November. In Kentucky and Nevada, tea party favorites were also nominated but have since apparently begun frightening centrist voters.

The Palin wing of the party thereby thwarts the Republican Party’s strategy of turning the election into a referendum on Barack Obama. They know that their best chance at the polls has nothing to do with their own strengths but rather is based on dissatisfaction with the current administration. But even if the Republicans do manage to get majorities in Congress, the tea party could quickly find itself marginalized. The arrogance of the “conservative revolution” in the 1990s helped elect Democrat Bill Clinton to his second term.