Local Tea Party Leader:It’s All About Beating Obama

The Tea Party movement revolutionized American politics, yet has not dominated the Republican presidential race.

Tim Carter is pottering around a tiny hall, smiling in the posh hotel Churches Landing in Meredith, New Hampshire. In a few minutes, the presidential candidate Newt Gingrich will speak at the election meeting arranged by the local tea party group that Tim Carter is co-chairman for.

Up until the last second, people are flooding into the room, and two times the hotel employees have to bring more chairs in, yet there aren’t seats enough for all.

In the polls, Newt Gingrich might stand to receive less than 10 percent of the votes, but Carter still declares himself optimistic.

An Opponent to Obama

Tomorrow, the primary elections are coming to New Hampshire. As the second state in the country, the voters have to decide who of the seven republican presidential candidates they want to lead their party and challenge Obama in next autumn’s election.

Less than a year and a half ago, when the mid-term election took place — the election for the American Congress — the popular, conservative Tea Party movement was a prominent power factor. Senators and Congress members who had served for many years were kicked out, because the grassroots did not think they would be capable of saving enough on the public budget or respecting the Constitution sufficiently.

At the presidential election, the Tea Party movement will no longer be a feared entity. Congress member Michele Bachmann rose strongly in the late summer polls, when she won a test election in Iowa, mostly with support from the Tea Party movement. So when Iowa last week held a proper election as the first state in the country, and Bachmann finished last, she chose to withdraw her candidacy.

The governor of Texas, Rick Perry, regularly draws attention to his support from the grassroots movement, but this backing is fluid, mildly put. He only did a little better than Bachmann in Iowa, and in the polls of the next states to vote he is set to finish in the bottom.

This is Only About Obama

This brings us back to Tim Carter, who is giving out handshakes in the hotel hall with three great scintillating chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. His preferred candidate is Newt Gingrich, the previous Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.

“This election is not about finding the Republican presidential candidate, but about beating Obama,” Tim Carter explains, as the hall is filling up.

The audience this night spans over all ages, but you probably would not offend anyone by saying Tim Carter fits in just fine with his well-groomed silver grey side parting. The local Tea Party leader is of the opinion that Newt Gingrich has the right experience to negotiate with Democrats and Republicans in order to obtain results. Moreover he respects the Constitution — a key issue in the Tea Party camp. “Therefore Tea Party members will be fascinated by Newt. Look how many are here tonight,” he says with the sound of rock-country in the background — a classic backdrop to an American political rally.

“The Tea Party movement is more powerful and better organized than it was at the midterm election,” according to Tim Carter’s own evaluation.

Fear of Repeating the Last Campaign

In the past couple of months, conservative powers in the Republican Party have warned against repeating the fatal error from 2008, when John McCain, the most moderate candidate, won. At the moment Mitt Romney is the big favorite for an all-over win, but despite winning Iowa, he only had the backing of 25 percent of voters, and only eight votes separated him from the runner-up, Rick Santorum.

According to the polls, Romney will reap no more than 35 percent of votes in the next states, New Hampshire and South Carolina, but still he is in the lead.

The conservative candidates fight to be… well, the most conservative, which even Mitt Romney describes himself as. And so the Republicans will likely again choose a candidate who is moderate on paper, despite the party being predominantly conservative. Nevertheless, Tim Carter still believes that the conservative forces within the party will be able to rise to the challenge of beating former Massachusetts governor Romney. “We need someone who is a little moderate, but also a little to the right, and that is what Newt is. Romney is simply too moderate,” he believes. “Romney, so to speak, didn’t win Iowa. Voters pointed at other candidates with a ratio of three to one,” Tim Carter notes.

In the Hotel in Meredith, Newt Gingrich is getting a decent round of applause, and after the meeting, people line up in a long queue to shake the skilled politician’s hand. However, that doesn’t change the fact that his ratings in New Hampshire are low, and if he does not do well in South Carolina, he is probably out of the race to become the Republican presidential candidate — Tea Party support or not.

*Editor’s Note: quotes in this article, accurately translated, could not be verified.